Bridges and Tunnels and Underpasses

As the focus sharpens ever so slightly on the fuzzy landscape that was this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, we notice that Luann is wandering bemusedly around Sonya’s house. Apparently, she has her own key, or she simply changed to a gaseous form, slithered through the mail slot, and re-encrusted herself back into her regular old body, complete with bunching white dress and one of her daughter’s cast-off cardigans from 3rd gade. She wanders up to the boudoir where Sonya, like all old gals trying to pull off the Mrs. Manson Mingott role in The Age of Innocence, except this time with booty calls and plastic surgery, sits muumuufied in red. Her hairdresser pulls out Sonya's limpish grayish-blonde locks and studies them, piling and re-piling them on her head in ever-greater flops of hopelessness.

Being perky, or at least pretending to be perky, Luann sings, “Here Comes the Bride” and tells Sonya, “Look at you!”—which is not at all the same thing as saying, “You look beautiful.” Sonya goes into some song-and-tripped-up-dance about how all the gays of New York believe she is a Gay Icon and therefore she is going to be the Grand Marshal in the Big Gay Parade for Marriage Equality for which Alex has asked them all to skip across the Brooklyn Bridge in wedding dresses. Alex invited everyone to march, because she’s on one of the approximately 94 committees comprised of straight women whose claim to fame is that they got married that was apparently needed to get people over to the bridge on time. Apparently, Jill is on the committee as well, and Sonya is Grand Marshal. Neither Jill nor Sonya thought to mention these facts of their planned participation when they were swigging Ramona Pinot Grigio at Ramona’s Mad46 party last week. Alex invited them, and they pretended this was all some interesting news and why, that might be fun. No, much better to leap out at Alex like ghouls from under the staircase of a haunted house. Boo! Aaayaaaghhargh! Ha!

Now, when Sonya mentions that she’s suddenly and mysteriously the Grand Marshal, there’s that Mean Old Girl twinkle in her eye, because this was planned. At some point, Sonya got in on the action. Now she’s going to stick it to Alex, per Jill.

I am “light and funny and a gay icon,” Sonya tinkles.

Now, Luann doesn’t have a wedding gown because when she got married, it was a casual affair meant to keep secret the fact that the help was marrying the poor effeminate count. This was about titles we want, not about love or pomp or circumstance. It seems that Luann is planning to wear her One Nice Church Dress, but then Sonya reveals a little happy coincidence: a wedding designer that Sonya pretends to know personally very nicely sent her a bunch of gowns. Sonya has one in mind but it doesn’t fit (she says it’s because she has a big ribcage, but really, she just has a big torso), so she makes due with one of Ivana Trump’s old candlelight poly-satin taffeta cocktail dresses from 1982. This is what you call an interesting way to go. Luann wears the predictable sleeveless gown with the black bric-a-brac and Kelly swoops in bearing gifts. In fact, Sonya says, “You always come bearing gifts – cleansing kits and candles.” Kelly mentions that this particular candle is delicious, and I wonder is Sonya meant to eat it after flushing waste with a cleansing kit. Kelly is very happy and even though her spray tan makes her look sticky, so far she’s behaved fairly well.

Sonya chats a bit about the amount of sex she has, and then Alex comes in to make the moment even more awkward. Sonya and Alex cheek-kiss, while Luann stands open-mouthed and picks at a whitehead she just realized popped up around her mouth. Alex thanks everyone for donning wedding dresses and Sonya goes right into this is her big day. There is some competition, obviously, brewing about what a big day this is for Sonya and the work that Alex seems to believe she’s invested. Alex congratulates Sonya for getting to be grand marshal, but Sonya acknowledges in no way that Alex had anything to do with the day.

So you know that Sonya is gearing up for a fight. They primp and get dressed and with all of the wedding finery cascading through the air, nobody thought, oh, a bra might be a great idea.


There was a wedding last week, and Alex and Jill got into a fight there while Ramona rubbed her hands in glee. Ramona is so mad at Jill she can barely stomach her, but it’s much easier to sic her Alex on her than it is to actually tell Jill exactly what she thinks. Alex is so desperate to talk through what happened at the wedding, which was that she kept asking Jill over and over again why Jill wasn’t going to the march. When Jill tap danced around the issue, Alex got madder and madder, and ended up getting a little too aggressive. Jill, however, lost her advantage with snotty comments about Alex mingling out of her social depth, which just made her look like an Ugly Stepsister all over again.

