SHE WROTE: Moot Goes to Long Island

Continuing the saga . . .

Thanks to Val’s excellent driving and early arrival, I made it to the airport with time to spare (I think George was still warming up in the bullpen), which gave me time to wonder: Is a fallen tree with a side of George Bush a sign that I shouldn’t be touring? If things come in threes, is the plane going to crash? (No, but there was plenty of turbulence, thank you.) What if it means that the tour is going to be a disaster and I should turn back now?

Then I went through security and they pulled me to one side and asked if I was carrying a knife. Right, I’m going to try to take a knife through security. I said, “Nope,” because if you say, “How dumb do you think I am,” they get hostile. Then they asked if they could look through my carry-on. Why do they ask? Like I’m going to say no. So I said, “Sure.” So this poor guy lifts out my black silky pjs with the pink piping and the little pink dots (one of my two pair of road pjs because they cover everything so I can deal with room service while I’m wearing them), my good black underwear (because if I get hit by a bus on tour I want to look nice in the ER, my mother raised me right), my makeup bag which looks like a small tool kit, my electronics stuff bag which looks like a make-up bag, my jewelry pouch, the ziplock bag full of Sharpies and . . . Moot.

You know it’s really hard to explain a plastic alligator to security. For awhile I thought they were going to wrestle her to the ground and confiscate her, which would be bad because Bob is convinced I’m going to forget her somewhere along the way, he’s WAITING for me to forget her, and I don’t see him buying that the TSA is holding her for questioning. But they ran everything including Moot through the X-ray again and gave her back to me.

So the tree, Bush, and the TSA were out to get me. Was it a sign?

Since that train of thought was depressing, not to mention paranoid, I went to Toto, which is my favorite store in the Cincy airport, to cheer up. I needed a birthday gift for Meg (the mermaid we got her in Florida was nice, but it wasn’t a real gift, the kind that makes the giftee go, “Oh!.” so she needed a Real Gift, too). And I found her gift there, of course, a great necklace with two charms on and a bright wooden box to put it in. The necklace is amazing: the bigger charm is two old-fashioned-looking girls labeled “Patron Saints of Excess” which is definitely Meg and I, and on the reverse it says, “These two support the tradition of excess. There is no such thing as too much of a good thing. If one is good, then more is definitely better.” (I like this sentiment in an agent and I want to encourage it.). The smaller charm said, “Eat chocolate” on one side and “Never grow up” on the other, both sentiments that Meg and I embrace. It just had to be hers, it so symbolized Meg and me together eating chocolate in our pjs, not to mention Meg negotiating a contract. So I asked if they had another just like it for me (two is always better) and they didn’t but they had others, and one of them practically sat up and said, “Hello, I’m your tour necklace, wear me at every booksigning and things will go splendidly.” I looked at it and thought, “You know, I’d never have had time to shop and find these necklaces if I hadn’t had to switch to a later flight because of the tree and then get here early because of George.” So the tree and George were so I could connect with this necklace, and the TSA were just doing their job and they did give back Moot, so it was all part of a Larger Plan. The day was going SPLENDIDLY, just like the necklace promised.

Shut up, Bob. You live in your world, I’ll live in mine.

So the Official Tour Good Luck Necklace is just like Meg’s: two charms on a long chain. The larger one has a picture of a woman who looks like a Flora Dora girl (actually she looks like me if I lost twenty pounds; even Bob laughed and said she looks like me although he wisely did not add “if she lost twenty pounds”) and it says, “Drama Queen.” On the back it says, “She needed an audience to feel complete.” The smaller charm says, “It’s all about me” on one side and “I’m always right” on the other. Is this not the perfect tour necklace? It’s a sign, I’m telling you, a sign that things will go well.

Then I got on the plane and we bumped all over the sky on the way to LaGuardia, but that’s okay because the pilot was such a sweetie, he kept making announcements, saying, “You know, we all hate these bumps but the plane doesn’t mind them a bit,” which I thought was completely charming and amazingly reassuring. Then I landed, collected my baggage, and went out to meet Bob and Shannon, who works with John the Fabulous, who is currently vacationing in the Caribbean.

