I love Bollywood movies, and I especially love myself some Shah Rukh Kahn. Last night I watch Kal Ho Naa Ho. And this dance sequence just blew me away. Thankfully, in this day and age of the unlimited interwebs, I am able to let you guys see it to. Turn up the volume and rock out!

But then, there is this, later in the movie, and it also has a certain charm. Sorry about the vid quality, you’ll just have to rent it for yourself.

MORNING: OPEN ON GIRLS’ DORM

We see Victorya making coffee, and calling to her roommate “Kit, are you going to have more coffee?” Except, oops, not Kit, that’s Sweet P, who kind of whines, “I’m P, not Kit.” And then we repeat the exercise, this time with a sandwich instead of coffee. Kit, would you like? I’m not Kit, I’m P.

Let’s discuss. Is Victorya being super-creepy passive aggressive and trying to get under P’s skin? Or is it just that all bleached blonde, blue-eyed white women look the same to Victorya?  Or both?

Well, it doesn’t matter, because we’re off to see the boys, where they are discussing how their apartment is the only one with all the original occupants. Do we care? Ricky is sniveling about being in the bottom two again and how nobody likes him or his work. Here’s a clue, Nellie, take off the stupid, fugly little twee hats and butch up a little. Oh, and another clue? Make something that doesn’t suck.

Off to Parson’s to see Heidi, choose models and hear about the next challenge. Christian turfs last week’s model and takes back the model that got stolen from him. I think. Really, I have no idea with these girls. I know that Jillian’s model wears glasses when she’s not on the runway and can sew by hand, and that is about it for me and the models. Maybe next season I’ll care enough to learn their names. Or not.

As for the challenge, well, Tim is taking everyone on a field trip, so scoot. And they do, complaining all the way. A field trip, Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude tells us, can be something fabulous like a trip to Paris, or something tragic, where you end up in a garbage can, trying to find stuff to make a wedding dress. He frets and pouts. Although we don’t see it, I’m sure that Ricky is crying.

ON THE WATERFRONT

Into a van and then over the river and through the boroughs, to a warehouse on the waterfront we go. Another warehouse on the river? Is this another trash challenge? Oooh, that’ll go over big. But no, there is a woman, and she is Caroline Calvin, and she is the Vice President of Design for Levi’s. The warehouse door slowly rises to reveal… well, Jillian doesn’t even want to know what’s behind door number one. But in the end what’s behind the door is a warehouse of gigantic proportions, with multitudes of clotheslines like spider webs throughout the space, on which, Tim tells us, is more than 500 pairs of Levi’s 501 jean products and bolts of white cotton. The designers have three minutes to sprint across the acreage, scooping up denim and white cotton and stuffing it into laundry bags.

P loses one flip-flop. Chris hates life. Rami-OTTSA makes a point of only taking the dark washes. Jillian takes all the lightest jackets and jeans. Christian takes the dark? and the jackets? And Victorya steals stuff from Chris, rationalizing her behaviour as being highly competitive in a competition. Although Miz Shoes didn’t think it was possible given the vastness of the space and the short amount of time, the designers manage to strip the clotheslines bare.

IN THE WHITE ROOM

In the workroom, Tim shows the designers the heaps and piles of baggies of notions from Levi’s: buttons, snaps, zippers, labels, and although I didn’t see it, I’m sure that there were spools of the signature gold thread. The designers have twelve hours to make a new iconic denim look. Ricky, wearing one of his stupid little twee hats, tells us that this is going to be fun for him (for a change) because he makes some of his hats (OH, NOES!!) from denim. And he’s going to play to his strengths (he has any?) and make a corset dress.

Jillian, riding high on last week’s spectacular and spectacularly received Apocalyptic Trench Coat (band auditions coming soon) will make a futuristic jacket and use the little red tabs as epaulets.

Rami gives us some background on himself: blah, blah, blah, Jerusalem, political hot spot, three religions, blah, blah, blah, fashion forward from the age of five because of that, blah, blah, blah.

