Picture Books, Duran Duran and Highway Robbery

It's no secret that I'm a huge Duran Duran fan. Everyone knows it, and those who don't know it live under a rock. I've seen them live over 20 times, I've traveled far and wide to see them, and to visit my girls for Duranie weekends. Or as we like to call them, BITCHES weekends. We have a tight-knit group of about 30 of us and we all try to get together at least once a year, just to hang out. For us, the band brought us together, but our friendships now go MUCH deeper than our love for the band.

And let me be clear on one thing: NONE of us are independently wealthy. NONE of us live in a mansion, NONE of us shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Most of us have families, mortgages, car payments, the usual. And we have one more thing in common: we all think the band has GIGANTIC CUJONES for what they are charging for a new book out this month.

Photographer Denis O'Regan followed the band around on their Sing Blue Silver tour and took a bunch of pictures. Now he's put together a book of over 200 color and black & white photos, bound it in cloth and they have the AUDACITY to charge £250 for it (to save you the trouble, that's $403 to us here in the US. Shocked? How about the £500 (That's right, $806 US) for the 'Deluxe Edition' signed by all 5 original band members? If that doesn't get you, there's also a £2500 (you guessed it, over $4000!) edition which is described as: "containing contemporary fine art prints and 1984 vintage prints, together with handwritten lyrics of one of the band's classic hits by Simon LeBon." My guess is it's that over-done, over-played make-my-ears-bleed song Hungry Like The Wolf. YUCK.

Well let me tell YOU something, Denis O'Regan, Simon, John, Nick, Roger and Andy. There's NO way on God's green Earth that I or ANY of my Durannie girls will EVER part with that much green for a book of pictures, with or without your autographs.

You've gotten a lot of money from us over the years, but (to quote Simon LeBon) you've gone too far this time.

If you are a Duran fan and you have the extra cash to fork over for one of these coffee table books, good on ya. But if you are a normal person with a limited income, this is an exorbitant amount of money and for them to expect a fan to part with that kind of cash for this book is BEYOND the scope of fandom. It borders on extortion.

Do we love the band? Yes. Are we insane enough to part with our hard earned money for this? No. Flippin. Way.

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. And in the illustrious words of my girlfriend Joelle:

"For £2500 that book better be fucking hand delivered and Simon better be scrubbing my toilets, while Nick does the laundry, John runs the vacuum, and Roger does the dishes. I'll let Dom off the hook since he probably isn't included. Oh wait, Andy's included? Well then take out the trash."

I'm guest-posting today!! Meet me at Menopausal Mother...

So the amazing, gorgeous and always funny Marcia at Menopausal Mother asked me to guest post on her blog. How could I say no? I LOVE Marcia! Her stories of her awesome family never fail to make me smile, so I wrote a little ditty about how great it was to watch the VMA's and learn some lessons from my daughters. Check out my guest post on Menopausal Mother now! Go on! Do it!

Also, I've been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award from the sexy, super Jen at Real Life Parenting. She's awesome and you should check her out. I'm going to post the required 7 facts about myself but I'm not going to pass the award on, because there are too many great blogs out there to choose from.

1. I eat cereal just about every morning. My fave is Corn Pops but I can't keep it in the house or I'll eat WAY too much of it. For breakfast, lunch and dinner.

2. My Dumbass cat sleeps on me every night. I always sleep on my side, and I usually wake up to her either on my hip or on my arm. Looking at me. Breathing on me. Freaking me out. Dumbass

3. I'm a band mom. I love my daughters' school bands. The instructors are amazing and my girls LOVE being in the band. It's win-win.

4. I miss letters. Writing letters, getting letters, I really miss those days when you'd go to the mailbox and find an envelope full of words and thoughts from a friend. Email is so impersonal. Those were the days.

5. Growing up, my big crushes were Shaun Cassidy, Scott Baio, John Stamos and Simon LeBon. Yes, Shaun Cassidy, shut up.

6. I'm doing a Tough Mudder in October. Yes, I'm insane.

7. I'm glad I don't have to come up with any other facts about myself.

Following the band, suffering the mom-guilt....

This past weekend was a whirlwind. I had tickets to see Duran Duran at the new Ovation Hall at Revel, Atlantic City's newest place to go to lose your shirt. We found out while we were eating dinner that the show was not going to happen because Nick Rhodes, the keyboard player, was hospitalized for exhaustion. Pardon my snark here for just a second, but really? Exhaustion? The man stands behind a Macbook and presses keys. If they told me he was hospitalized for carpal tunnel, or a hangnail, or hell, even arthritis, I'd totally get it. But exhaustion? The hardest he works at each show is coming up with new reasons why 'The Reflex' won't use it. And taking pictures of the audience when he's not pushing buttons on his Macbook.

