Win a Signed Book!

Okay, so it's a book signed by me, but still.

I'm running this contest. If you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross or to the Bush Clinton Katrina fund for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)."

Now, someone asked me if there's a good chance of winning. The answer is DEFINITELY YES. Actually, at the moment, only four people have entered, so if you've got a receipt somewhere, and you email me in the next couple of days, you definitely have a good chance of winning. In fact, the next six people who enter will win automatically!

So what are you waiting for? Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Good Luck!

The Squirrel Saga, Cont

"Funny. Ha. Ha. Really, I'm laughing. On the inside."

This is what my husband said about my (he claims "vicious") ridicule of him and his run-in with Mr. Squirrel. He's getting a bit annoyed with the teasing. Even my mom sent him a package of cocktail napkins with squirrels on them. You can see where I get my sense of humor.

"I'd like to see you do better," he said. "Just wait until the squirrel comes back. You'll see. Mark my words!"

Well, until the squirrel breaks in again, I have some squirrel fun as passed on by my pal Christina. She recently held a fantastic party/benefit for PAWS, the no-kill shelter. It's a cause my husband could get behind because the shelter does not help squirrels.


Squirrels Are Dangerous

Fight the Squirrel!


And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross or to the Bush Clinton Katrina fund for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

The Squirrel Wants His MTV

Earlier this summer, my husband did battle with a squirrel who managed to push its way into our home through a screened window. My husband would've left it alone, except that said squirrel made itself comfortable on HIS chair, the one with the best and most direct view of our TV, which, in my husband's mind, is the same thing as declaring war.

After chasing the squirrel out (read: closing the door, opening the window, and waiting patiently for the squirrel to find its own way out), the squirrel has once again proven that he can outsmart my husband. It has staked a claim on our balcony outside in a flower pot, which just so happens gives him an unfettered view of the TV when our curtains are open.

I assume it's the same squirrel, only because it shows the same indifference and lack of fear of my husband as the "wild animal" (Husband's words) did who strolled into our condo a few weeks ago and made itself comfortable on my husband's prized chair. The squirrel isn't shy. He doesn't mind posing for photographs (see picture, above).

I'd like to point out that while my husband called the Squirrel Intruder "giant," "really big, I mean really big," and "ferocious," you can see by the picture above, that he's, well, cute and furry and fits in a (medium-sized) flower pot. "Don't be fooled, he's scary and shows no fear," my husband says.

Squirrel: 2
Squirrelly Husband: 1

Forget about 'the meaning of life,' I want to know: Are they real?

In the middle of a Dayquil bender yesterday, I happened to catch Tyra Banks' new daytime show.

For those of you who haven't seen it, here's what you missed: Tyra asking dumb questions of celebrities, Tyra showing her catwalk strut, and Tyra revealing she has a single wrinkle of fat. (She once bent over her jeans to reveal a tiny almost invisible bit of flesh that hangs over the waistband of her size zero jeans. Now, here's the thing: it's not fat if you have to sit and scrunch forward to display it. It's fat - if and only if - you're standing up and sucking in your stomach and you STILL spill over the top of your jeans. That's fat.)

But yesterday Tyra outdid herself. Apparently, tired of all the rumors she's had breast implants, she had a live sonogram on her show by a renowned plastic surgery to prove to her audience that she's 100 percent Tyra.

I just don't know where to start, really. I mean, what next? Will Ashlee Simpson get an x-ray to prove she has vocal cords? Will Lindsay Lohan take a picture of herself at Old Country Buffet to prove that she does, indeed, eat?

I don't know about you, but the question of Tyra's authenticity has been weighing on my mind pretty heavily for months. Thank goodness that's settled. Now I can focus on more important things like curing world poverty.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross or to the Bush Clinton Katrina fund for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Nyquil Shots On Me

I don't know if my body is still in shock from its recent foray into the alien world of The Gym, or if I just didn't use enough Purell after touching the germ colonies that are the handle bars of the eliptical machine, but I've got a nice head cold.

Ah, exercise. You suck.

I thought exercise was supposed to boost your immune system, but apparently if you don't do it on a regular basis (and by regular I mean more than once every decade), it can be a bit of a shock to your system.

I've been sucking down Halls throat drops all day, but all I've got to show for it is a really red tongue and sore throat that won't be deterred by a nice candy coating.

I admit that I am a total wimp when it comes to being sick. If I have a fever of above 100 degrees, I'm convinced I'm dying.

