Swimsuit Shopping + Ambien = No Good!

About a week before I went into the crazy farm, I jumped on a plane and headed off to see Parker and DW. They are always great  for taking in friends on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Staying with Parker and DW is similar to staying at a great resort: you've got a beautiful guest room with plenty of amenities, wake up to a warm delicious fresh breakfast and find  yourself lounging poolside reading gossip magazines and wathcing their flat screen tv under the veranda until 3:00pm, when they begin pouring expensive wine down your throat and cook you a four-course meal. You go to bed happy (an sometimes very drunk) only to be woken with a bottle of Pelligreno and a trip to the mall.

Although I was depressed, I still agreed to head on down to the mall and do some "zombie" depressive walking. Parker pulled me aside 10 minutes before we left to tell me she accidentally took an Ambien instead of her new medicine but that she's "sure she'll be fine" to go to the mall (I drove). Our first stop - and greatest mistake - heading into the bathing-suit only called, "Everything But Water". If you send two 40 year old women to the mall, one going through the most depressed time of her life and the other 15-minutes into a dreamy Ambien pill, well, let's just say nothing good will come of it.

I found two one-pieces I liked, which both had the Herve Ledger "mummy wrap" style around the stomach.  I really liked the first one, which was strapless and hot pink - but when I asked  Parker to come give me her opinion, she stumbled, bouncing from one wall the the other, slowly making her way to my dressing room to tell me "I don thinnkss thisssss is good on youuuu." (I'm pretty sure she actually saw 2 of me in the mirror, morphed into one giant Mindy Cohn body). The next one, a low cut one piece with more Herve Ledger tummy wrapping in chocolate brown Parker seemed to really like. (This is when I should have come to my senses and chosen the one she didn't like - At this point is was basically like taking advice from Courntey Love.)

I did some side turns with my arm at the hip (you know, like Paris is always doing right before evnents to make her pencil-thick arms look even thinner) thinking to myself, "Maybe Parker is right, maybe this is flattering on me." The next thing you know we are BOTH in line with the exact same low-cut brown $127 bathing suit. Parker slowly began to come out of her coma and within a few hours we were in the pool in our new purchases. 5'9 Parker standing next to 5'2 me like we were the freaking Bobbsie twins. Nevermind that although we don't have the worst bodies in the world, we are both at our heaviest in a while. Worse, we thought it would be a great idea for DW to take a picture of us standing side by side in our new "Flattering" suits. Once again, one of of the less intelligent things we've ever done. The resulting photo made Parker look like that Green Bean Giant standing next to me, while I looked like a can of Pop-n-Fresh croissant dough had exploded out of the arm socket of my bathing suit. Not to mention the suit is so low that every time I bend down to pick up a towel, one of my breasts (which is basically just a large nipple) pops right out of that low-cut suspender-like upper part of the suit.

A week later I was perusing through US magazine and low and behold I come across the following picture. Are you freaking kidding me? Bethenny from the Real Housewives is wearing OUR suit -just weeks after she had a baby. Where are the Pop-n-Fresh Arms, or the blue veins running down her legs? Seriously, she is only a few years younger than us and a baby just came out of her stomach. Adobe Photshop is my new best friend. And by the way, those photos that DW took will NEVER see the light of day