amarante

Well she is a MAW - model, actress, whatever 🙂 And she has the look of the stereotypical Eastern European "escort" I don't understand how people can not use some form of birth control when they are screwing someone who they just met. Aside from STD's "normal" people think about the consequences of pregnancy. And is there anyone who actually envisions their celebrating their silver anniversary let alone remaining together until the kid is out of diapers.

I don't know when that specific botoxed, lip injected look became de rigeur among a certain sector of women but I think it has become completely ubiquitous to the point where I suspect that a woman with "normal" features would look odd. The Kardashians seem to personify a glorification of beauty as one that is trying to achieve what is essentially a photoshopped reality. What I find disconcerting and hilarious and ultimately sad is when I am watching film or television and the actress portraying the teenager has more facial lines than her mother because the younger actress isn't yet Botoxing so when her face moves, there are lines whereas the actress portraying the mother is botoxed and nothing moves except the lips.

At 50 I would hope someone doesn’t have such warped priorities that they are living in Highland Park and driving a leased expensive car if they lack the means to afford them and only have $200 in the accounts Her Bravo salary for the season means she is making more than most Americans and people at her income level generally have more than $200 in their bank accounts when they are 50. The statistic on assets of Americans doesn’t generally include people in her zip Code unless they are fronting it and squandering their assets.

I don't know anything about Texas real estate prices but I had some friends from Austin and they were so unlike the typical Texas - or at least the typical stereotypical Texas. I think Austin is a blue sea in what was once a very red State although now it seems to be trending purple in some areas :-). The culture of Austin seems to be very artistic and reminds me of how Athens, Georgia also had an alternative type of culture years ago. I would imagine having the influx of students attracted to the respective universities who then want to settle in the town has a lot to do with it. In my experience, the kinds of people who are attracted to places like Austin are also more interested in being in certain locations versus being willing to locate far out in the suburbs in order to get a larger home per se. That kind of desire to be closer to the city would drive up the price of homes located within a reasonable distance of the city life.

It's not uncommon at all for someone to have an Inter Vivos Trust for estate planning purposes even if you don't have millions and millions of dollars. It is a way to avoid having to deal with probate because when you die all of the assets in the trust automatically go to the designee. Also it is very common to have one with the "owner" as a Trustee and having another Trustee who can only use the money in the Trust to benefit the "owner". This is in case the "owner" is too incapacitated to handle finances, the other Trustee can take over - again the money can only be used for the benefit of the "owner". My parents had this kind of Trust. When my mother died, I was named as another Trustee along with my father. Towards the end of his life, I took over his finances and so it was very easy as I could immediately write checks and deal with his broker. Since I was the sole beneficiary, when he died there was no probate and so I only had to deal with other administrative aspects of which there were plenty. In Mama Dee's case, she would be the Trustee of the Intervivos Trust and would probably have another Trustee which could be D'Andrea. D'Andrea could only use money for Mama's benefit and any other use would be embezzling. Mama Dee has the ability to change the beneficiary of the Intervivos Trust at any time during her life just as someone can change their will. This is very different from the kind of Trust that people think of in terms of being a "trust fund baby". In that case Papa Simmons would have taken a certain amount of money and put it in a trust for D'Andrea and typically the corpus of the Trust would be payable to the beneficiary when they reach a certain age. This is typically done when you want to leave money to a child but don't want the child to be able to spend the money until they reach a certain stage of maturity. Since D'Andrea is now 50, we can safely assume that Papa Simmons did NOT leave any significant amount of money for D'Andrea. I would suspect he left all of his estate to Mama Dee but in an Intervivos Trust. Therefore Mama Dee can spend it all or leave it to her favorite dog. Until Mama Dee dies, D'Andrea has no right to the Trust anymore than any child has a "right" to the assets of their parents.

I can't figure out who the market is for "raw" dog food. My mother used to cook for our dog but raw food would seem to be the easiest thing in the world and not need a "distributor" - purchase a slab of meat - cut it up and let your dog enjoy. I might be missing something in terms of how you "prep" raw dog food. I love dogs but there was something "off" about the dog vlogger - probably because I don't have that much interest in following someone who films their dogs hanging out. I mean there are a finite number of minutes in a day and unless there is something truly unique about a "dog video" I have little interest and I doubt whether a professional vlogger is providing interesting content on a consistent basis. Now Rosenberg The Dog on instagram is a truly followable dog because the relationship he has with his "father" is so wonderful and his wife styles them in such wonderful father and son outfits :-).

