smores

Here's the weird thing about that to me. Everyone I see who is super active with a particular cause and has a platform tends to use their platform to advance that cause. Denise posted on her instagram (as you noted in your post), that she was out rescuing dogs. But wouldn't that have been the perfect time to call out the organization she was out there working with? Denise has, presumably, followers who are all over the world who would potentially want to throw some money at a rescue who was being stretched to the limit during a disaster. This is something that happens when there are fires or hurricanes, people who rescue animals start posting facts about animals who get left behind due to not being accepted in shelters, etc, and posting where you can donate to help, or if you are local, there are calls to foster for those who are evacuating and can't take the animals. Other people put out calls for money to fund water or rebuilding supplies, etc. Denise's post is a picture of her in a mask saying she was out rescuing dogs. It doesn't name the group she was working with. No requests to help fund them, no calls to donate to your humane society, nothing. Contrast that with, say, Beth Stern's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethostern/?hl=en It just doesn't seem the same to me.

I'm afraid this person has my vote:

How is it skewing things, though? Even if Denise went out and rounded up 8 dogs (which, by the way, how did she know whether or not she was just taking someone's pet?), she then had no plan for what to do with them. She had no facility to house them, she didn't transport them to a vet and pay for them to be fixed, vaccinated and chipped. She did not do the leg work to farm them out to rescues in the area (or cast a wider net), nor did she find emergency placements for them. She essentially rounded up 8 dogs and then called LVP and said "HELP! I have 8 dogs and fire is coming this way!" At that point, LVP made arrangements to get the 8 dogs. LVP and her dog rescue took the 8 dogs, housed them. They got them fixed, vaccinated and chipped ON THEIR DIME. They found them homes. Denise essentially drove the dog catcher bus around town and rounded them up. In retrospect, I think dog catchers probably drive trucks. I'm guessing dogs don't sit nicely on bus seats.

I feel like Patricia is not all that different from Shep, but she just knows how to keep the quiet parts quiet. Shep is usually too hammered and says the quiet parts out loud and gives himself away. If Danni had just been like "Dammit Shep! If you're going to give me something, you know this is my dream car!" or something like that, it would have deflated the "outing" of the STI. Whether it was true or not, she'd have been successful in playing it off as a bad rumor. What she did, though, pretty much made it look true. The South is not exactly known for their sex ed. Abstinence only teaching has created quite the knowledge gap. Talking about STIs openly and without shame is one thing. Just outing a person publicly is another. It is not perfectly normal to just post on someone's facebook wall that this person has this STI and everyone who sleeps with them should know about it. Let's say that you slept with someone 6 months ago and then found out that you got chlamydia from them. You think it's totally fine to go and post it publicly on their wall? That you are somehow doing a service to any future partners this person might have? Because you don't know if they had gotten treatment already or not. And if they have, they are not at all a danger to any future partners.

What I'm curious about is that VDPDs had to pay for them to be fixed. If you rescue dogs, isn't step one pretty much taking them to the vet and having them fixed/vaccinated and chipped? Denise had 8 dogs that were not spayed/neutered, vaccinated or chipped? That's pretty irresponsible. I certainly would have at least paid for those things, even if I didn't make a donation or tried to cover the boarding the of dogs.

I actually don't think that's the case. I think Kyle is much more skilled at getting things started and then letting the process happen without it splashing back on her as the instigator. She also doesn't ever take a hard line to END things. Using the LVP situation, for example, when they were in the Bahamas or at the lunch before she went to confront LVP with "the truth" she could have simply said, "Listen, I hear what you're saying. I know that this is a difficult thing for you, Dorit, and I'm so sorry that this is happening. I'm definitely here for you. LVP is also my friend and she has said that she didn't do it. So for me, I'm staying neutral and I'm not going to get in the middle of it with either of you, as you are both my friends." And then STOP shit stirring.

Does making a pilot in which you drive around feeding "bums" bologna sandwiches and offering them makeovers with your siblings qualify as using people as props? Asking for a friend.

