amarante

Just when I think this show couldn't get more stupid, it does. Since the show has effectively been cancelled I am assuming that the writers are busy sending out resumes and attempting to get jobs for next year instead of actually attempting to write a coherent show. On the simplest level any kind of non-compete clause is very narrowly construed because the law doesn't favor preventing people from earning a level. There is no way any of these doctors were be viewed as having unique knowledge or even be able to take business from their old employer. The English child segment is VERY loosely *inspired* by Alta Fixsler who was a two year old who had spent all of her 2 years in an English hospital in a vegetative state while having to undergo intrusive and presumably painful or very uncomfortable procedures to keep her alive. The case was litigated for a LONG time and ultimately even by some European court of human rights who all decided that the English medical authorities were correct and that continuing to sustain her *life* was doing medical harm without any benefit. It is ridiculous to have made Helen into a doctor who pursues "life" at any cost because there is absolutely nothing in her prior history that would have her do anything except try to get the parents to understand why hopeless medical intervention was just inflicting useless suffering. The legal justification for the English court is that the best interests of the child are not to proceed with more painful intervention - it is basically the same as when courts intervene in order to get medical treatment for parents who aren't allowing their kids to get appropriate chemotherapy or other medical treatment. https://www.bAlta Fixslerbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-58820309 In the US there is the case of Jahi McMath who was declared brain dead after surgery but the parents would not consent to removing her from life support even though panels of doctors had confirmed that she was in essence a corpse and death certificates had been issued. In that case she was taken to New Jersey which is one of the few states that allows parents to override medical panels on the basis of religious beliefs. She remained in a vegetative state for a few years but eventually died after about five years. There are some cynics who *allege* that a motivation for keeping her alive was to increase the amount one could get in a lawsuit since there is a cap on amount for a death of a child versus almost unlimited amounts if the child remains alive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahi_McMath_case

I don't know about other locations but the drive times for some of the Los Angeles episodes is fantastical. There was an episode where HH were moving to LA and for whatever reason wanted beach proximity but they were looking at places in the far valley like Woodland Hills and Calabasas as I recall. They kept saying the beach was 20 minutes away and I thought the same as you in that episode - yes at 3 AM but not at any time when someone was actually planning to go to the beach. I have never heard ANYONE think of homes in the valley and beach proximity in the same thought

I realize there is emotional closure for getting the murder conviction but realistically I would think the domestic terrorism is the most serious charge and he was on tape handing a bomb to someone with instructions on how to get it on the plane. That gets you a cell in a Supermax prison for life without possibility of parole. Not that murder isn't a serious felony but realistically - taking away the domestic terrorism - it was just a murder which gets you 25 to life in New York State although I am not sure whether the murder of a TSA agent makes it completely within the jurisdiction of the Federal government.

I think it varies but the big benefit of having grandparents relatively close is for emergencies. If a child is sick then the grandparent can be with them or if day care or school is off or the babysitter doesn't show up the grandparent is available for that kind of emergency help. Most parents don't expect the grandparents to be full time nannies but that varies also as there are families in which the grandparents do fulfill that role just as there are families in which multigenerations live together and the "nuclear" family isn't as rigidly defined as in the typical US culture. And in those cultures the grandparents are often then taken care of as part of the way the generations take care of each other. Finding someone to help if your child is sick is a MAJOR problem for working parents because you can't send them to school or day care. My grandmother used to take care of me when I had to stay home because both my parents worked. I don't know what they would have done if she wasn't available for emergencies. And also difficult for parents when kids are in elementary school and there are school holidays and the parents need to work on those days.

I don't know how these people snookered the system but in certain communities or circles there are people who *assist* others in terms of greasing the wheels. It isn't outright fraud but they know exactly how to present the evidence and have what I suspect is a *sympathetic* group or doctors or other professionals. Same is true in terms of getting assistance for learning disabilities paid for. There is extremely high percentage of getting it in certain communities and much less success in other communities. Anecdotally there is a very high percentage of privileged kids who are able to get approved for additional time on standardized tests because of some type of learning disability

My friend also had it done or something similar. She has had an eye lift and a face lift and injectables but she said this was the worst procedure she ever had done especially because of the work done on her neck and her ears.

