Best Elimination Ever

My next post was supposed to be about Groomer Has It, but I couldn't resist mentioning what I'm watching right now. I just arrived home, zombie-like, from a twelve hour workday. Before getting down to the business of correcting today's tests, I turned on the television, and there was Farmer Wants a Wife, a show that I watched once but rejected because it was really, really boring. I won't describe the show's premise because, well, it's pretty much there in the title. Apparently, the show has embraced its boringness. In tonight's episode, nine young women were told that they were going to find out who was eliminated by watching the local quilting bee lady embroider the eliminated woman's name. Yup. You heard right. They gathered around her on the steps of the house and watched as she slowly hand embroidered one letter at a time. Time moves slow on the farm.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

When I was a child I came up with The Rule of Television Weddings, which stated: If you see the wedding gown before the wedding takes place, the wedding is not going to happen. Since I was a child when I developed this rule, I assumed that everyone knew this. Also, let's face it, there was no outlet for such preternatural brilliance. You don't exactly share with others that you have already spent so much of your life watching television, and that weddings especially are fascinating to you, that you've noticed something that probably interests no one but you. It was PJ, who many years ago, pointed out to me that not everyone knew this at all. So there you have it in a nutshell: my single contribution to society.

But my rule, which held for years, is not quite true anymore. Let's explore:

Thursday and Friday on All My Children (take note those of you who have spoken of the slow pace of the soap opera): Angie and Jesse can be found at Zach's casino getting ready for their wedding, a very special event in Pine Valley, since the residents all saw Jesse die 20 years ago. Recently, he returned from the dead to resume his life with his family. Meanwhile, ex-FBI agent Rob Gardner, the reason that Jesse was believed to be dead, realizes that the diamond he's been searching for is safely hidden in Angie's daughter's stuffed elephant, which is at the casino, too. Side note: this child has carried the elephant with her everywhere for almost all of her 18 years and the elephant is very soft. The diamond is in its rough form and is the size of my palm. Strange no one ever noticed. Anyway: The wedding guests gather, including the ghost of Dixie, who knows that something terrible is going to happen on this day. Of all the things that might happen on this day, I know that the wedding is, without a doubt going to take place (more about this later). The guests include Tad, Dixie's great love, who is longing to find the five year old daughter that Dixie gave up for adoption without telling Tad. They also include Aidan and Greenlee and Zach and Kendall (the daughter of the famous Erica Kane, played by Susan Lucci). Also there are Colby and JR, the grown children of Adam, who is being haunted by Dixie's ghost. Adam is in a hospital for the mentally ill because he has been talking to Dixie and no one believes him. Dixie is haunting Adam because he is the only living person who knows that five year old Kathy, the adopted daughter of Julia, is actually the daughter that Tad is searching for. As Anna Russell would say, "I'm not making any of this up."

Vows are said, people start dancing, and happiness reigns for a few minutes. Rob Gardner uses his FBI badge to get access to the room where the stuffed elephant can be found. But the diamond is not there because Jesse was one step ahead of him. When Gardner realizes this, Angie just happens to walk into the room, and she becomes Rob Gardner's hostage. Meanwhile, Adam gets out of the hospital and shows up at the wedding ranting and raving about needing to take his children home. The ghost of Dixie keeps saying, "Adam, the future is already in motion. You can't change it." Oddly, Dixie seems able to change things herself. She knocks over chairs to get people to stop walking, which changes their paths, and to some extent, their futures, but she can't change the story from moving along. Adam has one more chance to tell Tad the truth, but doesn't. Rob Gardner and his hostage show up at the wedding reception, where Aidan pulls out his gun. Rob starts shooting and hits a couple of people, including Julia, Kathy's mother. Perhaps Aidan isn't quite as quick on the draw as usual because a few moments before, his fiance, Greenlee, learned that Aidan and her best friend Kendall had had sex the night before Zach and Greenlee were finally rescued from their month of being trapped in an old bomb shelter (they were presumed dead). Aidan and Kendall had given up and turned to each other for comfort on that very night. While they were comforting each other on the hardwood floor, Kendall spotted the map (under the bed, which was unoccupied) that showed the bomb shelter and led to the rescue. Tad had hired a helicopter to whisk Angie and Jesse to their honeymoon. Rob Gardner decides to use the helicopter to escape with the diamond and with Angie. As he is taking off, he shoots and hits Tad. Jesse jumps for the helicopter's runners and the episode ends with Jesse in mid-air. I'm leaving a lot out here, like Rob locking Opal in a supply closet after making her think they were going to have sex in there, or Angie's daughter starting to fall for the federal attorney's son, or Aidan telling Greenlee that he understood that she didn't want to have children, or Tad fighting with his wife over her feelings for Adam, or JR getting shot at and his ex-wife realizing how important JR was to her.