They did, but it wasn't a quick or easy decision. I'll give them credit for that much, because I think it's something Kroy took really seriously. He was initially inclined to have the dog put down, but I think that upset Kash. They had the dog removed for a while and he was with a trainer who worked with him and evaluated him, then they did some visits, tested his training, and brought Kash to visit him, to see how he felt. He was comfortable, but they also put new rules in place for both the dogs and the kids when it came to interacting with the dogs.

If there is actually a trust fund, she's draining the hell out of it now by having her mother pay for all her shit. Candiace is exactly the type of person who will end up with a parent who dies with a ton of debt but expects there to be a huge windfall and can't figure out that they were basically getting their inheritance doled out along the way. Yep, show them the perfect house, with an in-law suite, the exact number of bedrooms, move in condition, completely updated, in the best school district, and it can all be theirs for a roll of quarters and the lint in the dryer lint trap and they'll be all "But, wait, there's this ONE step up into the front door! How do you expect me to carry my groceries in with this!?! It's a STEP! This will NEVER do!" If you have a house, or really, some money, whatever, that you want to give to someone and ensure that it goes to them, you can put it in a trust. (This is very over-simplified, so please, obviously get actual advice) Say you have a beach house that you want to keep in the family and you have 3 kids. You can put the house into a trust, you and your spouse would no longer own it, the trust would (you title the deed to the trust), then, you can make the kids beneficiaries of the trust. This means that when you die, the house just passes to them, it avoids taxes, probate, you don't have to worry about it in your will, etc. Also, it means that their spouses can't touch it either, they have no claims to it, as the TRUST retains the ownership, and they technically do not own it, they are only benefiting from the trust. You can then also decide that it will continue to branch out to their children, etc. You can do the same with money, you can put assets into a trust for a specific purpose. Like when Elvis died, all of his money and stuff went into a trust, which eventually Lisa Marie became the sole beneficiary of. She had to wait until she was 25 to inherit the money directly, before that, the estate was held in trust and run by her mother. You can set something like that up for your own estate, or you can also do it for specific purposes. Lets say you have grandkids and you want to put aside money for them to use for college. You can gift them a specific amount, held in trust that can be used only for educational purposes, (maybe you would be ok with them using it for a school trip abroad during high school), college, trade school, and then if it isn't completely used up by x age, they can have the balance to use at that time. This way you don't have them hitting 21, dropping out and blowing it on a car. Back to the topic, it's possible that Candiace's mother has her house in a trust. Or she has the condo Candiace is living in, or even both properties in a trust, for planning purposes. Candiace, however, seems to think she has some sort of multi-million dollar trust fund, like she's a Vanderbilt or something. That doesn't really seem likely, because you'd think she'd be able to explain it. Most people know why and how they have a trust fund, a grandparent died and left them money, someone got a settlement for something and set up a trust, or if a parent sets it up, then they know why they have it especially if the parent is currently funding their lifestyle. I am not counting on an inheritance from my parents, I don't care if I get one, I'd rather them use their money to take care of themselves. But, I have a rough idea of where things stand with them, they give us an overview of their plans every so often, so we know where to look for papers, etc.

Her eye was droopy.

I have lived in both the north and the south and southern manners are not all they are cracked up to be. They are, for the most part, a very surface thing, something designed to be a point of pride for the person who "has" them. In my experience, good manners in the "north" are more about functionality in living around other people, you learn to move about in and among other people in a way that doesn't intrude on others. In a dr's office, you keep your voice down while sitting in a waiting room, you don't talk loudly in a restaurant, in a store, you try to keep your cart out of the way of others, say excuse me and if you are considering 2 items, you try to be sure you're not blocking things someone else might want to get while you are standing there. In the south, on the other hand, manners tend to be more a function of "not noticing" other people's bad behavior. It doesn't matter if you block the aisle at the grocery store, it's rude of the other person to notice. If you are having a loud conversation in a dr's office waiting room, the other people eavesdropping are rude, not you for disturbing the room. You wouldn't dream of noticing that someone was having a loud conversation, you'd sit there and read away, so therefore, you're the one with better manners. This isn't to say that everyone in the south is like this and everyone in the north isn't. But that's generally my experience. It likely has a lot to do with cities and population, too, as you have to be more aware of how you interact with those around you when you are in a denser area. But if you look at the way the whole weed dinner went down, it's a good example of it. Shep and Austen were way over the line with their behavior. Everyone else was sitting there uncomfortable, but no one was going to say, listen, I think you've had enough and it's time to stop. They're all just uneasily pretending that it didn't happen. The next morning, Shep is laughing his ass off at it and no one is like, you know, it was a bit much. Shep has tried to kiss Chelsea, Austen won't confront him. He called Madison white trash, Austen really won't confront him. It's ridiculous. We just saw footage last night of all of the women talking about how Shep has made them cry, yet when he acts up, none of them say anything, they all pretend it isn't happening.