Alex explains her well-developed argument about why the Housewives should wear wedding dresses, while Luann took advantage of the anonymity of the Talking Head Moment to say that Alex sounded like an annoying infomercial. Sonya kept discussing about how this was her big day, and she really made herself sound like a horse’s ass. It was bizarre.

They get to the march and find Alex’ husband, Simon, who was wearing a ghastly sequined jacket. You just know that in a past life, Simon was something like a ringleader for a circus or a court jester or something, because he really is All about the Costumes. Simon is verklempt because he had planned a speech for the rally, but apparently Sonya zoomed in and told the march committee that if she was going to speak, she could be the only one from the show to do so. Alex asked about this, because it was a problem for her, and she asked Sonya for permission for Simon to speech. Sonya refused to countenance this idea. The other members of Jill’s Hairy Clump backed Sonya in her determination to block Simon from the moment he had planned lo these many weeks or months or perhaps even all his life.

Sonya kept saying that this was the wrong time to argue about this, but of course it was the only time. If Simon didn’t get the chance to speak then, he would lose the chance to speak. The event only lasted for that day. Once it was gone, it was gone, like the elasticity on Jill's thighs. Alex kept asking, why, why, why? Everybody screamed over Alex. Luann did agree that Sonya should have allowed everyone to speak, though she later skipped over to Jill's bandwagon, where they were, after all, serving Coronas and taquitos.

I see the flabby pickled fingers and bratwurst-laden fingerprints of Jill all over this one. Jill loves to screw up other people's plans in the background and then attack them when they express dismay or surprise. She also likes to create fraudulent identities to sell her book and bash the books of others.

Jill shows up after having said that she couldn’t because she’d be out of town 30 minutes away at a wedding. To protect her celebrity self from horrific Big Gay Crowd, Jill has hired a giant kielbasa wearing a white T-shirt that says Damage Control on it. She comes in and simpers over to Alex that she wanted to come even though it was inconvenient because she’s on the committee and even though everyone knew she’d be out of town she wants Alex to know she’s changed. Okie-dokie. And then Jill starts shrieking to everyone that Alex needs to quit picking on her, proving that the only thing that Jill has changed is the horrible outfit she was wearing the last time we saw her.

Picking on her! How old is she? Picking on her? Picking on her? It’s just strange, like listening to Sybil when the baby voice started coming out.

Sonya gets up and makes what is without a doubt the most ridiculous speech on the face of the planet and in the eons of time. She keeps talking about the fact that marriage should be equal. She talked about people not choosing to be gay and ridiculed. She talked about a lot of stuff but not about the topic of the day, which was that they wanted to make gay marriage legal. Luann and Kelly stood there looking resigned to being there in support of a ridiculous woman with the intellect of a brick.

Then we shoot to Cindy and her brother-partner-best-friend and they are yammering on and on about the wedding and how it broke Ramona’s heart to see Cindy’s brother smoking her best friend’s cigars. The best friend had passed. It made no sense. The dead guy wasn’t going to use them, and it’s good they didn’t get wasted, right? But why they were so offended by Ramona’s Ramona-gaffe also makes no sense.

Meanwhile, the marching troops had all made it over to Alex and Simon’s house in Brooklyn to drink champagne. Both Sonya and Jill state that they are going to Alex’s house because they are able to rise above all the nonsense. Alex does pull Jill aside and ask if they can speak at some later date about their problems. Alex downs champagne in giant gulps because she is so worried that a big fight will happen. Alex asks to hear Simon’s speech. Simon’s speech was not bad, but it wasn’t good. Sonya used the opportunity to make a snide remark behind Simon’s back.

Sonya then goes to her boyfriend’s art studio. She has paid him to do a portrait of her, or he is doing it to get a little publicity via the Bravo television network. Brian has seen her from every possible angle, and he shows a portrait that depicts her as an elderly woman. She wants to look 40, but of course she can’t look 40 because she’s at least 50 and perhaps even more. Sonya leaves with an order that he should make her look young; she needs Dorian Gray moments, not gray-skinned moments. Get out the magic wand, boy!