The only good thing about being sick is Nyquil. I don't know what people did before Nyquil. I personally like to shotgun it with a lime chaser. Kidding. I'm kidding, sort of. If you guys don't hear from me it means I'm on a Nyquil bender and I'm sleeping off a Cherry flavor hangover. Wish me luck!

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross or to the Bush Clinton Katrina fund for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Working Out is for Suckers

As many of you know, I am, by nature, a slacker. This means that I am lazy and that my idea of a workout is watching a marathon of the Amazing Race. I believe in the power of vicarious exercise. While I don't normally raise my heart rate higher than 60, which is the minimum rate necessary to keep my body alive, I decided this weekend to go to the gym.

The reason for this was simple. I tried on my favorite pair of jeans from last fall, and discovered that the only way to wear them is to hold my breath. This would naturally make going out in them difficult, because I'd keel over before I even got into my car.

The sad fact is that after a summer of wearing elastic waistbands in those gypsy skirts, squeezing my flabby self back into pants with zippers was quite the production. I realized all those margaritas I've had (740 calories each) did not, as I hoped, pass on through. The calories have moved in and built their own fat colonies, pretty much around my waist and hips.

The gym is a foreign place to me, sort of like the Men's department at Nordstroms. I jogged for awhile, and then stopped when I felt I was going to have a heart attack. I did a few rounds on the gravitron (my sister-in-law's favorite workout machine). This is the contraption where you do pull-ups, but there's a counter weight that helps lift your feet.

So instead of having to lift your entire body weight, you can only lift, say, twenty pounds. The nice thing, though, is that you feel like you're accomplishing something, and doing real chin-ups, when in actuality, you're only really lifting a couple of handweights. It's the kind of exercise I like: Little effort, lots of reward.

Unfortunately, the next day, after just an hour at the gym, my whole body felt like I'd gone running with the bulls at Pamplona, and the bulls had run straight over me. This was my body's revenge for separating it from the couch. Am I too young for Ben Gay?

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross or to the Bush Clinton Katrina fund for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Aging Gracefully

I got some good news yesterday. My editor, who is wonderful, glorious and a girl genius, gave me two extra weeks to work on my manuscript. To celebrate, I went out with some friends and drank one too many glasses of red wine.

This morning, I'm a tad hungover, which is why I've been staring at the same blinking cursor for the last fifteen minutes wondering if it's blinking a message to me in Morse Code. I didn't have that much wine, but the older I get, the harder it is for my body to process alcohol. This is also true of McDonald's french fries and anything chocolate.

I think when you get older, you just can't eat or drink as much as you used to. I think this would explain why at age 19, I could drink myself into a frat keg stupor, stay up all night and then go to the gym in the morning. It's also why at age 32, I have one glass of wine, and I just want to go to bed and sleep til 10.

My mom likes to tell me about the various stages of age-related decline. Her urgent missive to me is: Enjoy your twenties and your thirities, because it's all downhill from there. She's warned me that when I hit forty, I can expect four decades of gravity to take effect overnight. She says she went to sleep a pert 39-year-old and woke up a saggy, lumpy, wrinkled 40-year-old. "And just wait until you turn fifty," she likes to say (cue ominous music).

This is a tradition on my mom's side of the family. Her father likes to tell her what ages 60, 70 and 75 are like. "You don't know anything about sagging. Just wait until you turn 70 and you can't see the TV anymore because your eyelids are drooping," he'd say.

On a positive note, sociologists took a poll recently asking people (excluding my family members) what their favorite age is. The good news is that most people said close to whatever age they were. The favorite among women actually was 41, because most of the women polled were around that age. I take this as heartening news. It means that even though we had less cellulite, that most of us wouldn't want to go back to being 18.

I know I wouldn't. I wouldn't trade my slower metabolism for the hard-won lessons of the last fifteen years. To name a few:

1. Never drink on an empty stomach.
2. Always check your pockets before putting your jeans in the wash.
3. Frat parties are no place to meet boyfriends.
4. Never stare at yourself for longer than 15 seconds in a changing room mirror, especially if you're in your underwear or a swimsuit.
5. Jobs that suck away your will to live are not worth it. No matter how much they pay.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

In Her Shoes

So there's nothing better to distract me from writer's panic than some really good celebrity gossip.

I don't know if many of you have followed the exploits of Tara Reid, but she's almost as fun as Britney Spears. Case in point: her new show "Taradise," gives you all the pointers you need to embarrass yourself in countries around the globe. Don't know how to get sloppy drunk on a small, quaint Greek Isle? Want to find the best way to offend the locals? Tara is there to show you how.

