amarante

Adding that I really don't understand this Ralph adopting this kid storyline. Unless there is something missing, you can't adopt a child unless the parent legally gives up ALL parental rights to that child. It isn't a question of not wanting to hurt the bio Dad's feelings but that the bio -father has to actively sign a legal document before there can be an adoption. If Drew and Ralph discussed adoption with Josiah before discussing waiver by bio-dad, they really were awful because they should have confirmed bio-dad's willingness and then approached Josiah and asked whether he would like to be adopted. Honestly I am not sure whether adoption would be in the best psychological interest of the kid since it would signal strongly that bio-dad forever wanted to have nothing to do with the kid or acknowledge him as a child. But I ask who in the world are the potential readers for Ralph's expertise on any subject except perhaps how to hoodwink your wife when you are cheating on her in Tampa.

I am disappointed that Kandi is attempting to push Ace into a career - let him have his childhood. He didn't appear to be especially gifted as an actor. Child performers become twisted for the most part - you don't see most *sane* actors attempt to push their kids into the business as kids for the most part. The issue with Ross is that there was no reason to become that hostile to *protect* his woman - was it Nene who complained about men mixing into the "wimmens' business. While I don't believe the genders need to be segregated the show is a job and part of the job is to have the housewives getting into it with one another - there is no need for a man to interject themselves into it. And am I imagining it but does this franchise seem to really buy into the myth that a woman is only complete with a man. Sanye has taken that route at least twice this season - when she stressed that it was a couple's trip instead of just saying you can invite a friend if you like and on this episode when she insinuated that Kenya only reacted because she WISHED she had a man to protect her. It is especially ironic since some of the men I would actively want NOT in my life - Ralph for starters - Tyrone the felon - no one sane wants a relationship with someone incarcerated let alone someone who has a significant criminal past. I don't know enough about Ross to form an opinion although I think his push for another child when he obviously didn't do much hands on parenting is suspect. I don't get the sense that Kenya really wants a spouse at this point - I think she wanted a child and I think she has a child at this point. Even if the She by Sherree actually has a show with fashions on models, I think the whole thing is ridiculous. Getting samples is the least of it since you then have to get them manufactured and distributed. As I recall she bought fabric from a retail store and so anything actually shown on the runway would just be prototypes anyway. Also who is the market for jogging pants and leggings. The market is saturated and it isn't as if you can do that much with styles. Is this athleisure stuff or for real workouts. The expensive stuff seems to be tied in with luxury brands that are already branded as desirable; there is the mid level stuff like Champion or attached to Nike or whatever or Kate Hudson's brand - but those - especially the stuff like Champion have manufacturers and distributors in place. I just don't understand this - Sherree could have licensed her name to an existing company and they would release some stuff branded under her label.

I don't think she went *nasty* for just the sake of being nasty. I think since the whole Girardi scandal she has shown her more authentic self as her stress level has objectively risen and of course she was using her venom in an attempt to deflect her issues. If she scared people into not discussing the issues AND also made Sutton's *normal* behavior seem abnormal, then she would have succeeded. I think until the whole house of cards fell around her she was enjoying her Faustian bargain in terms of what Girardi's money had gotten her. Whether Girardi was "mean" in terms of what she is now claiming it obviously was not a marriage of love - she married him for his money and for many years had to be the loyal wife. I think this year she is more out of control because of the drinking. I don't think she is faking the drunkeness as I think she has been completely out of control at times. I also don't think it is the combination of anti-depressants and alcohol - I think it is the sheer amount of drinks she has in a short period of time. I think on one of the episodes BRAVO was numbering the wine glasses she was having and even without drugs most people would be reeling especially since these women don't eat that much. I am not a pharmacist but I don't think anti-depressants have the same kind of systemic neurological slowdown as the opioids do. Most of the modern ones rely on SSR uptakes and aren't just sedatives to mask your feelings like back in the 1960's when women were routinely prescribed "mother's little helpers" for any kind of mood disorder.

