My mom is from Minnesota, a fact she deplores since she hates cold weather more than I hate lima beans. But her youngest brother still lives here, so my son and I are out visiting and the son is taking sailing lessons.
When my grandparents came out here in 1945, they bought a house in
Minnetonka Beach, which is on Lake Minnetonka. Now, Minnetonka Beach is a chi-chi community, with huge mansions, boats, fancy lifestyles and tons of wealth dotting the lakeside (there are Pillsburys, real Pillsburys, living and baking here, for example. My grandmother once cooked a Duncan Hines cake when she had them over to dinner many years ago. Oops).
Last Sunday, my relatives took us to a party celebrating a high school graduation. The patriarch is the CEO if a Fortune 500 company, and his annual salary for the past three years has been in the double digit millions. So the house? It was BREATH-TAKING. The family had built it themselves on five acres of land, and had bought a neighboring six acres so no-one could come in and “spoil the view.”
It felt really weird to be around that much money. And I thought the feelings of inadequacy and envy might be similar to what our poor churchmice heroes and heroines might feel when they entered a ton party for the first time. How incredibly overwhelming!
Just think if you had barely ever left your small village, but somehow you and your family has the connections and the funding to sponsor a come-out. And you end up at Carlton House, having a five-hour meal, or meeting the Prince, or just wandering through the rooms stuffed with precious artwork.
It would take a strong person to handle seeing that much opulent display of wealth without feeling some sort of inadequacy (side note: I was not that strong. I felt totally intimidated). What would a hero or heroine do in response? Have you ever had that kind of experience?
Sign up for the Riskies Newsletter at riskies@yahoo.com, and we promise you will always feel comfortable and perfectly adequate.
My best friend—Kevin—works for a big name interior designer in Manhattan (this guy decorates for people like the Gettys and the Tishes), so all my trips to the Big Apple involve being surrounded by people who are just waaaaaaaaaaay out of my sphere (I actually sat through a meal with people debating over whether they should buy the six-hundred-thousand dollar chairs or the two-million dollar chairs—and that’s PER chair!). It can be a little crazy, but most of the time I find the people themselves very friendly and easy going (with the occasional, and very notable, exceptions).
On one recent trip Kevin wanted to have some friends over for dinner (he’s totally the starving artist of his circle), and he spent all day freaking out about what to cook for the gaggle of gourmands . . . I finally decided we were NOT spending hundreds of dollars on the meal *insert sound of stamping foot* and declared that we were making curried fish, vegetable birayani, chutney, and lime-tea cakelets with lime curd for dessert. His chi-chi friends loved it (so much so that one of them begged for leftovers to take home!). The thing that cracked me up the most? Kevin broke out an 87 Lafite along with the $50 bottle I’d brought from a small winery in Napa.
Guess which one they raved over? LOL!
Oh, a couple of weeks ago we were driving around in an area of NJ. . . ah, northish from us. We knew were we where, but at the same time, a little lost. Well, it was around the Watchung Mountains. . . and boy, the houses. We passed by this one, and I said I felt like Steve Martin in the scene in Father of the Bride when they were going to meet their daughter’s future in laws. Boy oh boy, they have money alright. 🙂
Lois
Great post, Mega! I’ve often felt as though I’d stepped into one of my books visiting goregeous, exquisitely appointed houses. The fact that the owners of those houses as thoroughly nice, down-to-earth people, many of whom have visited my own decidedly-work-in-progress house and seemed to have a great time, lessens the awe. I imagine it would be much the same for characters in a Regnecy-set novel.
So sorry I double-posted (I got asked for the password twice). And that I messed up your name, Megan! (Typing too fast).
I once went to an apres-opera party at a big place in Santa Fe (my friend called it Casa Swanky)! It had amazing views out over the city, museum-quality pottery and weavings displayed, everything. I tried to pretend I was a sort of Jane Austen, observing everything to use in stories later. 🙂
Speaking of swanky types, I read in the new Vogue that this season’s “must have” accessory is a manny. Where do I get one? (Oh, and the baby to make a manny neccesary in the first place…)
And speaking of Lake Minnetonka (notice my stream of consciousness reply today?), some of my favorite books when I was kid were the Betsy/Tacy stories by Maud Hart Lovelace, set in Minnesota. In the last book, “Betsy’s Wedding,” Betsy went on her honeymoon to Lake Minnetonka.
Years ago, I got a ride across the country with a bunch of people, one of whom was a nice girl named Deedee. Shyly, she asked the bunch of us if we minded stopping off to visit her grandmother in Moline IL — all of which sort of sounded like homey handmade cookies to me. Only it wasn’t. It was like this ancient Edith Wharton type mansion, and grandma was an intimidating grande dame like I’d never encountered outside of… well, Edith Wharton. While Grandma was conferring with the servants about something or other, one of us whispered, “what did your grandfather do, Deedee?” To which she replied, “he owned John Deere tractors. My great-grandfather was John Deere.” At least I think it was great-grandfather; I got the generations confused between courses, though I followed Deedee’s family in the society pages for years afterwards.
(And no, dinner wasn’t as good as at my grandma’s in Brooklyn).
I once went to a party on the Long Island sound in CT, hosted by one of the Dana family. It was tres chi-chi. Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn were there, along with Rosemary Harris, and Sidney Kingsley who wrote Detective Story. I felt very out of place, and my friend had neglected to give me the correct time they were being picked up, so I had to hitch a ride with the head of the drama school I went to. The car was driven by the artistic director of the Acting Company, the theater troupe founded by John Houseman, that Patti LuPone and Kevin Kline toured in for years. Of course, theater royalty is very different from royalty royalty, but I felt awed to be in the presence of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.