Former first lady Laura Bush to President Bush: 'pick up your socks'

Los Angeles (CNN) - Former first lady Laura Bush had her audience LOL (laughing out loud) at a women's conference in Long Beach, California Tuesday. Nearly 14,000 women attended the gathering hosted by California's first lady Maria Shriver. Mrs. Bush addressed the overwhelmingly female crowd, taking a bobble head doll of herself to the podium.

"As for me, it's come to this," Mrs. Bush said of her life after eight years in the White House, placing the doll on the glass plate. "This is the Laura Bush bobble head doll. I got this from a friend of mine who found it in the gift shop in the constitutional center a few weeks after the election. It was on the clearance shelf. He said he couldn't resist sending it to me, I told him he could have tried a little harder. But I'm kinda glad to have it."

She joked about the surreal nature of living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"When you live in the White House and are a bobble head inside a bubble, reality can get a little warped," Mrs. Bush smiled and said coyly. "Sometimes you have to work hard just to recognize yourself."

Then the former first lady mused about how she and her husband, President George W. Bush, are adjusting to their post-presidential life.

"I'd like to report now that we left the White House and moved into our home in Dallas. Our lives are back to normal. But I think I may have forgotten what normal is," Mrs. Bush said.

She joked about the new normal, where her husband doesn't get as many breaks.

"When you're married to the President of the United States, you don't worry too much about him leaving his wet towels on the floor," Mrs. Bush said. "But in Dallas, things are different. Memo to the ex president, turmoil in East Timor is no longer an excuse not to pick up your socks."