When I want to spend $3 million to shoot a friend’s ashes out of a cannon, I have to cut back on other things. I guess he could have flown commercial a couple of times to cover the difference.

If he’s down to one house and three servants, I’ll eat my hat.

Yup. And they aren’t babies. Nearly every kid in the world has to accept that their family has financial limitations, to varying degrees. Usually when they’re much younger than his kids. No sympathy for any of them on that front.

Yeah, if money could buy a soul, he’d have one.

Yes, and when we’re having a lean year, guess what? My kids have a lean Christmas. I’m positive even a good Christmas doesn’t compare to a lean one for his children, who are 15 and 18, probably don’t believe in Santa anymore, and should be perfectly capable of understanding all this.

He also resembles a child of that age in that he seems to think he’s doing the person he’s talking to a favor by doing what they want, rather than doing what he needs to do for his own good.

I tend to be more sympathetic toward women who do that baby cutting thing (even though I’m pretty sure someone once tried to catfish me on Craigslist for just that reason), because I tend to think they’re delusional. Serena Joy is sane as sane can be. I have wondered, though, if my total lack of sympathy for her is…

I’m dying to process Serena Joy with whoever I can. I have not felt one iota of sympathy for her, but so many do! I mean, I’m impressed with the actress, of course, and there are times when I can sort of tell Serena Joy is human, but I can never get passed her sense of entitlement. Even though there are times when she…

I think when I was very young, I had a hard time wrapping my head around Offred’s coldness. I didn’t hate it, it just didn’t make any sense to me. I think it slowly dawned on me through subsequent readings that it was a deliberate decision, and a brilliant one.

I wondered that, too. They will still want her uterus, but her uterus comes with her. It almost makes me wonder why they don’t just lobotomize all the handmaids in the first place. Trading her to Mexico seems more likely, though.

I can’t stop obsessing over Serena Joy. I’ve read so many things through the series about people who feel for her to some extent, and I just don’t. Sure, there were times I hated her less than others, but from the very, very beginning all she was was someone who had every intention of stealing another woman’s baby,…

I always thought the implication was that she got out, but I hadn’t considered they were confession tapes. Hmmmm....

Yeah, I haven’t watched her show, so I don’t dislike her like almost everyone who has ever seen her does. But it seems like as good a way of getting through it as any.

Yeah, people react this way to all sorts of major transitions. I’m not sure why it’s looked upon with disdain, either - it seems like a pretty healthy way to cope.

I don’t mean to be catty, but he seems a little...old for a midlife crisis?

This is what I was thinking!

There is not a doubt in my mind that he’s entitled and just not a nice person. But I’m not clear on whether it’s his money or TMG’s? I’m not usually one to defend the extravagant spending of people with more money than they know what to do with, but I bet the sound engineer doesn’t mind being kept on retainer at all.

T…

I kind of like being able to fly under the radar while Boomers and Millennials go at each other.

I thought several of them seemed like jerks, but I didn’t really see the problem with the guy who wanted to watch but had to work. He could have meant something condescending, but it seems more likely he was saying that and only that.

It’s also a very small part of the book, all things considered. If it were a rape fantasy, she’d focus on it more.