Kyle and Teddi both also need to lay off the highlighter that they put on the tip of their noses. They end up looking like polished doorknobs. It's typical to put highlighter down the bridge/length of your nose, so the light hits it and then contour down the sides, so it makes your nose look thinner, but the highlighter on the tip making it super shiny really is not a flattering look. You don't want a disco ball on the center of your face. Also I couldn't get past Teddi's super, super smooth hair in the front and then the teased, tangled rat's nest in the back. People aren't wearing bump-its anymore and you also smooth out the top layer after you tease your hair. Teddi needs better hair and makeup people. Denise's face looked different at the reunion than it did during the season. Through most of the season, her face looked a bit strange in close up and moved kind of oddly, because she had a lot of filler going on. It would kind of crumple up when she would talk and she was kind of jowly. At the reunion, though, it seems like she had a tighter jawline, and things were much smoother. I don't know if she had a lift, some filler had dissolved, if she was taping things, but it looked a lot better. I will give you Lea Black being age appropriate, but no way on Ramona and Vicki. Vicki is almost always in something too short and too tight. Ramona's penchant for macramé is just crazy. Ramona is better than Vicki, usually, but she's not used to dressing her new boobs and I think probably is at a point where she has to realize that the size of the dress isn't as important as the fit, because there are times where she's wearing something that would look great if it was just 1 size bigger. She strikes me as the type of person who would be hung up on still being a size x, rather than making sure the fit was the best it could be, regardless of the tag. I agree. I don't think you can blanketly excuse anyone's behavior by just saying "Oh, it's just x humor" or "Well, I'm from x and that's the way we are" but, I do think it is fair to give a bit of leeway to LVP for being British. It's also reasonable to expect that there might be some misunderstanding with the others because she's British, and that both sides would need to take that into account. LVP needs to consider that something she might say to Ken or to PK might not land the same way if she says it to Kyle or to Erika. And at the same time, Rinna and Teddi need to consider that when LVP says something, she may not be coming at it from a place of being nasty, she may be joking. So if it's going over as a joke, then it needs to be clarified, ask her what she means. And if she sees that someone is a bit upset, explain where you were coming from. And I'm not saying this to excuse her, I pretty much live this. I'm a sarcastic person by nature, I come from a very sarcastic, snarky family. My general nature is to be a brat. I'm not serious about it, and at times I've had people think I was being serious with things I've said. It was confusing, because I'm honestly not sure how they could have. Once I was reprimanded at work for telling a supervisor "No" after they told me to go do something. It's true that I said it, in fact, when I was told to go do it, I said "No, I don't want to" but, what was left out was that as I was saying it, I was literally going to do what they had asked me to do. Yet somehow me physically moving to do what they said was missed and all that registered was me saying no. So I get where LVP is coming from, you can't just brush aside a difference and say, no you have to totally bend to how I am. The others aren't wrong either in that LVP needs to sometimes consider what she is saying and how she says it. Still, though, if we're trying to trash LVP for her British humor, and say that she is the one who has to change, then why are we supposed to accept that Rinna was just kidding with her pill covered cupcakes? Rinna claims it was a joke, LVP knew it was a joke and she ALWAYS jokes about pills. How is that different than LVP having British humor? If LVP has to change her humor so that the audience (ie, the other women), aren't offended by it, then why is it ok for Rinna to send that to LVP, when she knew that the pills would be a touchy subject for LVP? And why is it ok for Kyle to constantly poke about her being such a good friend to LVP but LVP not treating her that way? LVP spoke to her about it. Then Kyle continued on, she carried on over and over and over about how LVP likes Dorit better. Despite LVP telling her that it wasn't true, she kept saying, you let Dorit do this, you let Dorit dump a dog, etc. Denise was saying that the person she was referring to as when she said "I could have taken a bigger settlement but I'm not a greedy fucking whore" wasn't Camille. What she was referencing in that comment was the ex of Charlie's who had been blackmailing him to keep quiet about him being HIV positive. What is slightly unclear, though, is that she made it sound like it was an ex-wife of his that was blackmailing him and all of the reports say that it was a porn star that saw his medication who was blackmailing him, not Brooke Mueller (the only person who it could be, other than Denise).

