What is a "Real" Housewife?

I don't think I've ever watched a full episode, but I'll occasionally spend a few minutes watching some "Real Housewives" on Bravo. Orange County, New York...I'm not picky. Now and then it's just funny to watch one woman create drama by complaining about how much drama one of the other women brings with her. I suppose these women are as "real" as anyone on any "reality" show. But are they real housewives?

Ask a hundred people to define "housewife" and you'll probably get a hundred different perspectives. And each one would be correct. But for me, I'd hate for the TV version to be seen as the norm. Television has always defined women in whichever way made for the best storyline. There were the ideal housewives like Harriet Nelson and June Cleaver. Even Laura Petrie was a perfect housewife, though she dared wear capri pants.

TV housewives started to develop more as a reflection of the times. Samantha Stephens and Carol Brady morphed into Roseanne Conner and Debra Barone. These women seemed more believable!

Of course, my image of an ideal housewife is my mother. Cleaning, cooking, shopping, attending every school event. I remember her being my patient when I played with my new "nurse kit." (Yes, at that time, boys were doctors and girls were nurses.) I remember her teaching me how to iron. Everything was taken care of, and she still had time to regularly have coffee with the girls. When the kids got older she got a job with a payday, working outside the home while still taking care of everything inside the home.

I always considered a "housewife" as a woman who took care of everything for the home. That's her "job." Perhaps my perception is wrong. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines a housewife as, "a married woman in charge of a household." Nothing there about having an outside job or not. Hmmm...so perhaps my girlfriends and I are housewives after all, even if we don't wear dresses around the house.

We've had times when we've been employed and times when we're not. We've had times when being a full-time mom was our sole job. (Don't worry. I know that being a mom is always a 24/7/365 full-time job.) I think today's housewives are more concerned with caring for their families and their homes, and not so worried about keeping the house. And we make sure we take care of ourselves, too. We might go shopping for something other than groceries (and sometimes we don't even buy anything!). Where our moms may have had a coffee klatch, we might find a few hours to share a bottle of wine or two. Some enjoy taking a run, others would rather curl up with a book. We're housewives, but we're not as narrowly defined as was once the case.

I suppose I'll have to admit that the women on Bravo may indeed be housewives. But I'd love to see more "real." Women who don't spend $1,000 on a dress. Women who don't have private parties at private clubs. Women who don't wear 4-inch heels every day. How about real housewives who make meatloaf? Women who do laundry, clean the toilet, plant a garden, mow the lawn? Housewives who pick up sick kids from school or homeschool their children? These are the real housewives in my world.

It can be funny, or disturbing, to see how the other half lives. I wouldn't mind watching, though, some real housewives getting through life like the rest of us.

I believe that I am a REAL housewife. Do you know one?

Home "Office"

I've spent the last few days cleaning up my desk at home. It's a far cry from an "office," but it's where I can do my "work." This is where I open the mail and pay the bills, where I update the family calendar and send e-mails. It's where I tend my Farmville land (yes, I spend some time on Facebook) and where I try to keep up with my favorite tweeters (twitterers?). It's where I look online for jobs and where perhaps I'll someday work on a freelance project.

It may not sound like that big of a project. It's not a huge desk...more of a computer workstation, really. But I had neglected it. "Disarray" would be an understatement. Additionally, I had items from my last job to merge into it: red pens, sticky notes, a few copies of AP Style, my personal laptop and my iMac that I bought from my former employer... Trying to decide which to keep, which to store or file, which to discard. But I think I've got everything in its place. I think I can actually accomplish some things here. I know where things are, tucked away as needed yet still within reach. A nice mix of the practical and the usual bric-a-brac. I wish I had written "Organize Desk" on a to-do list so that I could cross it off. But it feels good to have it done nonetheless.

But the best part is...it's my system of organization...it's my stuff...it's my desk.

Black Jelly Beans

When you see that title, your immediate reaction is likely either an emphatic Yum or an equally emphatic Yuck. I don't find many who are neutral. People have strong feelings about these licorice-flavored tiny treats!

On Easter, I saw a tweet that called black jelly beans the worst candy ever. Naturally, out of the goodness of my heart, I offered to take all of the black ones away from that person to ease her suffering. If I were offered my choice from a dish filled with all variety of jelly beans, I would choose as many black ones as I could get my hands on without fingering the entire bowlful!

How could that be? How could I enjoy them so much and someone else dislike them so much? Candy makers would stop making them if people didn't eat them, right? (Of course, snack makers keep producing corn nuts and pork rinds, so I may never understand them.)

Well, at least I'm not alone. And the "haters" aren't alone, either. I posed a simple question online, just to satisfy my own curiosity. Out of approximately 230 FaceBuds and Twitquaintances, I managed to get 32 responses. That seems like a respectable number. It's not like I was offering a chance at a fabulous prize for completing my "survey." And obviously no one was paid for their participation. (It's only a question about jelly beans, for Pete's sake!)

Turns out that it's a fairly even split: 47% hate, 53% love. Some lovers prefer a bag of just black, without the distraction of the other colors and flavors. Sounds good to me! Some of the haters were quite enthusiastic in the other direction, even suggesting that the black beans were created "to spread misery and gross teeth around the world." For me, they spread joy. And the gross teeth are no worse than Oreo teeth. Your smile might look bad, but if feels so good getting it to look that way!

So what was the point of this little social experiment? Hmmm....it was completely self-serving, really. I guess I thought that black jelly beans were more popular than that. I had no clue I spent time with so many people who had different candy tastes than mine. But I promise to put those differences aside and not let it affect my realtionships. It's not unusual to agree upon topics to not be discussed in each other's company. I won't think less of you, and you won't judge me.

Now excuse me while I pick through our remaining jelly beans for some that will make me happy. After all, it is really all about me, isn't it?

Gonna take...a sentimental journey...

That song, for some reason, planted itself in my brain Sunday. An "ear worm" I think I've heard that phenomenon called. I don't even know the words, and only some of the melody. I don't remember hearing it on TV or anything. So where did it come from? Why has it popped up now, seemingly out of the proverbial blue?

I suppose the Easter holiday has brought out some sentimentality. It doesn't take much to make me wax nostalgic, and holidays just magnify it. I think about the excitement of getting a pretty new dress, dyeing eggs, the aroma of all the lilies in church, searching for my Easter basket, the big meal with cousins and grandparents. As an adult, I was in the church choir for a few years. I'll never be mistaken for a morning person, but there's not much that can match the joy and emotion of a 6:00 service on Easter morning!

The dictionary defines sentimental in part as "marked by feeling or emotional idealism." That makes sense. I don't have memories of any particular new dresses or colored eggs, and I couldn't tell you what specifically was on the menu at Easter dinner. But I seem to have memories of how those days felt. There was that feeling of springtime, and of "new" things. Kind of like the "fresh start" you get at New Year's but with warmer weather. And of course, that feeling of community, of family, of togetherness.

So I'll pause and fondly remember those things. We had a lovely ham dinner this year. The weather was nice, and the lilac bush is budding. I shared some love with family on the phone, via text, or online (ways I couldn't have imagined back in the '70s). The family has grown with nieces and nephews and in-laws and dear friends. I remind myself of the deeper meaning that Easter has for many of us...the glorious resurrection. Yes, Easter now is different than when I was a child. But Easter now can still be worth remembering. Ask me in 35 or 40 years and perhaps these are the Easters I'll be treasuring.

And after I take that sentimental journey to my past, it still feels good to get back home to the present.