What an interesting week for the Real Housewives. On the West coast, they’re packing their children off to college, while on the East Coast, children are about to see their parents go to prison.
Beverly Hills
During this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kim and Yolanda bid tearful farewells to their daughters as they graduated from high school and entered college. Kim’s daughter, Kimberly, is attending the University of California San Diego and her mother has packed enough stuff to fill the entire dormitory. There’s bedding and a vacuum cleaner, a full size refrigerator, a suitcase full of hair accessories and a swimming pool. The dorm room is like any other dorm room – it’s about the size of the average walk-in closet and she’s going to share it with a roommate. We can only guess that neither Kim nor her daughter checked out the digs before they filled up the back of a pickup truck.
Kim doesn’t know what she’s going to do now that Kimberly is living away from home. She did meet an iguana in Puerto Rico and immediately fell in love with it. “He’s sooo cute. Cute. Cute. Cute. Just look at that widdle face. I looove him. I just want to kiss him on his widdle wizard wips.” Maybe her new-found friend will help her cope with life without Kimberly and give Kingsley something to play with. Somehow, I doubt it.
Yolanda, on the other hand, is clueless in another way. She sets up her darling Gigi in an apartment that costs more than the average college tuition. It’s decorated to the nines, with the exception of the wall art. We saw her putting up the pictures she brought, made by those who were fortunate enough to snag one of the highly coveted spots in Yolanda’s paint by number class. I bet Lisa regrets phoning in her regrets for that invitation. She has some really worthwhile advice for her daughter, too, although none of it has to do with getting an education. “Save your receipts. If you have your hair or nails done, save those receipts, because you can write them off on your tax returns.” I didn’t even think of that. I’ve decided that I’m a model now. I’m in the middle of doing my own taxes, so I’m going to enter the cost of my bottles of OPI nail polish and boxes of L’Oreal Feria, and see if the tax man gives me a break. By the way, the only modeling gig I think I’m going to get is with Tractor Supply as part of their “Carhartt is the new Versace” campaign. If you see it, and I’ll be the one rocking a pair of boot cut jeans, please vote for me – I’m in the running for their oldest rookie of the year contest.
New Jersey
Now, the bigger news – even bigger than tabloids in a suitcase – came from Bravo’s Housewives of New Jersey. Joe and Teresa Giudice entered guilty pleas on just a few of the 6,759 charges leveled against them. I read and speak legalese, but I’m not about to plow through that pile of paperwork. Other bloggers have and my hat is off to them. I thought I’d take a stab at what Joe and Tre have to look forward to, instead.
There’s a real possibility that they’re both going to see the inside of prison cells – the length of their sentences is still to be determined. I’m more interested in where they’re going to serve their time. I looked at the Federal prison website and there are all sorts of possibilities awaiting them. Joe has more options because there aren’t as many facilities for women. I found a couple in or near New Jersey, one of which even has a section called “camp”. I don’t think they’re weaving pot holders or learning how to put up tents, but it sounds so much better than “the big house”. Teresa is going to have a harder time staying near her family. There’s a perfectly good place in Danbury Connecticut, but that doesn’t mean she’ll go there. It’s where Martha Stewart wanted to go to serve her sentence, but that didn’t happen. Those folks in the federal system can be mischievous little devils when they want to be, especially when you lie to them. They sent Martha to Alderson in West Virginia, even after she told them what a burden it would be on her elderly mother on visitation days. They didn’t care, so Martha went to the mountains where she couldn’t see her stable of Friesians from her room.
Martha, it turns out, was a model prisoner, teaching the other inmates how to make ponchos from left over gum wrappers and giving them cooking tips like how to turn Cup’o’Soup into Chateaubriand. She was such a good prisoner, the feds let her go home early and placed her on house arrest. They did the same thing for Wesley Snipes, who served two and a half years of his sentence for tax evasion locked up and the other six months at home. I don’t know if Joe or Teresa will get the same treatment. It’s up to them and how they behave, I guess.
While I’m on the subject of Martha Stewart, there’s one thing that I have to give her credit for during her legal battle. She decided to take her punishment, sooner rather than later. Instead of fighting her conviction and waiting for the outcome of her appeal, she went to jail. As it turns out, her conviction was upheld, but she’d already done her time and the whole matter was behind her. The Giudices have fought tooth and nail, proclaiming their innocence to anyone who’ll listen, succeeding at nothing more than postponing the inevitable. Their defense attorneys were smart to have asked for severed trials – it’s what most criminal defense attorneys want in cases of co-defendants. There’s a very good chance it helped them with the plea deal. What I do wonder about is what could have happened if they’d approached their case this way earlier, by not holding their breath, pretending nothing was wrong and hoping it would all just go away. All of it might have been over and done with by now for them, too. As it stands, Joe will never see Gia go off to her high school prom, pretty as a picture, gown and all.
Empress
realhousewifeofaiken 
Strangely, I never liked Martha Stewart UNTIL she plead guilty and was sent off to do her time. I respected the hell out of her for that. Poor Tre, unless she buys Cheeto’s by the truckload from the prison commissary she has no chance to stay oompaloompa orange, no fake hair, sure hope her boobs don’t deflate while she is in there….