Regarding Crystal and her fashion, I think it is relative. She obviously has good taste but I think she wasn’t consumed by fashion and keeping up with the trendiest of styles. If you are rich you can have a lovely elegant wardrobe but not spend a lot of energy shopping for the latest as a pursuit versus Sutton who flew to Paris to buy couture because clothing was and is a passion for her. I am honestly amazed that Dorit pays for all of those hideous heavily branded outfits unless she is getting very high end replicas. 🥹😌🤔🤫

😱😱 God help me but even Teresa appeared to be sane in the UGT. I assume the women are able to relax because they don’t have to worry about creating drama or carry the show. Perhaps it is more equivalent to interacting when the company brings together various divisions for a retreat and you aren’t actively competing with the other divisions 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Dorinda wasn’t able to hold it together for even that time span. There are some housewives that are so loathsome like Diana that they aren’t even fun to watch. Erika has also descended to that level whereas in her early seasons she was interesting to watch even though she wasn’t at all likable. Teddi was both boring and unpleasant although she doesn’t cause the same kind of visceral loathing as I have for the reptilian Diana. I do agree thst whether it is Nannie’s or Dorit, her children seem lovely without being self consciously precious. The unteraction between Dorit and her daughter with the skates was charming. Of course the question remains as to how anyone could actually want PK as a spouse as he seems like a degenerate gambling grifter.

🤣🤣 I know there was one who visited her parents about an hour away and one who was worried about a father with COVID she couldn't visit but I don't know if I could pick them out in a lineup I know one designed some kind of maternity dress line but I don't know which one I had more of a sense of Sarah with the crazy fake degree who called herself a Doctor as I think I could recognize her but I don't know anything other than that. I only remember her because that speech she gave was so preposterous and pretentious. One of them liked French Fries - or at least decided to make that *her* thing - I don't know which one except it wasn't Chanel or Stanbury.

Well "like" in the sense that I enjoyed watching her on screen - thought she was smart and funny. In terms of "liking" the housewives in the sense you are using - almost none that I can think of - Garcelle I genuinely "like" in that sense as I think she is a decent human being who doesn't seem to want or need to manipulate the story lines in a mean spirited way in order to get screen time. Perhaps it is because she could walk away from the show tomorrow and still have a genuine career versus the standard D list celebrity-hood of the other housewives. I am running through the various franchises and while I could say "kind" things about them, I can't say I "like" them. For example, I think Kyle must have been a great mother because all of her girls (so far) have behaved appropriately unlike some of the spawn which either have criminal records or at best like Rinna's daughters are wannabe model/actresses. I say wannabe because neither of them really has the looks, the talent or the drive to be not manning the cash register at Walmart if they weren't born to Rinna and Harry.

She was the only one of the women I could actually distinguish - except for Stanbury for obvious reasons. The rest all looked the same with their long fake hair. I don't think it was that they were POC because I have no trouble distinguishing the different women on Atlanta or Potomac but they all seemed interchangeable and not particularly interesting. I don't even have a sense of how they wound up in Dubai or even the vaguest sense of their back story. I know there was a Jamaican and someone from Texas who wound up there. And apparently two Arab women but not sure of what their stories were exactly and I don't know if I could actually name any of them except Chanel if someone showed me pictures in a lineup. It all seemed very odd to me in terms of the drinking and the seductive clothing. Is this like in the US where there were dry counties but wink wink you could go to a "private" club and have your "personal" bottle of liquor served to you.

While I might not wear some of her choices I love that fashion is her passion and so she wears what she loves as a form of personal expression even if it isn’t the safest choice or the one that someone would advise for her figure. I like her style much more than that of Dorit who looks like a fashion victim for the most part and doesn’t seem to really follow her own taste. Erika has no style at all and is generally just vulgar.

