Real Housewives…

So, Ben and I like to fly Frontier on our jaunts back and forth to NYC. They have direct flights into LaGuardia PLUS they have Direct TV on most of their planes. Having a few channels of Direct TV certainly makes a four hour flight a lot more tolerable.

On our most recent trip to NYC I got sucked into Bravo’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills”. I’d heard of the Housewives series but had not experienced it first hand since we don’t have cable at home. I felt I owed it to myself to see what the hubbub was all about.

It was a flipping train wreck. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. These women – these “real housewives” – are aesthetically pleasing to look at – beautiful hair, stunning jewelry, expensive clothes, fancy homes – but had absolutely horrible, hateful personalities. The jealousy and general malaise over nothing in particular permeated through the teeny-tiny screen mounted to the back of the seat in front of me. I’m sure I was sneering in disgust as these women jetted across the country to do fabulous things while nannies cared for their children, staff managers made sure their homes were perfect, and body guards kept their so-called friends from shoving a high-end, jewel encrusted Henckles butcher knife between their shoulder blades. Who needs friends like that? What is so “real” about these women? While I wouldn’t wish having a sick child on anyone, I can’t help but imagine how these women would handle a situation like mine. Would they hire a nurse to give the shots? Would they hire a special nanny to deal with hospital duty? A professional organizer to deal with the copious amounts of daily medication? A special team of housekeepers to keep up with the sweat-doused sheets and vomiting? I wonder.

Drama. I’ve had a bit more than I can deal with lately. I keep thinking that I’ve reached my boiling point but the hooey just keeps a-comin’. My mother is deteriorating quickly. She’s still in the hospital and it is now believed that she has had a series of strokes over the last couple of weeks. There was drama in NYC for Ben’s most recent round of antibody therapy. His bone marrow procedure disappeared from the surgery schedule so we were in NYC for no reason. Antibody therapy is always horrible – so listening to Ben scream in pain was terribly unpleasant. Then our dear friend who relapsed. He’s starting treatment soon and will be receiving four times the regular dose of antibodies. My heart breaks to think of the pain he will have to endure. Then a couple of friends have died in the past few weeks. Too much drama. Too much pain. Too much.

Yet, life goes on. Beds still get made. Dinner finds its way to the table. Laundry (ugh) gets done. Lately, I cry while doing my daily routine, wondering if and when there will be any peace. Then there’s the wishing I were wealthy enough to hire someone to do all the dirty work. It’d be worth a knife or two between the shoulder blades, I think.

Maybe that knife to the back would finally get rid of that pesky knot I’ve been carrying around for seven years. 🙂