Vessel sinks are another terrible design choice for a "working" bathroom. Not only are they difficult to clean around but they make cleaning the counter in general more difficult because you have to use the palm of your hand to get any "debris" from the counter instead of just swiping into the sink which preferably (at least for me) is an under mounted sink :-). They also use up a lot of valuable counter space and are more difficult to use. I don't like them as an aesthetic choice for the most part except in very rare instances where it works as part of the overall design. In most remodels they just look as if they are plunked down there because someone thought they were "on trend".

These women aren't dressing for the specific occasion - they are dressing because they are going to be filmed for national television. Sometimes they do dress down in what they would be wearing normally - Rinna shows up a lot in casual clothing when they are flying or when they are going to be walking around a bit. I live in Los Angeles and affluent women do NOT have elaborate clothing and hair done as they perform their normal activities. At most they would have a blow out as the blow out bars are extremely popular. And they don't generally show up to work out or hike in full makeup :-).

What middle aged couple don't have $60,000 at least in savings and investments? If you don't have those kinds of assets, a new car and fugly designer clothing shouldn't be a priority. D'Andrea is definitely counting on the Trust to fund her retirement - i.e. after Mama Dee dies and she doesn't have to suck up for whatever money Mama gives her, all of that money will be hers to squander as she wants. Certainly living up to the adage - first generation makes it - second generation spends it and third generation loses it. I am not even completely sold on Mama's company being this highly profitable company that in any way supported Mama's lifestyle.

I would actively avoid buying a flipped house if I could because the sole intent of most flippers is to spend the least money possible in order to hook naive buyers into purchasing the home. I just finished a remodel and once you do that you realize all the ways that you can "cheat" and cheap out. Beyond the obvious of your paying a premium for someone else's taste which is generally going to be the lowest common denominator - Hello white Shaker cabinets :-), the actual functional design is generally the least expensive and less functional choice. I pause on kitchens and almost all of the "remodeled" or new builds have doors on the lower cabinets versus large drawers for pots, pans and dishes which is the cheaper and less functional choice. Similarly the showers and bathrooms are done with the least expensive tiles - have pressure balance valves and similarly cheaper finishes. Or they now have a free standing tub squeezed into a space where it was never meant to be - fast forward a decade and those will have become the garden or Roman tubs of this decade. I also found the Jersey Shore episode to be frustrating since they there was absolutely no hint of where on the very large Jersey coast the homes were located. There is a HUGE difference between the cost and desirability of various Jersey Shore communities and except for one that was located vaguely across the road, there wasn't even mention of distance to an actual beach.

So D'Andrea admits that she is putting up with her insufferable mother in order to ensure that she isn't cut off from the "trust". Admitted I don't watch Christian Television so I never heard of this brand but what kind of astute business person cuts off advertising to what appears to be their main customer base. It is standard practice for media reps to provide all kinds of analytics to show that the audience is a demographic match for the product. In this case, their client base is limited to aging white Christian women who want to look mummified. Neither D'Andrea nor her mother are any kind of aspirational look that would expand the brand.

You are getting crankier as the gestalt of the show has always had house hunters who are irritating in all kinds of different ways since the days of Suzanne Whang when there was no asking or purchase price.