I thought this article on the housewives and how they pay for their clothing was interesting. Not sure where it would best go but for some reason I think it focused on Sutton the most https://www.townandcountrymag.com/style/fashion-trends/a40745475/real-housewives-fashion-cost/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The Housewives Institute Bulletin - August 26%2C 2022&utm_term=Subscription List - The Housewives Institute Bulletin

Chanel really grew on me over the season. Yes she is over the top but I think she did that deliberately. She was not dressing for a specific occasion - she was dressing knowing that she was going to be on television so to me it was the equivalent of when Vogue or other fashion magazine shoots high fashion in an otherwise "ordinary" backdrop or setting. I don't think she exploited female circumcision because that is her story and she chose to reveal a deeply personal aspect of her life because the practice is so appalling. And anything that puts the insufferable Stanbury down a few notches is fine with me. Stanbury is smug and doesn't have any sense of humor about herself. Yes she makes jokes but they aren't truly self deprecating because she does truly think she is an exceptional person and I do think she was taken aback when she wasn't the center of the Dubai show the way she was on London since on London she was the hub of all of the women.

If something is being sold at a store assume that the wholesale price is half of that so $25,000. The wholesale price has some amount that is profit to the manufacturer, designer or design house. Obviously a famous design house will also be charging for the status of the name as well as theoretically the higher level creativity of the design team. The level of materials used in these kinds of gowns is extremely expensive and generally they use an enormous amount of fabric. Also if they have any kind of embellishment that is expensive if they are higher end. A few times Randy has explained how the more expensive embellished gowns use more expensive stones and beading. Beautiful lace is very expensive as well as any kind of appliqués which would often be hand made. And the skill of the labor necessary to actually create these gowns is either highly paid or exploited. If Kleinfeld charges $1000 for a standard alteration on a regular gown imagine the number of hours needed to create a one of a kind couture intricate dress. In terms of the $50,000 monstrosity, I do think that Kleinfeld has an extremely limited number of customers who come to K to buy at that price point. For the most part they are going elsewhere. I would think we are probably seeing 99% of the women who are buying at the price point at K because of the television stuff. I do think K does have people who might be spending $20,000 for an elaborate gown. There was a young girl many seasons back from Brooklyn who had bought a $20,000 Pnina fancy ballgown which had been customized and she hated it and so they remade it with a different skirt which drove up the price. I remember that episode because the girl was from a specific extremely wealthy community and I knew of her father who was a multi-millionaire and the community is so interesting because they live in non-gentrified section of Brooklyn even though they could afford to live on Park Avenue if they chose. There are some very expensive mansions in their small neighborhood based on how close they are to their neighborhood cultural center.

I thought the New Rochelle episode was a bit odd in terms of their choices. They loved Brookyn but wanted to move to New Rochelle. They could have stayed in Brooklyn and bought in one of the many residential neighborhoods and had the advantage of living in the city. One of the things which HH almost never discuss is the difference in tax rates which effectively drives up the actual net cost of a house significantly. Tax rates in the NYC/NJ metropolitan area suburbs are extremely high because the tax base is largely residential and has to support each individual school system since each town or municipality has its own system. The tax rates in NYC for home owners is relatively low because NYC has a large commercial and industrial tax base which is taxed at a much higher rate as well as significant income from sales tax and even income tax so the net cost of home ownership for someone in NYC could be lower. And yet another realtor tossing out delusional costs for renovating kitchens, baths and other stuff. New Rochelle and the entire area is a high cost of living area with high labor costs so remodeling costs are among the highest in the country. A lower end modest size kitchen would run about $50,000 - a bathroom - $30,000 and that would be for relatively modest finishes and not anything vaguely aspirational. Start knocking down walls to open it up and you run into serious costs in terms of replacing structural beams and the flooring which will have a gap where the wall used to be. So two bathrooms - minimum of $60,000 and a modest kitchen at $50,000. I can't even begin to imagine the cost of sanding down all the walls so they are smooth because it is so labor intensive. And forget about getting all of that work done in 30 days - it can be months to get a good reliable GC available because of. the shortage of good labor - not to mention supply chain issues which delay everything.