Television weddings are very expensive things, so producers tend to cram a lot of surprises into them. I've seen tornadoes and earthquakes happen during weddings, along with murders and kidnappings. But the most common thing that happens during television weddings is that the wedding is stopped, usually by the man the bride really loves.

I knew that Angie and Jesse were actually going to become man and wife because when Angie went dress shopping, and found the perfect dress, her friends were seen gasping at how great she looked and she was only shown from the neck up. On the morning of the wedding, Angie was only seen in her nightgown, not in the gown. So, even though I had no idea who was going to be shot, taken hostage, etc., I knew absolutely that I do's were going to be said before all of this happened.

When I was young, I absolutely knew that when I saw the dress before the wedding, the wedding would not happen. But in my teens, there was one exception. On the old Rhoda show, Rhoda married Joe in one of the most watched television episodes of the 1970's. The story centered around lots of things going wrong as she tried desperately to get to the wedding. The humor was in the idea that she was running through the streets of New York in a fairy tale type wedding gown. So here is the Rhoda exception: if the story centers around the difficulties of getting to the wedding, the dress can be shown and the wedding will still take place. This rule stood for years. But.

Last week, there was another exception, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

On One Life to Live, which has been really good lately, a wedding was about to take place and I really had no idea if it would happen or not. Up until the wedding day, I did not see the dress. That's a sign that it would take place. The groom, Rex, does not know that his fiance, Adriana, has been scheming to make sure the wedding takes place. Gigi, Rex's first love, has shown up in town with her son, who is the result of a night between Rex and Gigi in high school. Rex left town soon after conceiving the child, and has no idea that he has a son. Meanwhile Adriana, and pretty much anybody who thinks, has figured out that this is the case. Adriana has gone to great lengths to make sure that Rex doesn't know that he has a son, since he seems to have feelings for Gigi and this news would put him over the edge. So, even though we don't see the dress, we do see Rex showing up late to his wedding because he is helping his son, who is at the hospital with an asthma attack and we see Gigi show up at the wedding and announce mid-ceremony that she loves Rex. Here's the strange part: I did see the dress before the wedding. Adriana had it on in the dressing room in the church before she entered the chapel. And, despite everything, the wedding did take place.

What gives? I have four possible explanations. Have weddings become anticlimactic? Couples live together now and a wedding in the old days supposedly meant that the couple was hours away from having sex for the first time, which was a pretty important step. Does the internet mean that it is easy to find out the designer of the wedding dress and that the more time the dress is on the air, the more perks the producers can get? (I can't find the name of the designer on-line, so I think this one might be wrong). Or, have the writers become aware of this television convention after 50 years of television (we can call this a post-Vicki's rule of television weddings world) and are they turning the convention in on itself? Or, if the bride is a liar who doesn't deserve to be married, do we not care about the moment of the reveal? This would add a second exception.

Luckily, I have been educated in the rules of logic, so my rule can be saved. My new rule: If you don't see the dress before the wedding, the wedding will take place. As far as I know, there is no exception to this rule, but there are actually many shows I've never seen, believe it or not, so I'm open to the possibility that there are exceptions out there. Go ahead, ruin my single contribution to the world's great body of knowledge.

Iron Chef, Doggie Style

The title of this week’s entry comes from Jonathan. Not because it made me laugh, which it did, but because he was kind and good humored enough to post a very nice comment last week. I should probably be all nonchalant about it, but I’m actually pretty thrilled by his comment. So, this is for you, Jonathan. (By the way, Jonathan even got a clip on The Soup this week).