We do know that the 'nana broche' he wears on his top button is pretty heavy, so that might explain it a bit:

Ok now that I'm sure I've pissed off a ton of Nick Rhodes fans, I want you all to know that I do love him, he's a wonderfully talented keyboard player, he is charming and smells wonderful in person and looks better in full makeup than I do. I do wish the best for him and a speedy and full recovery, truly I do. And I'll share this blog that was just shared with me to show you that I DO truly love Nick, and that I'm NOT a horrible fan who is pissed off at the band for the cancellation. I'm honestly not the least bit upset.

My POINT in all of this is that the show was cancelled. But while we WERE disappointed, we made the best of it. After all, the group that I had met up with hadn't been together since we all traveled to the Foxwoods LAST April to see....Duran Duran perform there. Seeing a trend? Yes, we're hopeless Duranies and we have formed a huge bond through the band. And even if the band doesn't show up, if we're together, we're going to make the best of it. I met a few new friends, and got to spend time with some great friends I've known for well over 7 years. AND we did managed to hang out with some of the band, because let's face it, they had no other plans once the show was cancelled. The backup singer, the lovely Anna Ross bought me a drink, the lead singer Simon LeBon proved, yet again, what a douchebag he is. We've begun referring to him as LeDouche, or even better, Zack Galifinackis. Twins, separated at birth? You decide:

All kidding aside, we all needed this time to get away and relax, away from our normal jobs, our normal life, our kids, our houses, our pets, our routine. We don't do it often enough. We all need to have our fun. Our children have fun daily. And if we aren't enjoying ourselves on occasion, we tend to get cranky and grumpy, easy to piss off. So we really shouldn't feel guilty for taking a weekend and living like a rock star. Hell, we shouldn't even feel guilty when we take an HOUR to spend alone. But we do, don't we? We as women tend to feel guilty for treating ourselves. Don't tell me you don't feel guilty if you go out and buy something nice for yourself, knowing full well that little Janie needs socks for soccer or little Jackie needs a new pocket protector for his nerd shirt. You do! Don't lie! We ALL feel guilty if we do something for ourselves. And we SHOULDN'T!

When my husband left his job to finish school, he was home with the kids more, which freed up more of MY time, and I used that time to my advantage. I started running. I ran like a maniac while he wasn't working. I lost 60 lbs. in about a year. I felt great, I looked great, I wasn't (as) dumpy anymore, and it was all because I took that time for me. I had the free time because he was there to help out. I didn't feel guilty, because he encouraged my running, my weight loss, and loved the results.

Then, 13 months after he left his job, he found another, much better job. I love that he's back to work. I love that he's doing something that he loves to do. But gone are the days when I could go out and do a 10 mile run during basketball or volleyball season, because I'm the one that needs to be there at the kids' activities. His commute no longer allows him to be present for some of the things that he was on hand for for all that time. Don't get me wrong, I swear I'm not complaining. Really! I'm not! But my running has been cut back tremendously, and I've put back about 30 of those pounds that I had lost. It's no one's fault but my own. I'm taking the rap for this. It's all my doing. And when I have the choice of doing a 3 mile run with my daughter or a 10 mile run with my running buddies, my allegiance now lies with spending that time with my daughter. She's a sophomore now and time is going by so quickly that I'm afraid I'll blink and tomorrow she'll be graduating and going away to college. She still likes me, still wants to hang out and run with me, which is freaking awesome, because I know that's not always going to be the case. At some point, she's going to prefer hanging with her friends instead of with me. And I totally get that, but in the mean time, I want to hang on to that precious time, that special time that we spend together. So there in lies that fine line. That mommy-guilt line.

I never want to be 'that woman'. The one who resents her family, her life, because she never got to do the things she wanted because she devoted her life to her husband and children, ensuring that their lives were wonderful and all the while doing without, herself. I don't want to lose me. I'm so lucky that I have the opportunity to spend time watching my beautiful girls grow into amazing women, I'm beyond lucky to have a husband who, after almost 18 years of marriage, still loves me as much as he does, and the fact that he understand my need to retain my sense of self and get away from time to time to do things for myself makes me luckier than any lottery winner.