Caray, Caray!

Well, I thought it was all very sweet except the hamsters that got killed in the process. And that fumigating stuff can give you cancer.
 

Nice job, Judy. I have no idea how you produce good, complete, informative recaps so fast! Thank you for all the vocabulary. I particularly liked "son tal para cual - two of a kind." And you're posting pictures - you go, girl!

When Santi brought the hamsters to Candy's house, and he jumped over the couch, did you notice that he looked like a mere mortal instead of Baryshnikov? He has such body control, he can even look like a putz when he wants to!

Soledad is afraid Pat will take Beto, but even so, she lets Pat see him because she knows Beto needs to know his father. Are you listening, Candy?

Kris, in Monday's recap comments, you said, "Unlike Lety who really was a solid, sympathetic and very real character. ...I just wish Candy wasn't so flaky."

Do you remember Jacque B's appearance on Fea? She played the engineer at the Cine-Rent cocktail party. Fernando tried to pick her up, and she blocked his every move with finesse and flirtation. It was magical! When I heard they would be teamed up in Tontas, with similar characters, I remembered that scene and looked forward to their combination.

I learned something. A 'can't-lose playboy' & a 'feisty chick who rejects him' works great in one extended scene. It has a lot of zest, a lot of energy, it's a lot of fun to watch. But when you extend it over 28 episodes, with no sign of it changing soon... it's like a shaggy dog story that goes on for far, FAR too long.
 

Well thanks Paula ('cause you taught me) but the photo didn't go where I wanted it to. It was supposed to be in between paragraphs, around where Alicia was talking about the figurine...but the durned thing jumped up to the head of the page. Beats me. But I'll keep trying.

Yes, our adorable Camil CAN look like a putz when he wants to. Just wish he weren't acting like a putz so much in this one.

Very interesting observation though about that one scene you saw of Jacqueline and Jaime in Fea. That must have been before I started watching. I got into that one about mid-point. Could be the idea for the next telenovela did start right there.
 

Hey Judy, I moved your picture to where you wanted it. When you upload a picture, the software automatically puts it at the top of the page. You can cut-and-paste it where you want it. There is a lot of strange coding in your post, though, not sure why? Not that it matters. Good job!
 

Thanks Melinama...You all have been very helpful in teaching me computer skills. I will do that the next time. (it's only very recently that I learned how to cut and paste. Hell, it's only very recently that I learned how to pump my own gas!)
 

Judy: Absolutely hands down one of your best ever recaps (and that's saying a lot!). Sincere thanks for the vocabulary too.

Love your comments including (but certainly not limited to: "...know we're supposed to dislike Marissa for all her lies but Candy tells even bigger ones...so where's our heroine? We have no one to root for." Good point. Candy really doesn't deserve heroine status. I don't dislike Marissa, she's hardly a typical villan, although perhaps I've been watching Gabi (Fuego) and Sara (QE) too much :)

You summarized it perfectly: "Will Patricio discover Candy's presence? Do we care? Will Marissa, as the previews seem to indicate, actually break up with Santiago? Again, do we care? Will any of these not-happy- families get straightened out?" I primarily watch so I can keep up with the recaps although I can't say I really do care.

I do like Patricio and in the end, think Candy is his best match. I think she is his one true love but whether or not he is Candy's has yet to be determined.

As an ardent animal lover, I also felt sorry for the poor little hamsters. However, I was glad to see I hadn't totally lost my sense of humor regarding this show when Tio Meño started yelling "Rats" on the phone and everyone fled the restaurant. I laughed my head off. I also enjoyed Santiago's rescue of the 2 "exterminators".

I remember Topo Gigio well from the Ed Sullivan show (wow - I am really dating myself). Diana in MA
 

Gosh I'm impressed you remembered Topo Gigio...I never saw that although I was certainly there then and also during the Kukla Fran and Ollie (sp?) days. And who was that weird woman with the little Lambchop? Oh well...the mists of memory are obscuring that and a whole lot else.