This episode begins with most of the groomers being very happy that Malissa is gone. Jessica starts crying because Malissa is “all I had here.” I can’t blame her for crying. It’s pretty clear that they’re all ready to see her follow Malissa out the door. And, well, I’m kind of ready for Jessica’s exit myself. There’s a pretty funny scene of Jessica confiding in Will and being touched at how kind he was to listen to her, followed by Will telling the cameras how much he wants Jessica to go.

The groomers seem exhausted by the show. When the doggie mail arrives, as it does every week, with Nemo dressed up in one of his little doggie outfits, they seem less than thrilled. When they learn that their challenge is to make a treat for a dog, they become even less enthusiastic. Several brag about how they don’t know how to cook (pet peeve of mine—I hate it when people brag that they are incapable of meeting a basic human need).

The groomers are taken to a gourmet dog treat bakery and shown to a table laden with things that dogs like: carob, apples, and many other things. Kathleen’s leg up from winning last week is that she is the only one who can use peanuts.

Noting Kathleen’s good fortune, Jonathan tells all of us that he “goes crazy for nuts.” He adds that this is like “Iron Chef, doggie style.” Suddenly, I’m picturing Emeril and Paula Deen and…oh, make it stop.

The owner of the dog treat shop chooses Jessica the winner for her treat, which he declares to be the only committed treat. This is because she based her cookie on one ingredient instead of a lot of things that dogs like, all mixed together. I guess my cockapoos are indiscriminate eaters because they don’t care if their food is committed or not.

Today’s challenge is to groom a Chow Chow. Kathleen hasn’t groomed one in 15-20 years because she has been attacked by them. Jorge has the same story. Jonathan says that he doesn’t groom them, either. Apparently, Chows become very attached to their owners, and that’s it. But Jasper grooms them a lot, and Artist tells how he can’t afford to be picky about the dog that he grooms. In his job, he needs to groom ten dogs a day to pay his bills.

Most of the dogs turn out to be pretty sweet. Kathleen’s isn’t, but most of the groomers think she made a mistake showing her fear and muzzling her dog. For the first time, I become aware of how dangerous dog grooming can be. After a dog bite, I wouldn’t want to go back again.

Much is made of Artist doing a good job grooming his Chow. The judges are thrilled because they talked to him about his lack of confidence last week. They seem to be taking credit for Artist’s amazing turn-around.

While the groomers wait for the judges to make their decision, the groomers who are usually confident (Jorge, Jonathan, Kathleen) are unusually quiet. They realize that they could go on the chopping block. But they may be safe because Will went crazy with his scissoring, and then tries to cover it by saying that there is no AKC standard for grooming Chows. One of the judges, Xavier, points out that this is not true. Whoops.

Jasper and Artist are the two best groomers this week. Artist wins best in show, maybe because he was the best, or maybe because the judges seem to think that he is their Pygmalion.

Kathleen and Will don’t make the standard this week, for showing fear in one case and for overcutting in the other. Will has to leave the doghouse. Kathleen is told that the “groomer of the year” can’t say, “but I don’t do Chows.” I’m kind of thinking that the groomer of the year can say pretty much anything she wants to say.

Two for the Price of One

You’d think I could, once in two weeks, sit down and write a recap. You’d think. But did I mention that I am a busy educator? So, here’s a mini recap of last week on Groomer Has It and a longer recap of this week’s. I must apologize to my regular readers for not getting the last one in within a decent period of time. I have been taking some time to learn more about you. Here are some statistics about you: 42.9% of you don’t have access to Animal Planet, so you depend upon this site for all of your Groomer news; 14.3% of you are related to one of the groomers; 14.3% of you live in Europe; 14.3% of you have an intense, strange hatred for mayonnaise.

So, last week was fashion show week. Will, who won the leg up, gets to divide the remaining groomers into three teams of three. They will have to design a fashion line and then groom the dogs for Groomer Has It’s first fashion show. The catch is that the losing team will decide which of the three groomers goes home, instead of the judges.

There will be a surprise judge, who is “infamous when it comes to fashion critique.”

