Momma

There is no other person, living, that I appreciate more than my mother. She's a great sister, wife, mother and grandmother.

We've had our rocky parts in our relationship, but we've never gone too long w/o speaking to each other. Like any other parent/child relationship, we've not seen eye to eye, we've despised each other's choices in lifestyles, and we've been crtical of each other's existence more times than I can count. But one thing I know for sure, our criticisms of each other has been fewer than our mutual genuine admiration for one another.

My mother named me after her but she switched the names around. When I was a teen I used to tease my sister that my mother hadn't planned on having additional children because she gave me all of her names, thus strengthening my argument that my sister wasn't wanted. Ok, I admit I was a bit of a gooch at times.

We were reared in a very strict, ultra conservative Christian home. We weren't allowed to wear pants, makeup, nail polish, use public swimming pools after we developed breasts, go to the movies, sleep over at friends' homes, go to parties, dances and everything all of our other friends were doing. So when I see the Muslim girls walking around w/their heads covered I can empathize because we couldn't do a lot of things 'normal' children could.

Momma taught us the Bible and the prophets, how to sew, crochet and write legibly. What she didn't enforce was cooking and being neat. While the house wasn't filthy, everything was cluttered. Today is no exception. My sister who had moved away when she was 17 came back to live w/us last year. Her biggest challenge was not living under Momma's roof again, it was all the clutter in the house! Well, she had to start cleaning and enforcing somethings and she had to learn to compromise on other things (like buying things for the house).

Momma was born in Zint, AR and moved to AZ when she was sixteen. This was the first time to see the desert, the first time to be away from her grandmother, cousins and aunts, and the first time to attend an integrated school. She laughs when she tells of how frightened she was on the first day of class when she found out her seating assignment was next to other white students. And even though some public places were still segregated, the schools were not.

She is the second daughter of five girls. Her sister Grat is my aunt who died in December. My mother and Aunt Grat were very close and even resembled each other. They frequently traveled to the Women's Conventions and other vacation spots and this will be the first Women's Convention that Momma will attend w/o Grat in about twenty years. This year I will attend in Grat's stead because Momma really wants to go and I don't want her traveling alone because of her age and because I'm really paranoid about something happening while she's away alone.

Momma never learned to drive so she's had to wait for us to drive her around but sometimes she'll take a bus shopping somewhere and be gone hours at a time. Because she refuses to carry a cell phone we have to wait for her to get home before being able to fuss about her disappearance acts in this big, dangerous city. Why do children start thinking their parents have lost their minds? I don't know about you but after my father died I've been overly protective (read: smothering) of my mother.

My mother, when we were growning up, wouldn't allow us to express too much emotion. We couldn't come to her crying and whimpering and we seldom saw her express her true emotions. On the occasions when she did let her guard down, we would be devastated and concerned. Unfortunately for her, she reared three children who are very emotional in our adulthood. I cry at Subway commercials, for God's sake and my sister is a 'waterhead', she cries so much! My younger brother is just like his mother. He keeps his emotions well hidden. I'm sure this makes my mother proud but I know how dangerous it is physically and mentally to keep all that stuff bottled up. Better to scream it out, I say.

So, I love my mother and as she approached her 67th birthday, I'm so glad she's with us and healthy. It's a blessing to have a mother like mine, one that cared for her children, taught us right from wrong, instilled morals, educated us and dressed us. Loved us and prayed for us, taught us to pray and when to pray.

Happy Birthday, Mommy. Debo loves you!

Thursday Thirteen #13

THIRTEEN WAYS MY JOB CAN BE DIFFICULT

Sometimes it pays to be the boss, other times it doesn't.

1. Hiring the right people.

2. Making sure the right people understand the requirements of the job (showing up, doing a great job, exhibiting normal acceptable social behaviour).

3. Making sure my people understand their goals and how their goals impact my goals and onward and upward.

4. Helping people understand that while they're at work they really should leave their personal issues home. There will always be exceptions, but I don't need to know that my employee and her husband are not having sex, do I?

5. Some of my employees think I'm supposed to be nursemaid, mother, adviser and Mary Poppins. I'm neither. I'm your boss. I'm supposed to empower you, treat you respectfully and provide tools and training to help them do their jobs as best they can.

