Mr. Rollover, Ira Rollover

Although my dream in life is to be a writer and an entertainment host, I do have to pay the bills; therefore I need a stable income. Currently, I am working at an investment advisory firm where I am very comfortable with retirement plans, profit sharing plans and trusts, but that wasn’t the case in 2004 when I worked at an insurance firm downtown. After graduating from Sacred Heart University with a degree in Media Studies, I got my first real job in Los Angeles at Chiat Day, an advertising agency, where we were basically paid in pennies and peanuts. After a year at the agency, I was in serious credit card debt, had a running tab with my parents and was sick of eating Ramen noodles, so I started looking for a higher paying job- doing anything. Thanks to a former co-worker at Chiat, I was hired as an administrative assistant at an insurance agency where I went from making $20,000 per year to $34,500. I was rich, bitch- I felt like Oprah Winfrey!

Even though I was shown what to do every day at my new job and was comfortable answering the phones and assisting the salesmen, I was so unfamiliar with all these terms being thrown around that I felt like the only English speaking person in an office that only spoke Mandarin. I had no financial background and the only thing I knew about insurance was how much a paid every month for my car. One of my weekly duties was to file all client statements and correspondence in the file cabinet next to my desk, sorted by the client’s last name. I kept seeing these statements with the name ‘Ira Rollover’ at the top, and although I thought ‘Rollover’ was a strange last name, I figured that he was just an old, rich Jewish man. The ‘R’ folder kept growing thicker and thicker until months later when I realized that an IRA Rollover was a retirement plan and not an old, wealthy guy from Beverly Hills.

Luckily no one but me went into those file cabinets and once I made the realization, I came in extra early one morning to re-file all the ‘Rollovers’ to their proper folders, saving me a ton of embarrassment. I still laugh every time I hear IRA Rollover and thank God no one at my old job ever knew of my little mishap…until now!

Which Floor, Mr. Voight?

My boyfriend, Anthony, is currently working on a new show for Showtime starring Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight and I couldn't be prouder! I also couldn't be more excited to visit him on set and meet Mr. Voight aka Angelina Jolie's father one day. When I told him that I was more excited to meet Mr. Voight than Liev he was a little surprised and told me that if I did, I couldn't get star struck! Erin, star struck? I used to work at Peet's Coffee on Sunset Blvd. when my regulars were Katie Holmes and Hugh Jackman AND Britney Spears is my eleventh cousin- I can handle my celebrities! Except of course when I was introduced to Malcolm-Jamal Warner aka Theo Huxtable at my old job and oddly I was the most star struck I have ever been! Even more so than when I met Ryan Gosling! Maybe it was because I grew up watching The Cosby Show or maybe because there was an actual introduction that took place with a handshake and a "Erin, this is Malcolm, Malcolm, this is Erin." Whatever it was, it was one of the best moments in my life- strange, I know. Anyways, back to Mr. Voight.

Last month after my company holiday party, I took a cab downtown to Anthony's, pretty drunk from the night's festivities. He was at the vodka bar below his apartment (I scored a dream man, huh?) and told me that I should meet him there for a drink before going upstairs. Feeling a bit too tipsy for public, I turned him down and told him that I should go to bed. As I stepped out of the cab, Anthony walked out of the bar to meet me and make sure I made it to his apartment OK. Sweet man, right? Sweet until a Lexus pulled up to the sidewalk carrying who Anthony claimed was Jon Voight. I looked at him like he was crazy! Why would Jon Voight be going to a vodka bar downtown? That was too ironic for my drunk ass and I told him to have fun with "Jon Voight" who was in my mind probably an old geezer who resembled him a bit and I got into the elevator as Anthony went outside.

Turns out, it was Jon Voight and he was actually going to the penthouse in Anthony's building for a party. Anthony rode the elevator with him (I could have been in that elevator too), told him he was working on his new show, and became buddies with him. I cannot tell you how pissed I was when he told me this the next morning. Moral of the story? When your boyfriend tells you he sees Jon Voight- believe him!

Yonanas, Yo Problems!

I am blonde and do occasionally have my moments, which my boyfriend loves to point out to me. But I am a smart cookie and although no one is perfect, sometimes the blonde moments get the best of me. Like this weekend when I suggested we buy Yonanas at Bed Bath and Beyond, the ice cream maker that turns frozen fruit into a creamy dessert. But I didn't realize a major detail until after we bought it, got home and tried it out. The detail I didn't notice? It is called YoNANAS for a reason- because you must make every frozen treat with bananas. My problem with that one? I don't like bananas mixed with anything, I only like them on their own. So in order to get those mango, strawberry and blueberry ice creams that I wanted to make, you have to also use bananas. Boooooo! And trust me, we tried to blend up frozen strawberries on their own and it came out like ice chips. You want that creamy dessert Yonanas promises on the box? You must use bananas. To quote Gwen Stefani- "this appliance is yonanas, Y-O-N-A-N-A-S!" And as Notorious BIG would have said, "yo nanas, yo problems!" So I packed up my yonanas and said, "yo, you're going back to Bed Bath and Beyond!"

