She’s gonna make us buy more of her homemade jewelry. Birds always attack me when I wear it.

Dear Tina,

I was just shamed by my own father. I walked in the door at 9:35 after an eleven hour work day and I get “Catherine. Home on a Friday night?” Ugh. Yes. It was this or the singles mixer in the basement of the community center. Part of me hopes that those events really exist and that people really go to them and eventually a one woman show will be birthed out of someone’s experience at them. So yes I am home tonight and it is most definitely Friday. I was working late so that the family I sit for could go to a neighborhood get together and not have to bring that loudmouth baby. It was actually perfect because what did I get to do post putting the baby to sleep pre family coming home? Catch up on all the television I missed last night! I wish it didn’t make as happy as it does but I feel like I get to make a check on my mental to do list when I’m done and therefore can move onto laundry…or job hunting.

So tonight I caught a rerun of last night’s all new The Real Housewives of Orange County. I know I have mentioned to you before my love of all things Bravo, particularly Andy Cohen, and to the chagrin of people who know better, The Real Housewives series is no different. Since I started this blog, everything I watch on TV is a potential entry subject so I watch it accordingly. The shows that I love and take a sincere interest in, I try to show my appreciation for their work in my writing. Everything else usually falls in the Reality TV genre and I try to approach those with the superiority and mockery of a college freshman chaperoning a high school party. But I can’t even categorize these ladies of the O.C. under the latter category because their behavior seems to actually reflect their character. I always watch reality programming with a grain of salt knowing that the stories are edited within an inch of their lives or else people spend a lot more time silently nodding back and forth than I thought. With The Real Housewives of Orange County though, their general decision making is so selfish and ignorant that it’s not even Bachelor funny, it’s Hoarders sad. After mulling this one over for about ten minutes, lucky you, I have decided the ladies are still fair game. On we go.

Vicki Gunvalson is the only housewife who has been on the show for all five seasons. Um, congratulations? Yikes, I mean when my girl scout troupe was the only one that transitioned from elementary school to middle school, the next year we decided it was time to disband. Vicki is surprisingly less annoying than she has been in the past and even more surprisingly, this year she’s the most level headed one. Owner of a thriving life insurance company, she is also the only one who works. So I like that about her. What I don’t like is that she has more rhinestones in her closet than a Bob Mackie fashion show. Vicki has had a hard time over the last four years learning how to appreciate her less successful husband, support the choices her adult children make for themselves, and shriek less. I’d say this year she has a grasp on all three so maybe that’s why she decided to stick around for the fifth season. She and Andy Cohen agreed on a story arc for her that would get people to like her. Worked like a charm. I actually wouldn’t mind working for her because in this week’s episode during a presentation on finances she and all of her employees were drinking goblets of red wine. Yum!

Tamra Barney is another seasoned housewife although she’s come to resent the show since they invited women on it who are clearly prettier and younger than her. (Can I get a me-ow?) Tamra has an adult son from a previous relationship and three younger children with her husband Simon. That makes her a mother of four who still wears pigtails and a pink visor when she plays tennis. A note to all females over the age of 13: unless you are going to a barndance or you are letting your daughter play with your hair, pigtails should not be tolerated. Not for working out, not for around the house, not even to see if you look like Pippi Longstocking after you dye your hair red. Never pigtails ever. In the beginning of this episode we see Tamra and Simon getting the kids ready for school. All I could think about were these poor children who are being filmed as they wake up and eat breakfast. Wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Barneys first broke the news to their children that they would be a part of a reality television show? How does that conversation go? Hi kids come sit down we have big news. Mommy is going to be on TV! For what?! Well you know how mommy dyes her hair blonde and has breast implants and she’s a little bitchy? That’s why! At least the children of actors and actresses have their parent’s career to explain why their private family life is tabloid fodder but these women sign up for this kind of negative attention. And now of course Tamra is going through a public divorce. Honestly, three years ago she thought being on this program would what? Provide stability for her family? I hope for the sake of Tamra’s children she doesn’t accept an offer for a spinoff show about her life as a single mom. Just ask Denise Richards about how opportunities like that turn out.

