The Coffee Talk Companion: "Oh, fudge!"

The Coffee Talk Companion is an ongoing feature in which we dissect and discuss former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel's online journal entries.

Well, she's back from the LA vacation. Which means so are we. Which means we're gonna need a vacation.

The good news is, this week's Thanksgiving recap is short! And the better news is, we got new pics of Tucker and... Justicecasey!

So, instead of just doing a regular old companion, we're gonna spice things up this week. And, by "spice things up," we mean "make it easier on you." (And, yes, we realize the whole "And by '_________,' we mean '_________' joke is getting really old. And, no, we don't care.)

Without further ado, then, let's play the special Whelchel Thanksgiving Vacation version of HOT OR NOT?

Case one:
Tucker Cauble

Photo one:



Verdict:
HOT!

Nice rockin' the V-neck tee, Tuck. And we're lovin' the hair. Why not be a mensch and give mom a few pointers? (Oh, and is it us, or does it look they rented California Adventure? That, or everyone else has fled in terror. Yeah, probably b.)

Photo two:



Verdict:
BLARGH!

Well, kid, we know your secret. The close-up is not your friend. Nice scarf, but the hair is now helmetted to the head. And, well, yeah, the eyebrows. It's OK to pluck, Tuck. It doesn't mean you're gay, even in god's hazel eyes. Speaking of eyes, pluck your fucking eyebrows, Tucker.

(And, it's true, we are breaking the rule we have about not making fun of the Cauble children. But, hey, Tucker looks hot in 50% of the above photographs. That's better than someone else appearing in 100% of the above photographs.)

Case two:
Justicecasey

Photo one:



Verdict:
HOT!

We love a man who's tall, dark and handsome. And we'll even swoon over one who is, in this case, just tall and handsome. And how cute are the Vans? Yeah, kind of. But still, what a nice uncle to the trio Cauble. And props to Tucker here, too. See? As long as we're at a safe distance, all is well.

Photo two:



Verdict:
HELLZ NO!

Did Lance Bass lose a retarded brother? Jeez. Sit up straight, Justice! And what's with the Mervyn's gym shorts? And the hair? Oy. Wait, is that even Justice? (Oh, and we're gonna go ahead and just assume this is Tucker, Clancy and Haven's economics class.)

Well, that was the Whelchel Thanksgiving Vacation version of HOT OR NOT. Unfortunately we've run out of eligible candidates. So, er, let's point out a few gems from this week's actual post:

We watched the Dallas Cowboys game, took naps, played games, ate turkey and all the trimmings, and watched “Nacho Libre.” Such a silly, funny movie. We also took a trip to swim in the natural hot springs near Mammoth but it was closed due to geological activity. I almost hit Bambi on the way, which made for a very exciting drive up the mountain.

Verdict:
Lisa is clearly silly, funny news for animals. (Seriously, if you have not read the linked Coffee Talk entry, we urge you to do so. It's a classic.)

We also found time for a quick trip to Starbucks where my amazing baby brother, who is a new youth pastor, led my girls in a little devotional.

1.) Chain restaurant mention. We really should begin keeping score. Unfortunately, we have trouble counting higher than two.

1.) Get a load of this:



It's Pastah Thug!

Justice, come awn. You simply cannot dress like that and be of the clergy. It doesn't work. It's in the Bible in the book of Duh.

As well, you cannot dress like that and be in a Starbucks. Unless it's in an airport. Then you can apparently wear whatever the fuck you want, lady in West Palm Peach on November 27.

Verdict:
Silly but not funny!

That afternoon we decided to give the hot springs thing another try. We heard of a Hot Springs Resort about an hour south that was open. To be honest, it looked and felt like a giant bath tub to me. (See the above pic entitled "Giant Bath Tub.") The water wasn’t really hot enough or bubbly enough to be considered a Jacuzzi and it wasn’t really cold enough to be a refreshing pool. But, we all jumped in and had fun. My mantra for the day was, “We’re making a memory. It may be a dud memory but it is a memory, nonetheless.” That night we all went to see the movie, “Happy Feet.” What a cute movie.

Nice capitalized "Jacuzzi," Leese, though we think we've congratulated you on that before. So, never mind.