If someone was walking around saying "Smores told me that Ryan gave Suzie the clap!" and I had never told anyone any such thing, the very first words out of my mouth would be "No I did not! Where did you even come up with that?" Not "This is the problem I have with Madison, I love everything about her except this, she just flips sometimes" or "I got betrayed too" or "Why did you throw me under the bus?" I would only say those types of things if I had, in fact, told someone that Ryan gave Suzie the clap and was just pissed that the person outed the info.

Not for a minute. Shep's foot was going awfully fast during that whole scene. He also turned REALLY red. He was basically a duck paddling, trying to appear completely calm, but he was raging inside. Then when he left the house and went over to the other house, he started carefully laying out the story, by "dropping hints" about how Madison was acting up. He didn't come in raging, he didn't say "You won't believe what just happened!" He was all, "Oh, wow, she's really acting up" So everyone would come to him for the story and he could frame it. Then Austen walks in and Shep gives him a death stare, locks eyes and carefully lays out the cover story. He's phrasing things in a way that makes it sound like they're talking about what happened, but it's "Can you believe she just said this?" and staring Austen down so that it's clear the message is "This is what she just said, this is the story" And only after all of that, as they are leaving does it occur to Shep to toss out to Chelsea, "It's not true, by the way" Madison shouldn't have said it, of course. Hell, if she wanted to say it, she could have just left Danni out of it and said "We both know you've given people chlamydia"

Short answer? YES Longer answer? Yes and not only that, she gaslighted the same people she and her husband used to launch his fraud company on by trying to twist the facts of the case. "It's so misleading! My husband has never made 36 Million in profit on a deal in his life!" No, he didn't take home a check of $36M, but that's the total increase in sale price, which Kyle neglected to mention. They purchased the property for $32 million and sold it for $69 million. So yeah, he did have a huge increase. But Kyle's over there crying in outrage that people are just slamming her husband and that it's damaging to say things like that (you know, the truth!), because poor Mauricio has never made $36m on a deal! I guess next time he needs to scam harder?

I absolutely would take advice from Tamra/Eddie before Teddi. Tamra is someone who clearly puts in the time and effort in the gym and has had a focus on health/fitness for a long time. Teddi, while thin, is so hyperfocused on regulating food/exercise that I think it's just a disordered way of eating. Basically if she doesn't maintain a super strict control the wheels will come off and she'll be right back up to her "start" size. I could see texting meals to a nutritionist or even a trainer if you were starting a new plan and were unsure of what to eat. I have a friend/coworker who had to do a version of paleo due to some health issues and when she was brand new to it, we were on a business trip together. She was texting her nutritionist about the food at meals, particularly when it was a banquet style lunch. It's not super hard to figure out how to order food within your plan when you have a whole menu and you can ask for vegetables instead of rice or whatever. But when they bring you a plate of food and that's what you get for lunch, she needed some guidance on what she could eat and what she should skip, like take the tomatoes out of the salad, leave the cucumbers, etc.

