Let Me Tell You Something Read online

  For a stay-at-home mom,

  I’ve had some crazy adventures.

  I’m not adventurous, but I’ll always go with the flow. As a wife, as a mother, I’ve been happy to stay at home. But this hasn’t prevented me from having some wonderful adventures.

  I’ve been to Italy twice, Jordan and Dubai once, but most of our lives, our trips have been inside the United States with our kids. The full-on “rent an RV and see the sights” kind of tour.

  We’ve been to Vegas, Utah, Disney World, all the places that kids want their parents to take them. As boring as it might sound, I’ve had some incredible times showing my kids the United States.

  We were on an RV trip through Utah with Chris and Jacqueline and we saw a little hut that sold bison burgers. All the kids started yelling about how they wanted to try a bison burger, so we pulled in to this little diner. And after we ate, we saw a sign that said HORSEBACK RIDES. So the kids started wanting to go ride horses.

  We all were already dirty and messy from living in the RV, so we just suited up and got onto these horses, and it turned into one of my favorite experiences of my life.

  It turned out we were a lot closer to the Grand Canyon than we thought we were, and we could have ridden down into the canyon if we wanted to. I was too scared of the heights, so we rode along the top rim.

  We were riding along in a group and after a while the land around us opened up and you could just really ride your horse, like you were in a western. Everybody was racing all over on their horses, chasing each other over hills. We were riding them really hard and laughing and then all of a sudden we came upon a herd of buffalo, and we had to ride our horses right through the middle of them all. It really felt like, just because we’d stopped for a stupid burger, that now I was in the middle of the Wild Wild West and my kids were having an experience that they’d remember for their whole lives. It was a simple, magical time.

  My top ten world destinations when we retire

  I’ve seen a lot of America but I’m excited to become a globe-trotter when Al retires from The Brownstone. We will need to be gone a lot to cover this much ground:

  1. Paris: I’ve never been and it’s a goal. I don’t know why it’s taken so long. I’m sure I’ll love it.

  2. Monte Carlo: I want to go to the races. I love watching them on TV but I think the energy would be amazing to experience in person. And I hear it’s beautiful there.

  3. Ireland and Scotland: I want to see medieval castles. I’m fascinated by that era and think it will be magical to explore such an old culture.

  4. Australia: I want to go and see the beautiful beaches, and explore the outback.

  5. An African safari: It’s been a dream of mine for years, but this will be one trip we definitely take all the kids on.

  6. Sweden: I grew fascinated with Sweden while reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and would love to go and see it for myself.

  7. Alaska: I want to do a cruise where we sail around the glaciers and the icebergs and explore the frontier. I want to see the Northern Lights too.

  8. London: I can’t believe I’ve never been. It’s almost embarrassing.

  9. Bali: I’ve always been intrigued by Bali. Maybe we’ll have a beach getaway soon . . . I need one.

  10. Egypt: I need to see the pyramids.

  Are we there yet?

  People think they have to be high-tech when it comes to keeping kids happy on a long drive. Wrong! It’s the stupid little games that you play with your kids that they remember and cherish. You don’t need to go out and buy an iPad . . . just be creative and teach them the games you loved when you were a kid.

  Coloring books, crayons, and crossword puzzles. Stock up on a bunch of coloring and puzzle books, plus Mad Libs, and everyone will be laughing the whole drive.

  “I Spy” is the best game ever. You can play this one for hours.

  The license plate game. There are so many variations. We used to race to be the first one to see plates from ten different states.

  The alphabet game. You have to think of an animal that starts with a letter, and when someone guesses, you take the last letter of that animal’s name and then that’s the letter that the next person has to use to guess an animal. For example, I would say “K.” Lauren would say “kangaroo,” so the next person would have to guess an animal whose name started with O. When someone says an animal that’s already been used, they’re out.

  A staring contest or a no-laughing contest can be so hilarious. I like the no-laughing contest, because it’s crazy how fun it can be to have your family trying to crack someone up.

  BEHIND THE SCENES

  We nearly froze to death when we went to film in Italy. It felt even colder than the brutal Jersey winter we’d left behind. They had us on such a tight schedule that we literally weren’t even allowed to stop for coffee. One morning I had to film some scenes, and by the time I was done, the crew of the ship told me that I had missed breakfast and there wouldn’t be any more food or coffee until 2 P.M. I was hungry and I really needed a coffee. I said, show me where the captain gets his coffee, because I’m not getting off this boat without a coffee in my hand. They found me a coffee. We were kept so busy in Venice that we could not stop and look at anything. It was insane to have to walk by all these amazing buildings and stylish stores, and not be allowed to stop and go inside. Luckily I’d been to Venice six months before then, so that made it a little better. A little . . .

  Al and I have been friends with Bernie Kerik, the former police commissioner of New York, for years. After he retired, he used to travel to Jordan all the time for work. I would watch Al’s face as he listened to Bernie’s stories about being in Jordan; he was just fascinated because he’s such a history buff. So one day, I said to Bernie, next time you get your tickets, buy one for Al and take him with you—and for Christmas that year, I gave Albert a trip to Jordan.

