The Day You Wake Up To

"Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!

There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.

And magical things you can do with that ball

Will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Fame!

You'll be as famous as famous can be,

with the whole wide world watching you on TV.

Except when they don't,

Because sometimes they won't.

I am afraid that sometimes

You'll play lonely games too.

Games you can't win

'cause you'll play against you."

~Dr. Seuss

Oh The Places You'll Go!

I love the first Monday after a long holiday weekend. I love that the TV schedules get back to normal, I love that the news and political sites are, once again, covering the latest developments, and I love that the everything seems fresh and new. I suppose the first Monday after the New Year's holiday has that feeling like no other time. I was finished with 2015, at the end of the day Robin Williams died. I remember falling into bed, exhausted from grief, and thinking that I was done! The year couldn't possibly be salvaged. And if it could, if anyone had a special formula, I didn't need to know about it! My mind was throughouly made up! Don't even bring it up! But, a couple months later, I found myself on vacation, and spending a lot of time with Alan, and little by little, I eased back into the reality of the year, and where I was in it. I was still grieving, and one or two more losses took place after his death, but I was back to laughing, and exploring with the camera, putting my feet forward. And as I did. I came up with some good photographs, stuff I am proud of. I just did it. I learned to live with all the pain of the year. From the suicide of a friend, to Robin's death, to the drama with GM and the car recalls, to whatever stupid thing hurt me. I dealt with it through my photography, with  the season of autumn's help.

Today, I am waking up to a much different day than Real Housewives Of New Jersey star, Teresa Giudice, will. She was sentenced last October to 15 months in prison, her husband 41 months for various crimes of fraud, dating back nearly 15 years, which is pretty much their entire marriage. By most accounts, Teresa has been in denile about the time she will serve, so as she begins her journey today, I can only imagine the pain she must be in as she says goodbye to her home, parents and brother, her community, her businesses, her standing, her name, but saddest of all, her four daughters. Four girls, all under 16, will have to suffer the loss of their mom, at an age when a daughter most needs their mother. Now, 15 months isn't forever, but without coping skills, it is more than forever. Those days when the only one who could possibly understand how a girl feels, is the mom, and mom isn't there. Life doesn't get harder than that. Not when you are a little girl.

I suppose Teresa will be feeling a bit like a little girl herself today. She won't have anyone but herself to lean on. She will be scared... I would be. Wouldn't you? She will be grieving her life... I would be. Wouldn't you? She will make missteps... I know I would. She will want nothing more than anything to go back in time and change the mistakes she made. She will just want to go back... to just get it right. To not trust the wrong people. To not want more than she could realistically have. To just not take the road she took that lead her where she is. When the lights go off tonight, she will be grieving. Deeply. A situation of her own making? Yes. To be sure! But the pain she is about to feel, well, that will drive home the fault, and she is now on her way to paying back those who have been wronged. Will it be enough? God, I hope so. I hope she comes out with all kinds of strength, so she never ends up down the rabbit hole again! Not only for her, but for those four girls.

I would love to see her come out of this situaiton with courage. New found courage that doesn't involve turing over tables, or living outside her means. I want to see Teresa Giudice come out of this fierce! I want to see her write a "How To" guide to prison, or maybe a prison cookbook of her own. I want to see her find her sense of humor about herself, rather than lifting herself up by the concentrating on the fall of others. I want to see her SHINE. I want her to see the beauty, like on a walk around Half Moon Bay. She missed the natural beauty of the town when she visited their a few years ago. She missed it because she was too busy dealing with the pain in her life. The things that scared her, such as the failing relationship with her husband Joe. Truth is, that relationship probably truly began to crumble right before she became famous. Fame... there's that word. Fame. Sigh. Now there is some talk that Teresa and Joe's daughter is shooting a pilot for her own "reality" show. I don't know why. Maybe to help out. Maybe to understand the world of reality TV better. Maybe to establish her own fame. If it is the last one, I have to say, God, I hope not. Teresa has a real chance to come out of this situation a smarter, more empathetic, more realistic person. I hope she will, and I hope people will let her, because isn't that the best thing for not only her victims, her family, her community and herself?  And isn't that the point?