However, definitely mind, "'We’re making a memory. It may be a dud memory but it is a memory, nonetheless.'" Yeah, life is hard sometimes, Lisa, isn't it? There are pools in Darfur that don't even have water, hot or cold, in them, Lisa. Be thankful that you had water at all for your "dud memory." Oh, and that all your children have their limbs.

Oh oh, and apparently Happy Feet isn't silly or funny. Just cute.

Verdict:
A cute dud

Saturday was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. It didn’t snow so we still weren’t able to go skiing so we decided to laze around the house all day and just enjoy being together. Roy cooked a delicious ham and eggs breakfast. We played Spades. Steve and I snuck off to Starbucks. We all snuggled up on the couches and watched movies. I made Rachael Ray’s fudge Christmas wreath and it actually looked somewhat like a wreath. We played a marathon Monopoly game. We took more naps and then we all went out to dinner where we took over an entire wing of the restaurant with our very loud fun.

1.) "Starbucks" redux

1.) RACHAEL RAY'S FUDGE CHRISTMAS WREATH!!!!!!!!!!!!! We did some research and this shit takes five minutes to make two pounds of fatty-ass fatty food! It's the NOTE-PERFECT Whelchel treat.



And we're pretty sure if you unscramble "Whelchel," you get "Rachael," which leads us to believe they're the same person. It makes total sense.

Verdict:
A silly but not funny, semi-cute hot dud!

It is now 4:30 in the morning and we are driving back to Los Angeles to catch a flight back to Dallas. I sure hope you had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving and I hope you got to spend some of it with family. We have so much for which to be thankful but I will have to say that the gift of family is always at the top of my gratitude list. By the way, you’re way up there, too!

We love it when you lie to us, Lisa. It only makes us stronger.

Hanyway, we hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, dear readers, and that you managed to get your hands on the Wii that wii still can't find. Wii wiil sii you next wiik with yet another gloriious CTC.

Verdict:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Coffee Talk Companion: "Stop. Girl Time."

The Coffee Talk Companion is an ongoing feature in which we dissect and discuss former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel's online journal entries.

So, Lisa's latest Coffee Talk entry, hinted at in our last post, includes nary an apology for leaving us hanging for two weeks. She doesn't even acknowledge her error. Seriously, people, we were forced to contemplate actually reading a book because we didn't know what to do with ourselves.

But don't worry. What she does write is as unexciting as any apology would be. So, as usual, it's a lose/lose situation for us all.

The week actually started with me speaking at a fabulous church in Jensen Beach, Florida on Monday night. After an amazing service, I returned to our hotel room and Steve and I got to bed around 11:00 PM. Three hours later we were up, dressed, packed and in the car for the three hour drive to the Orlando Airport. On the way, we stopped and picked up my wonderful friend, Dee Dee Hillmann, who graciously agreed to be in the DVD MomTime group.

We're sure there's a reason why Lisa and Steve drove three hours to the Orlando airport rather than the 40 miles to the nearer Palm Beach International Airport. And we're sure it's a bad one. In any case, it's nice to see Dee Dee again. We had no idea she was such a double-letter hog!

We arrived at the airport at 5:00 AM and caught a 6:00 plane to Atlanta. The flight from Atlanta to Nashville was delayed an hour, which turned out to be a Godsend. I was supposed to step right off the plane and onto the set to begin filming and yet I still had some of the script left to write. That one hour delay was just what I needed to stay one step ahead of the film crew.

First of all, there are plenty of flights from Palm Beach International to Atlanta. We know. We've taken them. But maybe Lisa felt more comfortable in Orlando, where she was more likely to be in the company of other Christians rather than Jews who forgot to die.

Second of all, staying one step ahead of a film crew doesn't mean writing the script one hour before the shooting takes place. Staying ahead of a film crew means faxing them the nineteenth round of edits at least 12 hours before the shoot. Writing the script one hour before the shoot equals sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. We're sure you're familiar with those, Lisa. Especially sloth.

We went straight from the airport to the hotel where I met my longtime friend and hairdresser, Michele, who had flown in the night before.

Just to quickly note, this is Michele the abused hairdresser, not Michelle the abused bike leader from the now infamous Vermont Biking Disaster of 2006. Michele the hairdresser only has one "l" in her name. Dee Dee Hillmann stole the other.