P laments that her denim is filthy because she let it hit the ground in that warehouse, and asks Chris, whom she says is smart about this stuff, how he would recommend getting the dirt out/off. Chris tells her to make up the garment, then damp wipe it. Christian tosses in his two cents and says not to wet the fabric, because then the dirt will absorb. Then Chris and Christian proceed to get into a pissing match over who knows better and it ends just short of Christian calling Chris a big fat doo-doo head.

We are then treated to a way-too-long montage of all the idiosyncrasies of the various designers. Chris says that Christian needs to be given his bottle and sent to bed. Christian opines that he is going to and I quote: “die of barfness.” Then he whines that this is not how fashion really is. Oh, really? You think? A reality teevee show isn’t like real life? Miz Shoes has to fan herself a little and think about that.

Victorya is going to make a classic trench coat. Jillian is pissed about this and whispers heatedly that Victorya is stealing her shit from last week when they worked together on the Apocalyptic Trench Coat.

Christian says that working with denim makes him feel so manly. Miz Shoes chokes on her martini, and almost misses him announcing that he’s going to make a fierce, edgy biker jacket for women. Who wants to bet that this will include some ruffles and/or tucks and that it will be cropped?

P wants to make a denim wedding dress, and we see her wedding photo from a year or so ago, and let me tell you, that woman must have been spending days per week at the tattoo parlor, or her husband is a tattoo artist, because none of the ink she’s sporting now is visible in her wedding pix.

Christian is chirping about how only the annoying people are left, and he isn’t a happy little camper, and in walks Ricky. Schnort. Christian hones the point by interviewing that Ricky has no vision, and that he should have been sent home, not Kit. And the rest of America, hating itself for having to agree with such an annoying little queen, agrees. Ricky is then given face time to make his case, and he tell us that he used to be the Vice President of design for Vera Wang lingerie. Really? Did you cry all the time there, too? And did Vera let you wear those stupid little twee hats at the office?

P and Christian look into the other workroom, where Chris is working by himself. P asks Christian if he thinks Chris is lonely, and he says, no, not at all, he’s talking to his dress form. Cut to Chris, who is, in fact, talking to the garment, and he tells us that he’s making an iconic Little Black Dress. But in blue denim.

WHEN THE WHIP COMES DOWN

Tim enters and does his grand tour of the workroom. He starts with Ricky and says he loves it. Miz Shoes checks to see if a combination of TheraFlu and vodka is a hallucinogen.

Tim asks Chris why his dress has a raw edge on it. Chris says because he likes it. Tim says that it is incongruous and he isn’t so sure about it. Miz Shoes kind of likes it, but Miz Shoes is not a judge.

Jillian has a long way to go, as always. And her piece is looking awfully familiar. Rami has used zippers to create a binding on his seams. Tim thinks that this is terribly innovative and that this has the potential to blow away the judges. Miz Shoes calls foul and jumps up and down on the couch, saying ORIGINAL? INNOVATIVE? Have you already forgotten that Jeffrey-The-Pinheaded-Shmoo did that last year on his green awning striped dress? NOT INNOVATIVE, DERIVATIVE!!!!!

Victorya is looking a little “patchwacky”. And P? Well, Tim says that it’s looking “happy hands at home granny circle”. He tells her to “resolve the skirt”. P blanches, and then tells us that she takes Tim’s advice to heart, and promptly cuts the bottom of her wedding dress off and rethinks the whole project.

Jillian is having a nervous breakdown, whining about the lack of time, like this is a new condition, and crying and saying that she’s cut herself (on purpose? Miz Shoes wonders) and when Rami comes over to see the blood (and lap it up? Miz Shoes wonders) there is, in fact, none. She’s in a total panic and someone (Chris? P?) tells her that she can freak out all she wants in ten minutes, but to put a sock in it until the little hand and the big hand line up. Christian sighs that he is sooooo glad that he has immunity this week.

IT’S A NEW DAWN, IT’S NEW DAY

In the boys’ room, Rami is spritzing his face. The girls are getting ready to leave. Then there we are at the workroom, and Jillian is sprinting in her heels (good for her) towards her mannequin and we see the denim version of last week’s near-win. Only, not as good. Nowhere near as good. Victorya is adding an inside out skirt to the bottom of a totally off-the-rack jacket.

