About Tami Kidd-Brown

I knew a little bit about Tami Kidd-Brown before we met in person. I knew the surface stuff. She is petite, blond, sexy. She is one of the owners of a local communications and media company. She is an artist. She is an independent contractor with Glamour Magazine and she has that clever, hip, contemporary presence the magazine works so hard to project, despite the fact that she is a mother of four and well into her 40's.

She is the kind of woman that would get a 100 hits a day on match.com.

Tami and I spent a morning together drinking coffee at my office and she seemed very underwhelmed by my "you are a va-va-va voom cougar lady" comment.

My husband Russ calls that the Cheetos Mentality. He says, "If there are always Cheetos in the pantry and you can have them whenever you like, they just aren't a big deal."

He says, "Some women are used to having a big open bag of Cheetos sitting around (men drooling over them with compliments flowing). Sometimes they walk by and grab a few. And sometimes they just pick one up, fondle it a bit, change their mind, toss it into the disposal and then lick the residue off of their fingers."

(Have I mentioned that my husband was divorced by his first wife in 1997? Can we spell b-i-t-t-e-r? And don't get me started on his relationship with Cheetos.)

But it became clear, quickly, that Tammi is not a villainous Cheetos fondler. She was pregnant with her third son when her first marriage began deteriorating. She spent most of her adult life focused on her three sons and building her business.

The part of Tami's story that initially dominated my mind was her divorce. I know, all-too-well, how divorce can become the only option but I was actually angry at this man, whom I've never met, for putting my new friend through such stress. But Tami has this way of telling her story that eventually put me at ease and I slowly recoiled from my initial desire to strangle the bozo. It's not just her words but she has a sound that she makes when speaking that reminds me of one of those mood CD's you can buy in the candle section at Target.

That deliberate calm intonation is probably a result of her time in the communications business. Since 1996 she has been taking scraps of information and pulling it into beautiful, solicitous commercials and videos and brochures and, now, websites. She knows how to look at things from an angle that makes it look ever so slightly different. Better.

So she sat in my office and sing-songed her story about her beautiful sons and a spiritual, long-haired, handsome musician and chemistry and a honeymoon under palm trees and a little house full of love and a baby girl and a puppy. (And just for the record, that musician is significantly younger, which I swear I didn't know that when I called her "a va-va-va voom cougar lady.")

She has a way of looking at things that left me sitting there thinking how lucky she was to have an ex-husband and what a tragedy it would have been if she had followed her father's advice on that day of her first wedding, "If you're not sure, don't do it."

By the time a woman is willing to tell me her story, she has usually made peace with the ugly stuff. Tami not only accepted, but embraced the fact that she doesn't get to be here without having been there.

Beautiful.

Visit Tami Kidd-Brown at:
http://glamournaperville.blogspot.com/
http://www.fullcircle.bz

As you know, the goal of interviewing women for my project, Success In The Suburbs, was to learn how I might live a more satisfying life. Tami, specifically, impacted the way I think about my role as a stepparent. If you are interested in hearing more about my interview with Tami and how she has created a successful relationship with her ex-husband and his new wife, read this short story on my step-parenting blog.

http://stepmotherinthesuburbs.blogspot.com/2010/02/whos-kid-is-it.html