I was rooting for Candy and Patricio but now I'm rooting for Soledad and Patricio. (am I bipolar? Do I care?) Same reason...he's the father of her child plus she seems to be falling in love with him. And her actual husband has been so harsh with her. So that means I'll then vote for Santiago and Candy to end up together. They were sweet together (briefly) in the family room.

However, I'm a swing voter so this all could change.

Thanks for the kind words, Diana. You always make me feel appreciated....mucho. If you spread that support around (and I know you do) you make your world a better one. We need more Diana's!!!!
 

Judy, I think it was Shari Lewis and Lambchop! Diana in MA
 

I remember Topo Gigio! You thought Shari Lewis was weird? I loved her. Shari and Lamb Chop were my faves when I was a kiddie.

Pato and Soledad also have my vote. I thought they were pathetically sweet during their door conversation. I just don't see him and Candy together, I'm still thinking their reality just won't hold up to their years of fantasy about each other. Whoever Pato goes for (probably all of them knowing him) Alicia will make it hell for all concerned. Can't wait!

JudyB, another truly superb recap and thanks so much for the vocabulary words, they're very helpful.

By the way, can't those people tell the difference between hamsters and rats? I wasn't too happy about the little buggers getting exterminated but it did make for some funny scenes and great physical humor. As commenter Jazzee (and others) have pointed out, Camil is a master at it and probably his own personality helps him pull it off.

I thought it was hilarious that Santi inadvertently forced Charly and Lucia to be in the same house. Serves him right.
 

Thanks Diana and Sylvia for remembering Shari Lewis and Lambchop...now I won't have to wake up agt 3 am wondering about it.

Talk about "espeluznante", was out for the last hour in a godawful snowstorm. It's my son's birthday tomorrow so I felt honor bound to go out and buy incredible food (what I paid for organic tenderloin could have bought a used car a few years ago!)...but yowsa...truly dangerous driving conditions. Happy to be back here in my frigid computer room (but it has lots of green French doors for looking out at the snow.
 

Great recap! I love the vocabulary words. I missed last night's capitulo and this really helped me.

It may have been mentioned around here before, but has anyone else noticed that Patricio (Valentino Lanus) wears the red string Kabbalah bracelet on his wrist?
 

Judy, you are a nice, and daring person to go out in a snowstorm to buy food for your son's birthday. It is also Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday (and mine!)

Great recap and vocab. I hate to see Soledad get involved with Patricio when he is only thinking with his 'little brain'. Alicia's wrath will be fearsome to behold.
 

Great recap, Judy, it cleared up all sorts of things I missed. BTW, I too remember Topo Gigio and Shari Lewis and Lambchop very fondly. I guess I was just the right age.

I'm starting to think that maybe this novela has 3 broad "acts". In Act 1, we meet everybody, and all the problems are brought out into the open. In Act 2, Candy does meet Pat, and everything changes radically, since maybe he wants her back, etc., and the whole thing centers on those two. Then in Act 3, everything changes again, and resolves which ever way it's going to go. I'm also thinking Candy with Santiago, Pat with Soledad, but who knows?

Anyway, I don't know if any of this is really true, but if the novela is 120 episodes (again, I'm just guessing), after about 40, they'd go to Act 2. So since we're on about 27 or so, I think in about 3 more weeks, Candy will finally meet Pat. So even if Santiago does break up with Marissa soon, when Candy meets Pat, Santiago will really have to get serious.
 

Emilia...how wonderful that you share a birthday with my son (and of course Martin Luther King Jr.). I always feel a special connection with people who share birthdays with my children, even though deep-down I know astrology is a bunch of hooey.

I was out in the midst of a "whiteout" really. Now the snow is still falling but visibility is better. I think classes will be cancelled for this afternoon and evening (in the program where I teach) so I can get a headstart on making Andy's apple pie.

I agree that Patricio's thinking with his little brain, but I would think most young men with a normal testosterone level would be thinking that way...even if they didn't act on it. Soledad looks so so vulnerable...I'm wanting it to work out for that reason. And Alicia can just go back to Tiajuana for all I care! But you're right, her revenge will be fearsome.