Ricky is cooing over his dress and doing the finishing. It may not be what the judges want, says Ricky, but it is what Ricky wants.  P is sure that she’ll be safe with her dress. She’s done some amazing stuff with the different washes, using them to define the outline of the dress.

Jillian and Victorya are hating each other and each other’s work, and whispering that the other one stole their idea. Ho-fucking-hum. Christian has made a jacket and a pair of jeans, and he tells us that he will just puke if he sees another tube dress. People are hot-gluing like there is no tomorrow. Oh. There isn’t. There also is absolutely no more time, and once again, Tim is standing in the doorway, telling Jillian to move out NOW!!!

IT’S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE

Heidi takes the runway in a fabulous shimmery brown baby doll dress, and tells the designers that the competition is getting “tuffah” and so there will be no more immunity for the winners. She smiles gloriously as she says that. There are all the usual judges, and Caroline Calvin.

Chris’ dress has this sort of halter made of the raw-edges waistband, I think and it’s a cute little dress, but not a Little Black Dress. It’s too casual for that.

Ricky’s dress is strapless, with a short, pleated skirt from a very dropped hip, and the front uses and extended button fly. Meh.

P’s dress is clean and polished and the color blend with the different washes is beautiful. There is nothing hippy, Woodstock, granny or crunchy granola about it at all. See, people? This is why you should Always Listen to Tim Gunn.

Victorya’s trench coat is a huge nothing, and the skirt is way too full.

Rami’s dress has kicky pleats and zipper bindings and looks better, to me, than Ricky’s. At least there is no draping.

Christian’s jeans and jacket are as fierce and fashion forward as he thinks they are. The jeans are pencil thin, and from about the knee down, he has finished them with long, buttoned cuffs off a jacket, so that there are these big brass buttons down the back of the leg, opening to allow one’s foot through because they are cut that close to the bone. Anyone larger than a size minus two could not wear them. But by gad they are hothothot. The jacket is cropped and ruffled and there is some weird mini-leg o mutton thing going on at the shoulders.

Jillian’s Not Quite Apocalyptic Trench Coat is not quite sucky.

The judges ask the designers about their motivation. Christian says that he was going for trucker/biker/motocross chic. Michael Kors asks about the material. That isn’t stretch denim, is it? No, it is tailored to within an inch of its life.

NinaGarcia sees Chris’ Little Black Dress as dated rather than timeless. MK says if he was going to do frayed and distressed, then he should have gone wild with it, and not just a tentative little edge. Heidi sniffs that it looks a little “home sewn.” (Which may be why Miz Shoes is having such a hard time finishing that dress in her studio, fearing the curse of looking home sewn.)

Since the judges are all suffering from amnesia regarding last season, Rami is lauded for his originality and creativity by Michael Kors and Caroline Calvin. NinaGarcia is happy that he’s finally done something different and that it is sharp and clean (and just a little bit like his candy dress.)

Ricky, they declare, has made a denim cocktail dress: denim done up. He has styled his girl like Amy Winehouse (see last week’s review, where he chose a giant bouffant as his inspirational look). Caroline Calvin thinks his dress is “really cool”. MK gets the Amy Winehouse reference. The judges all exclaim over his “impeccable workmanship” and Ricky, predictably, cries.

Jillian is called out for doing the same thing two weeks in a row. And told that this weeks is a feeble attempt compared to last week. Caroline Calvin says there are too many labels and NinaGarcia points out that Jillian has managed to make her model look stumpy.

P’s dress, says Michael Kors, has the “slimming voodoo”. We’d all wear it, says NinaGarcia, well, except, you know, maybe not Michael. And Kors says, well, you know, with the right shoes? They all love the “super chic” mix of denims.

Victorya’s attempt is assessed thusly: you have glued a party skirt onto a denim jacket.

YOU’RE IN OR YOU’RE OUT

Rami is in. P did a good job, she’s in. Christian is in (and robbed of a win, even if the little twit annoys me). Chris is in. Ricky is the winner, and my notes read “Get the fuck out”. His little dress will be sold in a limited edition on the Levi’s web site. Ricky weeps but somehow manages not to say “you like me, you really like me.” Miz Shoes knows, however, that he’s thinking it.