I didn't particularly like that Pnina and its popularity was inscrutable. I did like the Lazaro dress with the flowered belt which showed up in a number of episodes including one where the bride bought it in the blush color. I could understand why it was so popular

I don't have any special insight but these were still being filmed during COVID when there were a lot of restrictions. I imagine that they had logistical issues to work around in terms of requirements for any production.

Very illuminating interview with Chanel - explains quite a bit about what is going on in terms of the *real* relationships of the housewives https://www.vulture.com/article/chanel-ayan-real-housewives-of-dubai-interview.html#_ga=2.65549614.1834480821.1660960508-2029832861.1656437511 Coming out of this you have issues with both Carolines. What do you think was the biggest cause of the shift? For me, before we started filming, Caroline Stanbury called me for an hour and said to me, “This is not for you. It’s for me and my friends.” Me and her share a best friend, so I think she knew that I was very outspoken, so she was trying to discourage me from being part of the show. That’s where our problems started. She has an ego — I’ve been in a show in England, I’m famous, I’m better, I’m this and that. But I’m a Black woman from Africa; it doesn’t mean anything to me. I feel powerful on my own whether I’m on TV or not. Brooks is a very sad situation because it’s so hard when you see another Black girl trying to put other Black girls down just to feel accepted by the “queen of England,” basically being the minion of Stanbury. Me and Lesa really supported her a lot in recent episodes; we’re always on her side trying to make her feel good, but she just backstabs us and puts me down. That kind of situation just makes it so hard to trust her. And then she just lies a lot. Literally, 95 percent of the stuff she said on the show. People who followed Stanbury from Ladies of London were surprised by her demeanor in general. She seemed disengaged if she wasn’t the focus of attention. She didn’t want to film with me most of the time. She just wanted it to be all about her. It didn’t work out because I would have loved to film with her more, and the moments I filmed with her I actually enjoyed it, so I just feel like there was a lot of missed opportunity. But the ego took over her. Their recapper (not the interview) also analyses it as series of micro-aggressions by Stanbury who either consciously or unconsciously is a bit of a racist. No surprise there really as even on the original Ladies of London she was an insufferable snob. https://www.vulture.com/article/the-real-housewives-of-dubai-season-1-episode-11-recap-salty-waters.html#comments

In fairness the HH estimated that it would cost $2500 per the closed captions. Of course that is besides the point because taking down a load bearing wall is not something that an amateur should even think about doing because you can wind up with the second floor on the first floor. Goes in the category of HH who say that they will be able to redo the bathroom because it is just cosmetic. Which is why I shudder to think of all of the horrors that might be lurking in homes where DIY wannabees did structural work. A tiled shower is potentially one of the most *dangerous* things if not done properly because if not done properly it will leak and cause mold and even structural damage to the beams and joists. Neither tile or grout are waterproof and so the shower has to be properly waterproofed and the shower floor needs to be properly sloped before the tile is installed. My shower had to be inspected three times by the City including a 24 hour test in which the drain is stopped up and the shower floor is filled and the level of water is checked to make sure that no water leaked during that period. And most homeowners don't think about the cascading series of things which must be done when even a non-load bearing wall is taken down starting with replacing the flooring since the floor was installed originally with a wall in place. I also don't understand the issue of paint color. When someone moves out of a home, it has been my experience that it needs to be painted - there are holes, smudges and color fades - and that is not even taking into consideration that you might not like the color.

Being of an age when my parents are dead and my closest friends and relatives have also experienced the death of parents, all I can say is that none of us have used grief as a way of justifying awful hostile behavior to others and excusing it because we were triggered. Obviously people process grief differently but Rinna's grief seems completely inauthentic. Of course Rinna is an vile person as she has demonstrated throughout her seasons so perhaps it is like someone who is a "mean" drunk who suddenly spews racist stuff or physically attacks people. Being drunk doesn't cause that behavior - it only removes the inhibiting factors. People who aren't angry and hostile or bigoted don't suddenly become so when drunk. Similarly people who aren't angry don't become so when grieving.