At first she put extensions in my hair, which she was going to cut considerably, leaving just enough to give my hair more fullness. I couldn’t handle it. It looked too rock star-ish to me so we took them out and opted for a simple blow dry.



Since when does Lisa's hair need more fullness? Oh, and does she EVER let anyone do his or her job? Michelle the bike leader hardly had a minute to actually bike, and Michele the hairdresser hardly has a minute to hairdress. If there's one thing we hate more than religious zealots, it's micromanagers. For shame, Lisa.

The first two days of filming, Tuesday and Wednesday, were at my manager, Ron’s, house with all of the MomTime friends I assembled for the DVD. Dee Dee, Avis (also the wardrobe stylist,) Candace (my friend from the MomTime Getaways,) Deb, (my longtime prayer partner,) and Amy (who is the graphic designer for the Bible study.)



OK. We are totes LOLing at the MomTime friends. They either have total suburban names or, in certain cases (i.e. Avis!), they're named for corporations. Perfectly Whelchelian—she even micromanages her friends' names.



All of these friends had already completed the Bible study and their “Storybooks” so we talked about the different things they learned in the member book and shared some of their journaling on camera.

If anyone has any idea what any of that meant, be sure to email us.

Wait!

Sorry.

Be sure NOT to email us.

It actually turned out to be a lot more powerful than I even anticipated as they shared very honestly from their life stories.

This sounds like something from the press kit for that Spike Lee Katrina doc. (Yeah, that's all we had for that one. Sorry.)

Wednesday afternoon and evening I was scheduled to speak at the LifeWay Women’s Ministry Leaders’ Forum. My workshop was on the importance of leaving a legacy so I talked about the new Scrapbook Bible Study.

So. Lisa has the opportunity to talk about how religion can play a part in a person's or family's legacy, and she talks about... Bible scrapbooking. You know, and pardon us for getting personal, but we were raised Jewish. We are unapologetically atheistic now, but we do still value the heritage and history of the Jewish religion. The legacy left by Jews who came before us is often awesome and inspiring. We imagine it's the same for most any religion's legacy, including Lisa's. Our point is, if we were to go hear someone speak about legacy as it relates to Judaism, and he or she spoke about scrapbooking, we'd start the fucking biggest pogrom ever.

The evening session was entitled, “This Is My Story” so I talked about the power of having ladies from the church simply get up and share their testimonies and the powerful ministry that is available within the church as lay people simply tell the stories of God’s intersection in their lives.

Now, correct us if we're wrong, but wouldn't one assume that "This Is My Story" would require the speaker to talk about his or her story? We're correct, right? RIGHT?

Oy.



Thursday morning I was supposed to have breakfast with my friend Stormie Omartian but the director changed the call time for the exterior shots so I had to cancel. I was so bummed!

"Stormie Omartian" is obviously now our favorite name ever. But we're going to go ahead and spell it "Stormy O'Martian" in every subsequent 0 time we mention him again. Her again. It again. Blargh!

We ended up filming the “Rabbit Trail” exterior shots at a park in the morning, got to enjoy a little girl time with my friends for lunch and then we filmed the Seminar setting at a church in the evening. It was a very full day.

Clearly. Stormys, rabbits, girl time... sounds like any five-year-old girl's very full day. Unfortunately we're talking about a grown woman here.



Friday morning we were back at Ron and Michelle’s house to film all of the intros and outros for the video but that went fairly quickly. We even had time to have lunch on the way to the airport with my friends Christa, Michelle and Amy. My life is so crazy that I really appreciate every chance I get to just hang with my friends.



Wait, did Dee Dee give Michele back the "l," or is this another Michelle? Well, let us at least warn any Michelles out there that you're not safe. Lisa RILLY likes you guys. She totally wants to hang with you.

Friday night I caught a plane to Cincinnati, Ohio where I was scheduled to speak at a women’s meeting on Saturday morning. We had a great time of ministry before we were able to catch an earlier flight home that night. It was so good to be home! For the next two days I just got caught up on domestic diva stuff and enjoyed being with my family again. My mother kidnapped me on Monday night and took me to a movie and then on Tuesday night she hosted a “Dancing with the Stars” finale party where we all cheered and voted for Emmitt Smith!

OMG. LMAO. SRSLY.

1.) Grown women who have "Dancing with the Stars" parties should not tell other adults about it. It's best to keep it a secret.