  Albert lasted about two days without me in Jordan before he called and said, pack your bags, we want you and Bernie’s wife, Hala, here with us. He shot the gift right back at me; he wanted me to see this with him.

  It was a truly amazing time. Through Bernie we got to hang out with the royal family, and we visited Petra and many religious sites. It was literally breathtaking to see these things I’d read about my whole life, things that almost don’t seem real until you see them. There was so much history in Jordan, I would love to go back.

  We stopped in Dubai on the way to Jordan, but I didn’t care too much for it. I remember waking up in the morning and seeing people sweeping the highways. It was so immaculate that the whole country felt like Disney World, like a facade that wasn’t real.

  My favorite places in the world

  Cape Cod. It’s so peaceful and beautiful. Everything about it is pleasant, and I hope we retire to a house on the sea on Cape Cod one day.

  Tuscany, in Italy. The rolling hills, just covered in acres of sunflowers as far as the eye can see. Amazing!

  Petra, in Jordan. This is a magnificent place. We walked along the stone path that Moses walked on; the actual stones are still there. It’s mind-blowing to walk that path and know that Moses’s feet touched the same stones as your feet. If you’ve never been you have to go.

  New York City. There’s nothing better than being on a boat on the Hudson River at sunset when all the lights are starting to come on and the city is shimmering. To see the Statue of Liberty at dusk with the torch lit, with the City sparkling next to it, takes your breath away. I never get sick of seeing it.

  Carmel, California. That drive along Highway 1 down the coast from Carmel to Big Sur is incredible. It’s terrifying, with steep cliffs on the side of the road, but it’s so gorgeous. It’s beautifully terrifying. You think you’re going to fall off a cliff.

  So apart from a trip to Italy for our twenty-fifth anniversary, I was pretty much a local traveler. I was always up for theme parks with the kids. I used to love roller coasters, or any ride that went fast and scared the crap out of me. T
he crazier the ride, the happier I was. I was pissed to discover that as you get older, these rides cease to be fun because they just give you headaches. After a while, I became the parent who sat with the kids who were too short to go on a ride. Once Albert put lifts in Chris’s shoes before we went to Six Flags here in Jersey because he was so close to being tall enough. I couldn’t believe it; I didn’t want him to do it. But Al put the lifts in, and Chris was able to ride all the roller coasters with his brother, and he loved it.

  To this day, I love to go on the teacup ride with Al, he will spin the wheel so fast and it makes the kids laugh so hard to see me screaming like that at their father.

  I feel that now, in our lives, the real adventures are about to begin. Albert and I have the world at our feet, and I can’t wait to get out and see it. I thought that it would be fine to go to countries where Housewives isn’t shown, but I hadn’t thought about other travelers! When we were in Italy for our twenty-fifth anniversary, we ended up getting chased by American tourists. It was ridiculous, being chased down the piazzas. I know the show is big in England and Australia and Germany, so I guess I’ll wait to go to those places.

  BEHIND THE SCENES

  There was a massive storm in Jersey on the day we were due to depart for our trip to California in season four. The governor closed the airport the night before we were due to board our plane. Production found us a flight out of Pittsburgh and rented us a fleet of black SUVs so that we could all drive ourselves to Pittsburgh. I got furious—why couldn’t we just rent a private jet out of nearby Teterboro airport? No dice. They made us drive six hours in a storm, then we had to wait three hours for a flight to Austin, Texas. Then we waited three more hours in Austin before we were able to fly to San Francisco. If you wonder why tempers frayed on that trip, look at how it started!

  Our next trip, I hope, will be to Scotland and Ireland, to explore all the old castles and ruins and see the gorgeous countryside. Then I want to go back to Italy, and do a foodie tour. I want to see Paris and London. We also want to buy a boat and spend our summers sailing up and down the East Coast. Years ago, we used to take the kids to Cape Cod, to a town called Orleans. I want a house there, but now we’re worried about living too far away from our future grandkids.

  It doesn’t matter to me that I may not speak the language in the countries I want to go to, or know my way around or understand their customs. I’ve waited my whole life to see this planet of ours, and now that Al is about to have the time, I can’t wait for the best job a retiree can have: tour guide!

  Cheating? It didn’t

  happen, but it could.

  I’ve had plenty of opportunities to cheat on Al. Over the years a lot of men have come up to me, they’ve pinched my ass, they’ve flirted, they’ve propositioned me. I’ve always laughed them off, shrugged them away. Why the hell would I ever cheat? Why would I risk what I have at home for a few hours of fun?

  Traveling in an RV with the Housewives: fun or not?

  I was not looking forward to our trip to California for the show. I was already unhappy with the way things were going that season and just did not want to spend a week in an RV. I was lucky because they put us in an RV with the Lauritas. That meant that when the cameras weren’t rolling I got a vacation with my family and my brother’s family, and I actually enjoyed those times a lot. Beyond that I was miserable for the entire time. Everybody else was just worried about playing a game that I wanted no part of. There was so much pressure and tension, every time I walked out of the RV, I got a chill in my heart. Albert and I fought a lot because I couldn’t snap out of it. It wasn’t all bad, of course. One night we actually had fun when everyone let their guard down around the campfire. But for the most part, what you see on that trip is me at my unhappiest. I hope that they never make us do anything like that again!

