The Big C

Hey everyone; can you believe next week is this season's finale? Time flies.

Shortly after we left Morocco, LuAnn asked everyone to appear in her music video. Although her request came after she and I had words, and, of course a thug in a cocktail dress, my answer would have been the same regardless.

My entire life, I've been of the mind that the "C-word" is one you don't say. To use it about yourself is to prove it doesn't apply to you. Using that word about someone else makes you seem aspirational, that the person to whom you refer has something you wish you had, etc. Not good either way. Would I go so far as to say using the  "C-word" is thuggish? Not sure. At any rate, I don’t want to be attached to a song about "cl--s" lying within the soul. When she's ready to stop with the pretension and have fun doing Kurt Weill or Foxy Brown, great.

Moving onto the family barbeque. . .just this week we got around to decorating our backyard and you can see the pictures here! Dean is the brother of Adam's wife (our brother-in-law once removed? Sort of?) I like to call Adam and Simon twins five years apart. As one of our friends said, "hoo-boy, there are two of them!" People who don't know him sometimes think Adam is gay as well, but he's married with two kids, and he and his wife adore each other as much if not more than Simon and I do. There you have it.

It was interesting that Simon brought up my own background when we spoke about why I wouldn't do LuAnn's video. Both sides of my family are from Texas, though I was born in D.C. as my father was working with the government on the energy crisis. He was a petroleum engineer by trade and worked all over the world, in the Persian Gulf, Paris, Sydney, etc. He remarried late in life and had me, and some time after noticed oil fields for sale in southeast Kansas. At the time, it was thought that they were some of the shallowest oil wells in the world, and he and his partners in Antibes and Dallas wanted to write a book comparing extraction methods from the deepest to the shallowest. It was to be Dad's retirement project, though he and Mom still had homes in Texas and the Virgin Islands, and we went there when I wasn't in school. I took it all in stride -- I didn't realize as a kid that the guy playing cards in the living room would later run for president, and that everyone didn't have their business partner's kids spend the summer with us to learn English. My Dad would take those kids from the Cote d'Azur and Highland Park, stick them in a station wagon and drive them to the Grand Canyon. National Lampoon's Vacation hadn't come out yet; I don't know whether he was being ironic. I do know we had a great time. I had THE BEST of both worlds going between down-to-earth small town life and the glamour that lay beyond. I love New York City, but I loved Fort Scott, KS, too. Small town or big city; no in-between for me. Sorry suburbs, I said it in season one.

It’s been surprising to me that on this show, I've sometimes been called the pretentious one. I often wish the other ladies would take a breath and let things go, particularly about Brooklyn. Later this episode Ramona denounced Cindy's behavior at Sonja's, saying that as Sonja opened her home to Cindy, Cindy should have respected her and behaved better. Mario and Ramona should have respected Simon and me at our home. That night, they did not.

Simon and I threw the kickoff party for New York Foundation for the Arts' 40th Anniversary Gala, honoring Andres Serrano and others. All our artwork was temporarily replaced by the work of NYFA fellows, and we opened up our home the next day as a gallery to raise additional funds for the organization. Though our friends made much of the fact that we were in Brooklyn, most of the non-cast guests were patrons of the arts from Park Avenue. I found it curious that at the very least Brian didn’t know everyone in the room, or the honoree. Andres has even been on Bravo! Many of the faces you see at our home also attended the gala in April.

Wire hangers? Yes, I have a ton. My mom used to dry-clean her bathing suits to get more. Then you don't have to bother buying them! I also keep the plastic on my cocktail dresses so the beading doesn't scratch the back of the next dress. I always thought the wire hanger aversion was for people whom "G-d is their witness, will never be hungry again." Oh well!

LOVED the dance lesson. I don’t know what possessed me to wear jeans. I had a meeting afterward and didn't think about bringing yoga pants. There I was, huffing and puffing away in skinny jeans. Definitely not fresh. . .

Oh, and that phone call. If you have breakfast with a friend and a conference call, you can't do both. Switch the time, have brunch on a Saturday, do the call in the car on the way there -- something. What Cindy did was disrespectful and rude. Was she trying to show Sonja she's busy? Nothing she said on the call sounded urgent. Yikes.

Have a great weekend! Simon and I will be out east with Dan's Two Forks and then off to Egypt on Monday. If you’re in the New York area, come join us at Dan’s on Saturday. If not, please join Simon and me on Twitter, Facebook and our website. Simon’s song "I Am Real" and the Thug in a Club Mix are. . .WAIT. . .should he do a video? Should we ask Jill to direct it????

Enjoy the week and stay cool!