[Jill, Derick & the Kids: Moving On!!]

2 hours ago, Stevie Nicks said:

For the record, I love beans and cornbread, so no shade here. 

I love beans and cornbread too, but I looked up her "fancy cornbread" recipe, and it's a pretty weird recipe, at least to me. Granted, I've been pondering the logistics of cornbread a lot recently because I finally talked my grandma into sharing her cornbread recipe with me. It's like the gold standard of cornbread with me, but I know everyone has their own special twist. LOL 

[The Lonely Js Club: Jana, Jason, James, Jackson & Johannah]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

Did Hilaria comment? 👀🤣

Asking the most important question!!!! 

[Sweet Fellowship: Duggars and Friends (aka the Bates Family and Other Featured Families Thread)]

1 hour ago, libgirl2 said:

Karissa Collins.... she is a bigger nutjob than Jill. If you ever want to go down a rabbit hole, read about her. She once said, she wished she could be pregnant while she was pregnant. Really sick woman. I feel awful for her kids. 

Yeah Collins is so batshit crazy that I have become uncomfortable following her to snark on her. I am very concerned about the safety of her kids. The frequency they end up in the hospital for issues that seem like they're caused by, at best, neglect and lack of supervision is disturbing. 

[Michelle and JimBob aka J'Chelle and Boob]

I can't get over what an awful name Paedon is. It makes some of the Duggar gems, like Jinger and Spurgeon, almost sound like poetry. 

[Sweet Fellowship: Duggars and Friends (aka the Bates Family and Other Featured Families Thread)]

49 minutes ago, Jynnan tonnix said:

Do they study any literature at all, or just read for enjoyment? What would even qualify as acceptable in their world?

My guess is no. The homeschool family I know that reminds me the most of the fundies we discuss here didn't really read anything but the Bible. Like the Rods, they were originally from New York State. The one exception was Pilgrim's Progress, which the dad thought was the greatest thing ever written. Their teenaged children had no idea Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes were based on literary works. I was appalled. They also thought me being into Southern Gothic lit meant I was a goth. 😂😂😂😂😂

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

32 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

And since Tupac is dead, we don't know how he really felt about her.  It's her story only.

One of the more telling stories I've heard about their friendship is that when she started dating Smith, she begged Shakur not to beat him up, and apparently Shakur was really confused and even rather offended that she thought that would be his reaction to the news. 

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

1 minute ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

there's something of the glory hound under that 'down to earth' persona, but it also feels like she goes out of her way to embarrass him every chance she gets.

Yes that's my read on the situation too! I've also heard that bit about her not wanting to get married. She apparently cried all the way down the aisle and not happy tears.  

3 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

At least in private, which just makes it weirder that they're still married and playing happy family in public.

To be honest, my friends who are the most vocal about how magical their marriage is are the ones who are in the worst marriages. I am not sure if they think telling other people will convince themselves it's better than what it is or if they are so embarrassed about it that they feel the need to put on a good public face. But I could see a similar thing being at work here. It doesn't make the performative oversharing any less obnoxious, though. 

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

2 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

 

What was wild to me was her admitting they never had a romantic relationship, but her son indicating that Tupac would have been his dad if he'd lived rather than Will Smith. It makes me think during arguments that Tupac must be thrown in Will Smith's face a lot and her kids grew up overhearing it That or she spends a lot of time actively talking to her kids about him as an alternative. 

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

6 hours ago, Avabelle said:

Taking Chris Rock and The Slap out of the Pinkett - Smith mess, I find Jada comes across incredibly toxic. I’m sure he is just as bad but his silence makes him look slightly better by comparison.

I don't follow them, but various things I've heard over the years makes me think that the relationship was never very healthy and that neither of them are very functional people. I know she's said she stopped taking her meds for depression and used him as a substitute and that apparently one of the factors in their marriage breaking down was a birthday party he threw for her that was all about him, in her eyes. He also apparently played one of her movie sex scenes when he introduced her to his grandma, which is just beyond the pale to me. On the flip side, the things their kids say about her and Tupac Shakur and the way she seems to be the primary instigator in the oversharing, even when he looks uncomfortable with it, makes me think that they're equally problematic. I think they're fundamentally incompatible and always have been.  

[Little House On The Prairie - General Discussion]

1 hour ago, jason88cubs said:

yea what DID Charles end up getting her for Christmas?

Popcorn. Probably. 😁

[What An Idiot: Stupid TV Moments]

On paper, Oliver is more logical than anyone else on the show, but really he's crazy as hell too. LOL I love when he's shown farming in a suit and/or sweater vest. 

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

I think I read Will and Jada a little more charitably, I guess.

It sounds like they were no longer happy in the relationship but also either did not or just could not break away easily.  It sounds like even though the romance or sexual spark was gone, there was still some sort of emotional connection there.  A lot of people find it hard to give up.  And I would imagine that if you already had one divorce under your belt, it might be doubly hard to see yourself in that boat a second time.

I think all of that makes sense. I can even understand wanting to keep your long-term separation private. What I don't understand is them spending years essentially lying about it and actively using their marriage as fodder for confessional material under the guise of being authentic and honest wherein they still present themselves as married when they haven't considered themselves married the entire time they were doing so. 

[Milestone Moments: All The Celebrity Vitals]

21 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Aren't Will and Jada Scientologists? That might be one of the reasons they're 'divorced', even though they're still legally married and have been seen in public together like nothing's going on.