But no Bob and Shannon. And my cellphone is dead. Forty-five minutes later, Bob shows up and takes the heavy bag. Turns out HIS flight was late and he got to the apartment, dumped his stuff off, turned around and Shannon was there to take him to meet me. Except they were running late. Bob is smiling anyway. I’m thinking it’s because he’s not wearing a skirt. We go out to Long Island, and let me tell you, there’s a reason they call it LONG Island. Bob says it reminds him of the Seinfeld episode where Susan’s parents made George drive them all the way to the tip. He says he’s allowed to talk about Seinfeld because we’re in New York. Then he says, “Oh, yeah, before I forget,” and hands me the key to the apartment I’m staying in. Time passes. Lots of traffic, it’s dark, it’s rainy, I’m thinking we’re going to be all alone at the bookstore which might be kind of nice, cozy like, and finally we get there.

The Book Revue is a terrific bookstore. If you’ve never been there, you should go and say hi to Liz who runs the booksignings because she’s a peach. And the NICEST people were there, and Bob and I did a sprained version of the Bob and Jenny Show and once again, I have no recollection of what I said. I think I talk too much, though. Bob should talk more and me less. But there were Cherry Bombs there which was so much fun, and everybody was lovely and I had a great time. Oh, and we now have FIVE talking points because Bob forgot to do the TA DA! thing with the bookcover to show the camo underneath. Fortunately Liz reminded him. But now the fifth talking point is the cover. If Bob doesn’t TA DA during the talk, somebody please remind him.

Then it came time to do the booksigning, the first one we’ve done together. We already knew that Bob had to sit on my left because we’re opposites in everything including the fact that I’m righthanded and he’s lefthanded, And you have to start with me because I do the YEC inscriptions and then sign my name, and then Bob signs his. So I’m doing a lot of writing and he’s trying to remember not to sign Greg Doherty but that’s about it. I’d brought the Moot stamp which is supposed to be his job, but Bob hadn’t had time to practice with it plus it just seemed odd to stamp alligators in books all of a sudden so we didn’t get it out which meant his entire contribution to the process was writing “Bob Mayer.” And I didn’t put out Moot either because if you don’t know who’s in the crowd, you really don’t want to stand up there and say, “Hi, I’m Jenny Crusie and this is the little plastic alligator I travel with. And that’s Bob.” So my plan has been to bring her, and then if anybody asks about her, get her out. And somebody did (Janine was that you?) and I got her out and she caused her usual sensation which was nice because she’d had that bad time with the TSA. Anyway, it was just lovely, well worth the trip to LI. And when we were all done, Liz complimented us on the schtick we had going for booksignings. I said. “That’s not schtick, that’s our real relationship.” Well, she’s not a Cherry Bomb so she wouldn’t know.

Then I got in the car, giddy with exhaustion, and Bob had the light on and was searching the backseat frantically. I said, “What’s wrong?” and he said, “I lost the apartment key,” so I helped him search and no joy. Then he said, “Well, at least I have the other one.” I said, “You have one?” He said, “I have mine, I don’t have yours.” I said, “You gave me mine on the way in.” He said, “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, “Bob, you were there when you gave it to me, I thought you knew.” I mean, honest to God. Then we started talking about the inscription in the book because we don’t have one. We figured out if the book belongs to a Cherry Bomb we can write, “Ten moot points for buying this book!” but if you’re not a Cherry Bomb, that’s not gonna work. Besides we should do better than that. I said, “The easiest ones are the people who say, ‘Just sign your name.’” And Bob said, “Yeah, I like that, that makes it a lot easier.” I said, “What are you talking about, all you do now is sign your name.” He said, “Yeah, but later on there’ll be the stamp and that’ll take a lot of concentration, “ and he mimed stamping a book with his tongue in the corner of his mouth, looking like a dork, and I started laughing and couldn’t stop. He said, “Even better, I’ll get a stamp with my name on it,” and then he said that at one point, he’d told Liz we needed the carryall because it had our stamp in it, and poor Liz panicked because she though we’d brought signature stamps, and we both lost it and just howled with laughter in the back of the car.

Well, you had to be there.

And then we came back to the apartments and ordered pizza and Bob got grim again. Sigh. So he went to bed and I’m catching up here to say, “Thank you, Long Island and Liz and Book Revue and Shannon who schlepped our butts out there and everybody who came to our first signing and made it so much fun.” And if you’re coming to a signing and you want a Moot stamp, ask Bob and he will find the stamp and do it (I’m making him practice). And if you want to see Moot, request her, and I will pull her out of my handbag just for you. And if you can think of anything clever to sign in the books, for God’s sake speak up.

Oh, and I know you wanted a picture except I was so brain-fried I forgot to get out the camera. So here’s a picture of the necklaces. Aren’t they insane? (Don’t tell Meg, she doesn’t get hers until lunch today.)