Celebrity Blogger Blind Date!

Well, I had my celebrity blogger blind date today, and did you all figure out who it was with?

None other than famed author and blogger, Dawn Meehan of Because I Said So!



For those of you living completely under a rock who do not know of Dawn yet, she is wonder uber mom of SIX CHILDREN! A boy, then a girl, then another boy, then ANOTHER girl, and then ANOTHER BOY, and then, yes, another boy and finally another girl. Whew.

Whoops! I did THAT WRONG! You see, I’m blogging this after our lunch, and yes, there was wine involved.

She’s got boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl. There. How perfect IS that? Six kids, two of each sex. Whoops, my bad again. Three of each sex. There. SHE MADE ME GET WINE. Just kidding. It was a joint decision. Good God! No, we didn’t share a joint! ARE YOU CRAZY! I meant, we decided to have wine together! Joint decision! Get your heads out of the gutter.

However, I will tell you, a pleasant surprise bestowed itself upon us at this particular restaurant, and somehow, we just picked the perfect restaurant to meet. Little did we know that the restaurant we chose was holding a NO POINTS DAY!

Seriously! We walked in, mentioned that we were both counting Weight Watcher points, and they said, “Oh boy, are you ladies in luck today, because did you know it is National No Points Day?”

We had no idea! Dawn looked at me; I looked at Dawn. In unison we said, “Bring on the pasta! Bring on the wine!”

It took us forever to decide what to eat, in between me grilling Dawn on what I hope wasn’t annoying questions she probably has to answer all the time:

How is it at bedtime in your house?

What’s it like at dinnertime?

Do your kids fight? (OK totally dumb one on my part!)

When do you sleep?

How do you approve ALL those blog comments?

When do you ‘you-know-what?’ (Dear Readers, you may fill in the blank to whatever you think ‘you-know-what’ might be!)

I forgot to ask about the bathroom questions! Like what’s the ratio of the “toilet-seat up” to the “toilet-seat down” in their house? Or how many times a day does she have to put a new roll of toilet paper on the holder, or do they even waste time doing such a mundane task? I mean, why bother?

We toasted to her success with her writing, and her two-book deal, and I will tell you this. She is so deserving of the success that has come to her. She is humble and funny, and real and modest about everything. None of this will go to her head, and she’s already made many mothers’ days brighter by bringing a little laughter into their days, by making them feel less alone, less stressed, less feeling like nobody else is out there who understands. I mean, shitola! She’s got six kids! If Dawn doesn’t understand, there ain’t no one out there who’s gonna get it, and she shares her mommy woes with the rest of the moms out there in a lightweight humor that’s so laughable and fun, so Erma Bombeckishy that you can’t just help to want to be friends with her.

And how cool is it that this Manic Mom is now maybe, hopefully, not psycho-y enough to be in the ranks of a real-life friend of Dawn’s now?

Have to tell this story about our lunch date. I don’t even know how this transpired. We had an OK server, who was really kind of stiffy formal, wouldn’t you say so Dawn? Our server, when describing how a certain dish was prepared, explained that, “We then sear the mahi-mahi and then we drizzle it with pesto-balsamic olive oil and top it with grated parmesan that we age for three years in a bin that we keep in back.”

I’m like, “WE?” What’s with the “We” crap? Our server is serving it AND preparing it? Very talented server! Is our server also catching the mahi-mahi?

And then there was another server, who delivered our salads and soup, didn’t offer us fresh pepper, but DID say this straight out of the blue:

“You know, last Friday, I had a table and they stole the salt and pepper shakers.”

He raised his eyebrows at us. Dawn and I laughed, and made jokes about our very large purses. Then he walked away.

Not two minutes later, I see him at another table and he’s smiling at the customers, probably even flirting with them, and CRANKING PEPPER ONTO THE LADIES’ SALADS!

“DAWN! DO YOU SEE THAT! He is putting fresh pepper onto their food! He just warns us not to steal the shakers but he’s over there peppering THEIR food!”

WHAT is up with that? That is just wrong and RUDE!

So, here’s what I ate, totally FAT-FREE:

And Dawn has pictures of what she ate that she’ll probably post too. I didn’t feel it was appropriate to do a photo shoot of her meal. However, when she couldn’t finish the last two of her ravioli, and she asked me if I wanted a taste, I initially declined, then said, “WAIT, NO POINTS DAY! SURE!”

And she said, “Oh, the token, ‘No I can’t’” as I gobbled up her last two points-free raviolis! Obviously, I felt very at-ease in Dawn’s company!

HAD to have dessert. Had to! Here’s a sampling of what they were offering:

HAHA, just kidding, but do you remember these I posted in November? This is really what they offered us for dessert:

Here’s what we got:

Again, no points day, so it doesn’t matter really, now does it? Dawn had a cup-o-tiramisu. I had a cup-o-chocolate-caramel-whip-cream-drizzly-caramel-on-top-with-a-white-chocolate-straw-thing.

YUM. Gotta love no points day! Boy, will I be paying for this at weigh-in on Saturday, but the whole afternoon was soooooooo well worth it.

And for the final icing on the cake, I timidly (right Dawn?) asked Dawn to sign the copy of the newspaper article I have of her. She said she’s never signed anything yet. I have the first-ever signed copy of something from soon-to-be best selling author and celebrity blogger Dawn Meehan!

And hey, I just thought of something… Dawn hit it big when she put up a great story about her kids and a baseball and then some Pokeman cards on eBay…

…I wonder how much I could get on eBay for my signed newspaper article from Dawn!

Dawn, just kidding! Great lunch, and so great to have a new friend!

PS… I so wish I had the nerve to steal that salt and pepper shaker set. How I wish I had the nerve.