6. Meeting after meeting after meeting.Ya, basta! (Enough already)!

7. Not being able to tell me employees that I think some of their actions are just the dumbest I've ever heard.

8. Trying to inspire someoone who has neither the skill nor the will to do better in their jobs.

9. Leaving the job at the job and not carrying it w/me all weekend.

10. Listening to excuses from my reps as to why they keep making the same mistake over and over.

11. Pretending to support every change handed down by my bosses.

12. Dealing w/my peers who are sometimes just as uninspired and insipid as some of my employees.

13. Running into a former employee whose employment was terminated.

Lizza sent me a great poem relating to my last post. I wanted to share it with my readers. All four of you:-) Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

'The King of Terrors', a sermon on death delivered in St Paul's Cathedral on Whitsunday 1910, while the body of King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster:
published in Facts of the Faith, 1919

Time Keeps On Slippin Into the Future

Have you ever been on one of those moving sidewalks that are used in airports? I love those things except when I'm on one and these skinny people are trotting alongside chatting and laughing, carrying two tons of baggage and still able to eventually pass me on the moving sidewalk.

Anyway, back to my thought-sometimes I feel as if I'm on one of these sidewalks moving in slow motion and all around me the world is moving, eventually passing me and I'm left staring at the backs of others who have pulled ahead of me. Getting a bit impatient, I start walking, trying to keep up w/life but the sidewalk's moving too slowly. Now I'm becoming more nervous and start running, trying to speed up or just stay in sync with my life and all too often I'm left behind.
Everytime I look around at my life and all the changes, especially since October '06 I get nervous 'cause so much has happened and I'm struggling to keep up with it all.

Sometimes I just want to go back to the summers of my youth when my family and I traveled throughout UT. I don't often revisit my childhood because it's so full of the abuse my brothers and sisters suffered from my father. I used to play a game when I was young; to forget all the instances of my father. I became so good at this game that I've covered a lot of my childhood, including friends, teachers, pets etc.

My father and I didn't have much of a relationship during my teens and up until he was felled by a stroke in 1991. At that time, working w/my mother to provide healthcare for my father, watching as he couldn't feed himself, stand by himself, dress himself or anything himself, I had to put aside those feelings I'd been harboring and start helping my father. When my father left we had a pretty good relationship. It wasn't warm and fuzzy by any means, but it was amiable.

How did I get on this? Okay, going back to what this original post should be about-time slippin away.

Tonight felt like one of the summers my Aunt Grat and Big Daddy would load up the children and drive from Boise to Ogden, UT to run revivals for the service men and women of Latham AFB. Sometimes we'd have services in the churches, other times (the best times) we'd have the services in the local parks.

My Aunt Grat would start singing and Uncle Al would be on his guitar throbbing out praise while we children would clap and sing and dance around. The older Saints would also be swaying to the music, singing and keeping the beat w/their large and powerful hands.

During the offering parts of the service we children were allowed to run around the park to get water, use the restroom and enjoy our last taste of freedom before having to sit and listen to Bigdaddy preach. Because I was always fat and asthmatic, I didn't run around as much as the others. I'd find someplace to sit and just look at the fading sunlight. I'd look eastward to find the brightest star then look westward to find the star strong enough to shine through the sun's fading power.

All too quickly we'd hear Uncle Al's guitar tune up w/the last song, signalling that the preaching was about to begin. We kids would all shuffle to empty seats and stare at our now dusty shoes, watch the adults and allow the beautiful voice of my grandfather to lull us (relunctantly) to sleep with the Promises of God ringing in our ears.

Looking at the warm AZ sky tonight I automatically looked for the brightest star in the east and tried to find the west star. That's when the memories came flooding in. This time, when I thought about all of my loved ones who have gone on before me, I felt as though I was on this slow moving sidewalk watching as my loved ones all went on ahead of me and no matter how I rushed or tried to speed up, they still left me.

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin into the future. The great thing about this--I'll see them again.

Family Friday #4

Here we go with another installment of my family and me trying to position pictures w/o tearing out my hair;-) Enjoy!

These are all great nieces and my only great nephew. They are Joel (the big guy), Malachi, Naomi, Rachel, Jazmaine & Genesis.

Mari & Selena trying to look cute in the cold.

The two Tims preparing to devour. Dinner first, then X-box.

Tracy and Serenity (Dora). Can you believe Tracy's 25? She sill looks 13 to me!

Thursday Thirteen #12

Yeah, I know it's late but it's still Thursday here in AZ (smile). Here are thirteen events that have happened this month that have me scratching my head saying, "Huh?" or rolling my eyes saying "WTW?!" or just jumping for joy!

1. Anna Nicole dies and I feel sorry for her because she's lost her life, her daughter will never know her and all these men are now claiming to be the father of the child. Why these men want to do this is soooooo crazy to me!

2. Eddie Murphy's new movie supposedly depicts big black women as being over-sexed, over-bearing and and just plain over-the-top. Well, I'm a big black woman and I'm not overly annoyed at Eddie's movie. I'll probably even go see it because I'm smart enough to know no movie will ever dictate how I should act, dress or love.

3. Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls) is on the cover of Vogue making her only the 3rd Black woman to grace its cover. And hello? She's not a size 4!

4. A 29-year old man convinced two older men that he was only 12, moved w/them across country to AZ where they lived as a normal family. Well, that is if a normal family had two fathers that regularly had sex with a 12 year old boy who was really a 29 year old man. WTW?

5. Tavis Smiley continues his rise to one of the most respected Black men in the Black community. Don't worry that you've not heard of him. You will soon.

6. Mary J. Blige takes two minutes to name 55 people during her acceptance speech at the Grammys. Mary, you couldn't have left shout outs on your web page?

7. Dragon still hasn't come out of hiding even though his Bears were a disappointment on the biggest day in Football life. I'd hang my head in shame too D-baby.

8. Tim Hardaway, in a moment of free-speech declared his hatred for all people gay. Tim, you should know better than to be open and honest in this day and age. Now you're out of a lot of money, guest spots and possibly lucrative hair colouring products with Keith Hernandez & Walt Frazier. Oh well, if Dennis Rodman can survive, you certainly will.

9. Exxonmobil says it could care less about spending money to research for cheaper, cleaner-burning fuel alternatives. It would rather keep us paying through our noses for their gas & oil.

10. Ben Stein is still one of the greatest columnists in my opinion. I eagerly look for his column in the Sunday Times as much as I used to await Roger Rosenblatt's weekly Time magazine's.

11. It's a federal offense for me to lock you in my bedroom but it's perfectly fine for you to be held for nine hours against your will on an airplane. WTW? I'd still be calling every lawyer in town if I was one of those passengers! Nine hours? Can you imagine what the toilets looked like? Oh gross!

12. My eldest niece, "Bean" received a wedding proposal last night. She said yes and thrilled us all! We're so excited. I'm gonna order a wedding planner book for her through Amazon.com and maybe Modern Bride for some ideas.

13. One of my youngest nieces is pregnant. We're upset, happy, sad. You name it, we're feeling it. Knowing how her mother struggled as a single mother should have incented her to avoid that life, wouldn't it? Oh well, it's her life so she'll have to walk the path she's chosen for herself. The good news is she'll have a great support system w/us.

Thursday Thirteen #11

THIRTEEN MOTIVATIONAL THOUGHTS TO LIVE BY

I was lurking over at Chel & Chelle's and found this on their site. It's so great I HAD to steal:-). Anyway, their list is longer than 13 so go over and view it in its entirety. Meanwhile, enjoy!

1. If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

2. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

3. Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

4. Accept that somedays you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

5. Always keep you words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

6. Never buy a car you can't push.

7. The early worm gets eaten by the bird, so sleep late.

8. When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

9. Birthdays are good for you; the more you have the longer you live.

10. Ever notice that the people who are late are often much jollier than the people who have to wait for them?

11. You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

12. Happiness comes through doors you didn't even know you left open.

This last one reminded me of my aunt. I'm still so upset she's gone but this last one helps brighten my perspection...

13. Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.

Top Ten Things to Expect From A Super Bowl Led By Two Black Coaches

My sister forwarded this to me and I think it's hilarious I thought to share with you too. Hope you're not offended.

10. "Ladies and Gentleman, this year's Super Bowl will not be starting on time..."

9. Winning coach will have a bucket of ice cold Kool-Aid dumped on him (red flavor of course).

8. Collection plates passed around at half-time.

7. Hot sauce will be the only condiment available at the concession stands.

6. "The Supabowl, brung to you by Lustrasilk and TCB No Lye Relaxer..."

5. TD Jakes will be leading the pre-game prayer.

4. "The Joe Jackson 'Hit of the Game' Award goes to..."

3. More fans in the parking lot then in the actual game.

2. Special Soul Train scramble board at half-time.

1. The bootleg of the game will be available on DVD exactly 1 week before Super Bowl Sunday (look for it at your local barbershops and beauty salons.

What A Great Day!

Ever have one of those days where EVERYTHING goes right? Well today was my day! Today was a perfect day. I woke and went to church with my sister, then we hit the grocery store to pick up the ingredients required to compose our low-fat, tasty dinner.

If I had thought about it I would have taken pictures of my meal. Oh well, you'll just have to trust me. For the appetizer: spicy ahi tuna sushi rolls. Dinner: mussel & clam stew w/crusty bread and menudo. Dessert: fudge brownie.