Cut to Luann and Sonya and lunch. They give each other a half-hearted once-over and proclaim themselves beautiful. They order champagne. Sonya, ironically, calls Alex “Bridezilla.” Luann never once states that perhaps Sonya should have gotten over herself and let anyone speak who wanted to. Now Sonya has re-written history and she claims that the reason her speech sucked so much was because Alex was hissing in the background. No, actually her speech sucked because she sucks at giving speeches. Standing there with a smile that might have one time been cute but now just makes one think that a crone is offering an apple while yapping in short Hitler-esque bursts does not a good speechmaker one make. Now Sonya says she feels as if it was a drive-by. Shooting, I presume.

I must point out: Sonya is the one who wanted to exclude everyone else from speaking that day. She was the one who said if it’s going to be me, then it must be only me. She knew there were other Housewives and their satellites who planned to speak. I don’t know if Sonya and Jill got together to do this as a stab at Alex or if Sonya is really such a stupid, narcissistic bitch that she really wanted to be the star of the Marriage Equality March. It could be that all that time I spent liking her last year, she was really just a stupid, mean bitch who was trying to decide which camp she’d pitch her tent in. She’s clearly chosen Jill and her Hairy Clump, and she’s behaving in a bitchy enough manner that even the gay community is disgusted with her.

Luann makes a crack about how Alex has found her voice and now needs to be quiet, adding some random blah about social ladders and implying that Alex doesn’t really belong to the landing to which she has ascended.

Ramona invited Sonya and Alex to a fundraiser for Gucci, and Alex tells Ramona about how Sonya shut her out of the Big Gay Parade. Ramona tries to sidestep the issue. Kelly wrangled an invitation to stop by the event, though apparently she couldn’t get a spot for lunch. Sonya brings Kelly, with the same glint in her eye she had when she snubbed Alex at the march. Ha-ha, we have outsmarted you, ha-ha. Ramona does not automatically think, oh, Sonya brought Kelly even though she knew I hadn't invited her, and maybe Alex is spot-on when she tells me about the tarpit that is Sonya's character.

Ramona hears that Kelly has entered the building, and she scrambles to find a place for her. Kelly only later informs her that she is not staying for dinner, and no thank you, she doesn’t wish to join them. It all smacked of a gotcha moment, which are happening too fast and too often on this show to make it interesting. Instead, it seems as if Jill, Kelly, and Sonya are sitting in the sauna vomiting up “I know! I know what will make them crazy!” scenarios to enact on the show.

Did anyone else think that Sonya looked like an owl?

Ramona asked Sonya about her behavior at the march, and Sonya came up with a lot of gibberish about respect and how Simon was a big, hulking guy and a bunch of other crap that didn’t explain what caused all the hullabaloo –which was in fact comprised of Sonya’s acting like a jackass.

Cut to the park, and Kelly and Luann are picking Cindy’s brains over gallon jugs of Ovaltine or perhaps cleansing tonics. They talk about hair, and Luann says that Kelly’s eyebrows could kill someone with their stabbiness.

Now back to Sonya’s, full circle as it were, and it is the big unveiling. Alex goes to the house, and Sonya, wearing one of Vicki’s cast-off dresses from Orange County, goes right in for the kill. She states that no way can she live without clearing the air, and so far as she is concerned, the air stinks because Alex and Simon, that’s his name, right?, ruined her Big Day When She Got to Be Grand Marshal. Alex says, well, I wasn’t trying to ruin anything, but my husband planned to speak, wanted to speak, bought a rainbow-sequin jacket for the occasion, and then we were told that you explicitly forbade him to speak but the planners added that if you said it was okay, he could speak. So, as time was of the essence, we approached you then, and you refused, and we were surprised, and we thought and hoped that we could appeal to your sense of reason, but apparently you had packed that up in mothballs and sent it over to a warehouse Jill rents for ill-conceived fabrics that she donates to battered women’s shelters in the guise of they’ll be glad to have it.

Every time Alex tries to express her opinion, Sonya gets louder and louder and then she begins accusing Alex of being rude. Alex is merely trying to explain a viewpoint that is in complete opposition to Sonya’s viewpoint. Sonya can’t stand to be confronted with a viewpoint that does not harmonize with hers perfectly, so she gets louder and louder. Alex keeps saying that Sonya should check the website! Then Sonya throws in the manners card. Because that’s what former waitresses who pretend to be Gay Incons do when confronted with an argument they know they can’t win: they screech manners, manners, manners despite the fact that a mannerly person would never comment on a guest’s manners, not ever, not ever, not ever. Never, in fact. Is that in Luann’s manners book? Disagree with someone and rather than putting it away until a safer time, just screech “manners” and that gives you the highest ground. In other words, you probably are correct in your assessment of my behavior at the Marriage Equality march, but MANNERS!!! SO I WIN.