PS So what is Chef Mike going to cook up for your birthday? Or is it a surprise?
 

Wow, Hombre, I like your structured thinking and your breakdown of the possible dramatic organization. Works for me. Let's keep that in mind and see if it plays out. I desperately need some sort of structural outline to help me organize this telenovela mentally. Because scene by scene it's all over the place.
 

Thanks for the wonderful recap and vocabulary Judy!

I remember seeing clips of Ed Sullivan introducing Topo Gigio, and his delivery of the name stuck in my head. Funny how our brains work, remembering something I have no actual experience with but forgetting huge chunks of things that actually happened to me.
 

Hombre is right with the three act structure. That is the classic writers are trained on both for novel writing and for TV and Movies. This novela is 6 1/2 months long so we are fast approaching Act 2 and the inevitable Candy and Pat get together.

I found the episode hilarious when all of Santi's careful plans went astray. Instead of having Candy to himself with the rest of the tribe in the background he ends up with two screaming kids and their pets, two love stuck teenagers, one harpy mother, his own mother upset, the butler upset with the salsa instructor, and one cook upstaged by Candy the counselor.

The reaction when Santi found out who Charly was was absolutely hilarious and JC at his best as he is screaming for mommy, I nearly died laughing. Santi is the typical male who remembers himself at 17 and isn't having any of that stuff going on with his little girl. My son in law is the same way and is having cat fits over boys coming after his beautiful little girl. What goes around comes around. LOL

I liked the TV scene and the reduction in the fast paced chatter between our H/H. We've had a few of those short sweet scenes with them before but probably won't see many more.

Ed has always treated his wife like a slave so I actually wasn't sorry when she went out with Barbara and left him alone. That marriage has doomed written all over it as he is a player and she is growing independent. The same can not be said of the terminal martyr Soledad. And where is Jorge? He came back for his son, made one appearance and vanished after slugging Pat.

As for Pat - he consistently thinks with his little head. Now that he thinks Soledad is his mystery woman he has a second to chance to cheat with her not that she ever resists. I've always found it difficult to like women who knowingly carry on with married men and she knows full well that he is married, if not to the woman he thinks he is married to. So she is actually sleeping with her good friend's husband. Maybe she does deserve to end up with him. And since he is SO unhappy with Alicia why doesn't he cut her loose. I guess those special talents she must have learned in Tijuana have him ignoring the basic fact that he is in a bad marriage.
 

Hombre d'M, you said, "when Candy meets Pat, Santiago will really have to get serious." Once again, a Fea parallel. Our hero was all worried about Raul/Tomas, who was never an actual threat. The one who really COULD take away el amor de su vida (Pat/Aldo) appeared later.

The Mexico broadcast was actually 140 caps, and I think those were all 1-hour caps. US will probably have more, since they are stretching it (US-28 = MX-26).
 

deciegirl, Pat stays with Ali because of extortion. She threatened suicide if he ever left her, and he's afraid that she is just unstable enough to do it. He is already living with the guilt of causing the death of his first wife; he isn't willing to risk adding a second one.

Were it not for that, he'd be out of there in a New York second.
 

Fabu recap Judy...definitely one of your top ones. Great details and commentary....

Loved it....

I could be wrong, but I thought I heard Santi say he collected all of the hamsters before the waiters went in there in the first place and he told them they didn't need to bother choking themselves over it.

At least that's what I am going to believe was said... :)
 

Well, I thought he said...You didn't have to exterminate them because I was GOING TO get them all out of there. But since he got there too late, the little hamsters had already gone to hamster heaven.

But I could be wrong too. I'm such a wuss I even didn't like it when he was holding up the one little critter by the nape of his neck. Not that I'm going to pull a PETA and throw red paint all over him but just sayin'

And actually, I hope you're right Fuego...and okay, it's just a story. I'm sure the hamsters are back in Televisa actor's school practicing their lines for the next show.
 

Kris, I hope you're right about the hamsters surviving. I wouldn't want a houseful of hamsters but worse yet would be finding dead ones for weeks, YUK!
 

Jusy, you're a hoot!!
 

