S5 Episode 4: You Didn’t Invite Me to Your Party, Behind My Back!
Okay, so first off let's review the cardinal rules of Real Housewives Fight Club. I can trace almost every fight, on every episode, of every Housewife franchise in every city to a breach of one or both of these:
1. Don't Talk Behind My Back.
2. Invite Me To Your Party.
This week, at lunch, I broke Rule No. 1 before they'd even poured the water. In my defense, I was hungry. They put a teaspoon of pasta in my bowl, did you see that? I'd only had a sugar cookie for breakfast (as opposed to Aviva's hard-boiled egg) and they didn't give us bread. So for the better part of that lunch I was distracted from lack of food. Remember I'm Siciliano, I like to eat!
But I spent every minute I wasn't distracted by food, talking about Heather. Behind her back. OMG. Did you see me? I went all mean girl, and we pinkie-swore in the first episode we weren't going to do that! The only thing crazier than Heather talking is how much we all talked about how much Heather is talking, and trust me, you're only seeing a glimpse of it. We talked behind Heather's back about her talking in front of us so much that a month later we were all still talking about it! For the record, Heather doesn't talk much more than the rest of us, it was just something for us to talk about. . .her talking.
Meanwhile, over at the Sidecar LuAnn is thrilled that Sonja broke her lunch date with us to do oyster shooters and -- like us -- break Rule No 1. They spend the entire lunch talking about Ramona. We spent our entire lunch talking about Heather. So who did Heather talk about at lunch? We may never know. Maybe Heather didn't talk about anyone at lunch, maybe she preserved the first rule, but not so much the second which is: "You didn't invite me to your party, biatch. Holla."
I’ll come back to that.
My downstairs neighbor, Tripp, went with me to the Occupy Wall Street protest.
Poll Question:
"We are the 99 percent" is a political slogan used by the Occupy Wall Street movement. But they borrowed it. Originally, it was:
a) The words Sally Field chanted at the end of Norma Rae, a movie based on real life union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton
b) The percentage of men over 55 who suffer from erectile dysfunction
c) The name of a Tumblr page launched by a 28-year-old New Yorker going by the name of "Chris"
d) Sub-title of Aldous Huxley's classic 1932 bestseller, Brave New World
(See answer below.)
The protest was calm, but the issue is pretty serious. In a nutshell, the top 1 percent of Americans collect over 20 percent of the nation's income, and that number has more than doubled since the early '80s. In the previous five decades (1930s through the '70s) the share of income that went to the wealthiest Americans was stable, and even declined some while middle-class incomes rose. It's only been in the last 30 years that economists have seen that trend reverse. Sharply. Right now, in 2012, we are witnessing the greatest wage inequality our country has ever seen and no one knows how to fix it. I'm technically a part of that 1 percent now, but I grew up a 99-percenter. And you can take the girl out of the 99 percent, but you can't take the 99 percent out of the girl. I get it.
People are mad as hell and they should be. It's an egregious injustice (like Heather not inviting Ramona to London.)
Back uptown, no one is feeding Sonja. (There is a theme emerging in this episode, of hungry women and their arduous quests for food.) Sonja Morgan does a star turn in this episode as Blanche DuBois. How does she wake up looking like that? I bet it has everything to do with Millsaps. I'm stealing Millsaps. I want a bosomy Southern intern, I want one for everyone. I think if everyone had Millsaps the economy wouldn't have collapsed, we’d all be titled 100 percenters and gross national blood pressure would be down. Instead of asking Mario and Jacques if they have a brother, I should be asking if Millsaps has a sister. Is that a crumb tray in Sonja's bed? Hurricanes, dogs, electrical work, missing light bulbs. . .with all of that, how can Sonja find time to answer a phone? Except for royalty. Royalty leave a message. Beep.
In the first moment of this episode, I have a character flaw. Fine. I talked behind Heather's back about her talking so much in front of us. I also did a strange urban handshake thing with Ramona, I had low blood sugar. But in the last scene, I have a much more serious flaw involving fashion. You know what I'm talking about.
What. Am. I. Wearing?
I swear, the cape dress, the bunned hair, all looked cool in real life -- but on-screen I look like the love child of Princess Leia and Darth Vader! I look like I raced over to Sonja's Social Life party straight from a Star Wars Convention, and with apparently no time to change. And unfortunately, because I stayed so long at the Star Wars Convention, I missed the drama at this party. All of it!
Quick Princess sidebar: There's been a lot made of the Countess and the Princess. Title title blah title blah Princess Countess blah. I call LuAnn, "LuAnn" and she doesn't seem to mind. Sonja calls her "Countess" and she doesn't seem to mind that either. (By the way, I looked up Borghese and it IS the name of a cosmetics company. I told you!)
I do not call myself or ask anyone else to call me Princess. I used it for the tag line in the show, but that was in fun -- I couldn't resist the word play. I married a man who had a title, but that doesn't represent who I am. My identity comes from what I've earned in my life. I'm as All-American as they come -- a product of the American Dream, really, and I'm proud of that. I respect my late husband's legacy and the legacy of his family. They have a rich and storied history that goes back centuries and is an integral part of their country. But that belonged to Anthony and his family, not to me.
I've met Princes and Counts and Dukes of Earls along the way. I even interviewed Prince Andrew for Glamour. But a title is not impressive. Character is. And that's not defined by a title, it's defined by your actions, behavior and, more importantly, how you treat others. My late husband used to say, "it doesn't matter where you start, it only matters where you end up."
If LuAnn wants to use her title she should use it. People should chill out, and let her. LuAnn and I have a few bumps and scrapes along the way, but not about her letting people call her Countess.
OK, back to the Housewife Rules, and Heather and Ramona and London.
So not only did Heather not invite Ramona to her party (Rule No. 2), she didn't invite her behind her back (Rule No. 1). It's the double toe loop into an airplane spin of Housewife behavior. Ramona even invited Heather to drinks so Heather could either invite her or disinvite her to her face, but Heather didn't crack. I am in awe of Heather. I would have cracked.
It's possible that in this last scene, Sonja's party, that Ramona has been over-served. And Heather continues to torment her by not inviting or dis-inviting her to her face. What? Who me? Where? She is cool as a cat.
In return, Ramona concocts event after event to invite Heather to. Watching it play out makes me squirm. If Heather doesn't want to invite her then she doesn't have to invite her, but it's like an Upper East Side water-boarding. Ramona is inviting Heather and her husband and her dog and her neighbors and future children and all Aviva's future children to everything she can think of and still, Heather does not crack.
Finally, Mario has to whisk Ramona off to the bathroom, where I can only assume he spritzed her with his calming Mario scent. Ramona, bunny, I know you think you're being subtle, but you're about as subtle as a Housewife at a Star Wars convention.
The poll answer is C. It was originally the name of Tumblr blog (Wikipedia).
Until next week, my friends. May the force be with you.
#stealingmillsaps