It's fascinating how they only manage to break the spell each year for the day of the reunion, then somehow fall right back under it when the cameras go up to film the next season. Funny how Kyle isn't all mad at Kathy for talking to LVP but yet all of the women are pissed at Camille for being friends with LVP. Seems like Kyle would expect her sister to be loyal to her and not socialize with LVP, if LVP tossed Kyle out of her house, right? They all sat there exclaiming about how they had sooo much empathy for LVP about her brother's death and yet they are the same group that was gleefully planning a takedown of Camille in France. Her assistant had died, her house was burning down and they were only upset they couldn't go through with it because she wasn't coming to France. They postponed it, they didn't cancel it. But they are all empathetic! That's funny, because I seem to remember them all sitting around a table agreeing that it HAD to be LVP who leaked the story because it used the word "nipped" and only someone who was British uses that word. It seems to me that since that version fell apart, they have moved on to another one. Incidentally, I also think it's interesting that they suddenly think the owner of ROL is just lying to cover LVP. I'd be willing to bet that if they'd come out and said that Kyle leaked the story, they'd also just be lying for LVP. Everyone in the world just falls under LVP's spell. There were a couple moments that it looked like she kind of was re-thinking the whole strategy and was like "WTF is even happening here?" When she told Denise to stop was one and I think she was a bit taken aback at the way they kept talking shit about Camille when she was off stage. It really is telling that Kyle is all "haters say this" "trolls did that" and gleefully recounts how she was horrible with the "Goodbye Kyle!" shit, but wasn't actually being a mean girl, she was "reclaiming something the haters did" because she wasn't going to sit back and take it! But then if Camille said something, well, she was just running to twitter and using that to bully them! Camille had a rough season, she said a lot of things I wasn't a fan of, but I also think she's right when she says that the other women did the same things and they were ganging up on her. The only things that I really fault her for is the LVP teeth comments and the comments about Denise's house. Even when it comes to the fight with Dorit, while I wish she hadn't been quite as explicit, I think the girls were planning a gang up on her, they tried to execute it, and she did try to avoid saying anything until Dorit pushed it. And it's not like the issues aren't public anyway. Also I think the women were pretty heartless when it came to not considering the position Camille was in, with her mother's health, her house and the loss of her assistant. They wanted to be able to hammer her on whatever they felt like, wanted her to gang up on LVP, and yet still wanted her to keep their secrets. That's just not reasonable. At the end of the day, Camille should be able to have 2 separate thoughts, that she is friends with LVP but maybe doesn't agree with everything she does. Just because the others can't do it doesn't mean Camille has to go along with them. I think she did it initially for herself and then production found out and wanted it for the show. So it was repeated so it could be on camera. Here is the weird thing for me. Kyle is all "They aren't reliable!" But then when her house was robbed, all of her staff had to have them done. Andy asks why, if they aren't reliable and she doesn't trust them. Oh, the police made them do it. Really? But your friend, whose child saw LVP there, was the person making his people go. And if it's not admissible in court, do the police make people do them? It really just seems like a convenient story Kyle is telling there. Not only could Kyle not be bothered to show empathy, she talked shit about her pretty much up until she got to the couch when she came back. But, as soon as Camille was back in earshoot, Kyle shut right back up. She is so two faced. Teddi and Denise spent the whole segment making nasty faces at Camille, then when it was over, Kyle goes and hugs Camille and Teddi nearly exploded. She said exactly that. She was worried LVP would see the film of them talking and then get mad about it, so she wanted to go and try to pre-empt things, thinking she could spin it and get out in front of it. Poor Kyle, she had to go tell the truth and it was sooo hard for her. Only she forgets that she doesn't get to arbitrarily decide what the truth is.

On another note, can we talk about that ring Reagan was wearing? It was literally a doorknocker on a ring. Is there a big market for this jewelry? I did see someone on another show recently wearing her necklace, I wish I could remember what show. I recognized it right away because it's hard to miss a doorknocker, but, seriously, how is this a thing? This is actually a RING. Why?

When I was around 20, I was driving home from work one night and was pulled over. I can't remember why, but I couldn't find the registration and proof of insurance for my car (I don't remember if I had changed wallets and forgot to move them, or I was sure they were in the console, etc). I did show my license, but that was it and I was clearly upset that I couldn't find the other things. The cop told me not to worry about it, he had only pulled me over because my car matched the description of one that been used in the commission of a crime and then let me go. No ticket, no warning, nothing. And that's exactly the problem with the system. So many people assume that because they have an experience like mine, your experiences don't happen. It's simply not true. I'm not saying that is the case of anyone here, I do want to be clear about that, but I do know people in "real life" who think that way, and I feel like the more exposure these conversations get, it's the only way they will ever have a chance of getting it.