Boy oh boy, if I could only learn how to type! (or proofread!) Let's spell your name J U D Y. ...sorry
 

Thanks for the recap and vocabulary list JudyB. I'm with you on Pat and Soledad. While its NEVER wise to be with a married man, Soledad is very vulnerable. If her husband had not been sterile, she would still be with him. And Pat just can't keep it in his pants. I know he feels guilty about Candy's death and Alicia threatened suicide but he needs to get out of that marriage.

I'll be happy when we leave Act I and proceed to Act II.
 

Hey, I kind of like "Jusy"...sounds like Juicey...which alas I'm not so much anymore. I could especially use more juice in the knees and hips. (which reminds me, would like to see more of Tio Meño's Salsa dancing. That was pretty lively.
 

Yes, Karen...I am normally a tigress on NOT dating married men. But Soledad is vulnerable, Pato's the father of her child and Alicia is a loathsome skank....so....still wrong... but still, that both-sides-of-the-door scene was just so sweet and endearing.
 

Great recap Judy!
I like the idea that the hamsters got out, I think I'll go with that one.
Candy seemed to be very comfortable in Santi's house. Taking over in the kitchen and roaming the house, advising the daughter, etc. I suppose that was meant to show what a good wife/mama she would make?
I thought Candy and Santi were cute on the sofa with the popcorn. I REALLY wish she were more likeable!
With that adorable face of his I don't know how she can resist!

Carrie L.
 

Happy Birthday Emilia!!

I'm absolutely positive that Kris is correct, the hamsters escaped. Definitely. No doubt.
 

The hamsters. That's where formal grammar becomes so important. The various interpretations could be said with different conjugations of the same words. That's where I still struggle with my Spanish (among other difficulties). I'll know all the words in a sentence, but still can't figure it out. Either because of a conjugation, or figuring out the direct & inderect object pronouns, or those seven SE's that beat my lips every time.

As for Candy in the kitchen, for once she didn't seem to be invading. En mi pueblo, we would do the same. She had just doubled the size of Santi's household, so she was pitching in and picking up part of the extra workload she had created.
 

Thanks for some great recaps from Paula and JudyB. Paula, I loved the link to Farmacias del ahorro and the swallowed poodle references ;) JudyB, loved the snark and vocab lesson at the end as well ;)

Quick add: Sven is actually creating the kissing class himself. One of his many get rich quick schemes.

Along with Kris, I believe I heard that no hamsters were harmed in Santi’s little scheme (he tells Sven he already rounded them up and took them away – no idea how he pulled that off, though he made a joke about being the Pied Piper – before the fumigating scene, so the only ones harmed were our hapless waiter/mariachis) and when Sven realizes they were hamsters and not rats, he solicits bribes for himself and his compadre to keep mum.

Now for some useless trivia, I don’t know about Italy, but Topo Gigio made a few comebacks in Mexico. Last I saw him (around ’86) he had a show with Argentinean actor Raul Astor. When I was visiting Texas for Christmas, a couple of my cousins started singing the “Hasta Mañana” song that Santi and Candy were singing. A third one had never heard the song and I told her maybe it debuted in ’86 which was a little bit after she stopped seeing the mouse (apparently “topo” is Italian for mouse, though it is Spanish for mole). No idea if my theory held any water, but ’86 was the first time I heard the song. Here’s a link: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=mP0jNguipOU

Deciegirl – when hubby found out we were having a girl, his first action was to text his friend to tell him to keep his son (who’s about 5 months old at the moment) away from our daughter. Hubby was actually a “nice guy” in his youth, but had too many friends who were dogs and will not be trusting any boys that come knocking on our door.

As for Soledad, I don’t excuse her actions, but she strikes me as one of those women who doesn’t know she can do better. She lost her virginity to a drunken Patricio (didn’t know he had a girlfriend, but she knew he was just in town for a couple of days and would probably never see him again), married Jorge in no time at all (she says she met him after Pat and it was quick enough that she had no clue she was pregnant when she got married), and would have probably taken Jorge back if he’d asked her. I think she’s just desperate, though she might be developing real feelings for Pato. She doesn’t have Candy’s ego to say: “no, I deserve a man that’s just mine.”
 

