Those house bunnies are hopping away

I’ve become addicted to the Girls Next Door so I am sad to hear that Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kenra Wilkinson are apparently ending their relationships with Hugh Hefner. The future of the show may entail watching Hef pick the new girlfriends. I can’t see myself being interested in that or in the new girls. Holly, Bridget, and Kendra made the show what it was for me. In a sense, the fact that these relationships are changing shows that they are not the ‘dumb blondes’ some might want to think they are.

Being in a relationship with Hef is certainly not what we are used to. One must be open-minded about a lot of things to live in that household. Holly may have thought she was becoming very important to Hef when the girlfriends wascut down from seven. She said she felt a sense of validation when she finally was on the cover of Playboy, as all Hef’s previous serious girlfriends had been there. Still, she had a goal of getting married and having children, and did what some people are able to do, give up love for the hope of attaining those goals.

Bridget has been furthering her education during her tenure and finding job opportunity in her show on satellite radio and movie productions. Kendra has opened her world by being with Hef, seeing the world, attending all kinds of events. Kendra knew on some level it wasn’t going to last forever.

I’m sure it was a trade off to adhere to a curfew and not be able to travel anywhere at any time while in a relationship with someone who you wouldn’t get to spend a lot of personal time with. But they got to do a lot of travel and appearances, meet lots of people, have their food prepared for them, their laundry done for them, (presumably other expenses were taken care of too).

I envy the forethought that they each had to take advantage of the opportunity they had to be in a relationship with someone who could give them so much in terms of a world experience and the opportunity to further their goals. I also envy their ability to be able to walk away when things no longer suited their needs. Perhaps being wedded more to their goals was the key.

Check your credit report

If you live in a state that allows you to get your credit reports for free, you should space our your requests over the year. Since there are 3 agencies who report pretty much the same info, ask for your report from one of them, ask for one from another four months after you requested from the first, then request from the 3rd agency 4 months after that.

Review of Spain: On the Road Again

Intrigued by the idea of seeing Spain through a non-typical travel show, I set up my DVR to record Spain: On the Road Again. The series follows actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s travels through Spain with chef Mario Batali, writer (?) Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Caudia Bassols. It does not focus on her, she and Mario are the people who will draw viewers to the show. I was watching primarily see the sights of Spain and learn about the foods. I like the idea of four people, two of whom I was familiar with, traveling in pairs or as a group to see various sites, sitting down together to eat, tasting and cooking local delicacies. By the second episode though, I was moved to delete the show from my DVR. I didn’t feel drawn in by the four. The second episode I saw showed Mario and Claudia speaking in Spanish while Mark asked them to interpret what was being said while they traveled in the car (Gwyneth had gone home for a few days). Then I watched as they ate a meal outside of a restaurant and joked with eachother. It’s hard to enjoy the full flavor of manchego when you’re not the one eating it. I didn’t learn what it was or how it’s cooked, only that Mark wanted a certain kind of egg, and Claudia liked her meat fully cooked. I seemed like a attempt to show their chemistry rather than helping me know more about Spain or what they would be doing. I would have liked to see the chemistry develop as they were engaged in activities that ’showed’ me Spain.

While I was impressed to learn that Gwyneth spoke fluent Spanish, I was put off by Mark’s attitude, which is not warm. I was also put off by the fact that they were driving a Mercedes convertible. I could have forgiven the Mercedes if the hour-long show offered more.