This past week I have delved into the lifestlye before only known to me by Gossip Girl, The OC and other high rolling high school programs. Chris and I have been babysitting/housesitting for a family in Spreckelsville while their paretns are in Paris. Let me set the stage. . .
Spreckelsville is just south of Paia on the North Shore of Maui. It is home to the elite. It is home to the owner of Dakine, Willie Nelson, physicians and other upper crusters who love to coagulate themselves and form one giant clot of consumerism and copiousness. Walking distance from two great beaches, many Sprecks residents drive around the manicured neighborhood on their own little golf carts (oh yes, pristene golf course is adjacent as well) zooming to the beach or 'the club' and back. It is beautiful. Simply sureal.
The kids we are watching are adorable. Megan, 13 and Johnny, 5 are about as darling as they come. Megan is uber responsible and is constantly, albeit pleasantly, surprised by my ability to remember to pack Johnny's lunch or clean the kitchen. I think she had low expectations of me. Pretty funny. Johnny is hilarious. He looks all boy but that kid has a flamboyant streak as purple as Georgie's kerchief. Monday night I made pizza dough and let the kids make their own personal pizzas. Johnny was a pro dough tosser and the official pepperoni taster. When I pulled the sizzling pizzas out of the oven Johnny flicks his head up, eyes wide as the pies they beheld and yelled "BAM!" in a voice to rival any Emeril fan. It was hilarious.
I drive the kids' carpool to their fancy shmancy private school (where they learn french, recite poems, have literary circles and organic lunches) in the family Acura. I feel like Halloween has come early and I chose a pretty pathetic Teri Hatcher costume. When I pull up to the school it is classic. Lexus, Mercedes, Acura, Volvo (they must be poor), Lexus in baby blue, you get the picture. What is even more incredible to me is the women that emerge from these gilded carriages. Perfect! Tiny, tight, tan, trimmed, tucked and totally together.
I don't stress about my hair, clothes, body and style on a daily basis. I have embraced, maybe too heartily, the easy going, Hawaiian, attitude about such social pagentry. It may be safe to say I have 'let myself go' a bit. In my defense I am dealing with an entirely different head of hair than I have known my whole life pre-baby. I have been unable to walk well and thus exercise is out, and anyone who knows me or has read my only other blog entry will tell you, I love food. I will not give that up. Still, as I pull up to Carden Acadamy in my borrowed Acura MDX I can't help but feel inferior. I pull at my fly-away hair and suck in my soft stomach. I sink into the supple, leather seats and feel an emotion I thought I had buried late in the early part of my ninth grade.
It is bizarre. I normally pride myself in my non-caring. I know I am not obese, trashy or the victim of a harsh beating with any ugly stick, yet I can't shake the insecurity when I drive up for my turn with the carpool. What i really don't understand is how these women got like that. I know their schedule! I have never been in a car so much in one week. It is up to school, back from school (25 min each way) then to ballet, gymnastics, fancy schmancy open house for fancy shmancy new private high school, then soccer game (don't forget the treats) then piano lessons, young women, etc. etc. etc. Unless these women have a hair stylist in their Lexus and know a new highway-friendly form of pilates I am not getting it! When do they have the time? Where did those thighs come from? Mine obviously came from the chicken catsu and leftover pie I had for lunch but theirs have 24 Fitness chisled right into their hamstring! It is a mystery how these women maintain themselves, their car, their perfect kids, lawn, and house and find time to do yoga, travel to Paris, serve on the school board or surf. Then I remember. Oh, yeah, they hire people like me.
Reflecting on the Past Year with Kids
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2 comments:
This is going to tie in to your original post...but I was watching Oprah a week or two ago (I know, I have dropped a few notches on the totem pole), and the wife of Jerry Seinfeld was on, talking about how to get your kids to eat healthily, and she has put out a cookbook and the whole nine yards. Anyway, the whole premise for her healthy recipes is that she purees foods like squash, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. And while the ideas were good, I kept thinking to myself, how does she have the time to dress like a model, stay so thin, shmooz with celebs, etc, etc, and then I realized, she's rich, she probably didn't come up with these recipes herself, she probably has a personal chef and/or maid and/or nanny who came up with the recipes or at least helped her develop them, and then she gets the credit for it all. Even if she did come up with the recipes herself, all her hired help can do the grunt work for her, so she has time to write a cookbook. So yeah, I kinda have a bitter attitude when celebs get on tv and tout the amazing things they've developed, because they live lives where they don't have to do their own laundry, clean up their house, go grocery shopping, and the other mundane, never-ending chores that a normal woman has to do, whether or not she works full-time outside the home. Soap box speech over.
Claud always beats me to the punch...this is precisely why I don't like watching all those "day in the life" reality shows of celebrities. Who is really living, us or them? There is a reason why there were so many assasinations and attempts by the children and siblings of historical royalty...they didn't like each other much becuase they didn't really know each other much. But how many nannies and nursemaids were assasinated by their charges? Huh? Not many that you hear of, probably because they actually liked each other. There's something that brings you close to someone when you do the dirty work for them, don't you think?
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