What Do You Mean You Don’t Own a Plunger!!??!!

Okay ladies, as much as we hate to confess or admit it to our men (even though they obviously know) we all poop. It’s a natural thing- haven’t you read the book, “Everybody Poops?” Well, my boyfriend found out that I too am a human being on Saturday morning. We had been on a 3 day juice cleanse since New Year’s Day consuming only leafy greens, carrots, citrus, and other fruits that can easily be juiced in our juicer that we got on New Year’s Eve as a part of our new toxic free lifestyle. Yes, we watched way too many documentaries one day that caused us to throw away all of our “toxic” cleaning and beauty products and replace them with all natural products from Whole Foods. You only live one life, right? Anyways….after three days of eating, or should I say drinking only fruit or veggie drinks (and not pooping might I add), we went out for Persian food Friday night for our friend Ray’s birthday. It was delicious and I ate my little heart out, filling my belly with pickled cabbage, mahi mahi kabobs, rice and plenty of hummus. I am sure you can see where this is going…

I woke up the next morning at 5:30 am with a familiar feeling in my tummy and tiptoed to the bathroom to do my business without waking up Anthony. Hey- maybe there was a chance that he DIDN’T know that I pooped yet. After I was finished and feeling 100% better, I naturally took the next step and flushed. Except it didn’t flush….the water rose and nothing happened. I immediately began to sweat and began searching through the “plumbing” file in my brain trying to figure out what to do next. I will just grab the plunger and fix it, I have done it in the past- no big deal. And by the silence in the air, I knew Anthony was still asleep-so,  he’ll never know. I knew that he didn’t have a plunger in the bathroom so I figured that maybe he kept it in his closet or under the sink. I tiptoed to the closet to find nothing, then to the kitchen and again found nothing. Oh, shit! My eyes widened a bit and I felt a warm rush fill my body. I searched through the “plumbing” file again and turned to Plan B- let the water go down a bit, flush again and pray that it wouldn’t overflow. And if it did, write a note saying, “nice knowing you,” immediately leave the premises, get in my car and drive as fast as I could back to Maine.

I noticed that the water did go down a bit, so I tried to flush it again, praying to God that it would work. Although it didn’t overflow, it also didn’t go down. As desperate as I was, I wouldn’t be taking any extreme measures like sticking my hand in there or having Anthony deal with this. The next best thing to do was wake him up and as much as I didn’t want to do that, I had reached the end of the “plumbing” file and was short of a solution. I walked out to the bedroom, threw my hands up in the air as if surrendering to a crime and blurted out, “I clogged the damn toilet babe!” I was mortified but hoped that maybe he had a solution. He turned over, looked at me with sleepy eyes, trying to wake up and understand what was happening all at once and said, “huh?” I asked him where his plunger was and he responded that he didn’t have one. “What do you mean, you don’t have a plunger?” I was screwed. I assured him I would take care of the situation and went back into the bathroom, to panic and figure out the best solution to this major problem I had on my hands. I first went downstairs to his lobby, woke up the doorman and asked him if he had a plunger. Mortifying moment number two of the day. He didn’t have one- of course! So, the next best thing? I would just go buy a plunger- duh! I called Ralph’s and prayed that a.) they were open and b.) they carried plungers. To my liking, it was a yes to both and I was out the door at 6:00am on a Saturday morning to go buy a plunger at the grocery store. Not before telling Anthony that if he went into the bathroom I would kill him, of course…in my mind, he would have changed the locks while I was at the store and disconnected his phone if he saw the “situation” in there. It was not my finest moment. After purchasing the LAST plunger in the entire store and a few extra items to make it look like I didn’t just wake up and clog a toilet (even though my pajamas, squinty half-asleep eyes and Russell Brand looking hair wasn’t an obvious giveaway) I was out the door and on my way back to clean this mess up. LITERALLY. 

I got back to his apartment, walked directly into the bathroom and went to work. After about 15 minutes, more nervous sweating that it wouldn’t work because it has never taken this long and an intense arm workout, everything went down. It was the happiest moment of my life. I cleaned everything up, gave a little wink to the toilet, which I had bonded with over the course of the morning, almost thanking him for working with me and went back to bed. All I kept thinking was, thank god my boyfriend still loves me…what a good man!