For the record, both of them had bad manners, but as Sonya brought up the whole thing, she should have been willing to hear Alex out. We have a difference of opinion, but please let’s move forward is what she could have said. Alex should have let it go, too, but Alex had more at stake, as she was the one who got kicked off the program.

Finally, in the Show of Worst Manners Ever, Sonya shrilly orders Alex out of her house and yells, “Everyone, everyone, she has such bad, bad manners that I am making her leave and she has bad manners so she is leaving right now.”

Alex leaves and Luann sniggers and makes fun of Alex’ dress. Let me insert here that because Luann sang that song, she never gets to be the arbiter of taste. She tossed that baseball out and it’s in play now, never to come back to Luann's leathery palms of judgment. Sonya gives Luann and Cindy a revised version of the events and Luann agrees with her, darling, she doesn’t get it. Sonya screams that she was gracious, dammit! Hell, I was freaking gracious! Luann weighs in on it all despite the fact that she has only Sonya's made-up version of events. Even Cindy who did not appear to have a dog in that fight also agrees with Sonya, and all of this without seeing the actual frackas.

Alex calls her husband and says she is on her way home and please get her some champagne and make it cold.

Sonya stands in her Pebbles Flintstone outfit and whines on and on about how she hopes Brian has depicted her in this photo as young and gorgeous, which is to say, not at all realistically. The picture of Sonya is unveiled and it is sad and splay-legged and pathetic. She is sitting in a coal mine with her legs far, far apart. It’s either a very quick job or he’s a not very talented artist. She takes some bows and blames Alex again for her crappy speaking skills.

After the show, Andy Cohen points out that everyone in the world hates Sonya for making the day about her, but Sonya says that the day was only about her within her own group. She flapjaws for a while about Alex and Simon shouting, but really Andy isn’t buying it. David Arquette doesn’t mind Alex’ dress. David Arquette doesn’t mind the painting of Sonya. Sonya hedge-haws around whether she is still dating the artist.

The poll this week is are you on Alex’ side or Sonya’s side? Sonya looks a little grim around the jowls when the question gets asked. Andy smacks Sonya a bit and Sonya makes excuses about how Bravo edited her to make her look bad. She does some more historical rewrites about the way all the events leading up to the march played out, says that she’s a gay icon because she used to live with some gay roommates, and sometimes she let them dress her.

Alex wins the poll by a landslide, 79 percent to 21 percent, and Sonya disses everyone who voted against her by saying they just didn’t know the backstory without once accepting the fact that she is a jackhole. She also looks a little wary about the fact that Alex is on Andy’s show next week.

She should be!

The Finale of RHONY - Jacques and Jill, PLus Jill's Weird Popeye the Sailor-man Life Mantra

The major thing I took away from last night's episode of The Real Housewives of New York is that I really, really, really dislike Jill Zarin. Did I mention how much I dislike Jill Zarin? By the way, I really dislike Jill Zarin.

Everyone else on the show - Kelly included - seemed to be trying to put their best feet forward.

Jill believed she was also being a grand and gracious lady. However, the thing that will always come to my mind when I think of Jill Zarin and how much I dislike her is that when Alex tried to go say something to Jill at Ramona's Wedding II (because Alex is an honestly good person who blew her stack at Jill for a litany of well-deserved reasons, but Alex is also a decent person who would rather eat a little crow and do the right thing than ignore the fact that she hurt someone - even someone who deserved it as much as Jill), Jill put her hands up and rudely tottered away in her too-tight, too-short dress and too-tight shoes.

I have to say that the gilding has rubbed off this lily. First season, Jill was a tubby little Jewish housewife, the younger and petted spouse of a guy with some money and a business, and she seemed to enjoy the nice things that were in her life but not rely on them as props. She shopped, she bought often bad dresses and occasionally good dresses, she made much of her daughter and tried to embrace people when they were feeling sad or beaten.

