My grandma said that being around all the lingerie was what turned my mother on to romance and sex.

My mother said that was quite possible. The deciding factor, though, for a career outside the business, is that my mother and Grandma cannot work together.

My mother said she could not work with Grandma in the business because “I would kill her.”

My grandma said she could not work with my mother, “or I would have to visit the insane asylum on a weekly basis and take up serious drinking.”

They love each other; they cannot work together.

It’s like watching two bulls charging at each other at full speed in high heels and exquisite jewelry. Bulls can’t charge well in high heels, but you get the idea.

My mother went to college and took a class in psychology because a man she was interested in was taking it. She was hooked. Not on the boy, although she said there was a romance. She was hooked on psychology. She became a licensed therapist and started working with people, quickly finding the dynamics of marriage, a union she would have no part of. Fascinating. She combined her practice, which was soon incredibly successful, with a column on love and sex.

From there she started writing books, all of them honest, frank, and often funny, all of them best sellers. The goal: Better, hotter sex. Although she promotes wild and creative sex, she always, always harps that the best sex is had with a person you love and are committed to. She actively preaches that no teenager should be having sex.

She loves her job, but way beyond that she loves Lacey, Tory, and me. She loves her mother, too, although she refers to her as “The whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking devil’s assistant.” My grandma refers to my mother as the “dildo-promoting, craft-obsessed sex queen.”

When my sisters and I were children, I don’t remember my mother having any boyfriends. When we were teenagers there were a few men, though they didn’t last long, and she never introduced us. There have been a few other men since, but not for a while. She is extremely private about that part of her life, and we know we don’t know the half of it.

Her legions of fans would be shocked to know how utterly domesticated my mother is. I believe this is in direct response to my grandma being a hard-core career woman, when most women did not have careers. My mother bakes, sews, embroiders, knits, quilts, and loves doing crafts.

In fact, her way of rebelling in high school was to have a knitting club, a quilting club, and a cooking club. The girls would meet at Grandma’s house once a week to chat, knit, quilt, and cook. Sometimes they even went to quilting and craft conventions.

As my mother tells it, this enflamed my grandma. She wanted her daughter out there protesting this or that, rebelling, finding herself, writing editorials in the paper, filleting the establishment, or, her most ardent hope, working with her at Lace, Satin, and Baubles to promote the company.

She wanted a hard-core businesswoman daughter who had loud opinions and a flaming mouth to share them. But no.

Knit, quilt, cook.

The funny thing is, my mother is still meeting with these women whenever she’s in town. The women have the following jobs: federal judge, owner of a cosmetics company, social worker, teacher, biologist, medical researcher, car wash owner, and then there’s Judy who owns a strip joint.

She loves being home in her Snow White cottage-style house, with her chintz, stripes, and flowers. You can almost see the dwarves, evil witch, and friendly animals around the corners. She loves cooking and listening to country music with the three of us, and Grandma, if she can “behave like a woman instead of a battle-ax-throwing, temperamental bra goddess.”

She has a practice in Portland and writes her columns and books from an upstairs office in her home, which is about ten minutes from mine, Grandma’s, Lacey’s, and currently Tory’s downtown condo.

Although she dresses drop-dead seductive, even inflammatory, when she’s on tour, at home she often wears pink crew necks and beige slacks. Another favorite? A white cable-knit sweater and blue slacks. She wears flats instead of four-inch heels. She pulls her hair back in a bun and wears her glasses and no makeup.

She meets her girlfriends, and they sew and craft and embroider all day long.

It’s blunt, kittenish sex therapist and Betty Crocker mixed.

Drives my grandma straight up the wall.