The Chicks Take On NYC. Hilarity Ensues.

So, perhaps you’ve heard that we spent Sunday through Tuesday in the Big Apple.

The good folks at Sentinel/Penguin/Random House arranged for a whirlwind media tour for us in NYC to promote our new book, Right for a Reason (available NOW!) and it was our first real national exposure, so we’ve been nervous about it for weeks, and afraid to even talk about it because we thought we might jinx it somehow.  I mean, let’s face it, we’re dorks.  And we have no idea how to be authors, let alone be on national television.

We thought y’all might want the behind-the-scenes story, so if you’re into that sort of thing, read on!

We left Indy mid-Sunday afternoon, and arrived in NYC at around 5.30 pm, and to my ABSOLUTE DELIGHT, the publisher had arranged for us to be picked up by a driver who was holding one of those signs with our name on it.  I have always wanted to be picked up by a person holding up a sign with my name on it, because I am easily amused, so this was a great kick-off to the trip.  We went to our hotel, where the publisher had arranged for us to be in separate rooms, but for the most part, we stayed in mine during waking hours because we have separation anxiety otherwise when we are on trips. We had no interest whatsoever in doing anything but getting room service and being in our jammies, and hopefully getting some good rest before doing the Fox and Friends show, the Kilmeade and Friends radio show, the Wilkow Majority radio show, and CNN tonight – all scheduled for Monday.

But the thing about me and Daisy is that we hate traveling, and kinda suck at it, so we never get any sleep.  Daisy’s an insomniac anyway, but I always get super paranoid that the alarm clock won’t work or my phone won’t go off and then I’m so paranoid that I just lie awake staring at the clock all night.

We found out late Sunday that we were bumped from Fox and Friends to Tuesday morning instead of Monday, and that Andrew Wilkow was sick, so a jampacked Monday turned into just Kilmeade’s radio show at 9.30 and CNN Tonight with Don Lemon at 11.35pm.  We had really been hoping that F&F would be our first TV hit, because honestly, we were nervous about how we might be received by the folks at CNN, and were hoping that we’d have an opportunity to be on TV for the first time in more friendly territory than CNN.

Monday morning, after getting pretty much no sleep, we headed to Fox and were escorted to Kilmeade’s radio studio where we watched him wrap up a segment before we joined him:

Brian was really nice, and if you missed the show, you can hear it right here:

After finishing Brian’s show, we had nothing but time to fill until laaaaaaaaaate that night, so we went to visit the publisher office where we met Adrian, the top dog at Sentinel, and our publicist and editor let us pick out tons of books to keep!  It was like going to Barnes and Noble and picking out stuff and not having to pay for any of it.  It was AWESOME.  (And our luggage was extra heavy when we came home!)  After that, we went back to the hotel and worked, and tried to relax.  We thought we should try to take an afternoon nap so we’d be refreshed for CNN Tonight, and right about the time we had each made our respective rooms all nice and dark and quiet, and we tucked ourselves in to our respective beds, a construction team started work with a jackhammer right outside our respective windows.  So yeah.  Sleep was not happening.  Daisy came back to my room, we ordered more room service, and waited for 10pm to roll around so we could get to CNN.

When we arrived, we were taken to the green room at CNN, and in the room already was a well-known female personality chatting, really loudly, with another blonde woman we didn’t recognize.  At first, we were kinda excited to have a chance to meet said well-known female personality, but you guys, they both ignored us so hard that it became totally comical.  Like – the amount of effort it must have taken them to act as though we weren’t there, even though we were separated by just a few feet, was just ridiculous.  And because they were so loud, we were able to talk at our normal volume about how absurd it was that they were pretending we didn’t exist.  We were in a fit of giggles over it, but also, particularly in hindsight, we’re pretty disappointed at how rude they were.  It was positively obnoxious. We kept looking around for a candid camera crew to jump out and tell us that we were being punked somehow.  Unfortunately, that became our experience with most of the high-profile women we met in NYC.  The men?  LOVELY.  The women?  Yikes.  Just not very friendly.

Happily, Don Lemon was absolutely delightful.  The interview went well, he asked thoughtful questions, had obviously read at least pieces and parts of our book, if not the whole thing, and we genuinely enjoyed ourselves.  So far, we’ve only seen a three minute clip of the segment posted on line, but we’re waiting on the full video from the producers and will post it once we get it! Meantime, here are a couple snaps.

We got back to the hotel room at 12.30am, knowing we’d have to get up at 5 to get ready for Fox and Friends.  So naturally, we barely slept. At around 6am, I checked email and discovered a message from my cousin, letting me know that my grandmother had just passed away in Poland. I wrote him back to tell him how relieved I was that my mom, who had been in Poland visiting her for the week, was there.  And he replied, “She left this morning and is on her flight now – she doesn’t know.”

So with about 45 minutes to spare before we had to leave for the Fox studios, I had to pull myself together and stop crying, call my dad to tell him that he’d have to inform my mom that HER mom had died when he went to pick her up from the airport, and get packed because we had to check out before leaving the hotel for Fox.  Daisy supplied supportive hugs, and I just had to put it out of my mind to try to get through the next several hours.  UGH.