2.) If for some reason said grown women are compelled to talk about it, they should kindly omit the part about "cheering." We don't want that image in our heads.

3.) Emmitt Smith??? We so just forwarded this to Mario Lopez's agent and lawyers.

And, now I’m back in LA awaiting the arrival of my kids tonight for a week of family vacation. Whew! I just can’t wait.

Another fucking vacation for the kids? We understand it's Thanksgiving and all, but when we were in school, we had two days off. Not a week.

Oh, right.

Never mind.

Well, at least maybe we'll get another "report" from Clancy on this. We'll even suggest a title: "How I Spent My 2006 46th Week of Vacation."

OK. Well, we're gonna go make like Christa (we TOLD you she micromanages her friends' names)...



Now, for real:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Game on.

OK.

We are now convinced that Lisa Whelchel is, in fact, reading this site (her loss). As soon as we posted our Thanksgiving message today, she went and posted a new Coffee Talk entry. AND, get a load of the first paragraph's last sentence:

I’m in Los Angeles this week, writing a book by day and speaking by night. I promised I’d fill you in on last week’s DVD for the new Bible Study, “This Is My Story – Creating a Scrapbook Legacy of Faith.” I don’t know if this will be considered good news or bad news, but because I’m still under a writing deadline for the other book I’m writing, I’m not going to be able to elaborate in great detail on the week. I will simply cover it in broad brushstrokes. Some of you are sighing in relief; I can hear you.

"Some of you are sighing in relief; I can hear you."

First of all, we know she knew she'd get a rise out of us for the use of the semicolon. She's correct. A period would have sufficed, Lisa. Semicolons are for people who actually went to college.

Second of all, that line is something we, and not Lisa, would say. We know you too well, Lisa, to believe for a second that you'd apologize for content. Length? Sure. Commitment? Fine. But nuh-uh. Not content. You're too proud, Lisa, to ever feel badly about the words, however bananas they may be, that you've written.

Third of all, Lisa figured that, because we wished y'all a happy holiday, we were done for the week and would not comment on her latest post. Well, she's, um, right in the sense that we've got to catch a plane home momentarily, so composing a Coffee Talk Companion right now is out of the question. However, we shall absolutely do our best to post sometime later this week.

To sum up, then, allow us to officially welcome you, Mrs. Whelchel-Cauble, as a reader of The Blair Necessities. We're glad you're here. Really we are.

Oh! And allow us also to say, Don't fuck with us, lady. We're smarter than you.

Stuffing.

Well, it seems that Steve's Foursquare convention has totally overwhelmed Lisa. She's gone absolutely silent. For which we have two words...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Take the good, take the bad, put it on your plate and eat like you're Natalie after a famine.

We'll see you next week. Hopefully Steve will have let Lisa out of her Godcage by then. Or not.

Enjoy!

All because of you, friend.

No, we haven't been killed by an angry god. But apparently Lisa's desire to inform us about her latest misadventures has. And it seems she has no other "reports" from any of her children's "classes" to distract us with. Which is fine. Our good friend Ian has come to the rescue. How?

Here's how:



Yes, we now possess our very own copy of Lisa's 1984 GRAMMY-nominated inspirational record, All Because of You. (And, yes, we hope you enjoy our expert photography skills. We wanted to make it look like one of those Al Qaeda snuff films!) We kind of feel like our Lisa Whelchel collection of one item is now complete. And, you want to know the best part?

Well, do you?

OK.

We don't own a record player!

Hallelujah, amen and glory be to god! If that's not a blessing, what is?

Yeah, we don't really have much more to say about this. Thank you, Ian, for the record, and thank you, readers, for your patience with Lisa's unconscionable negligence. As soon as she decides to put scraggly finger to keyboard, so shall we.

ADDENDUM:
We actually took a look at the liner notes last night (how stoopid of us not to have done that immediately), and here's what we remember:

1.) Lisa wrote one-half of one of the ten songs on the LP.
2.) Justice is thanked. As in CaseyJustice. Not actual justice. Clearly.

The Coffee Talk Companion: "B-."

The Coffee Talk Companion is an ongoing feature in which we dissect and discuss former Facts of Life star Lisa Whelchel's online journal entries.



