Short Engagements: What do I have in common with Mrs. Garrett and Jo?

According to wedding website The Knot, the average engagement is fourteen months. Tootie was likely engaged for something like that. She got engaged in episode 9-7 and was still engaged, planning her wedding, when the series ended. Victor and I were engaged for two months. There's no right or wrong, of course, but you know which other engagements were short? The other ones on Facts! Casual viewers may not remember that besides Tootie's engagement, there were three weddings planned (and two executed) in the course of the series: two for Mrs. Garrett (one that took) and one for Jo. And then there was mine.

Also starring: the corresponding spouses.

I know. Them's some white-ass muthafuckas.

Couple number one: Edna Garrett and Ted Metcalfe. Wedding scheduled for episode 6-17 "Two Guys from Appleton."

Couple number two: Edna Garrett and Bruce Gaines. Wedding scheduled for episode 8-1 "Out of Peekskill."

Couple number three: Jo Polniaczek and Rick Bonner. Wedding scheduled for episode 9-19 "Till Marriage Do Us Part."

Couple number four: Vikki and Victor. Wedding scheduled for December 31, 2015.

Before I continue, please note that photos from my wedding are courtesy of Elizabeth Livingston and Cindy McElhiney, dear friends who photographed the event.

Background

Edna and Ted

Edna and Ted were high school sweethearts. They had dated for a year and a half when Ted gave Edna his pin and they enjoyed their first kiss. Two and a half years later, they were supposed to go to a dance together. Ted was late because he got held up working at his father's hardware store. (NB:When George Clooney appeared in season eight he also worked at his father's hardware store. This comes from Charlotte Rae's memories of her father's own hardware store.) While she was waiting for Ted to pick her up, a vacuum cleaner salesman came by the door, and she was smitten. So she dumped Ted's ring on his doorstep and never talked to him again.

Recap episode 6-13: "CHRISTMAS IN THE BIG HOUSE"

Greetings, dear readers. I have been MIA for two months, and for that I apologize. In the future, I may just schedule November and December as vacation months.

The last two months have been interesting; I passed the bar exam and became a practicing lawyer as an associate in a small law firm. I am also volunteering with the county's juvenile services division on their restorative justice effort. I got engaged and will be getting married at the end of the month. Plus I got a comment on this post which encouraged me to write something a little more in depth on the topic, but that will take a bit longer. And I am reading Charlotte Rae's autobiography, and there are some good bits in it that deserve coverage. It should be a great 2016!

In any case, I owe you a holiday gift. A Christmas episode recap, of course. My favorite Christmas episode ever. The one with this.

This is such a good episode for so many reasons. So rather than blither and blather and blubber about it, let's just get to the recap, shall we?

We open at Edna's Edibles, where Mrs. Garrett is giving away product to her customers.

Recap episode 6-18 "With a Little Help from My Friends" or: This episode is probably the reason I never did coke

Guess what? I took the bar exam! Hooray! I think I probably passed but I'm prepared not to have. I find out in October and I'll let y'all know. And that's all I want to say about that.

Almost. We know that Blair took the LSAT and went to law school briefly, before she decided to buy Eastland and become its headmistress. I really really wish we could have seen Blair study for and take the bar exam, because I've been doing that for the past two and a half months, and misery loves company.

And once the bar exam is over, what does one look for? That's right, drugs! And since I've already recapped the one where Helen Hunt['s character] smokes a bong, We jump to season six, where Blair has a new boyfriend who (spoiler!) is up to no good...

And I don't mean he cheats at Battleship

Recap episode 6-5: "Cruisin'" or out of the shop and no laugh track - don't tell me this show doesn't rock

A few weeks ago, one of my readers suggested three episodes to recap. Two of them were Halloween episodes, which I haven't definitively decided to save for the season, but I am still keeping that option open. The other was "Cruisin'." Yes, C-r-u-i-s-i-n-apostrophe. I like and appreciate my readers, so when there are requests, I do my best to honor them.

Said reader described the episode as "an anomalous episode that sticks in my mind, the uncannily laugh-track-free cruising episode." It's interesting how much the lack of laugh track makes this episode stand out. I, too, noticed that it lacked a laugh track when I watched season six for the first time in a while last month. I even went back to other episodes to verify the existence of a laugh track, because I wasn't sure if I just hadn't noticed until then that there wasn't one (there is indeed a laugh track in the other episodes). I nearly mentioned that fact in my bird's eye analysis of season six, but there was so much else to cover, so I didn't get to that nugget.

Regardless, here we are. Blair and Jo are sophomores in college, Natalie is a senior at Eastland, and Tootie is a junior, and the girls decide to spend a night out cruising downtown Peekskill.