The latest news from her show is that she's demanding a separate hotel room for her shoes. Now, I am very fond of my shoes, too, but I don't think they necessarily merit their own hotel suite.

I realize that I'm just jealous. I wonder if she's looking for a shoe caretaker. I'd be happy to clean off the frat house beer sludge from her Jimmy Choos for a free night's stay in a posh hotel on the Mediterranean. But then again, I'm easily bought.

I admit that I'm also feeling a little guilty about the treatment of my own shoes. They don't even really get their own room at my house. My closet is the size of the trunk of a Volkswagon Golf, and the shoes get about a quarter of that space. If my shoes read about Tara Reid's shoes, they probably wouldn't speak to me for a week. They'd file with Shoe Protective Services for neglect and abuse.

But most importantly, I think this demonstrates that I simply don't have enough money to waste. If I had that kind of money (or that kind of sponsorship from E!), I could waste money in really creative ways, too.

Maybe I'd make restaurant reservations for my jeans. Or charter a plane for my favorite purse. I could send my sunglasses on their own cruise.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Writer's Panic

So, as many of you know, I'm working hard to finish up I Did (But I Wouldn't Now) the spin-off book to my first novel, I Do (But I Don't).

I'm in the final stages of revising my first draft, and this is normally when the panic starts to set in. Now, with writing, there are various stages of panic. There's Stage One ("Oh my god, I have to start writing" panic). Then, Stage Two ("Why did I ever agree to write this novel? I can't even spell my own name without spell check" panic). Stage Three ("I've finished a rough draft and it's as bad as I thought! All my friends and family are going to disown me"). Then there's Stage Four (Resignation: "I've only been pretending I can write. I'm going to take my advance and run off to Guatemala").

I'm currently in Stage Three. What makes this phase so terrifying is that I'm nearing the point when I'm going to actually have to let other people read the manuscript.

So far, the only eyes on the manuscript have been mine, and let's face it, I tend to have a close relationship with denial. Not to mention, after a few margaritas, everyone thinks they write like Hemmingway.

It's sort of like when you try to exercise at home. I used to try to do those Tae Bo DVDs, but the thing of it is, if you're alone in your living room you really don't have to try that hard. Billy Blanks won't know if I do 50 roundhouse kicks or just five.

That's how writing is. You do it alone for a long while, slacking off here and there, and then you realize you're about to release your work into the public domain. It's like going from DVD Tae Bo to teaching an aerobics class on live television in front of a million people. Then, you really start to regret reading People magazine while you should've been doing the stomach crunches.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Footloose

My husband does not dance. He says this is for the good of mankind, because he has such an extreme case of white-man-itis, that if he did dance, those in the near vicinity would go blind.

My husband's dance-handicap makes it difficult to attend weddings in particular. We went to a great one this weekend (Congratulations Sam and Martha!) where everything was perfect and they had a so-fun-can't-stand-it Mariachi band. Now, my husband does not do white man's dancing (the one-two sway move) so he definitely doesn't do salsa. This left me, alone, on the dance floor (again), with a lot of other wives/girlfriends whose boyfriends suffer from white-man-itis.

I realize that there are many other conditions in the world worth curing (like cancer, for instance), but I think we ought to look into the white-man-itis phenomenon. I don't quite understand it, because, come on - who looks cool dancing to "YMCA" or "I Will Survive"?

You'd think my husband thought there was an Olympic Judging Panel beside the dance floor that was busy rating his particular rendition of the Funky Chicken.

Olympic Announcer #1: "Oh, that botched footwork on the triple-axel chicken wing is going to cost him, John. At this level, you've got to stick the landings if you want to take home a medal."

Olympic Announcer #2: "It's heartbreaking to train for a whole wedding season, and to see all that hard work come down to a single footing mistake. And look! He's spilled his drink. That's going to cost even more points. He's clearly out of medal contention."

My husband says he's doing the world a favor by staying off the dance floor, but I'm not so sure. Maybe he stays away because it reminds him of his now-dead dreams of becoming an Olympic Ice Dancer. Or, he's simply afraid of showing everyone else up with his mad dancing skills.

Daren to world: You've been served.


And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September, you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

One Name in Paris

Okay, I do love celebrity gossip, mostly because it shows me how sane I am. In baby-naming news, it looks like we've got another refreshing show of common sense and humility.

The rumor is that when Paris Latsis and Paris Hilton have a child, they plan to name him or her - surprise, surprise - Paris.