Welcome to Pukestown, Population: Erin

We have all been there at one time in our life- drank too much on a Friday night to the point where you are absolutely out of commission the next day. And that day was probably either when you were in college or on your twenty-first birthday, right? Well, not for Erin! I still apparently think I can party like its 1999. And party I did on Friday night! Instead of “Who Else But Erin?” I should have been asking myself, “Who do I think I am?”

The night started off simple with dinner at Sugarfish with Anthony, where we had sushi and sake. So far, so good. Next, we met our friends, Ray and Nicole, at El Cholo where my first of many bad decisions that night took place. I thought it was fine to order a skinny margarita and a shot of tequila- apparently I packed my balls in my purse that night as well. Then we went to visit our friend Jeff at Rock’N Fish at LA Live, who was bartending that night. I took a seat, took out my wallet and my balls and ordered a vodka based gingerbread martini. Even drunk that drink sounds disgusting, but I thought-‘tis the season! To sum it up, my gingerbread martini tasted like grandma in a glass. It was as warm as cookies on a snowy day but tasted a little fragrant like perfume….grandma in a glass! As my boyfriend told me the next morning (while he was seeing me at my absolute worst), “you should have stopped there, Erin. You should have stopped there.” Stopped? Stopping is for losers, right? So, I ordered a crazy ass rum drink that was larger than life and is making me gag in my mouth right now thinking about it. Needless to say, I danced my ass off at Ray and Nicole’s house afterwards, gave her a big smooch and don’t remember stumbling home that night.

The next morning, I awoke next to Anthony (thank God, right?) with a splitting headache and no recollection of how I got there. And yes, I am 31 years old. Mom, you can stop shaking your head now- we walked home… I may be an idiot sometimes, but I do follow the rules. When I walked out to the kitchen to get a drink of water, I followed the path of clothes that led from the door to the bed. In Anthony’s house, you have to take your shoes off at the door and we both have a pair of flip flops that we are allowed to wear inside. As I mentioned in prior posts, my boyfriend has a touch of OCD. I was shocked when I saw that his flip flops were still at the door, which means (and it didn’t take Scooby Doo to figure this one out) that he violated his own rules and walked to his bed….BAREFOOT! I then saw one of his socks, a broken shot glass by the fridge (huh?) my jeans (inside out but sitting on the ground neatly like I floated out of them), my ring and my necklace. I at least had the respect to put on my 'inside' shoes (who cares if they were on the wrong feet) and walk to bed last night. I scarfed down four aspirin, chugged some water and went back to bed, feeling like I just got ran over by a reindeer…damn you, grandma!

After having a hilarious, nonsense filled conversation with Anthony about Snoopy’s best friend, Woodstock (Anthony was convinced his name was Tutu) I began to feel a little queasy. My first thought was, maybe I should eat something. So, I drank a glass of almond milk and had a handful of gingerbread men cookies. One would think I would have avoided gingerbread altogether after last night but apparently I wasn’t that smart. A few minutes later, I felt better and as I was telling Anthony that the gingerbread were doing a happy dance in my stomach, they took a left turn at my liver and headed straight up the esophagus. BARRRRFFFF! Well, at least I felt a tad better now. And because I was feeling a TAD better, Anthony thought I needed pozole, a Mexican soup that cures hangovers but doesn’t have tripe in it like menudo. And this amazing pozole was in the Valley- ugg! But because I thought it would help, we got in my car (yes, I drove…again, I must have packed my balls) and started driving.

Just as we were pulling out of the parking garage, I took a bite of my banana, which I thought would be good for my stomach, and just as fast as it went down, it was on its way up. I pulled over quickly and puked outside of Subway sandwich shop. Again, I am 31 years old. Ok, now I was better. To the Valley we go! We finally get there and as we are searching for parking outside the Mexican restaurant, I felt some more churning in my tummy. There was nothing left but bile in there, but apparently it needed to exit my body at that very moment, in the 7-Eleven parking lot. Yup, 31 years old. I should having given up right then and there and chalked it up on the blackboard as Erin 0, Alcohol 1 but I continued to make my way into the Mexican restaurant, order the soup and tried to eat it. It got the best of me though, and I told Anthony to get it to go as I darted outside to my car, sat in the driver’s side, and puked out the door as people on the streets and my boyfriend watched. 31 years old.

After a long, uneasy ride home, I spent the next 8 hours on the couch watching Duck Dynasty in my PJ’s. What did we learn here, kids? Don’t drink! Or if you do drink, leave your balls at home. And if you do happen to bring your balls? Don’t order the gingerbread martini!

