Weekly Address September 25, 2006 (Trophy Wives)

The events of the last 8 days have convinced me that something has gone terribly wrong in the universe. Some sort of karmic mishap is surely responsible for the tragic mistake that kept me from being born independently wealthy.

We've always known that Olivia was clearly meant to be a Rockefeller. Her lust for expensive handbags and shoes is a dead giveaway. Travel is my craving, the more luxe the better. And fine bed linens. Also, I like to sleep in till at least noon and I never clean my house. So it seems obvious to me that I was meant to be rich.

Then there's Ivy, our little changeling. From birth Ivy has been, well...how can I put this without sounding mean? Weird. That's it. And I truly mean that in the nicest way possible. Ivy has always eschewed that which is popular, or typical. Normal is a bad word in Ivy's world.

And yet. And yet....last weekend Ivy and I took a weekend trip to the Sonoma Mission Inn, located in Sonoma obviously. This is an understated luxury hotel, with an emphasis on peace and quiet and spa treatments.

We had massages, and herbal wraps and lavender bubble baths. We padded around the grounds in our fluffy bathrobes. We visited the bathhouse everyday for the "bathing ritual." (A series of hot tubs, warm pools, steam rooms, everything designed to make you melt.) We took a meditation class (pretty much what you'd expect, by the way. You sit there, quietly.) We lounged by the pool and ate of our $17 turkey wrap. Life was good. The sun was shining, the atmosphere was relaxed. And Ivy, my little anti-establishment daughter, sighed "I want to be a trophy wife."

We spent much of the rest of the weekend talking about the advantages and disadvantages of being trophy wives.

Advantages: endless cash flow, no housework, weekends at fancy spas.

Disadvantages: None we could come up with. Let me know if you can think of any. Unless you're Eric, and then I know he can come up with a few. I think he may be nursing a bit of a grudge since I came home and told him he better "step it up" on the whole wealthy indulgent husband scene.

So now I will seque into Olivia's upcoming headshot photo shoot. (It will seem incongruous but trust me, it'll all tie in nicely at the end.)

In the world of acting and modeling, a good headshot is key. It is ALL about your look. So it's time for Olivia to get new headshots. It's been two years since her last bunch, and also her agent has FINALLY made the move from black and white to color. We set up the shoot and schedule a "talent review" with Marla so she can tell us what kind of look she's wanting for Olivia. Marla's sick, but her underlings provide us with the following input:

• They see Olivia as "earthy girl"
• They want to see her in plums, greens and browns
• They don't want anything "high fashion", they want everything to be strictly "commercial"
• The photographer they recommend is prone to asking people to wear short skirts with tall boots and they DON'T want that in these photos. I am specifically told to ignore him if he tells us to bring boots.
• They want photos that are "all-American Noxema girl"
• Her hair wants cutting (reminds me of Alice in Wonderland)
• Hey brows are okay, but need to fill in a bit

Luckily Olivia has learned by now to take nothing personally in this business.

Then I talk to Billy the photographer and his only advice is to purchase high-end clothing and return it after the shoot.

Moral discussion: is it okay to purchase clothing that you KNOW you will be returning?

I decide that no, it's not okay but head out to do just that, which I guess makes me a bad person. I know it's wrong, but I still do it. See, already I'm acting like a trophy wife.

So Olivia and I go shopping. Olivia and I drop $1600 in 2 1/2 hours. Don't pictures loads and loads of garments here. Remember, we're shopping "high-end", so we walk away with 11 items, including a dress that cost $300 and $175 jeans.

We go home, reassure Eric that all the items will be returned, (but then immediately take the tags off of the $300 dress because Olivia wants to keep it for winter formal. ) Take snapshots of Olivia in all the different items and send them off to Marla for review.

Marla HATES every single thing. Violent hatred of our selections. Marla proceeds to review what she would like to see in the photos. Marla offers the following input:

• She also sees Olivia as an "earthy girl", BUT...
• she thinks that Olivia is also an "Abercrombie" girl. (I think this is actually valid. Everytime we go in that store, employees try to recruit Olivia to work there.)
• The browns, plums and greens are drab. She wants bright colors
• She would really like to see Olivia in a short skirt with high boots
• The clothes we picked out aren't "high fashion" enough, they are "too commercial"

Oh, and this is communicated to me less than 24 hours before the actual shoot date. It's 7:30 p.m., Olivia has hours of homework and so I have to run to the mall and re-shop, without Olivia there to try anything on.

Which I do. Brilliantly. I spend $800 in an hour and a half. Abercrombie and Fitch. Nordstroms, GAP...I rush into these stores and basically grab sales people and make them my slaves. Entire outfits are removed from mannequins. The Nordstrom shoe guy is in heaven, because I say "give me a pair of tan flats and a pair of tall brown boots in size 8.5. I don't care how much they cost and I don't need to try them on." I shed all pretense of being a real shopper, telling the salespeople that the clothes are for a photo shoot and I'm going to return them all anyway. No one cares.