The old team of Victorya and Jillian are left in the bottom two, and Jillian, though her work was unfocused and unflattering, is left in. Which means that Victorya and her dull, uninspired coat are out. She takes this with as much enthusiasm and verve as you would expect, which is to say none. She gives an exit interview devoid of affect.

Next week? Ricky cries and Christian is really annoyed by everyone else in the room.

I’m home this morning, waiting to see the doctor, and discuss why, after three weeks of the chest cold from hell, I had a one week reprieve, and now it’s back. Walking pneumonia? Toxic work place? TB? I don’t know, and frankly, don’t give a damn. I just want it over.

ETA: “merely bronchitis”. Antibiotics, fluids, rest. Bite me.

OPEN: INTERIOR: GIRLS DORM

And just as quickly flash on the boys’ dorm, where the shirtless vision of Little Emo Boy assails us. Oh, please, girl. That is not Rami of the Heavenly Arms, nor is it Kevin. It is weepy Ricky and the best that can be said of this is that he was without the twee little hat. But wait! There’s Rami sitting all backlit and shit, asking Christian how he felt about being in the bottom two last week. Predictably, Christian is in denial that he deserved it, saying that there was such uglier, shittier stuff on the runway and whatever like, he knew there was no way he was going home. And though I am loathe to say this, she has a point. That twittering little queen is most excellent teevee. And then we are swept off to Parson’s where we will see Heidi on the runway, telling the designers about the next challenge. And so she does. The challenge this week is to design an avant garde look based on the avant garde hairstyle of your model. And now, let’s shake things up a little more by bringing out the girls in their little black slips and outrageous hair, and THEN let last week’s winning designer choose her model. Good times. Victorya sticks with her model, but since I’m not keeping track of them, I can only guess by the pissy/pained looks on some designers’ faces when other designers’ call out names, that there is a lot of model switching going on. Ricky is last, and he has to choose between three girls. Since the models weren’t used last week, we have two spares. Ricky makes his choice based on which hair he thinks he can design around and then cries. Are you shocked? And I must point out that he went with an Amy Winehouse on crack (wait, that IS Amy Winehouse).... an Amy Winehouse by way of Hairspray, the Musical bouffant that I would never have chosen in a zillion years.

Back to the workroom to hear from Tim. It doesn’t have to be practical. It doesn’t even have to be wearable. It must be out there. Over the top. Ambitious. Wild. Haute. And because

the challenge is so complex, the designers will have to work in teams of two. Which teams will be chosen at random by Tim via the evil velvet button bag. Bwah-hah-hah-hah. They will need to pick a leader, and decide which of the two hair looks they will work from. And the teams are: Kit & Ricky; Sweet P & Rami-OTHA, Chris & Christian, and Victorya & Jillian. Sweet P is thrilled, and Christian even more thrilled because he has astutely figured out that the only person in the room who can do and has made a career out of doing Over the Top Excess is his new best friend, Chris. Chris, on the other hand, has figured out that for all his annoying ways, girlfriend can sew like a motherfucker, and they’ll be needing all the mad skillz and fast sewing that Christian has been flaunting around the workroom.

There is one half hour to figure those leader/look things out, and then there will be $300 for the trip to Mood. Christian gets to be the leader of Team Fierce, because Chris has watched the show and knows who gets sent home in a team challenge. So does Christian, but for once his obnoxious self-adoration does him a favor. Kit is the leader of her group because, really and come on, is there a question? Little Emo Boy in the stupid twee hat? Oh, puh-leeze, Nellie, he’d break down in tears at the very idea of a decision. Kit says that her models hair looks like a bird’s nest, and that they will be doing garden something. Rami-OTHA doesn’t even give P a chance to volunteer to be the leader because he assumes command and tells her that they will be using his model, her hair, his ideas and his choice of fabric, and his time schedule. And anything else, explicit or implied, that he thinks of between now and when they take their look down the runway.

