Isn't it amazing that something that is simply a part of you can be fascinating to others? Several years ago my mother told me the story of a conversation at her annual Christmas party.

Someone asked her what her children did for a living. She responded, "My youngest daughter is the personal assistant for Bill Murray." Hopefully most of you know who Bill Murray is. (Yes, the actor.)

My sister spent a couple of years working as his assistant and loved every minute. Bill was every bit the comedian in real life and, according to my sister, a great guy. If even half of her stories are true, she didn't exaggerate.

As you can imagine, this stirred up quite the conversation and my mother quickly became the center of attention as the conversation progressed. The oohs and ahs and outpouring of questions lasted for several minutes as my mother enjoyed basking in her youngest daughter's entertaining and successful ventures.

Then someone asked, "What does your other daughter do?"

My mother replied, "Oh, Traci works for the CIA."

Conversation stopped completely. According to my mom, you could have heard a pin drop at this previously noisy party.

We laughed about this later, the fact that both my sister and I had ended up in professions that were fascinating to others. We also came to the conclusion that the fascination stems from the mystery of the jobs themselves. At the time my sister was working for Bill, he was still one of the premier comedians in the country. Certainly, there was a lot of curiosity surrounding what he is really like. As for my job, the initials CIA have long been synonymous with intrigue.

The part of this story that I thought was the funniest was that it happened at my mom's party, the one she holds every year for her clients. You see, my mother is the host of a local television show in Phoenix. Most of the people in the room had appeared on television with her at one time or another. Of course, they already knew what that was like.