I had read comments on the Chilean move and had expected the spawns from hell and found them to be completely normal very bright and actually somewhat charming. Moving tweens to a different neighborhood let alone a completely different culture in a foreign country is a very difficult move and the parents were absolutely correct in attempting to do everything possible so that the children felt that their needs were being met. That aspect of the move WAS the "plot" insofar as all of these episodes have some kind of shtick to drive the narrative forward. So the children were being shown on camera as part of the process because I suspect they were part of the process. At the very end when choices were being considered, the wife said that OBVIOUSLY the final decision would be the parents but they wanted the children's preferences to be a factor to be considered. I find that to be a completely normal family dynamic in the 21st century. I have no idea what kind of family dynamic others have but my brother and I would have for sure squabbled about rooms if we ever had moved when we were tweens and at the age when normal siblings do argue about almost everything :-). The episode I found off-putting was the boy in Amsterdam because the dynamic with the family seemed off - to the extent anyone can judge people based on edited footage in a heightened emotional setting. I suspect he didn't want to be filmed and so that reluctance probably exacerbated his sullenness. However, I suspect that his parents in reality thought everything he did was perfection because there was nothing particularly witty or special about anything he said and his parents would act as if gems of wit and wisdom had been spoken. But really again - he just seemed like a very normal kid who was being put in an uncomfortable situation. I am 100% certain I would have been picked apart as being a "brat" or whatever if I had been filmed with my parents for a television show while we were pretending to be house hunting.

Emily and Shane are obviously living off Shane’s wealth from whatever source that was derived from. And yes, last season Emily said he didn’t have to work. I have no idea what Emily actually does as a lawyer but there is no way that she is supporting their lifestyle based on her job. For starters, lawyers who make large incomes work long hours because your earnings are based on billable hours or of you are a highly paid in-house corporate counsel, you would still be working long hours. There would be no way that someone with an actual job could be a Housewife. VIcki is the only housewife who actually had some kind of job and I think VIcki completely overstated the amount of hours she put in especially after she had been a housewife for awhile. Still VIcki probably is one of the few housewives who could support her lifestyle without the Bravo paycheck aside from the wives who married well like Heather.

Where did all of Gina’s furniture disappear to. Last year she was living in a place that was furnished Was the furniture rented because it looks as if she now has almost no furniture. It looks like a crash pad. And with Matt out of a job and probably unemployable in the finance industry, she is gong to be reliant on the Bravo paycheck. Of course there are these ex-housewives like Gretchen who manage a fairly enviable economic lifestyle without any visible income. Can an ex-housewife really make that much money from social media payments and endorsements?

Way way way WAY back in the day Kleinfelds was located in Brooklyn and its customer base was pretty much from the Jews and Italians of the area. What was amazing was that it carried very high end bridal wear back then so its customers didn't have to shlep to Manhattan which was what most people in Brooklyn did for better clothing. A&S then located in the Fulton Street downtown area of Brooklyn was somewhat of an alternative for middle class type of stuff. In one of the first or second seasons, there was an Orthodox bride who had her dress specifically redesigned to be "tznius" - the Yiddish word for the modestly requirements. A few seasons back there was the daughter of one of the fabulously wealthy Syrian Jewish families of Brooklyn who bought a super expensive ball gown - e.g. in the $25,000 or so price range. I think it was modest as well but it wasn't specifically mentioned as a requirement the way in which the other Orthodox bride had as part of the plot line. Of course these were actually attractive dresses - modest in the way in which English royalty has modest but elegant dresses for the ceremony. There was also an episode in which one of the Duggar women (or some other fundamentalist women) got a bride and it looked like something out of Little House on The Fugly Prairie :-).

I've never heard of a real estate contract that requires the owner to pay if the agent brings a client. Payment is not due until escrow closes. I would imagine that the specific apartment that Steve's friend decided not to sell was a set up anyway so that there could be some "drama" about the neophyte agent and Steve mentoring her and dressing in the costume etc. To the extent that the woman required any incentive to "fake sell" a unit besides wanting to be on television, she received great promotional value as she was depicted as a good agent to any potential buyers or sellers in the future. Agents protect themselves by getting a commission on anyone who they brought to view a unit even after the contract expires. This prevents a seller from refusing to close a deal with a potential buyer and then selling to a buyer and trying to avoid the commission.

Because the climate in the winter is depressing. It’s cold and rainy and gets dark very early. They don’t want a home in the summer when the weather in the North West is wonderful. The winters in the desert are the peak season just as the winters in Florida are peak season but summers are unbearable. It doesn’t matter if the heat is dry or wet. When the temperature is 115, you don’t want to be outside. I live in Los Angeles and would go to Palm Springs in the winter. Those who live there year round plan their days so that they try to do anything in the early morning and hibernate during the day when sun and temperature are grueling.

