“She called herself Bat-Girl! Gosh, I wonder who she is?”

- Robin, Batman #139, April 1961

Swooshing through an open window, Bat-Girl crashed the DC Comics clique in 1961. Resembling 1930s Norwegian, Olympic ice-skater Sonia Henie, she was more Madame Alexander doll than superhero. The first Bat-Girl, a.k.a. Betty Kane, was little more than a pretty, teenage nuisance and, according to Robin, “an inexperienced girl bound to get hurt pursuing crooks”.

On her Fiftieth, Batgirl, and we, might reflect on her personal transformations. Along her journey, she has refashioned not only her hair colour, costumes and careers, but her secret identities. Batgirl's personalities number so many, a PhD candidate might deconstruct her mythology as a dissertation on “Dissociative Identity Disorder in Pop-Culture”. However deconstructed, Batgirl's only constant is her utility belt.

"I am so surprised you watch that. It just doesn't seem like you."

Yes, I do; and, no it doesn't. Allow me to share my Pop secret with you, kittens.

This gape-jaw surprise, that I watch The Real Housewives of Orange County, amongst other RH franchises, is an alarm I have heard more than once. It's true, it does not fit my modus operandus for TV viewing. My druthers lean toward Arrested Development, TURN, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Versailles, Anne With an 'E', Flaked, The Durrells in Corfu and Absolutely Fabulous. Well, shame be damned, in fact, I do watch RHOC, RHONJ, RHOA and RHOBH. If it pleases the court ... my argument for the defense.

• It's the hair. It's so preternaturally, perfectly shiny. The ladies are like Anne Rice characters, their hair is so lustrous. I have good hair - don't hate me because I'm beautiful - yet, even with my Aveda products and healthy eating habits, I can't get that level of luxe.

• It's the wardrobes. I am an unapologetic clotheshorse and totally besotted with everything sartorial, from thrift store-finds to true vintage, from couture to cosplay.

• It's the parties. To quote Panic at the Disco, "Don't threaten me with a good time!" I am always available for a gathering: theme parties, costume extravaganza, cocktail soirées, fouffy dinners, wine lunches, posh teas, pool bashes and beach bonfires. (Anything except a BBQ in an inland park or a day on the Colorado River.)

• It's the mise-en-scène. Like Gwen Stefani, "I'm just an Orange County girl living in an extraordinary world." The establishing shots of the O.C. (Psst, don't call it that.) form a character all her own.

I know Orange County as well as I do a fake Prada bag. I even strayed from my usual genre of 18thC. historical-fiction (Savannah of Williamsburg Series) and penned a bikini-and-martini, contempo novel titled The Darlings of Orange County: a scathing, satirical, love-hate letter to Orange County, currently being adapted to a screenplay. Yours Truly has lived up and down the Orange County coast: Balboa Island, Corona del Mar, Irvine, South Laguna Beach, Dana Point and San Clemente. Summers not spent in Hawai'i were spent on the sand at 52nd in Newport Beach. In college I worked at Disneyland, Neiman-Marcus at Fashion Island and Ruby's Auto Diner in Laguna Beach. Whilst my husband (known to many as The Viking) was in grad school at Chapman University's Dodge School of Film and Media Arts, I worked at Diedrich's Coffee in Dana Point's Ocean Ranch and taught French, Etiquette and Shakespeare at Broderick Montessori School in Dana Point.

Both Mum and Dear Old Dad count Chapman University amongst their alma maters, undergrad and grad school; for a time, Dear Old Dad was a Freshman-psych prof at Chapman. My fave little cousin, Bex Boo, is currently a BioSci major at UCIrvine. Natch, I, also, attended UCi and Chapman.

So, big whoop bully for you, JennyPop. Now, why do you patronize such sub-mental pablum and waste such precious time? (Including writing this post?)

Fair nudge, fair reader. Moving on ...

Here's the crux, the psychological explanation from a shrink's kid ... It's the LOTR-style, epic quests for friendship, oft abysmally failed, these ladies pursue. It's the quest that truly draws me, season over season, city after city. Like Siggy Flicker (my fave Housewife) of The Real Housewives of New Jersey I want everyone to be friends and love each other, cheesy as that reads. Perchance it's projection. I find my friendships, although scant in number, sacrosanct. There are lines one does not cross, rules and ethics inherent and sans exception. When a guy or gal finally crosses my threshold from "that _______ " to "my friend ______", I am loyal to the end. When I say I would take a bullet for them, I mean it. (Although, I likely will not loan my new Charles David over-the-knee boots, my Waterman pen or any of my Von Zipper sunglasses.)