It would depend on what class the particular car was but the bathroom compartment was on the train and had nothing to do with Poplar specifically. It wouid have been a standardized car that went throughout London 🤷‍♀️Are you confusing a train bathroom with one in a station?

Wanted to mention that when Sr. was explaining the burial to Carole she told her that the woman who was being buried had 9 children and 18 grandchildren and it comforted Carole to think that her baby was going to be with that kind of woman and that the baby would also provide comfort for the dead woman. I don't have any kind of spiritual feelings as I think we are dead when we die but I can have the leap of imaginative empathy to understand that obviously a Sister and a not very well educated 15 year old girl would have quite a literal idea of souls having some kind of awareness.

I would say more than just a grain. 😂 Even knowing the stories are fake sometimes the sheer idiocy of the storyline rankles me. I just can’t conceive of why anyone would buy immediately after moving to a foreign country. Or the other weird scenario is when people move to a country to start a business and buy a home with all their money. Maybe I am overly cautious but I would want to retain as much liquid capital as possible and rent until my business was generating income 🤷‍♀️ My comment on having a second bedroom was less directed at this specific set of HH and more in general as many of the HH moving to expensive metropolitan areas state that need a guest room because people will be visiting them. I grew up in New York City and no one I knew had a guest room. My young adult friends had studio or one bedrooms and anyone who wanted to stay slept on the sofa bed or the sofa itself. Families who had children might shift the children around but real estate was just too expensive to afford a dedicated guest room.

This was terribly depressing as I do think that Matt was in cahoots even if he was too lazy to actually do the killing. There are a few Dateline type cases in which a husband got away with murder for a long period of time but then eventually his sociopathic nature broke through and he was caught. I wonder if he is still able to collect money on the children, The ending indicated that Alice (the child) was legally adopted by Annie's mother - has had therapy - and appears to be doing okay. There have been interviews on Dateline type shows with the children of spouse killers and most of them seem to have done okay if they were adopted by the mother's family (or father's family if applicable). Yes the experience would have shaped them but people can be resilient if given the opportunity and resources to heal. I also saw the Dateline with the scammers you are referencing. I remember they were caught when both of them were scheduled for their VA appointments at the same time because they shared the wheel chair. I think they also were doing a MAJOR scam (besides killing the woman's husband and making it look like a suicide) by claiming they were high level Army vets who were employed on ultra secret DOD missions. But I could be confusing them with another set of scammers who didn't pretend to be incapacitated but only killed and scammed.

I think the issue is more black women do stuff with their hair that can cause damage than white women. Most of the white women I know don't wear wigs or have extensions or have braids. White women damage their hair by over processing it with bad bleach jobs but that fries the hair more than it causes hair loss along the hair line specifically and that fried overly processed look is prevalent. Of course there are certain styles like tight pony tails which if worn every day like a ballerina does will cause hair loss. After menopause many women start losing their hair but that tends to be an overall thinning with random bald patches and isn't related to over stressing the hair but to the increase in the proportion of male hormones. Of course the joke is that the hair on the head travels to the chin at that time. Also I have read that that WOC often have more delicate than typical Caucasian hair and thus has to be treated more gently and so it is more susceptible to damage.

Yes anything that causes continual abrasion or tension on hair will cause permanent hair loss. It also happens when women wear very tight pony tails or buns which pull on hair continually like ballet dancers or Jojo Sliwa.

Apple TV had a documentary streaming this weekend on Eric Conn who ran a fraudulent scheme in cahoots with a judge in connection with Social Security disability - it's quite good if one has an interest (The Big Conn). I thought of Jen Shah because the defendants were given the option to plead. The doctor was offered a relatively short sentence (e.g. about five years) and was told if he was convicted at trial he would be probably be sentenced to 25 years - which he was. Conn - the lawyer - was a bit more complicated because he had welched on a plea deal so he was also given the maximum - 27 years. Similar white collar financial crimes although the fraud in the Conn case was against the US government whereas Shad has defrauded individuals. On the other hand proof of fraud in the Conn case did depend somewhat on testimony of individuals whereas my understanding of the Shad situation is that there is a paper trail that only requires testimony so that it makes "sense" to the jurors.