I’m afraid that we may not recognize Teresa after her ordeal.
Hi Empress!!! Great blog!! Miss you, lady!
From day one, I was not fond of Teresa. Imho, there just seemed something ‘off’ with her and her husband. All of this legal stuff doesn’t surprise me in the least. And her reaction to it was consistent with what I felt was ‘off’ about her. She and Joe were adamant they were innocent! Throughout the NJ HW’s show, she was adamant about every friggen issue that came up. All she cared about was not being the ‘bad guy’.
Finally, they admitted they were wrong. I can’t give them credit for that for the reasons you mention in your blog. They only relented because they were trapped – otherwise they would have kept on lying. It these kinds of people that scare me – they just don’t know when to say when.
I am finding myself more and more disgusted by these HW’s shows…I try to watch them but I eventually just turn the channel. I used to love these shows – all the glitz and glamour, the big beautiful homes, wardrobe, jewelry…it was fun! Now it just showcases awful people doing mean things to each other.
Oh well, maybe Revenge will come on one or two more times this year before it airs its season finale next winter. 😉 I’ll just wait for that.
Thanks for giving me a place to rant!!!
oxox
Boo!!! I’ve missed you too! Bravo really knows how to pick’em, don’t they!?! I saw the first episode of Southern Charm and Bravo has found the worst of Charleston society. I guess it’s South Carolina’s turn to be portrayed in a bad light.
Revenge is back this Sunday. I’ll be doing recaps – maybe not for the next morning, but as soon as I can write them. 🙂
Yay!! Awesome – I will read it no matter when you post it!
So now SC is a Bravo target? Geez. Bravo really needs to stop!!! I don’t want to watch TV shows about crappy, negative, mean people when I perfectly suited In-Laws for the job!!!
JOKE!! I couldn’t help myself! 🙂
I’m starting to think that Bravo won’t be happy until they’ve brought their nonsense to all fifty States. Hopefully The Real Housewives of Honolulu will mark the beginning of the end. I’ll be in an assisted living center by then and won’t care anymore. 😉
Tre better get her hair cut before she “goes away”. If she gets in a fight someone’s going to grab that long hair of hers.
Danielle Staub might have a few pointers when it comes to hair pulling.
LOL. My first thought of Tre was how will she fair without all her hair extensions to fluff her mane?
I love the image of Melania & Gia packing up mommy’s “off to college” errm Fed Campus bag.
I’m looking forward to the Laurita’s legal proceedings. Jac and what’s his name, Caro’s brother. Didn’t they swindle millions from investors?
Sshhh…the Manzo/Laurita clan don’t want to talk about it. Besides, Chris killed all of his hard drives with a baseball bat and a case of BLK. Move along, nothing to see here. 😉
Empress, you know I always enjoy it when you dust off that HoWives keyboard. Perhaps I should stop saying that, it must actually be pretty shiny by now…
BH, somehow I think having grown up with a junkie drunk mom, Kimberly is a lot better equipped to handle life on her own than lemondrop’s daughter is.
NJ.. What can I say that you haven’t already.. Interesting to think that if they had just taken their medicine rather than have their kiddie tantrums about it all, they could have been over it or far enough into their punishment and be seeing some end of tunnel light at the very least. T that is.. Ole Juicy still has that pesky DL thing hanging over his head and then the matter of being returned to his homeland, at the age of 79..
Looking forward to your NY recaps..
I was surprised at how grounded Kim’s daughter appeared. Life couldn’t have been easy for those kids abd getting away on her own may be just what she needs. She shouldn’t have to worry about her mother – it just isn’t fair.
As for Juicy, his problems are just beginning.
I look forward to writing about New York, too. (She says with cautious optmisim)
After all they put us thru this episode was pretty boring….I doubt I will watch next season. I plan on watching the finale and all 3 parts of the reunion!! And I am really looking forward to NY. I watched the Scary Island episode today while prepping my floor for grout and omg, I forgot how crazy that trip was!
I think that Kim’s daughter hasn’t really lived full time with Kim all these years so she will probably have a much easier time than Kim…….
As a frequent member of defensive driving school (er-hem), I learned that you never, ever cop to anything in the eyes of the law. It destroys your case or plea for lenience. They were following their lawyers’ advice.
For you and me, this simply means you answer “I don’t know” when an officer asks you why he/she stopped you for speeding 20 miles over the speed limit and zipping around 6 or 7 senior citizen snow birds during rush hour. You have no defense if you admit to the officer that you did anything wrong.
Hey Rebecca, For a number of years I was the one asking “Do you know why I pulled you over?” I didn’t like writing tickets because, frankly, they’re a pain in the neck. Aside from DUIs, if a driver was cooperative and a bit apologetic, most of the time they drove away with nothing more than a warning. I’m sure that isn’t the case with most cops, but I tended to believe that some drivers learned just as much, maybe more, from getting a break as they would by paying fines and/or going to court. It didn’t always work out that way but it was a judgment call on my part.
Later, when I dabbled in criminal defense, I found that clients didn’t always take our advice. They would lie and insist they were innocent until you hit them in the head with a paperweight and told them that could go away for a very long time if they didn’t start listening. A lot of them believed that they knew better and could beat the system even when faced with insurmountable evidence to the contrary.