  I’ve worked for too many years to throw it away on a fling. Men have tried for years, and the answer is now and will always be no. I’m fiercely loyal to Albert, and I’m just as committed. Nothing is worth losing a lifetime with somebody else. What do you get out of an affair? Do you get to check it out with someone else? Is it even that interesting? I’ll tell you what—it’s not interesting enough to risk your marriage.

  But I think that times have changed and now people use the term “hook up” very lightly. Men and women seem to be much better at separating sex from feelings. They can have sex with no strings attached, they can almost do it for fun. Of course, some people do fall in love with their affairs, and that scenario is never going to end well. These days, it seems people can hook up recreationally and move on without a second thought. They can pick up a stranger in a bar, bang them, and come home without ever thinking of that person again. People can do whatever the hell they like, but I am definitely not wired this way.

  There are many types of cheater. There’s the guy who makes a mistake just one time, and there are serial cheaters. How you react depends on your situation. The worst thing you can ever do is confront your partner with both guns a-blazing.

  If you think your partner has cheated on you, before you even confront your partner, try to learn the specifics of the situation. And then ask yourself, why did he cheat? Is there something broken in your relationship? When I hear that a guy is cheating, I always wonder if his wife stopped giving him attention, or if she became so involved in her kids’ lives that she has forgotten about him altogether.

  I hear about people who cheat on their partners because they don’t like it that the partner has gained weight. They’re assholes. Love is blind, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If a person is still attentive to their mate, they won’t care that they gained weight for whatever reason. When I see Albert, I don’t see a bald man with a gray beard. I see the man I fell in love with.

  If you ask yourself what’s broken and the answer is that your relationship is in trouble, you sit down and talk it out. You loved each other enough to get married, where’s that love now? If the following words are coming out of your mouth on a regular basis—“Where are you going? Are you going out with your friends again? When are you going to fix the roof? You need to pick up the lawn!”—then you’ve turned into your mother. Shut the hell up and be his friend. Guess what? He didn’t marry his mother, he married his girlfriend. Fix your marriage and work through the momentary indiscretion.

  I don’t know if Al has ever cheated. I don’t have any reason to suspect that he’s ever cheated. But I do know that the odds are against me. I’m certainly not going to open up Pandora’s box and ask if at some point during the last thirty years, he messed around on me. If he did, it would have been in a moment of weakness or at a time when he was stressed. I honestly don’t know. I’m making assumptions here. But statistically speaking, he was twenty when we met, and we dated from that young age. All logic tells me that the odds are stacked wildly against me. And I’m fine with it because there’s never been any indication of any other relationship from him. I’m just saying that my brain tells me that the odds aren’t in my favor.

  Listen, if he’d come home with lipstick on his collar, I would want to know what the hell was going on. I’ve never seen lipstick or smelled another woman’s perfume on my husband. I don’t see the point in going looking for something that’s not necessarily there.

  My husband would die for me, he’d take a bullet for me. So why would I want to go back in time and say, wait a minute, did you have a fling? No, I’m not going to do that. I understand that I married this man at a very young age. He dealt with tremendous pressure and responsibility. And if he fell or stumbled, he picked himself up. I’m not going to obsess over it, but I’m aware of the realities of my situation.

  How to argue with your

  husband so he still loves you!

  Everyone argues. It’s a fact of life. When it comes to my marriage, I always argue with a smile on my face. In the middle of an argument I’ll ask “What’s the problem, let’s talk about it,” we’ll break it down, and then I’ll laugh,
realizing that there’s really no need for an argument after all. Very little is worth having a war over, so I’ll start to crack a joke rather than crack a skull.

  Al and I don’t fight much, but we disagree all the time. In thirty years, we’ve maybe had four major fights but a million disagreements. I’m smart enough to see that moment when something can turn into a war if I choose to be an asshole. At that point, I lighten the mood and make a joke. “You’re gonna leave me now? You gonna draw up divorce papers?” It defuses the argument very effectively.

  It makes you realize that whatever you’re arguing about isn’t as important as being happy with each other.

  Last season on the show during the episode where it was our anniversary, we went to our old apartment above The Brownstone and Al got strawberries and champagne. There was no way I was going to give the producers footage of me eating strawberries, fed to me by my husband, so I decided I didn’t want to eat the strawberries Al had gotten for me. Al got upset, and that’s the sort of thing that could’ve turned into a silly fight, so before it got out of hand, I started laughing and I bent his finger back, and then he was laughing, and we moved right past the problem.

  Sure it’s important to get your point across, but it’s more effective to chase it with something silly or stupid to lighten the situation. Unless it’s the most serious matter you can think of, a silly argument or a tiff is never worth escalating for the sake of your pride.

  I honestly don’t even recall our biggest fights. Even at our worst, we are both looking for ways to stop the fight rather than add fuel to the fire. Some couples thrive on the drama of arguing. They love the passion and they love the makeup sex. I am not that person.