All the groomers find it a bit hard to believe that Will chooses Jessica and Amber for his team instead of Jonathan and Kathleen, who probably would have assured him a win. His team does end up losing after Will disses his teammates by claiming it was a bad decision to choose them for his team. And then, they don’t even team up and vote him out. Jessica, who gets the deciding vote, chooses Amber to go home. I guess it was a strategic vote because Amber is the better groomer of the two.

Jonathan, who must always assert himself as the groomer to beat in each episode, tells the camera that he is “tired of being nice for the sake of being nice.” That leaves me wondering what reasons there are for being nice.

I think my favorite moment occurs when Jonathan is feeling very confident about his team not losing and Artist agrees, but mentions, in passing, the possibility that his teammates, realizing that Jonathan is the biggest threat to everyone, could throw the challenge on purpose and then, as the losing team, vote Jonathan out. Jonathan’s face is priceless. It reminds me of the dramatic prarie dog.

Jasper, Jorge and Artist end up winning, much to their surprise. Jasper gets “Best in Show.”

Oh, and the infamous judge? None other than Melissa Rivers. What more could I ask for?

So on to this week:

We begin with Kathleen and Jonathan arguing with Malissa about the last challenge. Malissa wants to talk about how she feels about Kathleen taking away her dog. Malissa, as usual, gives us golden drops of wisdom, “I have a heart, I have a soul, I have a brain, I have a mind,” and “What are the judges going to say? Like I am incompetent of grooming?”

The groomers find out that their quick sniff challenge involves dog CPR. They are to be instructed by a woman named Denise Fleck. Jorge declares himself “super interested.” The groomers then have to give first aid to three stuffed dogs. Malissa lets the viewers know that she knows the difference between a real dog and a stuffed animal. Moments later, she messes up and tells the camera, “I forgot to pretend it was a real dog. My bad.”

Jasper, who seems to be a sweet, big guy, wins the challenge because he remembers that you don’t have to bandage up a hurt leg if an empty toilet paper roll will do. He beat Artist’s time, and Artist seemed genuinely happy for Jasper.

It’s dinner time. Jessica mentions that she misses her cat. Jorge says he doesn’t like cats. Foreshadowing!!! Malissa talks about how Kathleen owes her an apology, and Artist tells the camera that they all have to watch out for Kathleen because the quiet ones are the ones who will put cyanide in your coffee in the morning. The camera cuts to Kathleen, who is sitting in a corner in a pink bathrobe, reading a book.

The groomers are told that their elimination challenge will involve a breed that will be new to them as groomers. One groomer feels that there are few breeds he hasn’t groomed. Malissa hopes for monkeys and Artist hopes for raccoons. But, alas, it is cats. Why are wet cats so hilarious?

In addition to seeing funny wet cats, we get to see funny injured groomers. Artist gets bitten on his knuckles, plus his cat wets itself and “left chocolate truffles on the groomer’s table three times.”

Malissa needs to invoke her seventh sense, but it doesn’t seem to be working the way it has so many times before. Alas, hearing does not seem to be one of her senses because she apparently did not hear that you should not scissor cats’ faces. The other groomers wonder if she scissored the cat’s whiskers, which would be a horrible error. Jonathan says, “I hope she did scissor her cat’s face.” I would comment on the cruelty of that remark, but I was thinking the same thing. I’ve grown weary of Malissa.

It’s time for the judges’ decision, and it is in this scene that I notice that Jorge must have borrowed Jonathan’s white belt. Am I missing some scary new fashion trend?

Kathleen wins because she really seems to know cats and Will is the runner up. The fact that they call it runner up cracks me up. I keep expecting Jai to say, “Will, if Kathleen is unable to fulfill her duties as this week’s winner…” Will was chosen because he was able to deal well with the most matted of the cats. I hope this doesn’t mean we have to listen to information about the cat’s vulva.

Malissa has to leave the doghouse. She is beside herself with grief. Artist tries to calm her, but she’ll have none of it. Later, as she’s packing, she’s calmer. Her parting words: “Eventually someone had to go home and so it was me.” Then she says, “Wait! I think there are only five senses: breathing, seeing, touching, tasting and hearing. I can’t think of the sixth one.” Comedy gold. We’ll miss you, Malissa.