Gretchen Rossi is flawless. Except for her personality. Which is grating and inauthentic. Gretchen was new to the show last season and at that time she was engaged to a man named Jeff, a slightly atypical may december relationship in that it came with some tragedy. Jeff was diagnosed with Leukemia before we first met Gretchen and sadly lost his battle after last season’s shooting wrapped. Gretchen was definitely put through the wringer by the other housewives who were probably a bit perturbed at how stunningly gorgeous she was. But when someone is losing the person they love, no matter what your opinions or preconceived notions are, that would be a good time to keep them to yourself. So I liked Gretchen. Because sometimes I confuse liking someone with pitying them. Then I reminded myself that she shouldn’t be pitied because she signed up to be on this show and public scorn comes with the territory. Gretchen is now dating Slade (ick), a former housewife’s former lover (ick). While I do not agree with judging how long it takes someone to heal and move on after losing a fiance, this Slade guy is a chach. So I think maybe her grief has confused her and she went for the first guy who showed interest and didn’t need a special headset to hear the movie at the movie theater. Girl can do so much better. Then again, sometimes she laughs for longer than four seconds and my ears start bleeding and I think girl can take what she gets.

Lynne Curtin. Lynne Lynne Lynne. My brain feels lighter just thinking about her. Lynne was at the forefront of my mind when I said earlier that this show isn’t funny, it’s just depressing. Lynne is a married mother of two and when it comes to her teenage daughters she is drowning in her own cluelessness. The other women have mentioned how much they love Lynne in their interview segments but they say it with the tone teachers use to talk about the slow kid in class. I don’t find any of her flightiness endearing. Every time she talks, her thoughts are precursors to conversations that no one is about to have. Trying to follow her line of thinking is as confusing as listening to Paris Hilton change from her husky voice to her baby voice within seconds of each other. The truly sad part about Lynne is that she is completely lost when it comes to forming a relationship with her daughter Alexa whose faux teenage suffering I could write an anthology about. Lynne, in an attempt to reconnect with her daughter, hires a youthologist (a made up profession I imagine only exists in California) to help facilitate this relationship. Meanwhile, we have Alexa telling her mother that she doesn’t want to talk to the youthologist about her problems, she wants to talk to her mom. It would have been heartbreaking if it wasn’t followed by Alexa throwing one of the cuffs Lynne designed at Lynne and then telling her to “kiss my ass.” Is no one taught to talk nicely anymore? Do you see what I mean Tina? There is nothing funny about watching a woman who would like to improve her relationship with her daughter  but doesn’t seem to want to take the time to personally figure out solutions that last longer than a trip to the mall. Lynne had a bit of a breakdown this episode which Andy Cohen and the people at Bravo treated with the upmost respect and delicacy:

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Alexis Bellino is the latest addition to the franchise and boy does her husband she have a lot of opinions. Alexis prides herself on the time it takes to maintain her girlish, overly processed figure. In one of her first appearances she claimed she didn’t know how much time she devoted to physical maintenance, stating that in her twenties she only had to get Botox once a year but now she’s in her thirties so she has to get it TWICE a year. Alexis, do you think it would go over well with my parents if I told them the reason I don’t have time to look for a job is because I have dentist appointments twice a year? The woman prides herself on the 1950s dynamic she has going on in her household except that in the 21st century edition, this June Cleaver has two nannies. She calls her husband her king and preaches about the importance of God and discretion whilst wearing a bikini that covers about 35% of what it is supposed to. Her husband, his majesty Jim, thinks he is smarter than he actually is. He must be business savvy based on what he has been able to provide his family but when it comes to relationship advice he makes about as much sense as Miss South Carolina discussing “the Iraq.” Alexis responds to said advice with “You’re right. You are so right.” And not even in the ironic way.

So there you have it Tina. Five great examples of why young women everywhere should steer clear of life in California suburbia. It is vicious, superficial, and you have to wear a minimum of 18 pieces of jewelry. I’ll take Chicago or New York any day. The women may be equally vicious but at least there’s nice architecture to look at.

30 Rock Quote of the Day:

Liz: This must be what the kids call a “Booty Call”
Gavin Volure: I haven’t been out of the house since 2004 and even I know they don’t call it that any more.