This would be a mistake. For one thing, think of all the unfortunate mix-ups with their monogrammed towels.

By the way, as a side note, how do I find a Greek Shipping Tycoon? They're all the rage. Paris has one. Mary Kate Olsen has one. Where's my billionaire? I'm sure my husband wouldn't mind if I ran off with someone who could pay off my credit card debt. He'd be relieved, rather than jealous, I'm sure.

In terms of baby names, I think we should all be able to change ours if we want to, because let's face facts, our parents are nuts. And the pregnancy hormones didn't do our mother any favors either. I went to school with a guy, I kid you not, named Christian Blood. I think when he was born, his parents wanted to make sure he never got laid.



But I sympathize with difficult names. My maiden name is Tanamachi, and I got plenty of ridicule on the playground for that alone. In elementary school, monchhichis (see right) were all the rage. I don't know if they were monkeys or aliens, but they sucked their thumbs and had that annoying theme song (Monchhichi, Monchhichi, oh so soft and cuddly). Yep, you guessed it, I was "Tanamachi-chi-chi, oh so soft and cuddly). It's not so bad, until the millionth time you hear it, and then it gets pretty damn annoying.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

London Calling

Given all the very serious news of late - New Orleans being underwater, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court dying, etc, etc, you may have missed the most important news of the week:

Britney Spears has decided on baby names.

Apparently, she told Elle Magazine that if she has a boy, she's going to name him London, after the place where she and hubby Kev first began their "storybook romance."

As if London hasn't been through enough this year. Now it has to suffer the indignity of being attached to America's Most Unabashedly Trashy Power Couple. I'm guessing if asked, London would take a pass.

By the way, what is it with celebrity baby names? Apple? Lourdes? If you're that rich and famous do kids not make fun of you on the playground? Or, is it that celebrity kids' schools names like "Megan" and "Mike" are the outcasts?

Anyway, as you can see, I'm hard at work (i.e. reading celebrity gossip).

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Music to My Ears

For those of you with a husband/boyfriend like mine, who seems to selectively listen (he hears "dinner's ready" with perfect clarity but "please pick up your dirty socks" not so well), apparently, there may be a scientific reason.

University of Sheffield researchers in the U.K. discovered recently that men's brains are not designed to hear women's voices. Apparently, when a guy hears another guy the soundwaves go directly to the speech part of the brain, used to interpret speech. But because women's voices have more soundwaves or something like that, men hear them first as music, not as speech, and have to work harder to figure out what women are saying.

When I told my husband this, he said "Oh yeah, the sound of your voice is music to my ears." I think he might have been being sarcastic there.

But, it makes sense to me. Women have more complicated voices. I think it's because we're just more advanced. It's no wonder our speech patterns are more complex - we have more complex things to say!

Okay, that's the science lesson for today. It just goes to show how I am easily distracted by weird, random news.

And guys - don't forget - if you donate at least $25 to the Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and send me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com before the end of September you could win a signed copy of "I Do (But I Don't)." Just email me your donation receipts at cara@caralockwood.com. I'll be picking winners on October 1.

Katrina, Birthdays, and Other Natural Disasters

So, it's very hard to be funny when so many people are facing total devestation. My heart goes out to everyone on the gulf coast.

My good friend, Bethie, whom you've heard mention here before for her Martha Stewart-Like Genius at Party-Throwing, was one of the first people I know of who donated to the Red Cross. For once, Instant Karma actually worked - she won Rolling Stones tickets from WXRT, as part of a radio campaign to raise money for the victims of Katrina. This is a good thing on two counts - she's celebrating a birthday she'd rather not today (don't we all feel that way about birthdays past 25?), and she's one of the most deserving folks on the planet.

Happy Birthday, Bethie!

As for everybody else, if you haven't donated to the Red Cross, please do. I don't know if I can guarantee Rolling Stones tickets as Instant Karma, but I will say that for those of you who do donate a minimum of $25, I'll send 5 of you signed copies of "I Do (But I Don't)" and five of you will get signed Galleys (the uncorrected proof that no one has. If I'm ever famous one day, it might be worth something - but I'm still laying bets it won't be as much as grandma's old china).

I realize it's not much, but hey, you were gonna donate, anyway, right? This is just a nice potential perk. So email me your proof of donation at cara@caralockwood.com by September 30. I'll throw everybody's name into a hat on October 1 and pick 10 winners (which, by the way, I think is my average traffic on the site this month, so odds are definitely good on winning). What have you got to lose besides some bad karma?