A DIGRESSION, IF I MIGHT

By now, we all know that Rami is from Jerusalem. He is an Israeli, even if he is not a Jew. I say this because in this episode he proved to be a true Israeli, which is to say, an egocentric, misogynistic, overbearing douche. Ask anyone who has ever known an Israeli man, gay or straight, and they will tell you that last night, Rami of the Heavenly Arms was straight out of central casting. When you see P checking if she has enough cigarettes for another day of working with him? Even if she’d never smoked a day in her life, after a day in the employ of an Israeli male she would have hied herself straight to Nat Sherman’s. I say this as a woman who has done so.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT ANOTHER TABLE

Victorya and Jillian are in a battle to the death over who will become their team leader. Neither is willing to just say no, so it goes to a coin toss. Except that wasn’t a coin. Whatever it was, it landed with the Victorya side up, and she became the team leader. The model they choose to use has a funky-ass Mohawk thing going on and one of the two whispers these words: Apocalyptic Trench Coat. Which is totally the name of my next punk band.

Christian and Chris have a shared vision of 50 yards of organza, cut into hundreds of circular layers and building up the model to an organza Venus Rising From The Waves Clam Shell flying off her shoulder. Flying as in a flying buttress, not as in winging away. Chris is building the superstructure for the flying clam shell out of wire. There’s a wonderful exchange where he says that he’s trying to make an antenna to call out. And someone (P? maybe) asks if he’s trying to contact Elisa’s planet. And Chris says that Elisa left him the instructions. Brilliant. They could come drink and hang with me anytime.

Rami-OTHA is announcing that they will have a corset and attached gown over a pair of fitted trousers. P will do the trousers, because the corset and draping requires the hand of the master and he cannot, as commandant, allow anyone to sully what may be his chance to win big. And then he proceeds to micro-manage Sweet P into an early grave, all the while complaining that he has to micro-manage her and that is eating up his valuable time.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering and dithering and dithering. And fretting. And dithering. And then, just like that, it’s time to go home.

MORNING: DAY TWO

We see P packing up her smokes and wondering how horrible her life is going to be today, and says, ever so politely, that Rami may have heavenly arms, but to work with, he is a total dick. Girl, we hear you. Once in the workroom, P offers a few bits of feedback which are blown off and ignored. Maybe thrown on the ground and kicked a little, too, just for good measure.

Tim comes in and because

the challenge isn’t hard enough, tells the designers that, GUESS WHAT? You also have to send a second look down the runway: the commercial, prêt a porter version of your avant garde look. They will only get $50 and 15 minutes, and only one of them will get to buy the fabric.

Kit says she’ll pick out the fabric and Ricky’ll make the dress. Jillian and Victorya are not even close to being finished with the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (Oh, I love that name. Do you think the band should be Japanese? Like the 5.6.7.8s?) and Victorya says that she feels horror and nausea. That’s funny, ‘cause, like, that’s what she engenders in me! Christian offers to go to Mood because he’s fast. And he is.

Back over on the Gaza strip, Rami-OTHA is telling Sweet P that no, they won’t be using navy as she suggests, and that unless she shows him sketches (and he approves them)  he won’t let her make the dress, either. I wonder if P started biting her nails when she ran out of smokes, or thought about cutting herself with the Olfa? Or cutting him, because didn’t she used to be a biker? Sadly, no blood is shed, and P buys some silver shantung silk. Mmmmmmm.

FITTINGS

The models are sent in for fittings, and we see Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude sticking whickety-whack all over everything while P rolls her eyes and accepts that she is not going to have one word of say in this.

Jillian has nothing finished, and Victorya only has the pants mostly done, but she also has immunity and that’s giving Jillian hives, because if they are the bottom team, she’s saying bye-bye-bye.

Chris says that he just wants to send out a dress that makes the judges’ jaws drop to the floor and never forget it till the day they die. OK. I can accept that as a goal. The second best footage of the night comes next, as Christian gives his model some lessons in how to walk a couture catwalk. It’s all about the broken back and the thrown out hip. Hey, haven’t we heard Tyra or Miss Jay say that, like a million times a season?

And over in the corner, we have Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude brow beating P over her time management skills…or his perception of her lack thereof, and all the while she’s sitting there steadily working on the ready to wear dress. He storms off, and the model pets P’s hair while she cries.