I could be over complicating things but he said "I usually don't lose them" or something like that. And I thought maybe he is the rogue medical provider who creates a medical crisis so that they can have a heroic save. There have been a few cases where these people have been discovered because they don't manage to revive all of the people they put in danger and so the mortality rates get skewed when they are on duty.

I realize these stories are fakety fake and the HH have generally been settled in the location for awhile. However I just saw an episode involving a move from Florida to the Gold Coast. Neither theoretically had a job at the time of shooting although the wife had some kind of visitor work visa and the husband was a native. Why in the world did they want to purchase a home instead of waiting a year. Again I realize that the story is fake but according to the storyline neither had jobs and so they didn't know where the jobs might be AND since they had no jobs they were hesitant about the price. Why not just rent for six months or a year until one is more settled - knows what one's income is realistically going to be. Again I realize that it is a story line but I find it such a bizarre way to go about things but then I also find it odd when people move to another state they have never lived in and buy a home immediately instead of renting and getting a real feel for what the various options were. And I am no doubt a selfish person but I also would not pay a significant amount of money in order to have a dedicated guest room. People can either pay for a hotel room or they can crash on my living room sofa bed.

I was attempting to explain because some people seem to take as gospel that these kinds of aspects of a home search are what most home owners do. The show is edited and produced in order to provide a specific type of programming that is intended to convince other consumers that they will be missing out if they don't have these things in their home. I suspect that many of the househunters actually evaluate homes on more rationally objective criteria like school districts and taxes but that would make for a more boring show than having homeowners who want a skate board ramp or a room that is tall enough to display their 10 foot Christmas tree. And of course when HH are depicted as finding older kitchens unacceptable because they aren't on trend it will theoretically cause viewers to realize that their kitchens and baths are "dated". It also goes along with the false message that renovating a kitchen or bath is less expensive than it actually it AND that it will increase your equity enough so that it is a good return on investment.

I don't believe that Juicy required a prenup prior to the marriage because it makes absolutely no sense. There was no property to protect that Juicy had going into the relationship and he sure as hell wasn't going to inherit anything significant from his parents. He didn't have any hidden assets at that point - and you don't use a prenup to protect hidden assets. Any assets would be accumulated during marriage and subject to normal disposition during a divorce and prenups can't cover children for typical support unless someone is obscenely wealthy and so they guarantee funding a trust fund for each child with a specified amount on birth. I think the whole Juicy prenup was an invention which was used to bolster whatever myth she was attempting to sell at that point. I also think that she probably will sign a prenup agreement when push comes to shove. At the very least Gia is going to want to make sure that her mother's assets don't wind up with Luis.

I could only find this picture of the girls' outfit - it seems pretty innocuous. Of course this is completely ignoring the obscenity of people celebrating their second marriage with all the trappings of a virgin bride. I had an aunt on my father's side who celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary wearing a big white bridal gown which my mother found ridiculous - but at least the aunt was celebrating a marriage that had endured. Tre's renewal was in 2011. Was the engagement party filmed? Given the remarks about the seating at the reunion, it doesn't appear it was filmed. I would have assumed that Tre would have wanted to schedule it during filming to maximize her storyline. Also - unless I also suffered from Baltimore Betty's lapse of knowing all useless Housewives' data, I don't recall any mention of the engagement party in the media except on the reunion. There weren't any pictures which is odd since these women take photos to post at the opening of an envelope as the cliche goes.

And why not do a vow renewal since she broke even if not made money on the event. Every single item that was mentioned from catering hall to dress to cake gave her freebies in exchange for the promotional mention. She also sold the photos to at least one outlet - InTouch which had a cover story so they paid for the interview as well.

