Good Gawd

This week I’m writing this as I sit on a plane to Miami feeling a twinge of guilt as it is Earth Day and my carbon footprint has just grown. Does buying offsets assuage my guilt? Anyway, we’re in Florida as we have 4 signings on this leg of our book tour for Little Kids Big City. So far we’ve been getting great reviews (none of which we’ve written ourselves ;-) ); all over Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders as well as our Facebook fan page. At all our signings; we read some excerpts, take questions (on the show and book) and then, of course, sign books and take photographs. On Friday 4/23 from 7 p.m. we’ll be at Barnes & Noble in Boca Raton, Saturday from 4 p.m. Borders in Fort Lauderdale and Sunday we’re in Tampa also at Borders, from 2 p.m. If you’re in the area we’d love it if you’d pop in and see us. We’re adding dates as I type so check out McCordvanKempen.com for updates or make sure you join our FB fan Page as you’ll then be sent updates as we add event signings.

Now on to this the eighth episode, after this there’s another six left and then the Reunion Special(s?) and I just can not wait to see that. Can you?

In the opening credits we see six housewives holding an apple and I wonder if that will change throughout this episode? But soon we’re whisked off to Jill’s were she’d called the Visiting Vet Service of New York. We’ve often heard Jill say that pets and children are the most important living things in her life and there’s no doubt that she’s very attached to Ginger. Why? I have no idea. Now I come from a postion of bias in that my wife and children are my priorities; with pets a distant second. I’ve had both cats and dogs but if I wanted a small pet I’d have a cat or two (and we do) and if and when we have a dog; it will be a big one. Honestly, Chihuahuas are just not my cup of tea and what we’ve seen to date with Ginger explains why; nose licking, yapping, farting and now crapping all over the place. I am not sure what was particularly TV worthy in this scene other than forcing us to endure the disgusting behavior of Jill’s dog; that and the fact that Jill was wrong in her diagnosis. Ginger wasn’t sick just her behavior was. Honestly I think seeing Jill and LuAnn in bed again would have been better.

Bethenny arrives at Casa McCord van Kempen (and if you want to see more of our house check out these two bonus clips on bravotv.com - Cribs Pt1 & Cribs Pt2), for a spot of lunch and we hear in talking head mode from Bethenny that Alex is “low maintenance and an unconditional friend.” Now, I have no idea why she’d feel the need to point that out. Do you? But back live, Bethenny spurts out in Franglais that she’s engaged or rather ‘Je suis engaged’ and while Alex is genuinely excited for Bethenny, Bethenny seems much more reserved, which is surprising as we then hear that she’s not told another soul at this stage, unless she just meant that she hadn’t told any other Housewives. Just based on their interactions that have made it to air this season, Alex’s talking head of how touched she was that Bethenny had told her first, might seem a little too effusive, but knowing how much time they have talked since that Labor Day lunch at Ramona’s, it’s real and genuine. It’s weird writing about these sorts of life changing events when time has already marched on and Bethenny and Jason have since tied the knot; but I have to say that Bethenny is more happy in this scene and subsequently than I have ever seen her in the three years I’ve known her. Congratulations, Bethenny and Jason.

Another lunch scene; this time with two mad blondes, Ramona and Sonja. It’s the morning after the Kodak night before and after Ramona excuses her little outburst, the conversation turns to Kelly. Turns out that Sonja & Kelly often used to run into each other in St Barths, but (déjà vu all over again) Kelly now seems to have forgotten ever meeting Sonja. I think that Kelly finds it easier to remember men more than women. The conversation about Kelly makes a neat segue as we move out east to their home in the Hampton’s where Sea and Kelly are "cooking" (and yes I use the word loosely) with a running written commentary from her youngest daughter, “You entertain us with your weirdness,” Thaddeus (Teddy). I am glad Kelly admits that they need a cook but more importantly that she wants her daughters well fed and not stick thin.

Our fourth meal scene in a row follows as Ramona takes out Avery to ask her to be her maid of honor at their upcoming vow renewals. Avery asks a very reasonable question that shouldn’t you wait until the 20th anniversary to renew one’s vows. In normal life this would make sense but in Ramona’s case, doing it the third season makes sense as who knows whether we’ll get six seasons! ;-)

LuAnn is evidently finding it hard being banished to the Hampton’s or bedding at Jill’s and so after we saw her a week or two ago meeting a female realtor this time she’s jumped brokers and is touring various locations around Manhattan; starting downtown we see a smallish apartment, a mere snip at $7,500 per month. Moving up to midtown and a development just around the corner from Hotel Chandler, we see a huge duplex apartment with great outdoor space and great light, but with the rear bedroom only looking out at a brick wall the $14,000 per month price tag was a little steep. So channeling one of her Hampton’s neighbors Luann decrees that she’s an Uptown Girl and so they head further north.