Ergo, I marvel at what these ladies will not only perpetrate, but endure, and still come out of their catty battles as "friends" ... until the next season. What some folks call friendship, fascinates me. (Advisement: Do not get me started on what Zuckerberg and Facebook have done to dilute the word "friend".) In short, The Real Housewives is a Chaucerian cautionary tale draped in Chanel, a Medeival, morality play shrouded in Moschino. It is fabulously, terrifyingly didactic.

Note: This season might proffer a bit more gravity, in Peggy Sulahian. Housewife #100 was born to Armenian parents in Kuwait and has been in the U.S. since the twee age of one. Whilst Lady Fortuna has largely spun her Wheel fortuitously for Peggy - an oceanview home in Crystal Cove, a loving husband and three healthy, beautiful children - the Wheel has had its bad spins. At the age of fifty-one, Peggy's mother passed away from breast cancer. Recently, after finding a lump, Peggy opted for a radical double-mastectomy, to be extra cautious. RHOC S12 finds Peggy on the eve of her reconstructive surgery. From all accounts, like so many other victims and survivors of this dreaded thief in the night, Peggy has a confidence and inner power that poises her perfectly to melée with The Real Housewives. I mean, really. After the early death of a mother, the threat of the C-word and a voluntary, double-mastectomy,  what on Earth could Vicki Gunvalson and Kelly Dodd do to this lovely lady? Bring it on, S12.

The Real Housewives of Orange County S12 premieres on BRAVO, July 10, 2017 @ 9/8c.

@JennyPopCom (Insta and Twitter) #RHOC #RealHousewives #PeggySulahian

J'adore la pluie! I once travelled to Scotland with a pal over the summer, in part, to escape the SoCal heat, only to be to greeted with a heatwave across the U.K. I also enjoyed a very happy, rain-soaked summer in Vieux Quebec, thrilled to be out of 90-degree weather for the horrid month of August. (You know what they say about Paris in August? Only tourists and the infirm remain. So it should be with SoCal.)

Yes, I love and appreciate our blue skies and California sunshine, which is truly its own beast; there is no light like California-light, except maybe that basking over the South of France. 'Tis true though, I have yet to see a sea as turquoise as that of Nice and Cannes. Quelle belle mer!

To wit, these are the days I cherish most (and I tend to cherish most everyday), the days I miss most from our Virginia-sojourn. In a place that is more Palm Beach than Seattle, I welcome the odd day of thunderstorms and black skies, despite the horror reported to us by local news stations' StormTracker Weathergirls. (I know, this is not a p.c.-term. I don't care. I like the term Weathergirl; it's cute and sometimes totally accurate: like "stripper" over "exotic dancer" and "Teleprompter Jockey" over "broadcast journalist". That one's especially fun.)

Standing in line at a Carlsbad Starbucks this morning, happily awaiting my turn to order my Pumpkin Spice and Soy Americano with Whipped Cream - insert Homer Simpson donut drools here - , I couldn't help but eavesdrop on the chick in front of me and the counter girl. (Yeah, probably not p.c. either.)

Sbux Gal: Good morning! How are you enjoying this weather?

Obtuse-chick: Ohmygaaaad. I haaaate it. It makes me so depressed. When it's like this, I like to stay indoors, close all the windows, turn on some cheerful summertime music and watch travel videos of Hawai'i until the sun comes out. It's soooo gross today.

I imagine if one is in one's third month of a grey world in Baudette, Wisconsin or Grimsby, Ontario one might drift toward the sunnier-based episodes of Three Sheets. Admittedly, after two months or more of snow and dove-grey skies in Virginia, I tended to watch way more Rick Steves on the Mediterranean than is healthy. (Don't get me wrong, I love Rick Steves ... his travel tips just bug me sometimes. Please, see my very first posting ever here to see just how much.) Yet, when San Diego gets about thirteen days of rain total per annum, well, fret not, Chica. Put away the razor blades and be patient. In just about fourteen hours it shall be bright and sunny again and you won't have to pull the shades for another month or two.

The added bonus of days like this? I get to go play outside and splash in puddles in my best Frye boots and all without a single dollop of sunscreen!!! Mon Dieu, it gets to be a hassle. Nevertheless, with Dita Von Teese and Rose McGowan as my vampire-guides, I march valiantly into the oncoming decades certain I shall not be mistaken for one of The Real Lizard Women of Orange County or the reptile chicks from that old, '80s Sci-fi show V.