UNDER PRESSURE, PRESSURE, PRESSURE

Surely we haven’t had enough sturm und drang, so Tim comes in with a special guest, Nathaniel Hawkins, the Tresemme guy. He’s there to help them get a street version of the avant garde hair. He’s also there to tell them that the winner of the challenge gets a Tresemme ad in Elle magazine with their models.

Then Tim circles the room, striking fear into the hearts of those wise enough to listen to his advice. Team Fierce (Chris and Christian) he tells that their day look looks cheap and that it worries him. They fret. To me it looks like another version of Daniel V’s winning flower pot pencil skirt and poofy blouse, except not poofy, just ruffled. Tim tells Kit and Ricky that their effort looks very costume-y, and not in a good way. It needs some more work and some more exuberance, because right now it’s looking a little Mary on the Prairie.

When he comes to Rami and P, he tells them that this is another Rami draping exercise and it’s starting to get a little old. This also worries him. Rami tells him that the problem is that he and P think differently, or to put it another way, that she doesn’t know her place and she keeps trying to have an opinion.

Victorya and Jillian are dithering and dithering, but Tim is encouraged by the look of their coat…if they can finish it. They are moving as fast as they can, but you know, hamsters in a wheel. They haven’t even started their second look as the day ends.

Rami and P are no longer talking. I think that this may be a good thing, but it’s making Sweet P sweat. Still, having heard Tim dis the draping, she is working like a fiend over the ready to wear dress, so that she will have something of her own to hold up should their team go down in flames on the runway.

RUNWAY DAY

As the girls prepare to leave their apartment, we hear P saying that she doesn’t want to end up in a fist fight with Rami. I should think not, sweetie, we have ALL seen the size of those biceps. Assuming that he uses them, and doesn’t slap fight.

In the workroom, Jillian cuts a spiral of black jersey. The high concept models are already in hair and make up. The designers have two hours for fitting the ready to wear look and getting those girls off to hair and makeup.

Ricky and Kit are making a cute little sundress (or so Kit says) but Ricky is worried that maybe it isn’t so cute and that their haute look is not so haute. (Oh, man, I just couldn’t NOT do that, could I? I’m sorry.)

Christian is bouncing up and down, sure of the win. Jillian has somehow managed to get a dress on her model, but she thinks it looks like an afterthought. I think it looks a little, what with the pink silk plaid edging and funky layers and levels, sortakinda like Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo’s yellow plaid haute couture dress. But Team Last Minute has done a most excellent avant garde look.

On the runway, Heidi comes out in a brown dress with a big old belt, an asymmetrical neckline and some weird-ass bunching in the arm pits to start the fashion show. Judges tonight are Michael Kors, NinaGarcia and Alberta Ferretti.

First up we see Team Rami’s drape-y, corseted thingie with the long flowing skirt over a pair of plain black trousers, and a great little silver short dress that has very little to do with the haute couture look, but is absolutely wonderful on its own. Go P.

Team Fierce’s model comes out doing the broke down doll and thrown out shoulder, just like Chris taught her and sells the shit out of a giant flounce. And there’s a skirt and blouse with a ruffle to go with.

Ricky and Kit send out Scarlett O’Hara by way of Forever 21 and a forgettable sprigged cotton shift with pockets. As the model exits, we see that there is a ginormous hoop and train with furbelows and bows and whickety-whack that actually looked sort of cool. Well, the one red bow, did.

And in the evening’s shocker, the Apocalyptic Trench Coat (no, really, like punk covers of Broadway show tunes? In Japanese? There is nothing like a dame…with a Ramones’ kind of guitar riff?) rolls down the catwalk like a fucking chrome-plated Peterbuilt. That thing is awesome. I mean, fucking brilliant. Black with a pastel pink silk plaid lining? And oversized lapels? And a white equestrian, bustle-backed blouse and jodhpurs. Where the fuck did that stuff come from? How did they manage to sew all that and we not see even the first glimpse of it? Oh, you evil, naughty editors.

Ricky and Kit, and Sweet P and Rami of the Totally Stank Attitude have the lowest scores, and will be dealt with momentarily. For now, though, we will revel in the gloriousness of the two top teams.