I am not sure why the Canadian couple is more deserving of "jealousy" for their economic good fortune as there have been other couples who are able to afford expensive homes. In this case they were buying what was probably a house built 20 or so years ago which had not been updated during that period. The kitchen was not a great kitchen functionally - the cooktop was in a poor spot and the cabinets were not functionally configured. The finishes were also dated but her real quibble with the kitchen was function. They managed to get a good deal by saving their neighbor about $40,000 on broker commissions. Because of the good deal they were able to get by getting it off market they were willing to purchase it even though the kitchen needed a remodel and there were some other cosmetic updates that would be made. Normally you don't get a return on investment from any remodeling project unless you are in the construction or design business and are essentially doing it for far less than an ordinary homeowner. Her husband was in construction and so it was a given that they were going to get a bargain that needed remodeling to bring it into the 21st Century since he had the expertise, skills and connections that most homeowners lack. As usual the other houses they looked at were decoys. In this episode they were close enough in attributes to the house the HH had bought so there was some suspense. The HGTV network exists to sell eyeballs to advertisers based on content that convinces those eyeballs to buy products - ads for HGTV reflect that the advertisers assume the audience (eyeballs) are susceptible to home improvement products and the content is designed solely to reflect that. Hence the fantasy of all of their improvement and flip it type shows which attempt to fool the general public into thinking that the cost of various home improvement measures is lower than the reality. There is another show on HGTV called Unsellable Homes in which the agents are two sisters who put money to improve the home and then split the profits with the homeowner after recouping their costs. The problem is that the actual cost for doing those renovations would greatly surpass the sales price so the ordinary homeowner would be economically better off selling it without the costly renovations and just following standard real estate advice - clean it; fix anything that makes it appear that maintenance has been deferred and get rid of clutter so that the closets and cabinets appear to be spacious.

The question of potential issues was never addressed. I do know women who went the artificial insemination and didn’t automatically take hormones. Hormone therapy is invasive and does a number on your body. Why wouldn’t someone attempt to do it without for a few times since there was no issue of supply. but of course amping the drama with nonsensical irrational medical decisions is necessary for what is essentially a soap opera. I just question why there wasn’t any mention at all about why the hormones which is misleading since artificial insemination is the least medically invasive procedure and generally doesn’t require the aid of hormones in most women. The reason not to do it is that most doctors don’t put their patients through medical intrusive procedures that are unnecessary. Not that it matters for the show but hormone therapy is also expensive.

The unnaturally arched eyebrows are a sure indicator of a bad Botox job. She probsboy had other work because her skin looked odd but the eyebrows were the most egregious. 🥸

I took it to mean that she cooked certain foods like seared steak which generated fumes. I recently did a gut remodel of my kitchen and I would also have had issues with the kitchen for the reasons she mentioned. 🤷‍♀️ I don’t burn foods but proper venting whatever you cook is really necessary especially in an open plan home where all the effluents float all over the living area and onto the furniture s8nce they aren’t contained in a closed kitchen.

I don't understand why Carina is on hormones unless I missed something about her fertility. It is not uncommon for women to attempt insemination through sperm using a turkey baster (or medical equivalent) without resorting to hormones. They have a free unlimited source of sperm and would theoretically have the ability to assess when she would theoretically be most receptive. If it didn't work that way in a reasonable period time, then one could get the expensive and invasive and horrendous hormones - unless I am missing something. To say that Andy's mother had "work" done is an understatement. Those eyebrows were a dead give away of badly done Botox - at the very least.