We arrived at Fox, headed to the green room, and got to meet Frank Luntz, who was darling, and who told us we’d lucked out, because an appearance on Fox and Friends on election day was probably lots more watched than the previous day, so that was nice to hear, since we’d been bummed about being bumped from the day before. We were informed that we’d be interviewed by Kimberly Guilfoyle, and we headed to hair/make-up.

Incidentally, hair and make-up is a huge pain. We can’t imagine having to go through that every single day, like the regulars do.  It’s way more fun doing radio, where you can show up to work in your jammies and stay that way all day if you want, without any pressure whatsoever to have to look nice.

Anyway, we greeted Steve Doocy and said hi to Brian Kilmeade, and then got positioned in our chairs for the interview with Kimberly.  Unfortunately, as you saw in Daisy’s earlier post, it was a reeeeeeeally short interview, and we were pretty nervous.  There wasn’t really enough time to relax and get comfortable, but overall I think we did ok.  Kimberly posed with us for a picture and we gave her a #RightforaReason totebag.  She promised to retweet the photo we took, mentioning her enormous twitter and facebook following, but so far, she hasn’t. We’ll see!  In fact, if y’all feel like tweeting her to nudge her about it, be our guest.

After that appearance, we headed to breakfast with publicist Jackie and editor Bria from the publisher, and we went to a super-healthy breakfast spot which SERVED NO BACON.  No bacon, you guys.  We almost didn’t even know what to do.  There were all sorts of healthy things on the menu that included arugula and other weird healthy things that are clearly for fancy New York types and not two dorks from Indiana, so Daisy got oatmeal and I got a croissant.  They served coffee to us in bowls, and Daisy took this picture:

I mean, what are we – chihuahuas?  We know that NYC is fancy and all, but can someone give us a handle?  HELLO.

After breakfast we went to the Newsmax Headquarters, where we got another layer of pancake make-up applied, and appeared on the America’s Forum show with JD Hayworth.  You can see that, if you’re interested, right here.

After Newsmax, we made a mad dash back to Fox so that we could see our good pal Todd Starnes, and we also got to meet Fox News Radio’s Tonya Powers, who we often feature on our radio show, and who was our absolutely favorite female to meet.  Hands down. We only had a few minutes before we had to head back and get coated with more make-up for our appearance on Varney and Company, but it was so great to see those two.  LOVE TODD AND TONYA.

When we were done being shellacked for the third time, we went back to the green room, where we saw Karl Rove, who we have met several times and who is always super nice to us.  We’d heard that Bret Baier was in NYC and in the studio somewhere, and I was determined to stalk him because I love him on Special Report, but in the meantime, Steve Hayes walked in, and since I have a mad crush on him, we introduced ourselves and had a lovely chat with him.  Karl Rove took our picture!

LOVE HIM.

After that, we met Juan Williams and chatted with Steve and Juan in the hallway just outside the greenroom, as I kept my eyes peeled for Bret Baier.  No luck, and we were soon ushered onto the Varney and Company set.  It was, by far, our favorite TV hit, because we loved being with Stuart and Lou Dobbs, who were both SO FUN to chat with.  You can see that appearance right here!

After that, we went back to the green room for a few minutes, when LO AND BEHOLD Bret Baier popped his head in, I basically assaulted him, and Karl Rove snapped this pic:

Bret was a total gentleman and very friendly – just like nearly all the men we’d met thus far.

After that, we had to zoom over to the Sirius/XM building.  When we got to the 36th floor, we saw a fishbowl studio right behind the reception desk, where Martin Short, of all people, was being interviewed. That’s about the point that we looked at each other and were just like, “Of COURSE Martin Short would randomly pop into our day.  Of COURSE.”

We headed over to Andrew Wilkow’s studio and chatted with his producers for a bit, and then spent around 20 minutes or so on the Wilkow Majority show! Here’s the audio:

He was a great host, super fun to talk to, and we loved every minute of it.  Daisy was super-stoked, because he’s her favorite conservative talk show host EVER.  So it was a nice cap to the day.

FINALLY, after that, we were able to go back to the hotel to pick up our bags, find a bathroom, and change out of our dresses and heels and into scrubby flying clothes, and we were able to wash the 17 pounds of make-up off of our faces.  I also had myself a big fat cry over my sweet grandma, because I finally could let it all out, and got more hugs from Daisy.  We took all of our stuff to the hotel restaurant and ate, and then waited for the driver to arrive to get us to the airport.  I don’t even know how to express the level of just pure exhaustion we were feeling at that point.  I mean, it’s one thing to get no sleep, but it’s entirely another to get no sleep and pile on a death in the familiy and the adrenaline from appearing on national TV for the first time all on the same day.

So, once we arrived at the airport, Daisy bought us pillows, and we boarded our flight with the sole intention of sleeping.

And that was when the devil spawn of Satan arrived on the flight, just a few rows ahead of us, and proceeded to cry and shriek and scream for two straight hours.  No joke.  There was no reprieve.  This baby was the worst baby ever, and I told Daisy that if he/she fell asleep at baggage claim, I would take great delight in poking him/her awake.

Today, we’re busy doing radio shows all over the country (by phone), but we’re doing them in our jammies, from our homes, and it’s not nearly as frenzied and hectic and crazy as the last 48 hours have been.  It was a great experience, but we’re more certain than ever that we are not destined to be TV people.  Radio? Yes.  TV – hell to the no.

Thanks for being patient these past few days, everyone.  And thanks for being on this journey with us.