At Home with the Brangelinas

According to TMZ, Brad Pitt, father of the most beautiful, exotic six-pack on the planet, recently took his two oldest sons to Venice to promote his newest movie at the Venice Film Festival. (And, once again, George Clooney went without me. I’ll never understand why.)

So Angie was left in le Chateau Miraval alone for the week with four small children, an army of French nursemaids, and access to some of the finest cabernet in the world.

With Brad’s busy schedule, I bet they’re glad they moved their exponentially growing brood away from the hubbub of Hollywood to the village of Brignol, France. A village with a small-town-feel to it, I would guess, where nobody even bothers to lock their front door (or doors, or gates, or watch towers, or drawbridges) and where everyone really looks out for each other (I hear Angelina has offered to adopt every lost child who knocks on their security fence as part of her pledge as a new neighborhood block parent).

I imagine the whole town rallied as soon as the twins were born to organize meals, carpools, and babysitting for the blossoming family. Not to mention their Saturday Supper Club, who, I hear, had already made big pink and blue yard signs with Mylar balloons and streamers announcing the newest arrivals when the Brangelinas returned from the hospital with Knox and Viv. And how much fun must Maddox, Pax, Shiloh, and Zahara have every time they show off their new brother and sister to everyone they see with their mom at the grocery store. (I still remember the first time I went to Target right after Luke was born and Ellie saw a woman holding an infant seat walking in just ahead of us. She ran up to the woman and told her to look at our baby, because “our baby is cuter.” Do they have Target in Brignol?)

Living in a $60 million compound far away from the extravagance and excess of L.A., the Jolie-Pitt family will finally be able to enjoy the simpler pleasures in life they couldn’t possibly have found in any old 1000-acre property here in the States. The morning family brioche ritual just wouldn’t be as enjoyable without the dual citizenship they now have.

Yes, life is good for TMZ’s royal family living among the French, the people who love Americans the very most. It’s hard not to be a little envious of Angelina with her newly-renovated chateau, full staff that probably even mops her hardwoods, and Brad Pitt between the sheets every night. It would seem life has been a fairytale for the philanthropic princess.

But every time I find myself thinking about what a magical, perfect life she leads, I remind myself of the price Angelina has paid for her many blessings, and I can’t help but laugh.

No, I may never walk a red carpet, and I’ll probably always have to do my own laundry, but at least I can honestly say I have never been married to Billy Bob Thornton.

And I have far better taste than to shack up with a drop-out from Mizzou.