Who Else But AISLEY?

For those of you who know me personally, you have probably had the pleasure of meeting my beautiful eight year old niece, Aisley Emaline Snell, or at least have heard various stories about her. Simply put, she is amazing. She is beautiful, smart beyond her years, can hold her own with her three brothers and is the sassiest little girl in Maine. Sassy in good way, of course. I decided to write about her this week after reading #16 on her Christmas list, sparking a raised eyebrow, a giggle and my thought- Who else but Aisley? Before I tell you what that one specific item was, I would like to share a few stories about Aisley that will give you a good idea just how hilarious she is.

When she was younger, she was on a youth soccer team and her coach was a little overweight. One day, she went up to her, put her hand on her coach's belly and asked, "are you pregnant?" When her coach embarrassingly said no, Aisley answered, "are you sure?"

My mom can't swim even though she took all three of us girls to swimming lessons at the YWCA when we were babies and my parents have had a pool since 1989. Usually, she just wades in the shallow end or watches her grandkids swim. One summer, Aisley put swimmies on her arms, made her wear a swim cap, handed her a kick board and an inner tube, pushed her in the deep end and said, "you've got to learn sometime!"

My dad graciously waits for Aisley to get off the bus everyday after school at 3:15 pm sharp. Instead of welcoming her grandfather with a big hug, she throws her backpack at him and says, "do your job!" and makes him carry it up the driveway.

And her Christmas list this year? After scanning through the normal, Operation board game, fortune cookie maker and Nerf disc shooter, I come across #16. Fuzzy black handcuffs. I died. I literally died. I called my sister for an explanation and she said, she had no idea why she wanted them but Aisley told her to make sure they don't hurt her wrists. Who else but Aisley?

Howie Who?

I am usually overly prepared for any celebrity interview I conduct for Starpulse down to the point of studying facts about their life and career and coming up with obscure questions that will make them laugh and remember who I am- a true professional. But every professional screws up sometimes. Here's the story of my little hiccup and how I bounced back like a champ.  

My Starpulse colleague texted me last year around Christmas time asking if I could cover an interview for her. No problem I said, who will I be chatting with? Her response: Howie Day (well at least that is what I read via her text message). Great, I loved Howie Day! He was an amazing singer, liked life on the edge (he supposedly dated Britney Spears after the two met in rehab) and was even from Maine- I would have loads to talk with him about. I told her I would handle it, got the name of his publicist and began my intense research on Howie Day, from here on just referred to as 'Howie.' Howie's publicist called me and said we would be meeting at Starbucks at 5:00 pm that Friday, where I would conduct the interview and even get a few pictures with him. I was getting excited about the interview, had all my questions ready and even had a fantasy that we would meet, connect on the Maine thing and become best friends.

The day of the interview, I drove to the Sherman Oaks Starbucks where we agreed to meet, as giddy as a school girl. (What does that expression even mean, anyways?) I walked in, ordered a latte and sat down as I didn't see Howie inside yet. I waited and waited and still nothing. At about 10 minutes past 5:00, a girl and a guy walked in, both of whom I didn't recognize, so I naturally just looked away and kept waiting. Until the two came up to me and asked if I was Erin. I was confused but confirmed my identity with the strangers. The girl apologized for being late and introduced me to 'Howie', standing by her side. Howie? Howie who? The girl then asked if it was okay to do the interview out on the deck where we had a little more privacy. I had no idea who this elusive Howie character was but followed the two outside. My mind was racing at this point! Who was this guy and what the hell was I going to ask him? I had all my questions prepared for Howie Day and unless he lost 15 lbs, shrunk a few inches and had major reconstructive surgery, this was not him. I was going to have to pull something out of my butt and handle this interview smoothly. Maybe I can start out with a few generic questions about who his influences are, what his Christmas plans were and what's up next for him and I would figure out by then who he was.

As we sat down, I looked at him closely and did recognize him a bit, but from where? Was this Howie Day? I thought I would throw a Maine reference out there right away, to see if he caught it, or batted it away. I think I said something like, "it's a bit chilly outside, but not as chilly as Maine!" Wait for it, wait for it.....his response: "That's true, it gets a bit chilly in Florida too, where I am from." Dammit, plan failed. Now what? Generic question #1 failed as well and just when I started to feel a sweat bead roll down my forehead, he threw me the biggest puzzle piece ever, and I solved the mystery with two words. Backstreet Boys. Ding, ding, ding- light bulb...it was Howie D. from the Backstreet Boys. Although I felt like the biggest idiot, I finished the very successful interview, got my picture with the former boy-bander and drove away with a great story to tell. And sweat stains the size of Russia.