Now, of course, Jill's true colors are out and anyone who is sad or beaten is fair game for Jill and her posse of followers, because in Jill's mind she is so important that anyone feeling beaten or sad should feel triply so, because Jill agrees with all the reasons it is so.

Over the last two seasons, Jill has worked overtime to try to reinvent herself as a true socialite (rather than just an occasional party-attender and eat-outer) and style-setter. Two problems here: Jill doesn't have the selflessness to do non-self-aggrandizing charity, and she doesn't have particularly good taste. As evidence on the taste part, I point out her circus of an apartment - the worst-ever issue of Traditional Home. Too, too much - no editing eye, no skill at creating (or approving, since I think it was her dog-walker/pal/vague colleague who did the actual design) flow for the eye or little jewels for the eye to light upon in its journey around the room.

Jill also lost a lot of weight and got her arms toned, had her hair done and learned to sit up straight as well. Of course, when you read about how Jill lost weight, she loses points. She ordered a big plate of food, ate half of it, and then spilled her glass of beverage all over the remainder of the food. The waiters and their difficulty in bringing her sloshing plate back to the kitchen be damned! The idea of ordering a half-portion wrapped for later or donating food to people who would be glad to eat it even with her Nehi Orange spilled over the top...

There was some surgery - reduction, maybe? And something in the face - or just some good old-fashioned Botox. One of my favorite moments from the season remains the time that Alex was chairing her Brooklyn fashion party and asked Ramona, Kelly and Luann to walk the runway - but NOT JILL.

Jill said something along the lines, "Oh, what good choices. Kelly and Luann were models, although of course, I am a size 0 (or 2, I can't remember the exact size) and Luann is certainly not that small a size anymore." In other words: pick me, pick me, pick me!

Of course, she didn't get picked, and for this, more than anything else, Jill cannot forgive Alex. Oh, the outburst was uncomfortable, but really, not choosing the beautiful Jill Zarin - stylesetter, tastemaker, size 0 - was the true wedgie in the whole salad of vengeance.

All that shine has lost its luster. At last night's finale, Jill looked heavy and her skin looked sallow and almost dirty (a light mist of spray tan, maybe?). Her lips looked thin, her nose looked long and her hair looked stringy and frizzy at the same time. The black outfit she wore in her talking head segments made her look wide, and the pink outfit she wore to LuAnn's CD party was a) way too young and b) way too tight. Her gut actually looked like maybe there was a life-preserver or a six-foot sub in there for emergencies. The dress she wore to Ramona's renewal ceremony was too tight and too short (yes, I know I've already said this, but here it is again) and looked, frankly, like something she borrowed out of her daughter's closet before getting her Gina Lollobrigida hairdo.

Which I believe means that Jill is a little depressed.

And who wouldn't be depressed? She lost her BFF Bethenny, Alex called her a "mean girl," Ramona kicked her off a whole island, and people are all over the world are telling her what a witch she is.

And then last night, two friends whose opinions she says she values, plus Sonja, a new voice whose opinion should be considered as well (because that's a lot of people saying the same thing) told Jill that she needs to do a lot of changing. And Jill's answer: Well, I can't change. I am who I am.

Gee, thanks, Popeye the Sailor-man.

And so Jill should get ready for a lot of solo nights on her questionable new sofa with a can of Pringles and a good Pinot grigio.

Because the things that people don't like about Jill are things they not only don't like: they are things they will no longer countenance. This includes betrayal, backstabbing, judging, criticizing, and being a good, old-fashioned General Categories Bitch.

Jill's first sad move of the evening was when she tottered into Le Cirque for her very public let's-put-things-to-rest luncheon with Bethenny. After months of skewering Bethenny to all and sundry, Jill realizes that she has backed the wrong horse and no matter how insanely jealous she is about Bethenny's amazing life successes, it would be better to walk alongside that parade float waving to the crowd than be on the sidelines having some toddler throwing popcorn or dripping Popsicles down her back. And perhaps, just perhaps, if she plays this right, Bethenny will allow Jill to ride on the parade float and Jill will take her rightful place in the heavens - perfectly poised to knock Bethenny off that high horse should the opportunity arise or even merely take over briefly if for any reason Bethenny is unable to fulfill her duties...