Christian chirps that they wanted old-world romantic, and Michael Kors just comes undone. It is beautifully crafted, he coos. Soignée, even, he sighs. The skirt on the day look is a throw away, but the blouse is yummy.

Victorya and Jillian say that they were going for punk equestrian, and they surely succeeded. When the ATC comes off, and the judges see the little plaid ruffled peplum, they just fall off the director’s chairs. You have three looks here, says Michael Kors, and Victorya agrees, adding, “so we should win.”

The losers are called up to answer for their sartorial sins. Ricky is getting weepy. Rami steps up and says that they wanted to combine corsetry and flowing, like the model’s pleated hair. He admits that he made the corset and gown, and that the pants you don’t even see came from P. NinaGarcia is bored. She says that the judges know Rami can drape, but really, and come on, can he do ANYTHING else? And they say that the little silver day dress was much more avant garde than the same old draped rag he keeps showing them. And much more fashion forward. Then they look at the pants, and say that the model looks like her ass is on her front. P ventures that she wanted to put that fullness or bustle shape on the back of Rami’s piece, but he told her to stuff a sock in it.

Alberta Ferretti disses the Ricky/Kit effort by saying it looks like a cheap Scarlett O’Hara. Michael Kors says that Scarlett took her momma’s drapes and made haute couture, but that what they are showing looks like Scarlett ripped the sheets off the bed and ran out of the house. Schnort. And your day dress sucks, too, he adds.

IT COMES DOWN TO THIS

The Team Fierce of Chris and Christian, despite everyone’s misgivings, turned out an amazing piece of work. NinaGarcia is ready to give it the cover right now. Team Last Minute cranked out something that women would want to wear, says MK, and Miz Shoes says damned straight. Where can I get that coat, and where can I possibly wear it?

Rami, it is generally acknowledged, was a shit and tried to throw P under the bus, but the judges saw what he was doing and won’t let him. Besides, her dress was beautiful. Over on the other hand, we have Ricky, her tears and her stupid little twee hats. And Kit Pistol, who is firing blanks. What they sent down the runway was rank amateur, from start to finish.

Team Fierce wins!!! Christian gets immunity! Christian does the chicken dance of joy. Miz Shoes loves how he worked with Chris and doesn’t hate him anymore. At least until next week.

Ricky gets to keep his stupid little twee hats and stay. P gets to stay. Rami gets to keep his heavenly arms around for our viewing pleasure, even if he was a jerk and a lousy team captain. And that means that poor Kit Pistol gets fired.

Next week looks like the recycled trash challenge again, and Ricky cries and Victorya hates the challenge. As they say on 7th Avenue, so nu?

So in all the years the RLA and I have owned the Casita des Zappatos, we have never filed an insurance claim. The no-name storm caused our living room to flood? We mopped and squeegeed and toweled and dried and threw out some papers. Katrina and Wilma decimated our trees? We sawed and cut and cleaned up. Lost tow truck forcibly removed about 80 feet of chain link fence? We found a fence guy, repaired and replanted and went on about our lives. Never a claim.

But the insurance industry is in the toilet. And we were lucky not to have our insurance canceled. No, we just had our rates adjusted. To about triple what it was last year, which means the escrow account at the mortgage holders now has a shortfall in the many, many thousands of dollars, which I either have to pay up front, or let my mortgage payment fucking DOUBLE! Double to pretty much exactly my monthly take-home pay. Which means that I couldn’t pay the other bills. Or, I can find about nine thousand dollars in the couch cushions, pay the escrow, and watch my mortgage go up only three hundred dollars a month. Or I can tell the mortgage holder thanks, but I’ll pay the insurance and taxes myself when due and hope that the change in the couch cushions builds up really fast, so that I actually have the money when the time comes to pay the piper.

Or, I can just pay off my mortgage, and only pay the taxes and insurance. That’s assuming I can bring myself to gut my brokerage account to do so. Or. Or what, exactly are my other options? Get a second job? Cut back on my other bills? That would mean turning off the air conditioner for the entire summer. Or selling my car. Or canceling the cable and the land line and only using a cell phone and NetFlix.

Time to tighten the belt another couple of notches.

Well, we all knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Many thanks to RJ for sending this my way.