Brian Moylan does fantastically witty recaps of RHONJ among other RH franchises. They appear on the Vulture section of the NY Magazine website. It is worth checking out his recaps on that site He also does a really droll funny newsletter which you can subscribe to. Since he doesn't do recaps he did feel compelled to do a recap of the Reunion Show. He so brilliantly captures Tre in all her feral stupidity I thought I would post it here - worth subscribing to his newsletter which is subtitled "Mention It All" I don’t know if Elon Musk personally bought Twitter to fix the algorithm so that I’d never have to see another positive post about Teresa Giudice again or if fans really turned on her after the reunion, but I didn’t see as much as the unwavering positivity and mental gymnastics that the Tre huggers usually make to wave away her more egregious antics. If there was ever a time to turn on her, it’s after her hypocrisy, venom, grudge-holding, and small-mindedness were even more shimmering than usual at the reunion. Speaking of which, I quite liked the gold-and-silver-themed outfits we get for this runway even as I grow increasingly tired of the overproduced sets that are meant to look like whatever trip they went on that season. (The set of Kathy Hilton’s backyard gets a pass for obvious reasons.) However, Melissa’s midriff-baring 1 Million BC double loincloth looked way better standing up than it did sitting down (and it didn’t look that great standing up). Jennifer Aydin looked great but continued the reunion-dress trend of far too many Big Bird feathers for no particular reason. Also the cutouts on Dolores’s dress, which looked like a lamé Gordian knot, were not too flattering. But it was Teresa’s mirrored jumpsuit, which looked like a disco ball that exploded in the Sahara, that was the real victim here. That she doesn’t know how bad this looks just shows how out of touch Teresa really is. (Then again, this is a woman who lived in an onyx cave with wings on her front doors for more than a decade, so we should not at all be shocked.) The hours started not with Teresa but with Jennifer and Dolores going at each other. The rift in their friendship, they explained, wasn’t caused by one incident but a culmination of things. These two seem like worthy adversaries, especially since the chastened and quiet Jennifer we saw this season — in the wake of her husband’s infidelity coming to light — is gone. We got our old loud, accusatory, and bomb-throwing Jennifer back, and I couldn’t be happier. I was a little surprised to find out she’s a stoner, though. If this is what Jen is like baked, I can’t imagine her on uppers! We eventually got to Teresa, though, and like a certain ex-president who was once Teresa’s celebrity boss, she turned right to her well-worn list of grievances. She’s still angry that Jackie used an analogy about her daughter, she’s pissed at the way Melissa got on the show, she’s mad that she thought her brother chose her cousin Kathy over her, and, worst of all, she’s annoyed that Melissa didn’t postpone her wedding so that Teresa, who was eight months pregnant at the time, could get drunk at her brother’s wedding. Even Andy Cohen was like, “Lady, you have got a brain full of spiders and pants full of ants.” This came out when the question of whether Melissa should be a bridesmaid at Teresa’s wedding was raised, which seems like quite the unforced error on Teresa’s part. As Missy G pointed out, it seemed like she would just have her four “dooorters” as her bridesmaids, but instead she’s having Luis’s sisters but not her sister-in-law. When Melissa pointed out that Teresa was a bridesmaid in her wedding, that’s when Teresa dropped that nuclear bomb of idiocy on all of us. This is one of my many problems with her: She just wants everything her way, like a spoiled child. She didn’t even think it could take longer to plan a wedding than to have a kid. Joe and Melissa’s “save the dates” were probably already shipped when Tre got knocked up. Then they’re just supposed to change the date because Teresa was a little inconvenienced? That’s insane. No one thinks Melissa should have done this. I also don’t think Teresa needs to invite Melissa to wear what is surely a tacky dress for a marriage that will last about the length of a Senate term. Melissa was using this as an excuse to show how Teresa is always talking about her family and how Melissa and Joe need to save their family, but Teresa won’t ever do anything she doesn’t want to do to back them up. She talks about family and then puts them with all of her friends at the engagement party. Which is fine. Teresa says they’re not that close, which is also fine. But then she bangs on about how family is the most important thing to her and how she is old school. This circle doesn’t square. It just goes round and round like the rainbow pinwheel when your MacBook is thinking. Speaking of which, it’s like Teresa had that spinning wheel in her brain when asked for one time she had Melissa’s back. She couldn’t even think of one. “Roll the tape,” she says to the producers. Oh, you think they wouldn’t if they could find one? Of course they couldn’t because she never has. Again, this is fine, except she always insists Melissa and Joe have her back, which to her means blind faith and devotion. What’s reprehensible to me is Teresa acts this way and everyone has to bow to her whims to stay on the show. The thing about our reality stars is we don’t need them to completely change, only to grow and evolve. We need to see them progress somehow, to repair their relationships, to move on from the past. Teresa is incapable of doing this because her grudges are like a mud bath, soothing and keeping her skin tight and young. It’s not even interesting to watch anymore. Melissa said in some interviews that she doesn’t think Teresa enjoys being on the show anymore, and it shows. She shouts at Melissa how they’re not close. She yells at Margaret and Jackie about how they’re not friends. Jennifer and Dolores shout about how they hate each other and only talk on camera. If these women can’t even be in a group together, can’t even have interesting fights, then what is this all about? Why are we even invested? It seems like, at this moment, RHONJ isn’t only fighting against being stale, it’s worried about its own existence.