I actually thought it was super important because it was somewhat uncomfortable to see. It's something that a portion of the viewers don't have to think about, really. I'm white and my parent did explain how to handle yourself if you got pulled over, but it was mostly a pull over as soon as you safely can, turn down the radio, wait with your hands visible, etc. I'm well aware that for a lot of people, there are far more concerns when being pulled over, but not everyone is. I know people who just don't believe that it's true, they think what happens to them is what happens to everyone, they can't see outside of their bubble. So seeing a conversation like that on tv helps to make the point. I just wish we had a world where it didn't have to be done at all. Don't forgot John John!

She probably wouldn't have said anything. Likely she would have just ghosted him.

Not only was it an "all cash" offer that kept getting postponed while the seller was trying to come up with investors and financing, it was also an "as is" offer. So they said they'd pay $33.5M for the property as it was, then after it was accepted, Mauricio pressured the sellers to drop the price by $1M.

I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Michael up until this episode, because I don't particularly care if he has an arrangement with Ashley or not. If he likes guys and she is good with it, that's fine. It's not the situation I would want to live in, but I don't care what other people do, so as long as they are happy, great. And I could have brushed past the sausage comment as a joke made when drunk and potentially taken out of context. Having seen the unseen footage, though, I now believe he did it. I totally get that sometimes you are walking past someone in a tight space and you might have physical contact with another person, I think everyone has accidentally brushed someone else's boobs or butt and it was totally an accident and you can tell that the other person didn't mean it, they apologize, say excuse me, and you keep going on the way you were. It just happens when you are in a small space, maybe trying to get down a row at a theater, or at a party or in a club, etc. In this case, though, you see Michael go past the camera guy, he goes in front of him and you hear him giggling. He says something to him like "hey bub!" and then the camera guy says "Don't do that" Michael says something else, still giggling, and then the camera guy is like "Please don't do that" Then Michael is like "oh, ok, sorry" He didn't immediately say he was sorry, he wasn't turned sideways trying to squeak past him, with a hand out at shoulder height, the way you'd do if you wanted to get out from behind someone and didn't want to run into them. And he didn't say "excuse me" or start with "I'm sorry" which you'd pretty much do as a reflex if you bumped up against someone as an accident. You wouldn't giggle about it until called out on it. I mean, to be fair, they didn't say what the 2.5 million was. They might have meant 2.5 million chopsticks, or business cards, etc. We know it certainly isn't dollars.

You may as well try to teach a robot appropriate emotional responses, it would be an easier job than teaching someone like Luann. She just doesn't have the ability to think about things from someone else's side. It's basically a missed stage of development, like when you have a little kid and they bite their friends and you have to teach them not to bite. They're biting not because they want to hurt people, but because they don't have the tools to express their frustration or anger that their friend took the toy they wanted in another way and they don't grasp that biting hurts the other person. When a kid is 3, you have to help them make the connection that if you bite your friend it hurts their friend and then their friend is sad. That's part of the way they learn not to bite. Luann only knows she does not like to be bitten. She still doesn't really get, or care, that if she bites someone they will be hurt. At this point, she can't learn it, all she's really learned is that other people don't bite, it seems to cause more problems than it's worth to bite, so she generally doesn't bite other people. But if for some reason she does, it's not HER fault she did, the reason you are hurt isn't because Lu bit you. It's because you took her toy and she had no other choice BUT to bite you. You took her toy. The other women can be self-centered, yes. Everyone can be. There is a difference, though, in that when someone says to Bethenny or Ramona that what they said hurt them, they are able to look at it and realize what they said was wrong. Or even if they still think what they said was true, they do feel badly for saying it in a harsh way and hurting the other person. Also in some cases, they see/hear something they said and realize it was wrong before anyone points it out. Ramona regretted her Dennis comment, for example. Bethenny the comment about Tinsley and a daughter.

True, but how can you make the argument that husbands and children should be off limits when you're going to bring a completely unrelated person into the mix the way she did? Nicolette has nothing to do with the show. Charlie has nothing to do with the show. It's one thing to mention in passing that someone was once married to this person and that is how you met, but to tell some sort of personal business of theirs?