Perhaps you are right in terms of the sister taking charge - Rinna would certainly take the air out of any family dynamic. I do think that Rinna is milking her grief for her story line. She wasn't that involved with her mother and so it is hard to believe that she is suddenly *missing* her. Of course she could be experiencing some kind of regrets over missed opportunity but that scene last week when she was faking crying was a real turn off. That just seemed like the epitome of melodramatic bad soap opera acting.

I feel like I am being subjected to some kind of rewriting of history as far as Rinna and her mother. In one of the early seasons Rinna went to visit her parents with her two girls and it was mentioned that they hadn't seen each other in several years. I think for whatever reason Rinna decided that Lois was a good storyline (even before the super storyline of her death) and so she used Lois's popularity periodically and Lois was enough of a ham and wanted to be more in her daughter's life so she was happy to play the party. As I recall Rinna released a lipstick with her mother's name right after the mother died. Also - at least my experience and those of my friends with aging parents, is that it is very common to move parents close to you when they really get on in years and especially after the death of a spouse. Even if a parent is not mentally declining, the level of administrative stuff becomes difficult to handle at a distance. Yes arguably the parent might have a social structure in their old location but the reality is that at a certain point, they need some help. My father was extremely sharp until the end but when he started experiencing more complicated medical issues, I went along on appointments and it was good to having working relationships with his doctors so that I could get information as well as their having the ability to be honest with me regarding quality of life decisions towards the end.

Yeah - I thought it was one of the more normal interactions. I think Crystal and Kathy knew each other before the show. I don't find it strange if I visit a real friend to mention that I am hungry and ask if they have something that would be no trouble to get from the pantry like crackers. And then the basket was there which contained cheeses and so they asked if she would also like some cheese. And also not strange if someone offers you something to drink to ask for Coke. I have a good friend and when she comes over she will ask for a Coke - do people actually not have friends that they are casual with like this? I didn't get any sense of entitlement from Kathy in that particular interaction but just the normal interaction of actual friends - and her advice was spot on.

I don't know if it is a loophole but legally you can rent out your VA financed home after you have resided there for a year. You can have two or more VA loans but there is a certain maximum total that is allowed but if they haven't hit the ceiling on the first home then it wouldn't matter. I would imagine they would refinance and use appreciated equity to refinance without needing the 0 down payment help and then use it for other homes. I don't begrudge their being able to take advantage of Vet benefits which reflect service to their country. And it isn't as if the are getting a free ride as they still had to fix up those places in order to make them viable as rental properties and I would imagine also fix them up to the extent they are flipping them. Better them than some anonymous corporation that takes advantage of tax loopholes or other government benefits -

I am probably the antithesis of this woman as I live in an urban high-rise and there are buildings around me but no windows directly across from me - if I look out I can't see into anyone else's windows as I am higher than anyone else for about two blocks. I don't keep the shades down except in the morning because of glare from the sun. I guess theoretically someone could spy on my with high powered binoculars but my life is so boring that I can't imagine why anyone would do that so I just keep my blinds up and carry on with my normal boring life. I feel the same way about my email and texts - anyone would fall asleep if they hacked into my correspondence and read it.

I think the language and other aspects that aren't quite period are deliberate choices to attempt to underscore that the women being depicted were not really typical of their times - they were outliers.

I don't really follow current stuff on Federline. At this point he seems to have really stepped up to the plate and been an excellent father. It reminds me of the guy who fathered a kid with Anna Nicole Smith - he seems to have stepped out of the spotlight - taken the girl and done a great job of fathering. Of course, he wasn't in a relationship with Anna where anyone thought he was looking for a financial bonanza.