I head home with bags and bags of stuff. It's now 9:30 at night. We pull out a chintzy clothes rack from the garage and hang up all the stuff I just purchased, plus all the stuff Marla hated, plus anything else of Olivia's that we think might work. Our entryway looks like a clothing store. Accessories are piled up on the piano. Shoes are everywhere. We snap photos of all the new options and email them to Marla...

And Marla hates everything. She reschedules our photo shoot.

So it's all very frustrating. It's clear that my definition of "earthy girl" and Marla's definition are very different. However, in this process I discovered that it is really cool to shop without looking at price tags. Knowing that we were returning everthing made shopping REALLY simple. "Do you like this? Okay." Olivia and I were alarmingly good at this. We started out with reasonably priced skirts and went directly to a $285 sweater without blinking an eye. It kinda reminded me of when Kathy C. and I went to Palm Springs and stayed in the home of one of our millionaire acquaintances. (Lee Iacocoa lived next door to this guy.) The first day we were there, we hid Wispride cheese spread and triscuits in our suitcases, and cleaned up after ourselves. Two days later we were helping ourselves to $500 bottles of wine and our favorite saying was "don't worry about the mess. The maid will clean up." By the end of the trip, one of us (and it wasn't me) was dancing in her underwear on the bar.

I think I could get used to living this way. (Not the dancing in my underwear part. Unless I got major plastic surgery, whichI guess I could do if I were rich.) It's suprisingly easy. How come I'm not rich? I'm clearly up to the challenge...as are Olivia (duh) and (surprise, surprise) Ivy.

I know my whining here isn't terribly attractive. We are doing just fine financially, nobody is starving in our house. We have cars, a daughter at a private high school, one in college. We're not hurting or anything. I just think that given my god-given ability to live the high life, I should have a chance to actually HAVE one.

Why You Must Watch "Veronica Mars"

Trampy McBitch

Darlene Gillespie

As you may deducted from subtle hints in previous posts, I am a big fan of the tv show "Veronica Mars." How does one become so enamored of a low-rated television show about a teenage detective? In my case, it is important to go back in time a bit...okay a LOT...to little Siobhan, age 11. (She was really cute.)

Does it seem odd to you that an 11 year old kid would become insanely obsessed with a 1950's kiddy television show? (Remember, I was 11 in 1975.) A television show in black and white, for gods sake? A squeaky clean tv show featuring tapping, singing children, rife with morality lectures? All my friends were watching "Laugh In." Come to think of it, I was watching "Laugh In" too, and I also loved the "Smothers Brothers" and "Sanford and Son." But my special, favorite show, the one I would never miss, was "The Mickey Mouse Club."

So yeah, maybe it is a little odd that a child of the 70's would be into "The Mickey Mouse Club." In addition to the just plain old-fashioned-ness of the content (Jiminy Cricket teaches you how to spell e-n-c y-c-l-o p-e-d-i-a, and Spin and Marty feud at the Triple R summer camp), there's also the fact that the "kids" featured on the show would've been in their 30's by the time I started watching the show in syndication.

Whatever the reason, I just LOVED this show. And I loved it in a completely sincere way. Not an ironic or snarky sort of way...but total complete devotion. The mouseketeers were like friends to me. Darlene...oh I wanted to sing like Darlene. She was so fresh and honest. (Okay I know NOW that Darlene turned out to be a swindler and served time in prison for fraud. But back then I was completely snowed by her freckle-faced gee whiz attitude.) And Tommy...sigh, he was so cute. Loved the pompadour. Yes, Bobby was all teeth but the boy could dance. Annette...I hated Annette with all the venom I normally reserved for real life peers. She was like the most popular girl in the class, the one who was so perfect that you just knew she had a collection of hamster heads in her freezer.

In the category of "strange things to brag about for 100 dollars", it was through my obsession with "The Mickey Mouse Club" that I first discovered my talent for stalking. With what I now find remarkable determination and clever thinking for an 11 year old, I utilized books, magazines and reference library phone books and managed to track down a half dozen or so Mousketeers and just called them up on the phone. "Hey, Sherry! This is Siobhan, I'm in the 5th grade up here in Northern California and I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your work on "The Mickey Mouse Club." Do you think you could drop an autographed photo in the mail for me? Thanks bunches!"

The amazing thing is, it worked. It took me weeks, and I never did get in touch with the "superstar" Mouseketeers...only the second tier bunch that weren't exactly household names even during the show's heydey. I came very close to catching Karen Pendleton in her office one day at Prudential Real Estate in Van Nuys, but she never returned my phone calls. And, Darlene (my hero!)-I called up her husband's gas station in Sherman Oaks and he pretty much told me to get lost. That was tragic. So-Sherry, Judy, Margene, Bonnie Lynn, Mary...those were the gals I found. And they were all super swell, they sent me letters and photos and I was over the moon happy!

I wasn't so happy when my parents got the phone bill for that time period and discovered $150 dollars in long distance phone calls to Southern California. I do believe I was grounded for quite some time. I definitely remember sobbing in my bed and yelling at my mom "But they're my FRIENDS! How come I can't call my FRIENDS?! You're so mean!")