I think they are in the same category as Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis in that they've never claimed to be Scientologists (and I believe Smith at least has even directly denied it), but they do so much Scientology adjacent stuff, that the denial rings a bit hollow and makes you wonder. 

What I can't get over is how much every couple of years, Smith and Pinkett Smith reclarify what their relationship is publicly and then directly contradict what they said earlier. (And who is even asking? I feel like all the TMI stuff I've learned about them over the years was directly against my will.) I've never watched her Red Table Talk series, but isn't her entire shtick on there having "candid" conversations about their family? They seem to have still presented themselves very much as a married couple there even quite recently. 

[Jill, Derick & the Kids: Moving On!!]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

Oh right, Central America. Thank you I corrected it.

I agree as of yet Derick makes a better student than employee and I too know other folks like him.

I think its the structureless structure, if you will, that appeals to lifetime students. They have freedom, yet clear guidelines and deadlines. Work often consists of little freedom and messy guidelines and deadlines.

You're welcome and agreed on the likely appeal. I've even had friends tell me they miss being graded because they felt like expectations were a lot clearer for them in an academic context. Derick may well stick with the law, but I can't say I'd be surprised if he's moved on to another career in a few years. 

[Jill, Derick & the Kids: Moving On!!]

9 hours ago, GeeGolly said:

Then Derick and Jill did a year(?) in Nepal.

I never can figure out if it was a year or two or somewhere in between, but it was in Central America rather than Nepal once they were married.

I agree, though, that he had a rather protracted sojourn of unemployment or "work" that I side-eye at calling work. I've said this on here before, but I've been curious to see, long-term, how Derick handles a job after the newness wears off. We are the same age, and I have quite a few friends who burn through jobs at the same pace he does--and some more rapidly. All of them were excellent students and even were good coworkers when we had a work-study job together, but they just do not handle real-world jobs well at all. They seem to need the structure school provides, and I have wondered if he is the same way. 

[Small Talk: The Prayer Closet]

I say take the candy. Halloween is the perfect opportunity for ensuring someone somehow gets candy, so they can probably redistribute it fairly easily if they don't eat it. 

[Little House On The Prairie - General Discussion]

7 minutes ago, Superclam said:

Now we have "Laura's Baby Dies" followed by a Carter episode, followed by "For the Love of Blanche."

Someone telling me it's time to stop watching TV? 

[Little House On The Prairie - General Discussion]

I remember y'all talking about that episode before I got to it. And all the snark I'd read still didn't adequately prepare me for when I first saw it. I was thinking "Surely it couldn't be as ridiculous as they're letting on." I was wrong, you were all right, and it was. 😂😂😂😂

[Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality]

That's one thing I really appreciated about The Rockford Files. Jim's shabby lifestyle reflected his shady clientele and whatever they were paying him (or not paying him) pretty well as a general rule. 

[Small Talk: The Prayer Closet]

2 hours ago, ginger90 said:

They set them up to overcome this and he wondered after, if he had been nodding and smiling when it wasn’t appropriate all that time.

I had a lunch today for a volunteer organization I do some charity work for. Two of the ladies who I've become friends with are both a lot older than me, and their husbands hang out a lot. They told me today that both men are really hard of hearing, and they seem to get along, but their wives are convinced they just talk at each other without hearing a damn word the other says. One of them told me she'd love to quiz both of them separately at the end of the day about what they think the other was discussing. LOLOL 

[Predator and Prey: Assault, harassment, and other aggressions in the entertainment industry]

6 hours ago, bluegirl147 said:

I haven't heard Julie Ormond's name in probably over 25 years. So yeah I bet she was blacklisted.

She had a somewhat prominent supporting role in the later seasons of Mad Men. The fact that was TV and not movies may very well be connected to a Weinstein blackball since my understanding is he was much more of an influencer in film than TV. 

[Small Talk: The Prayer Closet]

1 hour ago, jcbrown said:

I'm having trouble getting appointments for COVD boosters--evidently they are in high demand here in the Bay Area--but I'll keep at it. I can get my flu shot at a doctor appointment next week but our medical group is planning on setting up specific clinics for the COVID shots and they are not yet running. May end up booking at CVS.

Yeah we have a grand total of 2 pharmacies in my town, and when the vaccines first came out, one of them was really good about communicating about it on social media. I checked their Facebook post about appointments for this fall, but it's at least a couple of weeks old and promises weekly updates on appointment availability that has not been followed through on. I will call this week and ask, but I'm wondering if that means they ended up not having enough to go around or didn't get any or what the deal is. 

[Small Talk: The Prayer Closet]

1 hour ago, GeeGolly said:

I'm going back and forth between wanting the Covid vax now or at the end of the month. So I'll likely split the difference. While RSV and Covid are floating around now, we are still having decent weather so everyone hasn't started to hibernate yet when avoiding germs is near impossible.

I'm also debating when to get my next COVID one. I usually get my flu shot between Halloween and Thanksgiving per some article I read years ago. (I no longer even know if that's still considered the best time to get it. I just keep following it because it's easy to remember.) I could get the COVID booster then, but I am considering just getting it sometime in October. 

[Hmmm?: Blind Item Speculation]

1 hour ago, Unclejosh said:

Simon is an A List Actor?

That was my first thought. He's a TV personality (and maybe still an A list one--I never particularly cared for talent shows and don't follow them) but he's not an actor and don't believe he's ever claimed to be one. 

[What Are We Currently Reading?]

Curtis Sittenfeld is one of those writers who on paper seems like she'd be right up my alley, but the only book of hers I've ever read (Eligible) was incredibly underwhelming to me.