I never expected to see Gloria, Lisa and Jill sitting on a bed sifting through photos for the Jewish Secrets book but Gloria’s line, “What not to do for a wedding! You don’t wear chiffon on Christmas Day, if you can help it,” has to be the ultimate in non-sequitors.

For the second time this episode we’re back out east and LuAnn has clearly decided to ditch the turquoise after evidently taking fur fashion advice from Kelly. Sonja provides further evidence that she embraces sex, which amuses LuAnn and clearly makes Kelly feel uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as she gets when after having her own question to Sonja about marital infidelity turned back on her is followed by Kelly in talking head complaining that Sonja shouldn’t ask such questions. Um… Kelly didn’t you pose it to Sonja before she asked you?

Tonight’s interstitial has Ramona lauding herself as a brilliant businesswomen juxtaposed with us seeing that every item coming into her office is wrong; No label, poorly cut and so on. Indeed how brilliant! ;-)

Kelly’s hosting a party for New York's 100 most eligible bachelors and decides that she should wear a white lace long sleeve t-shirt, but she must have forgotten to put on her skirt. Ramona & Mario arrive followed swiftly by Jill and Bobby and we discover that Jill seems to continually ‘test’ her friends; this time it’s the ‘hand’ test that Kelly fails. LuAnn and Sonja arrive and then we see Alex get out of a town car assisted by Jason and evidently she got the same memo as Kelly and forgot her skirt too. LuAnn and Mario ‘test’ each other in Italian and LuAnn complains that she STILL didn’t get an apology. My Italian is very rusty but I also didn’t hear LuAnn ask, “Esigo delle scuse.” Did you?

As you can see Alex and I arrived with Jason and Bethenny; which gave me a chance to congratulate them both before we got in front of the cameras. Jill states that she had no idea that Bethenny was coming which conveniently overlooks the fact that we are all on a TV show and need to be with each other to facilitate filming; and so it’s likely, particularly at an event like this, that the cast of the Real Housewives might just get into the same room. But no, Jill hadn’t been informed and so “literally’ removes herself." How else does one remove oneself – teleport? Bethenny starts telling everyone her and Jason’s great news. Ramona’s so excited, as is Sonja. Where Jill wanders off, LuAnn and Kelly are sure to follow but at least on this occasion Kelly had stayed long enough to be able to share Bethenny’s news. Jill’s uncomfortable, numb, just wants to run under her (bed) covers and hide. Finally, and for once Jill feels bad. We’re all over back on the sofa toasting the engagement, but back with Jill again it’s all about Jill – she tell us she should have been there to help Bethenny, to choose the ring, with advice on dating etc. etc. etc. etc. Jill NEWS FLASH - Bethenny survived quite well without you micromanaging her every move. She even managed to find a great man, fall in love, get engaged and get pregnant too. All without Jill’s help. Just how did B manage???

LuAnn sucks it up (for three seconds) and comes over to congratulate Bethenny, but after the swift kiss we’re back at, "You called me a snake," "Why did you flip out at me?" Gawd – can’t anyone just let Bethenny have one night to celebrate?

At this stage Jill and I were still on speaking terms and so I went over to Jill to see if there was any way I could persuade her to just come over and be civil. That night Jill was reasonably welcoming of my intervention but as you can probably deduce, by the time of her talking head things had deteriorated and she rips me wishing I’d stayed out if it. We then see Jill talk to Bobby and again all Jill is concerned about is how she will look and she feels that if she doesn’t say anything to Bethenny she’ll look like a sh*t.

As Bethenny leaves Jill finally comes to her senses and decides she can at least offer her congratulations, as Bethenny and Jason are saying good night to Ramona and Mario, Jill comes over and gives Bethenny congratulatory hug. There’s a mellow poignancy in the air. Could this be at last a thaw in their relationship? But then oh no, Jill decides she wants to see the ring. And then we see what really sets Jill off. Not, the happiness that someone with whom she was once close is now engaged, no. What really excites Jill is that the ring is MAGNIFICENT, HUGE and wanting to know how big the ring was. Bethenny’s right - the only time Jill got animated was over the size of the diamond. And that says a lot. So three or four episodes after Jill told Bethenny that as far as she was concerned they were done! Bethenny realizes that indeed it is. However ‘the ring’ seems to have given Jill second thoughts as she thinks their friendship might now be repairable. Uh oh.