 Fame... No Thank You.

Today, Teresa will wake up in a different world than she will go to sleep in, but by the same token, at the end of the journey, the process will swing back the other way. It's what we do with the hours in between.

The sun rises and sets on us all.

Mood: Reflective

~Me :)

Sundown At Half Moon Bay (Archived)

Photographed 2/25/14 

5:35 PM

Kodak Easy Share

Half Moon Bay, The Real Housewives Of New Jersey And The Mavericks

"Sometimes in the morning, when it's a good surf, I go out there and I don't feel like it's a bad world."

~Kary Mullis

A couple days ago, while out with the camera along the coast, I heard a familiar little bell on my phone, and when I checked, there it was, a Breaking News text from my favorite network news affiliate in the Bay Area, KGO, and what a news headline it was... "Mavericks Surf Competition Will Be Held This Friday." That's a big deal in the Bay Area, especially in Half Moon Bay, but it's an even bigger deal to surfers worldwide who come each year, when the waves are cooperating, to compete for the top prize.

Some recent changes in how spectators can view the contest make it almost impossible to be able to see it from the shoreline, but there is a viewing area where a large screen TV will show all the action. For me, that takes the fun out of it. I like being able to sit on, or near, the shore, with my camera, and see it for my own eyes, so I probably won't brave the traffic. The good news though, for the first time the Mavericks competition will be available to stream online at the official website!  And also for the first time, it will be televised on the Universal Sports Network. (See the link to the official Maverick's website, located at the bottom of this page, for all the event and viewing details).

I will watch it that way. Still, I wish I could be there in person. The news is predicting waves of record height. As high as 50ft. That is an awesome thought! So far the highest I have seen personally is about 30 ft! I think that would make for the photo of a lifetime! Someday. Maybe. We'll see. As the years go by, perhaps things will go toward better viewing conditions along the shoreline. You never know. Until then, there is always the Internet. Right?

Here are my photos from Half Moon Bay two days ago...









I have written about Half Moon Bay on this blog many times. In the context of our annual visits to the amazingly beautiful pumpkin patches, and my love for the Pacific coast shoreline. I did also mention Half Moon Bay in regards to my astonishment at the fact that the cast of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey, during season 4, stayed in Half Moon Bay, while on vacation in California, and couldn't seem to find any beauty to the town or the coast! Which still leaves me completely perplexed, because truly, I am so in love with the place that I tend to visit the area as much as possible. I can't imagine NOT loving the area. There fresh produce. The air. The sunsets. The friendly small town atmosphere. Jeepers, the place is even mentioned in a beautiful song by the group Train! What's not to love? But then, that's just my opinion.

Maverick's Invitational 

:)

So tell me, will you be tuning into the Maverick's competition? Yes/No? Tell me everything!

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Cruel Summer

"One day can change your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is is three or four big days that change everything."

~Beverly Donofrio

Maybe you are into pop culture, perhaps not. But you would have to have been living under a rock to have not heard about the indictment and arrest of Joe and Teresa Giudice, of the Real Housewives Of New Jersey. The indictment was handed down on Monday, and on Tuesday the reality star couple faced a judge and heard the 39 counts, mostly for fraud, that's been leveled against them.I am not sure why my jaw dropped when I heard the news, there has been a lot of sketchy behavior from the two, but I have to admit, to this extent, and that they could each be sentenced to up to 50 years in prison if convicted of their crimes, well... yes... it's shocking... I find it shocking for so many reasons. Not the least of which is that they four daughters, the oldest turned 13 earlier this year!