I also couldn't imagine why anyone would purchase a shabby single family home in which looks like a working class neighborhood for either their own vacation home or as a potential Air BnB. I can't imagine they are going to furnish it with any kind of style given his cheapness and the reality that she actually thought any of those were places one would want to vacation in or would others would want to rent. And then they went for the one that was the furthest from Scottsdale - I must be missing something because again, who is the market for renting homes like that in that area. Was their friend, the realtor, pulling numbers out of her ass when she claimed it would rent for $175 per night? Given that they don't live there, they are going to have to pay someone to maintain the property as well as handle any rentals so a free standing home versus a condo makes no sense.

Not to belabor the point but I doubt that a woman who is modest about being dressed by a male consultant is going to be okay because she gets to wear a dressing gown for part of the process. All of the women are given those gowns because it is not logistically possible to get dressed after each dress is put on and typically most people want to have a robe on when they are in a dressing room. Same reason one is given a gown at the doctor's even though at some point one's body will be exposed. At some point during the process the consultant is going to get intimate with the client's body in some way and I would imagine there are many women who would not be okay with a male consultant either viewing her or helping the dress over her body - especially when some of the time the consultants really have to get in there to get the client dressed. I wonder whether they ask women if they are okay with a male consultant when they book the appointment since the appointments at Kleinfelds are set up with specific consultants before the client comes in and it would be difficult to change consultants in the moment. I can't imagine they would refuse to let a woman have a female consultant if that is her preference for modesty.

I live in SoCal and there are a lot of Canadians who come for the warmer climates only in the winter so the scorching heat of summer in Arizona isn't a factor as summer in the Northwest where the Arizona hunters live is when the weather is nicest there. My parents lived in a retirement community in Laguna and there were people from Arizona who would rent in the summer to get away from the desert heat. All of the Arizona homes were very unattractive to me. Is there really a Air BnB market for homes in the middle of nowhere? How often realistically do people from Vancouver Washington actually get to spend in their second homes in Arizona. At least for me, any place one has to fly to makes no sense unless one has a job where one has significant blocks of time off because with all of the security restrictions in place, flying any place is essentially one day there and one day back. The people buying homes within a 2 hour or so driving time seem much more likely to get value from their purchase since one can very easily drive up on Friday and back home on Sunday night or even early Monday morning. The home with five small bedrooms would seem to be an incredibly bed choice for an Air BnB rental as the people who would rent it would either be young kids who want to cram as many people as possible into the place or a family with a lot of children - again massive amounts of wear and tear from the type of people attracted to it. If I planned to rent a place, the last thing I would want is a pool with a diving board for liability purposes because that is just a paralytic injury waiting to happen. I think I've read that many homeowners deliberately don't have diving boards any more because of the potential danger. And yes, they were both unpleasant to watch and to each other. Not that I'm a moralist but what kind of twisted logic do people have to not get married until after both children are born because one can't afford a fancy reception. Have a small ceremony and then at some later point have a big party - or even smarter, don't have a big party at all and put the money to better use. I think there are so many legal and administrative reasons to be legally married after one has children in terms of property ownership and support.

How do the male consultants dress the brides? Do they ask brides if they mind a male dressing them or do they have an unseen female underling actually doing the dressing? Obviously it wouldn't be an issue for many brides but I would imagine some brides would prefer a female consultant to actually assist in dressing. It's not a matter of discrimination because the job description would have same sex being a bona fide employment qualification.

I am not understanding how a staircase without a side or a guard rail meets Code requirements. It seems like it is an accident waiting to happen.

I've never been able to search for old posts since searches are limited to the specific pages. Is there some kind of search trick that enables one to do so?

Not sure if it was an old one but there was an episode of a female lawyer buying a beach in a beach town in Brazil. Once again an inscrutable explanation of how this will help her hectic life. All I can think about is a day spent flying to a remote location. How often can anyone with a job realistically travel to a distant second home. The place she chose looked like a prison cell to me and the ending was that she had also bought two ocean front lots which she will eventually build on because the dream house next door only cost $100,000 to build. For some reason the editing seemed particular snarky because when she was extolling the virtues of living in the middle of a town that genuinely resembled a dump, there was a lingering shot of a stray dog peeing on the side of her house.