So Jill sets forth this not-terribly-gracious agenda: 1) asking Bethenny to forgive Jill because Jill felt so hurt by Bethenny's imagined sins and ambushed by Bethenny's attempt to reconcile and 2) understand that while Jill's behavior all along has been beyond reproach, if Bethenny took something out of context and felt hurt, Jill is being the bigger person and rising above it all, and certainly Bethenny can see that for herself, because if she doesn't, Bethenny is just not the thoughtful and considerate person Jill believes she could be if she has Jill in her life.

Despite Jill's constant lifting-of-her-napkin to her watering eyes (and once to her nose), Bethenny remains steadfast. She wells up once or twice, but she is not thinking with loving memory about her erstwhile friendship with Jill Zarin; instead, Bethenny is thinking about the months and months of sheer and utter hell she went through at the hands of this woman, how this betrayal pained her, and how hard it was to put it behind her.

So after laying out her Friendship Renewal Plan to Bethenny, Jill waits with baited breath to see how fast Bethenny is going to hug her, sob, sob, it's all over, thank God, I missed you, giving Jill the chance to say, sob, I missed you, too, can you believe that dope LuAnn is doing a record and she thinks she can sing and can you believe Ramona is renewing her vows at this weird random seventeen years and how strange is that and blah blah blah blah.

Instead, Jill gets her turn to be surprised when Bethenny agreeably calls their separation a divorce and adds that divorce is hard. She looks completely together and not at all broken up when she says this. Because, I reiterate, for Bethenny, the worst pain happened all those months ago when Jill was bad-mouthing Bethenny to all and sundry, assuming that everyone would rush to Team Jill.

So they leave and it's all good for Bethenny, but Jill is hanging onto the simple facts that Bethenny didn't throw cherry tomatoes at her and call her a ho-bag as possible evidence that she and Bethenny will soon be summering in the Hamptons, shopping at Bendels, and jawing for long talky sessions about babies, life, and the other Housewives. Maybe Jill will even get to be Matron of Honor and Godmother!

Round 2: Sonja tells Jill and LuAnn to zip it about the Island thing. This is at LuAnn's CD party, to which she has brought not the cheesy blond Court but rather the sloppy brown Jacques, who was lucky enough to steal a tweed jacket circa 1978 from a passing hobo on his way into the big do. LuAnn is beside herself, kissing this guy over and over and over and over and over again, with a big smile on her face that is at times giddy, at times maternal. Jill is in her too-tight pink tube dress, and she starts to moan about getting kicked off the island, and LuAnn - who has just kissed a guy so many times on national television that it is possible she was trying to suck chicken out of his teeth - starts in with the manners of the situation. Sonja starts to intervene in defense of Ramona, and LuAnn talks louder and faster. Sonja tries again, and LuAnn again tries to out talk Sonja. So Sonja says, "Please let me talk and quit talking over me and by the way, you weren't there," and LuAnn realizes she's being rude which won't look good for book sales and lets Sonja point out that Jill had declined the invitation, that Jill knew there was tension and drama on the trip from her constant iPhoning of Kelly, and that Ramona had spoken to Jill just the night before Jill made her big entrance on St. Johns and that if Jill had planned to come, she should have broached the idea then rather than springing it on everybody as a big fait accompli.

Basically, Sonja told Jill to quit belly-aching and acting like a victim, because she wasn't a victim.

Amazingly, Kelly stayed quiet throughout this scene, even when Sonja somewhat tactlessly - but not maliciously - said that the St. Johns party had just started to get good after Kelly left and things got back to normal. Good for Kelly. She was trying to think what to say, and wisely stayed silent. She looked far smarter and much less crazy this way.

Round 3: Just before Ramona's Wedding II, Jill surprises Ramona in her palatial suite of rooms at the Pierre. Surprise! she says, cattily. Ramona says, oh, I like this surprise and hugs Jill. Jill lets Ramona know how hurt she was by the whole island thing (Jill and Kelly persist in calling it Poison Island, which is really not very nice for tourism and really is about themselves - frankly, New York could be considered poison island with them on it) but that they've been friends for 15 years and she would never miss Ramona's big day (even if she has been making fun or Ramona's big day non-stop since first she heard the news). Ramona says she loves Jill, but she says that Jill needs to start thinking about things from the point-of-view of other people sometimes, and Jill basically doesn't want to hear this, so she slinks out of the room in disgrace, her Big Moment of Forgiveness toward Ramona having been upstaged by advice about Jill's Own Behavior.