You may have read a post I wrote, almost a year ago, about how the cast of the Real Housewives Of New Jersey visited Half Moon Bay, and Napa on a working vacation and spent time outside in the natural beauty of the California coastline, but somehow failed to see anything of around them. Not the gentle, blue Pacific Ocean, not the crisp morning air, not the amazing sunsets, not the sight of grapes of every color,  maturing on the vine at the rolling vineyards throughout Napa and the surrounding towns  in Napa County. Instead they continued with what keeps that particular chapter of the Real Housewives franchise going... friendship betrayal, ignorance, gossip, lying, and a host of other devastating behaviors that feeds the ratings, while damning the future of not just the "adults" but the children who are clearly caught in the middle.

To make the latest situation all the more difficult for the Giudices, Teresa in particular, it was disclosed that Joe is not even a U.S. citizen, which means that if he is convicted, and serves time, he will almost certainly be deported back to Italy upon his release... oh but wait... I am not talking about convicted of these 39 counts of fraud... I am talking about the fraud case he was indicted on in a different New Jersey county a couple years ago. His trial for fraudulently obtaining a driver's license in his brother's name, begins in late October of this year. If convicted, he could serve 10 years for that particular case of fraud alone.

It's a mess, but is it a tragedy? Yes. It most certainly is! It's tragic when one day life is going along fine, maybe not perfect, but okay, and a decision is made that changes the course of one's life so profoundly that it can't be fixed. I think about what their wedding day must have been like. They woke up that day, two single people, and finished the day as a married couple, with the whole future ahead of them. Marriage vows include the good times and the bad, rich and lean, and every couple, on their wedding day, believes in forever. Don't they? And every couple looks at each other on that day as if they are the only people in the room. Don't they?

So, if that's true, how could this have happened? When did the day come that brought with it the idea to put it all at risk? When the first daughter was born, didn't both Joe and Teresa look at her and see forever? How about when the second, third or fourth came along? Why did material things become more important than their daughters financial and emotional future? That is the tragedy! It's tragic that those girls may lose their parents to prison. No mom to pick out their own wedding gowns with one day. No dad to be there to walk them down the aisle. No grandparents for their children. None of the special moments, moments and rights of passages spent with the people who gave them life.

"We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within."

~Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure Of Man

Call me a schmuck, but I can't help but feel devastated for these people, and the problems they have created for themselves. I find their continued denial of guilt, not just tragic, but indeed infuriating. If they could just face REALITY, perhaps they could find the peace they yearn for. But, unfortunately, it might already be too late, but who knows? I don't want to just throw away the key, but I do wish I could understand what set all this fraud in motion, not to mention asking why she has actively worked at destroying her relationship with her brother Joe, who is probably the one family member she was closest to in the whole world.

Reality TV can be blamed for a lot of things. To some extent I believe it was the pressures of Reality TV that contributed to the suicide of Russell Armstrong, husband of Taylor Armstrong, of the Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills. But like the Giudices, the Armstrong's troubles began years before they became a part of the show, in fact, the show only highlighted their clawing their way up the social latter and their incessant need to keep up with the mansion dwellers next to them. Taylor, in the opening for last season quips... "I have worked too hard for this zip code to go home now." She can say that after the suicide of Russell?

Tragic?

Yes.

Now, here are a few of my own photos of the California Coastline, and a few from Napa, to show you what the cast of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey missed on their trek up the coast.

Half Moon Bay...



Point Montara, California



Ocean Beach, San Francisco California



Glen Ellen California



I am not sure why, but July was a month of tragedies. From Anthony Weiner, an otherwise talented political figure, who worked diligently for his constituents, but couldn't control his personal life, to the crash of Asiana Flight 214, to the death of Glee actor, Cory Monteith and the revelations of his personal demons. And then there was verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. There are different schools of thoughts about the jury in that case, and the conclusion they came to, but in my own mind the law has acted as a fool, and Florida needs to reconsider the "Stand Your Ground Law" and the conditions for finding someone guilty under that law.

So, sigh, it's been a rather cruel summer, and we are only half way through. I don't remember this much bad news happening in a single month before, but I am sure there is one if you look hard enough. It's all so sad. And most of it so unnecessary. And that's the worst part. :(

 

 "Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless... ."

~Oscar Wilde

Mood: Sad

~Me