I agree with the desperate Soledad theory. I don't blame her though. Sheesh, her marriage has fallen apart and the hot, rich, daddy of her son is paying her VERY special attention. Whether it's "healthy" or not, who wouldn't go for that (besides scorned, stuck in the past Candy)?

It could so easily be couched as a college try to maybe possibly get the family together as it belongs with both Mom and Dad. I'd justify it as "suffering" for my kid. :)
 

Oh and the only thing that would keep me from giving it a go would be the marriage status. That is, until I encountered what an obnoxious beatch the wife was, and oh yeah, she wanted to pay me to stay away from her husband and nearly ran me over in her car. Yeah, I'm not feeling much empathy for her position as wife.
 

Hi Carrie L. thanks for checking in. Yes, the couch scene was definitely endearing, and the sweet music playing in the background always helps to make us feel the romantic mood.

Thanks for the reassurance about the hamsters Margarita (and initially Fuego)...I'll rest a little easier tonight. Don't know when Santiago would have had time to go over and do that though, what with all the shenanigans at the house, attempted seductions, thwarted seductions and popcorn making. Ah well...it's an alternate universe.

Yes, Fuego, I agree...Soledad is desperate and when we're desperate we can convince ourselves of all kinds of things....and she has.

Margarita...you're having a little girl! Knew you were expecting but didn't know the sex. Hooray. It's nice to have a girl first because they are often very nurturing with Baby No. 2. At least that was the case with our family and with my daughter's family. On the other hand, our son, while nicely nurtured by his older sister, had absolutely no use for his younger sister. (although they get along well now as adults)
 

JudyB, I always love your recaps. I sense that you enjoy writing them as much as I enjoy reading them. I'm glad to learn that no hamsters were harmed either in the actual show or in the filming. As a teen I was a hamster rancher. They are actually very resilient and can infest a house if given an opportunity. My stud hamster Big Boy frequently escaped and would spend months at a time as a freerange rodent. My mom was not pleased when he set up shop in her quilt closet. I almost had to give up the business after that. However, he managed to survive for a couple of more years after I went off to the university, and I remember to this day the grief that was in my mother's words went she wrote to announce, "Big Boy is dead." Carlos
 

I'm not feeling it for Alicia but Saintly Soledad knows full well that Candy is Pantless Pat's wife and when she slept with him in the past just before the wedding she was working in his company. Desperate she is but as far as we know she is also still married to Jorge. Which brings me back to him again. He came for Beto clashed with Pat and vaporized again and Beto who didn't wat Pat for a father hasn't said anything else since that flying visit. These poor little kids have to be the most confused ones on earth.

I wonder where rocio got that load of attitude she was showing Candy. Perhaps she is feeling a little jealous but she never reacted that way to Marissa who is really interested in Santi. I also could have skiped the femine products bit but couldn't help thinking aout our old pal Juan Soler and his new business. LOL
 

A hamster rancher! Carlos...you are deep. We have some sad hamster stories in our family background. One escaped his cage, pitched over the balcony but landed on the couch below, found his way into the library and started nibbling on my old Larousse French dictionary. By the time we located him (he was MIA for several days), he was on his last legs....and so was the dictionary.

I imagine your mom had grown very fond of your little studmuffin in spite of the quilt issues. We glom onto the pets, once our children leave home, let me tell you.

And thanks for the kind words. Basically I just sit back and imagine that I'm talking to you all...and I probably finesse the details in a recap just as much as I do in real life but that's why it's good to have feedback. I am always circling the airport...and sometimes landing where planned.
* * * *
Decie Girl...alright...way to hold your ground! As I said, normally I go ballistic on married men/affair issues. I was frothing at the mouth when Omar cheated on Zulema in Querida Enemiga. But for some reason I can't condemn Soledad (maybe I need a Moral Rearmament course) but I do agree it's very strange how husband just blew in for a day, hugs son, punches out Pato and disappears. Continuity, writers, continuity!!!!