Kathie Lee Gifford: ‘I’m Fertile Myrtle now’

In “Just When I Thought I’d Dropped My Last Egg,” a riotous collection of musings, observations and life lessons, Kathie Lee Gifford shares her thoughts about marriage, parenthood, friendship, faith, pet peeves, senior moments, and how to extricate oneself from potentially hairy situations with self-deprecating wit. An excerpt.

Eggspectations
Since the beginning of time the same question has been asked over and over again: What came first? The chicken or the egg? Well, I’m happy to say that I finally have the answer.

It’s neither. The chicken’s mother came first.

That’s right. The mother dropped an egg and the first chicken was hatched.

And that’s what we chicks have been doing ever since.

So, if you’re reading this, I have obviously not dropped my last egg yet.

Oh, sure, I dropped my last reproductive egg a few years ago. But my fertility eggs? Fuhgidaboutit.

I’m Fertile Myrtle now. I’m back to a daily grind on the Today show after an eight-year hiatus from television, I’m pro­ducing my fourth musical for the theater, I’m in development for two screenplays to be made into films, I’m halfway through writing my first novel, and I’m under deadline to finish this book by Christmas.

In other words, forget about a pig in mud. I’m more like a pregnant pig in placenta!

I share none of this information in a bragging way — on the contrary, I am so overwhelmed with gratitude that I still find joy and wonder and inspiration and challenge each day that I want to encourage everybody else to understand that the same sense of creative fertility is possible for them.

For years our society has perpetrated the perverse notion that once nature is done with us — especially women — we’re done, too! “ONLY THOSE WHO OVULATE ALLOWED!” But it’s a lie, and we don’t have to cooperate with it. Who says we have to hoist our beefy carcass onto the gurney and disap­pear into the sunset? Not me. Because you know when we’re really done? When we drop dead, that’s when. And even then it’s a whole different discussion about where we go from there.

But until that day comes, I believe we can experience cre­ativity far beyond our wildest expectations. We can give birth daily to something beautiful and meaningful in ways we’ve never dreamed. Because when we’re older, we are free from raising young kids, building careers, and managing house­holds, all the while battling Midol headaches. I don’t bloat any­more! Now it’s just fat, but that’s another essay. Think how much money we’re all saving because we bypass the feminine hygiene shelves at the drugstore. Okay, you argue, but what about all the hormone replacement stuff and edamame we need now?

You’re right, nothing’s perfect. But that’s really my point. Our lives stopped being perfect the moment we slipped out of the womb and got our heinies smacked.

Right then we should have realized that those days of sloshing around safe and sound in that amniotic fluid without a care in the world were over.

But, no. Then society started reinforcing that other ridicu­lous lie: that “happily ever after” crap.

We’d no sooner finish reading those fairy tale books when we’d start dreaming of our own Prince Charming, riding up on his Harley and carrying us away.

Oh, he rode up and carried us away all right. To a life of cooking, cleaning, birthing, and diapers. But we didn’t mind, did we? We were doing what we were created to do AT THAT TIME in our lives.

But none of the books we were encouraged to read ever mentioned that Prince Charming might end up being a jerk or a lousy provider or even, unfortunately for some, gay, which is indeed problematic in a traditional marriage.

So even if he was a sweet, loving, hardworking heterosex­ual prince, chances are his breath stunk, or he was a slob, or he ate too much or developed hair in weird places or liked to play with his putter more than he liked to play with his wife. And if we women are really honest, we might even admit that we were no “picnic in the park” either. More like a “bologna sand­wich in the backyard on a hot day with a storm coming.”

Truth is, if you live long enough, you’re bound to be disap­pointed and you’re bound to disappoint others in return.

For me it’s been a matter of coming to grips with reality. Sometimes life doesn’t march on; it limps. Sometimes it’s on a walker and sometimes it’s on an IV drip in the ICU. What’s for sure is that we’re going to have ups and downs, good days and bad, triumphs and tragedies, shock and awe, and everything in between no matter what the fairy tales told us.

How we deal with it is ultimately what makes the differ­ence between a life well lived and a life, well, ... lived.

S’Age
I’m so tired of reading the word “aging.” Not because it’s a bad word in itself. A bottle of wine, a savings bond, certain cheeses, antiques, these are all examples where “aging” is considered an asset.

So why isn’t that true of people? I mean, the opposite of aging is not aging. Therefore, if you’re not aging — call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure you’re dead. Now, I don’t fear dying, but I don’t particularly love the idea of being dead. It’s just so final-sounding.

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The problem I have is that the word “aging” is almost always attached to a celebrity of a “certain age.”

Example: Madonna, the aging rock star; Clint Eastwood, the aging actor/director; John McCain, the aging presidential candidate; Kathie Lee, the aging ... Well, no need to dwell on that. You get my drift.

What about Paris Hilton? Am I missing something or is she not aging at the exact same rate that all of the above are? So why isn’t she referred to as “the aging celebutard”?

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