REAL HOUSEWIVES OF BEVERLY HILLS – 10/24/11

Hello, friends! It’s Monday, which means it’s time for the hills to be alive with the sounds of bitchery. Also means it’s time for my husband to head back to work and come home all stressed out and then absentmindedly put on my Oprah show t-shirt which somehow ended up in his pajama drawer. I love the fact that he’s stalking the house in estrogen-dyed ladywear and doesn’t even know it. Let’s talk about some Housewives news, shall we?

• Part 2 of the RHONJ finale aired Sunday and it was more of the same. Everybody’s done Teresa wrong, and she’s gonna make sure she says so first! I am just plain embarrassed. But I’d also like to see who’d win in a Teresa vs. Brandi beatdown, because that would be tight. Anyway, Mr. Andy played her like a violin. I loved it when she got onto how laid back she is and refuses to waste time on the small stuff, then he laid into her about the sprinkle cookies. As my Thai-speaking baby would say, “AWESOMMMMMMME!”

• Taylor Armstrong has been batting away carefully cultivated rumors that she is dating Matt Nordgren of Most Eligible Dallas, who is half her age but her equal in media whoring. Perhaps only fellow Texan Jake Pavelka can rival that balding nincompoop for attention desperation. ACTUALLY, maybe he’s jockeying for the next spot on the Bachelor?? Could be!

• The National Enquirer is reporting that Taylor is being dropped by Bravo for next season of RHOBH! Please let it be true! I cannot take any more of her tragedy, truly I cannot. Now maybe you don’t consider the Enquirer a legitimate news source, but they did get half the OJ evidence first and singlehandedly exposed John Edwards’ wandering weewee, so I wouldn’t be too quick to discount. A girl can hope, anyway.

• The HuffPost is reporting that Kelly Killoren Bensimon, who I suspect either doesn’t have a full set of lady bits or has some extra parts mixed up in there, is dating Christopher Kennedy Lawford. The story is that they were at a party together and she was making great efforts to stand right behind him at all times. I’m sure this is news to him, too.

• And finally, today TMZ posted photos of Melissa Gorga cruising around Times Square in a pink fat suit. Didn’t Vanessa Minnillo do this for Entertainment Tonight at one point? Maybe it was Maria Menounos. Easily confused, and not that it matters. No reason given. Joe wears women’s clothes, Melissa hooks in a pink fat suit. Makes sense to me.

And away we go!

Welcome to the Palais Oof-If, and be sure to admire the sculpture as you pass. How many spitting lions can you count? Lisa’s driven over from across the street to give Adrienne a cooking lesson against her will, and Bernie the Enforcer is struggling to contain the urge to leap out from the pantry and snap Lisa’s neck. If she makes a move for the cutlery he’s totally gonna go monkey crazy, and that’s a fact. Lisa thinks what Adrienne really needs to cook is a roasted chicken, so after they soap it all up she helps Adrienne find the triple-wide fridge, which is hidden in that fancy expensive cabinetry that I think just looks dirty, from which they procure a selection of citrus and herbs (pronounced WITH the “H”, just like Martha) and stuff it all up the bird’s ass. Lisa keeps calling the bird “him” and joking about violating him ten different ways until Sunday, which says a few peculiar things about what’s going on with Mr. Lisa across the lane.

Now I cook, and I’d say reasonably well when I actually have a range that works which I have not for the past 26 days which is a whole other sanity-sapping subject, but I have to wholeheartedly agree with Adrienne that raw poultry is just beyond gross. I have a lot of friends who have taken on developing their cooking skills as a personal challenge, like late-in-life triathloning, and consider roasting a chicken well to be a milestone of culinary accomplishment. I just don’t get it – I really only like white meat and hate all the bones, so for me roast chicken has a low payoff. The whole scene (especially Adrienne trying to jump Lisa from behind with that slick little devil) brought me back to my very first Thanksgiving turkey…. (Cue the time-travel screen wiggling.) Because I read Ms. Martha’s magazine, I was familiar with the benefits of brining, and also knew kosher turkeys come brined which was a challenge to locate but a big time-and-space-saver in our one-fridge apartment. My mother, who is a Presbyterian, was unaware there was such a thing as “Jewish turkeys”, so when I called her in a panic because I could not find the giblets in my kosher turkey she was No. Help. At. All. She suggested I look and see if they were in the other end (obviously I should have looked in Lisa Vanderpump’s handbag), which is how I came to realize my turkey was still largely frozen; not having handled a poultry carcass I really didn’t know what degree of firmness was to be expected. By this time my sister-in-law had arrived and helpfully phoned the Butterball hotline, which was unhelpfully closed, thus we sought advice from that guru of all things, Google. (This was obviously early 2000’s, hence even bothering with the phone. These days the kids would text Bttrbl.) “Don’t take it out of the wrapper.” (Too late.) “Only run it under cold water.” (Sorry, it’s taking a hot bath as we speak.) “So basically,” Mary came into the kitchen and announced with dramatic and emphatic physical demonstration, “short of wiping the thing on every surface of this house there’s really nothing worse you can do, so I say just go for it and we’ll take our chances. Let’s have a drink!” And so we did. Half-frozen turkey went into the oven and do you know, that damn thing was the most perfectly cooked Thanksgiving turkey I’ve ever had before or since. No soap required, Adrienne.

Let’s move on to Tay’s lovely phony house. I am sure it’s a very expensive rental, but it’s basically situated in that up-to-the-setback build arrangement so that a person in a bind can politely inquire whether the neighbors can spare a square. Grey Poupon indeed. Tay’s having Kyle and Dana and their combined midgets over to gossip and fingerpaint, ably assisted by her nice Asian housekeeper who does not have to wear gingham. Dana’s wearing shorts again. Damn that girl likes shorts. A couple of years ago I realized that shorts are just not the least bit flattering once you cross a certain boundary of womanliness, which is especially inconvenient as I live in the desert, and thus I have embraced skirts. I formerly viewed skirts as matronly, now I view them with respect. Dana is not afraid to have a crotch, which is fine; if she’s happy, I’m happy. After agreeing that Camille is built like Barbie (and I am not sure whether that was meant as a compliment), the ladies turn to review The Brandi Situation. Tay shares that she and Brandi lunched, that The Glands looked “deflated”, that she confessed to speaking of herself in negative terms so that she does it before anyone else gets a chance (unlike someone we know with the initials TG, who genuflects at her own likeness and then turns to her companions to bark “BOW DOWN, BITCHES!” – oh that would be such a good fight. Can’t you just see it?), and that she’s really sensitive about parenting issues because her evil ex-husband Mr. LeAnn Rimes is setting her up for a custody challenge. Sadly, the WalMart incident will not help in that department. Kyle feels bad, and so do I.