Bethenny Ever After: Birthday Fruitcake

"Stop Filming! Too much attention!"

We pick up at t-minus five days and counting until Bethenny’s dreaded 40th birthday celebration. She and Buster are stopping by the venue, Villa Pacri, to lunch and chat. Bethenny keeps yawning and saying how exhausted she is and Buster suggests that she have a glass of wine. HA! To us she says she wishes her birthday would just roll on by. Yes, we remember. It’s all very tragic with your annual $500 checks. Now Buster has come up with a fabulous idea. He thinks Bethenny should come up with a logo for her birthday party, then have hot men wandering around shirtless serving food with the logo painted on their chests. OMG, Buster, it’s not YOUR birthday! Bethenny is a straight soon-to-be-40 female. Bethenny is like, WTF? Then he suggests people on stilts and finally, to have glasses of champagne hung from the ceiling on strings and people cut them down to drink them.

"Have we met? You want to hand out scissors at my party?"

Bethenny correctly tells him he’s trying to plan a gay circus. Bethenny says she wants this to be very understated and then she tells Buster the whole sob story about how no one ever acknowledged her birthday growing up. Buster listens for a while, then he has to run. That’s kind of how I feel about this story by now. I mean, look how many people are paying attention to her now all the time. And plus, people with bad childhoods don’t corner the market on not liking their birthdays. I haven’t relished turning another year older since I was about 23.

At home Jason comes in to talk to Julie about surprising Bethenny. Her good friend Teri thought she wouldn’t be able to make it to NYC for the party, but it turns out she can, so Jason wants it to be a big surprise. Julie’s in, so they call Teri to conspire.

Ooh, now it’s two days until the party and Bethenny is having lunch with Ethan (or Napoleon Dynamite as I will call him), her Skating with the Stars ice skating partner. Bethenny wants dirt on who among the other skating “stars” aren’t doing very well. Napoleon says no one’s talking.

"Figure skater code, girl. Code."

Bethenny talks some trash about some of the other stars, none of whose names I recognize until she gets to Vince Neil. Vince Neil was on Skating with the Stars? That must have been a hoot. Interestingly, he’s the one Bethenny isn’t familiar with. Napoleon wants to know if Bethenny thought he was gay when she first met him and she’s like, no, relax. She tells us that it turns out pair skaters are straight across the board. That is indeed news. Unless you’ve seen The Cutting Edge, which I have. Ah, Jason is here to join them and he expresses hesitation about letting this straight guy spend all this time with his wife and be all up in her business. When Bethenny goes to the bathroom Jason tells Napoleon he really has no problem with it but he likes to tease Bethenny about it because he can see she thinks it makes him jealous. That’s true, she totally does!

Bethenny and Napoleon head to a dance studio to work on choreographing the ice routine. This seems like it would be so hard. First they have to learn all of these steps, then they have to translate everything onto ice skates. It’s kind of funny seeing Napoleon coach Bethenny on how to make sexy facial expressions and do sultry walks. Remember now, he’s straight.

And so is Tom Cruise.

Aw, back at the condo Bob and Carol have stopped by to spend time with Bryn, the love of their lives. It’s eight hours to the party and counting. Can I just point out that Bryn looks NOTHING like Bethenny? She is a little ditto of Jason, who is a ditto of Carol. Those are some strong genes. When Bethenny walks in, Bob and Carol both go, “Ooooh, heeeeeere’s the birthday girl!” Exactly what Bethenny said she didn’t want. As she says to us, she doesn’t want it to be a big cheery day. Well, is it okay if other people are in a good mood, or is that forbidden as well? Gina leaves with Bob and Carol to take Bryn for a walk, and once they get outside, Bob tells Gina that they have to take something over to the party venue, so Gina is to take Bryn back to the condo, and it’s all a surprise, so Gina has to cover for them.

Gina gets back and Bethenny wants to know why on earth Gina brought the baby back when all Jason’s parents want is to spend time with Bryn. Gina’s like, “Well it was time for her to eat, and they wanted to keep walking, so...” Bethenny is all pissed and tells Gina that it was really poor planning on her part not to bring a bottle.