I don't know why I thought we could cook while the Game was on. After an overcooked pot of mussel stew and two knife injuries later, we decided it's a better idea to cook BEFORE the game. Thank God I didn't cut off my fingers. Blood and sushi rice is never a good combination!

The Game was awesome! I feel so proud to be represented by the two Black coaches ever to in NFL history to make it to the Super Bowl. I'm so glad the Colts won (Dragon, if you're reading this, you must not know 'bout me). After seeing Vinatieri miss that first field goal and watching all the fumbles I was getting a bit bored. But those interceptions were exciting enough to regain and keep my attention. Nothing like an exciting game.

So I'm sitting here writing about my great day and winding down. At halftime, most of my guests went to another party and although I was invited, I didn't feel like being around a bunch of people. I just wanted to sit on the love seat and be close to my own restroom. After eating all that stuff I just knew I'd be needing private facilities before the game was over (wink).

Well Bloggerland, I'm off to get ready for next week's work-week where I "bear the cross for the boss." Hope you each had a wonderful day and a great week ahead.

Family Friday #3

More pictures of my family:



"Mooka" and Selena build a gingerbread house.











Here's the completed gingerbread people.







My little brother "Godfrey" and his daughter "Butterfly".







Mommy! And cousin Willie

My brother Joel and his baby "Saundra".

THIRTEEN THINGS I'D DO IF I WON THE $240M LOTTERY

You ever hear people, after they've won or inherited large sums of money say, "Money will NEVER change me!"? Well, I know thirteen things that will change if I won all this money. Hey, it's my dream, leave me alone:-)

1. Money will change my zip code. Just like the Jeffersons, I'm gonna move on up to a deluxe house over in Mar-Lago, right next to Donald Trump and his rich friends. And for winter trips, I'll use that multi-room single level cabin on my 2k acreage in Wyoming.

2. Money will change my phone number. My home number. My cell. My Blackberry. My fax number. Every number to reach me because I don't want to hear from my broke-tailed family calling me trying to make a connection now. Can't call or come by today? Don't call and come by when I'm rich!

3. Money will change my dress size. Just like Rosie did for Oprah, I'm going to find a personal live in chef to make my meals. Heck, I may even hire someone to FEED me. Everything good to eat and beneficial will be ready at every meal. Then, I'll hire a personal trainer to motivate and show me how to exercise the right way.

4. Money will change my license plate. Yep. I know all about global warming, but after cashing that check I'm buying the biggest, bluest Chevy Yukon. It will have Bose speakers, DVD screens on each back seat, GPS, Bluetooth, toothpaste, anything I think I'll need. My license plate will read HESA1DA which interpreted is He's a Wonder. Church folks know all about this old song.

5. Money will change my charitable contributions. Currently I contribute through my job, and I pay tithes, 10% of my income. A windfall will allow me to help smaller churches, the UNCF, Historically Black Colleges, AIDs research, and education.

6. Money will change my travel destinations. Yes, yes y'all I'm traveling the QE2, roundtrip. Dubai in the Spring. New York for the Christmas tree lighting and New Years in Switzerland.

7. Money will change the amount I can contribute to trading stocks and bonds etc. I'm currently in an investment club and we contribue $25 monthly. When I get my money, I'll be living off interest and lunching with Warren Buffett.

8. Money will change my skin type. Canyon Ranch, here I come! I'll have so many skin treatments my skin will look like a black velvet glove, it wil be so soft. No more pores so large you can hide coins. My skin will be taunt and glowing (this includes any plastic surgery deemed necessary).

9. Money will change the plastic in my wallet. I'll have the American Express Titanium card, the Starwoods card, and the American Express Red card which will contribute aid to Africa with every purchase made on the card. See? By spending lavishly, I'll be helping someone else. Who knew?

10. Money will change my mother's healthcare. No more quibbling about insurance approval for tests, no more being denied some health plan because she's a property owner. Our doctor will still do house calls, why you playin!

11. Money will certainly change my datebook. To the left, to the left all you suckers who ever farted and walked all over me. I'm gonna have notices of my new found wealth personally delivered in a singing telegram. Included will be a picture of my big fat a$$ with puckered lips that they can strategically paste anywhere on the picture.

12. Money will change my niece's and nephews' educational well being. Not just private school, 'cause I know private school can mess up a kid, but tutoring and exposure to things they'd never get in public school.

13. Money will change my daydreams because instead of daydreaming about what to do w/money, I'll actually have money and will be able to attend any football game, in style. I may even get a chance to sit in Jerry Jones' personal box. Like the late Godfather said, may he soon get buried (come on people what's up?), "Money talks, bullsh-- walks." Move over Jerry. You must not know 'bout me.