Weblogic

Last week I wrote a post about Marian, a mother of three featured on Oprah who began stripping at a gentlemen's club in Atlanta in order to support her children and maximize the time she was able to spend with them. You see, as a stripper three nights a week, she earned enough money to pay all of her bills, put money in a savings account, buy a life insurance policy and be there to take her kids to school every morning and pick them up from school every afternoon. As you can imagine, many people who saw the segment had a lot to say about Marian's choice of professions - both on the Oprah message boards and on my blog.

After someone posted a comment to my blog about that fact that Marian was actually married, I started digging around to determine if that were true. During the segment on Oprah, they mentioned several times that Marian is a single mom. I began to feel duped by Marian - I mean after all, as a single mom myself, there was a part of me that could totally identify with the idea of doing whatever it would take to support my child.

Funny that it never entered my mind that Oprah would dupe me....

It's been a banner week on Oprah - first, Rick Springfield (after all these years, I still wish that I was Jessie's Girl) performing one of the best 80s songs EVER (yep - I still know all the words...), and then yesterday's episode which featured Marian, a single mom who turned to stripping in one of Atlanta's posh "gentlemen's clubs" after her husband left her and her three kids. Yes, one of the many perks of having your own business is being able to turn on the TV in the breakroom at 4:00 and watch Oprah if the urge/subject matter grabs you.

So after seeing the trailers for the "mom who strips," I figured it was a must-see. Marian is a 43-year-old mother of three who has a degree from Clemson and was working two jobs to support her family. Her turning point came when she was balancing her checkbook and she had .19 cents in her account. Knowing that she had to do something to provide more for her family, she began looking for other jobs and soon found that she would need additional schooling which would take time and money. When a friend suggested she apply at a gentlemen's club, she did just that.

I had an interesting conversation with some of my girlfriends yesterday about full disclosure and your spouse. We started talking about the age-old question of is it always best to tell the total and complete truth even if you know it will make your other half mad? One of my friends recently had a situation where her husband was traveling for business and on his way home he endured a bit of a detour.

His Story: Hi - sorry to call so late. We got re-routed because of weather and will be getting in very late. Have to rush to the new gate, can you please call and get us a rental car because they are routing us to another airport a couple of hours away?

Her Response: Of course, honey, I will get right on it and your rental car will be waiting when you land. Be careful!

He made it home just fine, albeit at 2:30 AM after driving in from the airport in the rental car she had arranged for him.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks to a gathering of his work friends and their spouses...

The Real Story (as told by the associates he was traveling with): Wasn't that hysterical when we went to the airline lounge in LA and got so hammered that we missed our flight and had to scramble to find another one, and the only one that would get us remotely close took us to another airport?!?! What a riot - boy, I'll never do that again! Hahahaha....

In my house, the Grammys, the American Music Awards, the CMA Awards and the Oscars have long been reasons for the whole fam-damly to perch in front of the TV and enjoy the entertainment. As we watched the Grammys, my 8-year-old son was telling me how cool Kanye West is. After Kanye's arrogant acceptance speech, we had a discussion about being humble and gracious and how uncool it is to act otherwise (read: Kanye West). You see, my son and his friends make EVERYTHING a competition, and all of us mothers who gave birth to these little competitors are FOREVER trying to teach them to be good sports while denouncing those athletes who dance and prance everytime they do something they are getting paid a gajillion dollars to do.