"Seriously, Gina. This is worse than the baptism."

Gina’s just like, “Sorry.” Poor Gina. Why did they even walk out with Bryn in the first place? That’s what made everything seem ridiculous. Or maybe Gina could have walked around for a while before coming home, I don’t know.

Anyway, Jason’s parents meet up with him at the venue and they pull an iron wire dress form out of the trunk.

Just what Bethenny's dreamed about since she was a little girl!

Jason explains to us that this is something he and Bethenny got at a street fair and his dad spent some time fixing it up and painting it so they could use it in their condo. They stick a picture of Bethenny’s head on top of the dress form and then Carol pulls out a thought balloon that goes with it that says, “39? It’s over,” and explains that Bethenny’s always saying, “It’s over.” Aw, that’s cute, and Carol’s really excited about it.

Even the picture of her face looks kinda pissed.

And here is an entire team of people arriving to help Bethenny get dressed. She hasn’t even thought yet about what she’s going to wear to the party. She tries on a few dresses and hates everything. The team stands around looking helpless. Eventually Bethenny goes into her closet and huddles on the floor. Pull it together, woman! A lot of people have taken time out of their lives to wish you well. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get dressed!

"My invisible birthday in my closet."

No such luck. A bit later Bethenny is in her bathrobe getting her hair messed with and when Jason and parents walk in, Bethenny bitches again about why they didn’t take the baby with them. Jason says he feels bad for Gina who was just covering for everyone. Jason tries to talk to her about what she’ll wear and she freaks out and starts crying that she doesn’t want all this attention and to leave her alone. I can relate to feeling awkward about being the center of attention. That is exactly how I felt at my wedding. It’s not very comfortable. On the other hand, I was gracious because the people who came cared enough about me to participate in my celebration and for that I felt very honored. It’s not the moment to throw a hissy fit. But there’s plenty more of that to come. For now Bethenny just cries to the makeup girl, who tells her that she understands because she’s never prepared for her birthday. And it has to do with not wanting to be disappointed, so not preparing in advance, then being frazzled when the day comes because you’re not prepared. Bethenny is amazed to discover that she is not the only person on earth who has mixed emotions about her birthday. Surprise! I’m slightly confused about all of this preparation talk, however. I mean, if you’re not having a big party, what is there to prepare for? What are you frazzled about most years? Jason comes out with a huge rip in his crotch hoping to make Bethenny smile a little. She finally does. Then she has an epiphany about what to wear, which is a pants suit instead of a dress. Well great. Julie puts a dress in her purse just in case Bethenny loses it when she arrives at the party in pants and let’s face it, that’s likely.

So it’s off to the party! Jason is doing his best to be upbeat and excited, but Bethenny is pretty determined to be sulky. She does, however, perk up when she walks in and sees the venue looking beautiful with no shirtless men and no champagne hanging from the ceiling. Buster beams at what a good job he did.

"It's okay for not being a gay circus. I would have loved those branded servers."

Carol is all cute and tells Bethenny she wishes it could have been a surprise, to which Bethenny is like, “Oh hell no!” Oh look! Alex and Simon are here! Alex is in some kind of S and M getup and Bethenny tells us she was hoping Simon would get totally trashed to amuse her. He is such an odd bird.

"We're swinging by on our way to the Fetish Ball!"

And next here comes Ramona squealing, “Birthday Giiiirrrrrrrrl!” I didn’t realize until just now how much I’ve missed Ramona! She is so crazy and so hilarious!

"You have no idea how wretched LuAnn has been."

She chats with Bethenny about life and Bethenny tells Ramona she feels like everything is going too fast, and Ramona advises her to prioritize and let some things go.

