Pottery Barn II

The Pottery Barn catalog arrived today and--great news--they brought back the calendars.

This was always my favorite part of the mailing, but for a while they did away with it.

Now, like in the good old days, I can imagine the Pottery Barn calendars--plans and all--are mine. I can pretend, for instance, that we have just one thing to do in June: prepare for Chandler's return from Paris.

Who's Chandler? Who cares! We're just happy he's back. So happy that we scheduled no swim lessons, dentist appointments, work meetings or business travel for 30 days.

Okay, so let's see what my fantasy life looks like this month. I've cleared the calendar for a farmer's market...every Thursday. Good. We're on the right track. Hold all my calls while I buy Swiss chard and what-not.

It looks like we have a couple dinner parties. Then...nothing during the week, except cooking school. Oh, that should be fun.

There's our grocery list scribbled up in the corner. Wine. check. Cheese. check. Bread. check. I. Love. My Life.

On this fantasy list, there are no Gogurts--purple liquid yogurt that I would later find smeared on our wall, which the boys mistook for a towel. No dishwashing detergent. Most importantly, no discount grocery store chicken with an asterick next to "real."

Seriously. Our poultry says Real* Chicken. Then there's some explanation in small print.

This blows my mind every time I see it.

I just always assumed you were either a chicken or you weren't. Because, otherwise, how do you explain yourself in the feedyard.

"Well, I'm kind of a real chicken. I'm made up of real chicken parts, but they were processed. So I'm not really really real. I'm just sorta real. It's like, I'm more real of a chicken than Linda, but Marie is more real than me. But we all need astericks."

I'm assuming that's what you'd say. I have no idea because I'm not a chicken at all. Real or real*.

But the point is, there are degrees of real.

And our grocery list is real perfect. Just wine, bread and cheese. Simple. Elegant. Expensive.

Next we have, oh, what the hell is this? My husband has poker at Harold's on Friday night. I thought he had his Young Entrepreneurs meeting that night. Crap. And we have Martha's baby shower at noon the next day. He better not be hung over.

No wait, the baby shower is Tuesday at noon. Oh...a party on a weekday afternoon. I take it that none of my friends work. The nanny will take care of the kids that day, of course. Yes, we are back on track again.

Thank you Pottery Barn, for planning my real* life.

*Real life for Paris Hilton, that is. After her stint in jail.

Speaking of Paris Hilton, I read today that she was no longer going to act dumb because nobody thought it was cute.

Maybe I'm the dumb one because I never knew it was an act. I thought she was genuinely stupid. Same with her parents.

I figured there had to be brains somewhere in that family. They've got quite a business. But I just can't believe the lack of problem solving among her mom and dad.

If my daughter was that beautiful and that idiotic, I would tell her some lie to keep her out of trouble. Like, "Oh, be back before midnight. Remember that documentary we saw about Cinderella? You have the same disease as the carriage driver. You turn into a horse at the stroke of 12. So okay. See you in a few hours."

And I actually felt sorry for Hilton when she went to jail. Not so much because of her "extremely serious medical condition," ADHD, but because her life did not prepare her to go to jail. It didn't even prepare her to open her own mail, for God's sakes.

But come to find out, it was all an act. She's actually quite brilliant. Which explains a lot. Wait, no it doesn't. I think she really is dumb. For real*.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pretend errand to run. We are out of wine and cheese.