I guess Jane Richards and I speak the same language. I am a professional woman, and own my own small company serving children, but I would never think of extravagant spending as people seem to think nothing of in other parts of the country. I simply will not buy shoes for over seventy dollars—they don’t last long enough to pay more. I hate spending the money we do for food these days. That is the one area I feel the pinch the most. Clothes don’t define me so I don’t have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on names and labels. Why is it that women in New York do? Maybe we women can together put an end to the unreasonable and unwise spending we see about us. Let’s encourage our children to practice edferred gratification and rethink “need” for so many THINGS. Emphasize value and long lasting quality of purchases. Truly we do not need a new wardrobe every year. Shop wisely and think. Do you really NEED a new belt, a new blouse (which costs over sixty dollars??), or can’t you wear what you already have in your closet? Who cares if people have seen it before? Your personal pleasure in what you have should predominate over image and what others think.

No, I would not divorce him, at least not right away, because if he is having an affair with someone, at least he is out of my hair! I would probably wait until I could figure out a good divorce stategy and work out the best “severance package” with a good attoney. Then and only then, when I felt things were right for me, would I use the adultery and other abuses as grounds for a sure divorce.

Yes, I have been fired, more than once. I think I could get over the embarrasment of the actual leaving, but my husband is the one thorn in my life. He makes every firing seem like the end of the world and wonders “What’s wrong with you!!?” That makes me so ashamed, and the guilt I carry is at times overwhelming. I try not to think about the firings and go on with my life. At the moment, I cannot be fired from my job because I own the company, love what I do, and my customers (and their children, whom I tutor) love me. Some day I will be able to get past the shame of being fired from jobs I thought I was good at. Sometimes it was because the boss did not care for my effusiveness; other times I was trying to do something I was ill suited for, but felt I could do if I just stuck with it.

I don’t generally celebrate the day with my husband because he always forgets the day and I have decided I have been hurt too many years (married 25) by his “forgetting” the day (more like neglecting me, isn’t it?) that I refuse to get him a card or anything. ESPECIALLY I refuse to buy one of those sad and sappy cards I see all over. I REFUSE to fake romance with him!

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis