The hosts of an Atlanta radio station were taken aback when they heard Colby call me “Geri” during our interview. “Did I hear your son call you by your name?” one host asked in astonishment? “That would never fly down South,” she said, as if we were committing a crime.

Colby isn't getting this tattoo any time soon

I explained that I wouldn’t have dreamed of calling my mother and father anything other than “mom” and “dad.”  That’s what they were to me and that’s how they defined themselves, anyway. If someone had asked my mom to describe herself, she would have said “wife and mother.”

But I don’t define myself by my motherhood, career or any other single role. I’m FOF “Geri.” And I actually love when Colby calls me by my name. After all, I’m more than a mom to him, as I’ve said here before. I’m a friend, a boss (he works at my company), a mother, a therapist, a clothing advisor.

I don’t think it shows a miniscule of disrepect to call your mom by her name. As the mom in question, I think it’s pretty darn cool.

Why are we so intrigued by makeovers? We wait with baited breath as the contestants weigh in on The Big Loser. We root for simply pretty girls to turn into glamour pusses on America’s Next Top Model. We thrill when a well-deserving family views its spanking new 4,000-square-foot home on Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. And we coo approval when a woman learns how to completely make over her style in What Not To Wear?

And now Tony Robbins (with facial hair, no less) is planning a show, called Breakthrough, where he guides people through crises.  Only Tony knows how to give hope to someone who became a paraplegic on his honeymoon. (I kid you not.)

Do makeover shows inspire us and give us hope or are they pure entertainment? Can we actually learn how to lose 150 pounds and gain self-confidence on Channel 7 from 9 to 10 p.m.?  We’re excited when someone else does what we wish we could do, but it takes more than a script and cameras to motivate us for more than a few minutes.

I’d like to see a new kind of makeover TV show.  It would turn selfish, evil and  intolerant people into giving, good and open-minded souls. Now, that’s a makeover worth watching.

We can call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I don’t know many FOF moms who want their adult kids to live with them. We may have had empty nest syndrome when they went away to school or got their own places, but we got over that pretty quickly when we realized how peaceful it was to be on our own again.

Now the unemployment crisis is playing havoc on the housing situations for many adults in their twenties, and even older. Without jobs, they simply cannot afford to leave their parents’ homes.  Even when they find jobs, their abysmal salaries won’t let them get their own apartments. A neighbor, whose son graduated from an Ivy League school, is still living at home because the young man can’t find a job. He and his folks love each other dearly, but they’d rather love a little less closely. A FOF friend is sharing a one-bedroom with her daughter because the young woman doesn’t make enough to go it alone. No wonder they are starting to get on each other’s nerves.

I watched a riveting segment on TV last night about Ohio couples, with children, who have lost their jobs and are forced to return to their parents’ homes. One extended family of 14 is living together in a four-bedroom home.

I remember the first apartment in Manhattan my husband and I rented when we married in 1968. It was a big studio for $135 a month.  I made $105 a week and my husband made $115, and we could easily afford the rent.  We were 21. Today, that apartment is probably $1,700. A couple would need to have a joint income of at least $60,000 to live there, as well afford electricity, phone and food, since the cost of living also has skyrocketed during the last forty years.

Thank goodness many of us have families to help give us shelter, food and love.  Even so, it’s a pretty lousy state of affairs since that’s not what we wanted to do when we grew up.

If it works for her, it can work for me, too.

Douglas, David and I went to a new shopping mall in Manhattan today, where Marshalls and Target were having their grand openings. As we wandered down the packed aisles, I chuckled to myself how great it is that D and D get along, especially considering one is my former husband, and the other, my current husband.

Douglas comes to dinner a couple of times a month and he joins us at family gatherings with my sisters and their families. We were together 20 years, married 30, and had two children, so he’s been an integral part of my life for a real long time. As an only child, he’s happy that he didn’t lose his extended family when we divorced.  He is unattached.

David is secure and unthreatened by my relationship with Douglas and generous of spirit to befriend him. He didn’t even mind when I went to Paris with Douglas and our son.

I know I’m a bit unconventional, but who says our current mates can’t like our exes, if we do? I’m happy that Douglas and I have a wonderful friendship, even though we didn’t have a wonderful marriage. I’m blessed that David accepts him into his life, too.

Besides, they make each other laugh, even if they’re joking about me. And neither takes issue when I call him by the other’s name.  I do it all the time.