I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe I can be just the tiniest bit obsessive, sometimes.

Enter "The Gilmore Girls." I believe I've talked about that show before, so just briefly I'll say that Olivia and I are huge fans of that show. We never watched it in regular seasons, we bought or rented entire season DVD's and when we reached the end of Season 5...well, crap. We were out of things to do at night. We could've done homework, or communicated or something I guess. Nah. We clearly needed a new show to tide us over until the Season 6 DVD (September 19!) came out. I'd heard that "Veronica Mars" was pretty cool and on an impulse I purchased Season 1.

Well. I have to tell you right here and now that Season 1 of "Veronica Mars" is quite possibly the coolest television show ever aired. Season 2? It's good, definitely better than most tv shows. But Season 1? It rocks. It's rad. In the words of my almost 16 year old daughter, "it's tight." (Which in my teen years would've been a serious criticism. "Tight" was reserved for really mean teachers and parents. The word has apparently crossed over to the ultimate seal of approval. As in "your mom's so tight." Which of course I'm sure my daughters get really sick of hearing all the time.)

And I know you're probably sick of me saying it, but I really don't care....I'm basically begging you to watch this show so I have people to talk about it with. Preferably Season 1, and preferably as Olivia and I did, back to back episodes on DVD. There's so much that goes on in this show that you simply won't be able to remember or keep track of very important foreshadowing if there's more than a day or so between episodes.

How can you not love a show that introduces its heroine in voice over saying "Do you want to know how I lost my virginity? So do I..."

Here's just a few quotes that illustrate why I love it so much:

• (Logan): "Everybody Wang Chung tonight or I'll kick your ass!"
• Veronica): "You got a trophy for a rim job?" (hee! c'mon, can you believe they actually got away with that?)
• (Logan): "Annoy, tiny blond one. Annoy like the wind."
• (Aaron): "Especially for you tonight I am making what will be known from now on as "Aaron's Extra-Special Crab Cakes." (Logan): I'm sure I'll thoroughly enjoy them - right up until my esophagus closes up, cuts off my air supply and I shuffle off this mortal coil. Perhaps my last words will be "Great crab, Papa." [Aaron looks confused] I'm allergic to shellfish, DAD."
• (Weevil): "You get lonely out here, remember: Weevil love you long time."
• (Veronica): "Dad, your hooker is here."
• (Felix): "Hey, yo, is this O-Town any good? I mean, my little sister likes it, but you know, she likes ponies and juice boxes, too. "
• (Troy): "Flat?"
  (Veronica): "Just as God made me."
  (Troy): "Are you always this persnickety?"
  (Veronica):" Sometimes I'm even persnicketier."
• (Veronica): "I'm Veronica."
  (Troy): "Really. Veronica. Okay, yeah, that...that does make a lot more sense."
  (Veronica): "Makes more sense how?"
  (Troy): "Ah, it's nothing. I just, uh, should never listen to those guys. I mean, really - who names a daughter Trampy McBitch?"
• (Mr. Daniels): "You know, the glow of your father's wealth and celebrity may be enough to sustain you through high school, Mr. Echolls, but do you know what it will get you in the real world?"
  (Logan): " Please say 'high school English teacher.' Please say 'high school English teacher.'"

And those quotes are just from the first 4 EPISODES.

I know that you're probably tired of reading a bunch of random quotes from a TV show, but ya know what? I don't care about that either, because as I have previously established, this is MY blog and all that matters is that I entertain myself, so...here's some more:

• (Veronica): "I need you to poke around and see if you can get me a fake ID. If you must seduce the head cheerleader in order to accomplish your mission, so be it."
  (Wallace): "No sweat! How do I do it?"
  (Veronica): "Play on her insecurities?"
• [Trying to filch info on her father's case, Veronica sets off a blue-dye packet in a trap he set for her.]
  (Keith) "Hey, honey. What have you been up to?
  (Veronica): "Tell me where to put your Father of the Year trophy, 'cause there's some place I'd like to put it!"
  (Keith): "Wow. Good thing I didn't go with the bear trap."
  (Veronica): "This is not funny! I need to see that diary! She's lying. I know it. I can feel it with every fiber of my being."
  (Keith): "Honey, you don't have to get all blue in the face."
  (Veronica): "You're patronizing me?"
  (Keith): "To be fair, I am your patron. [grins]"
• (Trina): "Pop Tart?"
  (Logan): "Hmmm, a Tart from a tart."
  (Trina): "Ye of the sickle wit. Can I ask you something?"
  (Logan): "Hmm, would you look at that? [mimics pulling something from his mouth] There was a string attached to my Pop Tart. [tosses away imaginary string]"
• (Keith) "How was school?"
  (Veronica): "You know - mean kids, indifferent teachers, crumbling infrastructure."
  

"Veronica Mars" has been picked up by the CW Network for a 13 episode run, and it is in extreme danger of being cancelled. So PLEASE, even if only to help me and Oli out, I beg you: watch the show, and tell your friends to watch it too.