Jason takes Bethenny aside and tells her he has a surprise for her. Bethenny almost has a breakdown right there. She begs him not to do anything and he tells her it will only take three minutes. And in walks Teri. Aw, good surprise. Teri hands Bethenny a present. She says, “I know I’m a better friend than you are because you didn’t come to my party.” Bethenny starts bawling and tells her not to say things like that. She really should have popped a Xanax before coming to this. She’s a mess. Teri’s like, “I’m joking around, relax.” But the tears are flowing. The gift is a necklace that has a picture of Jason, Bethenny and newborn Bryn on it. It’s very sweet.

Uh oh. Jason has another surprise. He gets on a microphone, asks for everyone’s attention, and asks Bethenny to come to the front with him. You can see the crazy panic in her eyes already. For someone who spends so much of her life seeking the spotlight, Bethenny is really acting like a lunatic over people wishing her a happy birthday. Jason explains to the crowd about the dress form and it’s brought out wearing a Skinny Girl apron. Bethenny goes, “Why are we doing this in front of people?” Too late! Jason explains how Bob fixed it up for her and that there are more presents in the pockets of the apron. Bethenny makes it through this by the skin of her teeth, but then she pulls diamond earrings out of the apron pocket. She grabs the mic and tells everyone she loves attention, but not this kind of attention (the birthday kind), and that she feels very embarrassed and awkward, but thank you. Jason gives a toast and says he looks forward to 40 more birthdays with Bethenny. Bethenny is about to lose it and Jason feels like he thought he had such a nice gift for her and everything went terribly wrong. Poor guy. He goes to the bar, asks for a drink and says that was anticlimactic. He’s so disappointed in her reaction! Bethenny goes to Ramona and whines, and Ramona tells her that Jason was showing her raw love and it’s something Bethenny isn’t used to. That’s pretty insightful, Ramona.

Bethenny realizes that she’s embarrassed Jason and she goes off the deep end. She grabs Jason and pulls him into a closet where she bawls and bawls about how much she loves him and how sorry she is for being weird, but she’s overwhelmed and she doesn’t love her birthday and she’s sorry, she’s sorry! She is completely howling at this point, and the way it’s edited is really funny. They’re going around showing people standing around drinking, talking softly, then the only noise you hear is Bethenny screeching. It makes it look like her tantrum is being piped through a PA while everyone is trying to enjoy themselves. Jason is finally like, whoa I didn’t realize this birthday stuff went this deep. He tells us that he’ll be there for Bethenny because he loves her, but this neurosis about her birthday is all in her head and she’s the one who needs to deal with it. Bingo! I’m very impressed with Jason for seeing it this way and realizing it’s not his fault at all.

"I married a crazy person."

But back to the party and back to poor Jason. They come back to their guests all subdued. He is so deflated and Bethenny is still so caught up in being traumatized. Ramona offers to do her Turtle Time dance to cheer Bethenny up. Oh yes, please! Please!

"Don't I look hot? Butt crunches."

But Bethenny walks away before Ramona can get going. Then a cake comes out with huge fireworks on it and Bethenny almost has a heart attack.

"Happy 200th birthday, old lady!"

But once she blows on the torches it looks like this is the end of her torment at last. And I’m sure everyone is very relieved to be able to leave this awkward celebration.

The next morning Jason apologizes for not giving Bethenny the gift in private. Bethenny acknowledges that she didn’t act appropriately and that there would be no pleasing her in this situation. Bethenny would like to quietly celebrate her birthday today by taking a bubble bath with Jason, Bryn and Cookie, who wears sunglasses in the tub. Bethenny is insane.

Seriously? The dog?

And I’m guessing Jason learned his lesson about trying to change Bethenny’s attitude toward her birthday. Next year he should take Bryn and run far, far away for a good 24 hours.

I’m surprised that Dr. Amador didn’t make an appearance this evening to really stir up some terrorizing birthday memories with Bethenny and then dwell on them for an hour.

Next week! More skating, drama about Bethenny’s mother, Skinny Girl Factory tours, and Jason wanting to join the mile high club. See you then!

So what did you think? Is Bethenny a basketcase or could she have pulled it together for the sake of all the people who wanted to show their love?

Thanks for reading!
-Honey Gangsta