Lisa's busier than a bee this week! Too busy to apologize for endorsing Pastor Ted Haggard, of course. Alas, let's see what table scrap she gave us to work with...

Clancy volunteered to share a report she wrote for her English class for today’s Coffee Talk. I am so grateful to my family, and you, for being so understanding and patient during this busy time.

Killed by a Bee

There once was a woman named Genny who ran her own honey making business down in the rural part of Oklahoma. She was a hard working woman, she did everything from taking care of the bees to actually getting and bottling the honey.

She had never been scared of bees before until one day she got a frantic call from one of her friends that told her that she would be killed by a bee. At first she didn’t think anything of it, she just politely said, “Okay, well thanks for calling and for your concern” and just counted off her friend as being a little too imaginative.

After a few days she forgot about it until she saw on the news a tragic story about how a little boy had been killed by an awful bee sting. This worried her a little bit but not enough to give up her beloved business.

Then she got another call. This time from her friend that had never believed in prophecies. Her friend anxiously told her that she had had a dream early that night and that she truly believed that Genny would be killed by a bee. Well, this just sent Genny over the edge and she became horribly paranoid.

She immediately sold her business and moved down to Las Vegas thinking that there shouldn’t be too many bees down in the city. So, she bought a condo and lived there happily and bee-free for two years.

One day she was walking down the strip and saw that the Belagio Hotel’s dancing fountains were on. She quickly sprayed herself with bee repellent and walked up the sidewalk to watch. When it was over she decided to go inside the hotel to grab a bite to eat. She was about to walk through the front door when there was a sudden earthquake. Thankfully, it was over as quickly as it started.

As she breathed a sigh of relief, she heard a loud, creaking, dreadful sound. Then her life went dark. The next day’s headlines read, “During last night’s earthquake Genny Whelchel was hit by the dislodged letter “B” in the Belagio hotel’s sign. This woman was tragically killed by a B!”

Now, we've been pretty harsh on homeschooling in our short time as your unsolicited Lisa Whelchel conduit. We just want you to know we realize that. That said, allow us to continue.

1.) You call the above essay, Lisa, a report. A report, connotatively speaking, is a piece of writing giving an account of something else. If Clancy had been assigned, say, a book report, she would have read a book and then written an essay on her interpretation of said book. What Clancy has written is a story. A story, in non-journalistic terms, is a piece of original writing not based on any pre-existing material, like James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Please do not confuse what Clancy has written, a story, with what you claim she has written, a report. It's insulting to the billions of us who have written reports.

2.) Clancy supposedly wrote this story for English class. However, a "class" involves a classroom and teacher, not a kitchen table and former child star. It's fine if you call the hour or so in which you supposedly teach Clancy how to read, English time. But do not call it class. It's insulting to the billions of us who have attended a class.

3.) "Bellagio" is spelled with two "l"s, not one. As this "report" was written for English "class," we hope the appropriate amount of points was deducted.

We could go into the actual content of Clancy's story wherein a woman with the last name of Whelchel is killed by a giant symbol of themed Americana. But that seems like something for Clancy and her therapist to work out. Or Clancy and Tucker.

In any case, here's to the end of another brief Coffee Talk Companion. We can only report on what Lisa chooses to give us, so consider this a glorious reprieve. We'd love to write more, but, hey, that's the story.

Put out to pastor.

Let's see what Lisa has to say about today's suddenly very newsworthy Pastor Ted Haggard:

Pastor Ted Haggard – I had never heard him preach before but he was outstanding and very encouraging. My favorite part was at the end of the service. We were instructed to physically unwrap imaginary graveclothes from our head, hands and feet as Lazarus would have had to do when he was raised from the dead. I don’t know how to describe it but after we each did this, the life in that room was electric!
Well, he did have lots of practice physically unwrapping clothes from other peoples' heads, if you know what we mean, so we're not surprised at his bravado. As for the electric feeling, wethinks those Eucharists might have a been a little, well, methy. Hey, at least he shared—he had to in some tiny way practice what he so grandly preached.

Seriously, Lisa, for calling this hypocritical douchebag "outstanding" and "encouraging," we expect a very apologetic Coffee Talk next time. And if not for us, do it for god. Just don't send him a hard copy of the mea culpa—clearly, after what you all put him through today, he's not interested.

We don't blame him.

See you Monday!