Down to the ballroom where the guests are being served champagne and NO APPETIZERS. Jill, LuAnn and the new one who is super-boring but runs some sort of eventy business are appalled at the lack of appetizers and the fact that guests are being plied with beverages before the ceremony, which will make the other guests drunk. Then they get an eyeful of the woman who is the party planner (who has been standing there having to listen to these joy-sucks denigrate the whole party) and the Party Planning Housewife says, "Would you let her plan your event?"

Meaning, I guess, that she's a little on the chubby and bottle-blonde side, I guess, and maybe her pantsuit was not super-super. But still - how unprofessional for one member of an industry to say that about another member of the same industry, especially standing just two feet from the recipient of your insult. I especially love the extra-classy touch when Eventy Housewife (her name isn't even on the Web site) says that everybody has an opinion and everybody has an "asshole" (thanks for the heads-up and crassness, and thanks even more for demonstrating what an asshole actually looks like with your forefinger and thumb - super helpful and way elegant!).

Gotta add that the hot-chocolate-skating party didn't look all that hot at all to me. I've done lots of kids' parties - because I have kids - and lots of big parties and events, and to my very experienced eyes, you really ought not to have been dissing any party planner. Because it was unprofessional, it was rude, and you don't look that swell, either, babe.

The ceremony starts after Avery gets her way about not carrying the flowers and the dog, and everything is a little hallmarky but obviously very precious to all concerned and everybody looked beautiful. Just prior to the arrival of the guests of honor/wedding party, Jill notes that the chairs placed on either side of the aisle make it look like the two "teams" are separated, which is a particularly un-lovely and divisive remark to make (also, Sonja looked annoyed to have been put in the position of being on any team). Way to keep it classy, Jill! Passing out T-shirts just before the ceremony to let everyone know exactly how popular you are would have been just slightly less icky. Maybe they could say Team Jill on the front and Zarin Fabrics on the back, and you could write them off as marketing materials!

After the ceremony, everybody sort of wraps up their feelings about stuff with each other. Bethenny, obviously in the final stages of any regret over the loss of Jill Zarin in her life, breaks down and tells Ramona and Alex, somewhat awkwardly but with obviously a full heart and the best wishes, that she never knew how very wonderful they are (because Jill told her they weren't all that great) and she is so grateful for them and their support during the last few difficult months.

Jill finishes with LuAnn, the Party Wench, Sonja, Ramona, and then moves to Bethenny. I hope we'll be besties, she says to the Golden Girl with the World Dangling from a Smart Hermes Strap on her Wrist. "You'd have to change a lot," replies Bethenny, to which Jill gets a look on her face like she's just licked moldy bread because this was not in her mind-script and says, "I'm not perfect, I am human, I am who I am."

Really? Again? Getting life advice from Popeye the Sailor-man???

As an aside, I don't know what Simon meant when he called his kilty ensemble half-man/half-skirt, but people say stupid stuff at parties, especially when there are no appetizers before the ceremony. Right, Jill? Almost as bad an an e-vite! I like Simon and think he is a kind person who certainly makes things interesting. Also, his blog is hi-lar-i-ous!

So the party is in full swing and everyone is having a grand time and Alex decides to try to put the Crow Suit on and tell Jill she is sorry. Jill, however, always needs someone to have as an enemy. Did you notice that as soon as Alex unleashed her full fury on Jill, Jill backed off of Bethenny? It's so tiring to have to hate two whole people at one time! So she puts her chubby little hands up, backs away as if Alex had tried to actually touch her back and says, "I'm not doing this."

Jill! That is not how a lady behaves. What you do is you smile at Alex, say I'm glad we could both be here for Ramona tonight, what a lovely ceremony, and if Alex wants to discuss anything more and you don't want to, say, "I'd be so interested in hearing what you have to say, but my head is swimming from all the excitement tonight. Let's plan to do it another time." And then hug, peck, walk away. Take that manners lesson, Countess! 

Because cutting Alex dead at your friend's party is simply rude and makes you look - again - like a spoiled brat. You are not a victim! You are a manipulator! Take some responsibility for your childish antics and start using your feeble powers to help someone with better powers do good.

Can't wait for next week's reunion, whilst dreading it as well.