Sacrificial Lamb

There was a meeting last night to discuss the fact that Houston ISD is planning to close the high school I went to and merge it with another high school, build a new school and then adopt the mascot and name of the other high school. Folks in the community are upset and rightfully so. Who wants to see their alma mater shut down??  This meeting was supposed to be to gather community “input” but many folks acknowledge that unless a miracle happens, it’s pretty much a done deal.

However, many of the more recent graduates pointed out  in comments on the FB meeting invite that the community around my high school is in decay (and to be frank was always low income when I was there 20 years ago), the school itself is bad shape as it was built right after World War II, and the enrollment is less than half (530) of what the capacity can hold (around 1200 students).  Test scores are horrible and there has been a revolving door of administrators.  Parental and alumni support has been negligible. In fact, many of  more recent alumni commented that they welcomed the merger and subsequent building of a new facility as they felt it would benefit the community and future students.

I feel somewhat guilty because I agree with them.

I did not grow up in the community where my high school is located. I got up every morning to catch a 6:20 AM bus crosstown because of the gifted and talented program located there. That was the only reason I went. I enjoyed my time there and the friends that I made, but I don’t really have a strong connection to my high school at all. In 2002, the parents of the students in the gifted and talented program lobbied the district to move the program out of my high school to make it a stand alone one, first at an unused elementary school and finally to a brand new high school located in a gentrifying area right near downtown Houston. When the GT programs moved, the death knell basically sounded for my high school.

I feel bad because I felt like perhaps I should have done more as an alumni, that perhaps I should be more up in arms about this. After all this is a predominately Black and Hispanic community that is about to lose their neighborhood school. On the other hand, my practical side thinks that if the school has basically gone to shit, why shouldn’t the folks in the area, who DO pay school taxes like every other resident of the District get a decent school for their children? Why should their hard earned dollars continue to be used to put lipstick on a pig??? But even worse, why are the people in the community getting outraged NOW? Especially when it’s pretty much too late.

I’ll always cherish the memories, but Myron made a good point when we were talking about it, sometimes growth requires sacrifice.

I wonder if I should have sacrificed a bit more myself.

I Have Questions, You Have Answers: Round 10

This is shamelessly stolen from my Twitter follower @WitTitsOrSTFU. Thanks, dude!

• Where do you live now?
• Where were you living when you graduated from high school?
• Where were you living when you graduated from college?
• Comparing where you lived when you graduated HS vs graduating from College, which area would you prefer?
• Did you live on campus during college? If you lived at home during college, did you have a curfew?
• If you didn’t go to college after HS, what did you do?
• Where were you living in 1996?
• Where were you living in 2008?
•  Do you keep in touch with any of your college roommates?
• What’s the farthest you’ve traveled for a wedding?
•  If you’re going on vacation this year, where are you going?
•  What’s the farthest you’ve walked, and why?

What’s In A Name?

I didn’t watch the Academy Awards last night because they are too long and boring and I was tired from my out of town trip, but I did periodically check my Twitter account to see what my timeline had to say about the show. Mostly there were tweets about how Seth McFarlane pretty much sucked and that per the usual, the show ran WAY too long. So I got ready for bed and figured I didn’t miss much.

I got in bed and grabbed my phone (I have an addiction, I know), settled in and pulled up Twitter again to see folks final commentary and when I logged back it my feed was ON FIYAH. Apparently the Onion, a website known for its biting satire had called a 9 year old girl a very ugly name. I’m not going to link them but this blog post pretty much gives a good summary.

I typically don’t hop on the Twitter bandwagon about a lot of things because if you did, you’d be mad about something every 30 seconds and half the time it’s faux outrage but I have a 7 year old niece and I certainly wouldn’t want her called out of her name. It’s very telling that there have been other Oscar nominees who have been children who apparently are off limits, but when a little black girl dares to correct someone about how to pronounce her name, then it’s a problem. I get that Quevenzhane Wallis is a celebrity and is in the public eye, but she’s still a kid. There was a time in our society when kids were exempt from public ridicule and attack. Apparently that time has passed. This should be one of the happiest days of her life and it’s tarnished because some asshole on a Twitter account thinks it’s cute and funny to call out a kid in the name of laughs. I’ll be first to say that people, black folks especially, have a knack for coming up with some creative names for children. I have seen some names that have made me shake my head and wonder how to pronounce them. But the point is, a person’s name is a person’s name and they have to right to be called by that name. And calling children, be they celebrities or the 9 year old around the corner words used to crudely describe female genitals is bad business and out of line.

I’m getting tired of the coarseness of pop culture and the mindset that anything goes and you can’t tell folks shit cause they can do what they want. Unbeknownst to them there ARE boundaries and there are folks who still believe in common decency.

I took the time to drop a few sentences to the good, fine upstanding folks at the Onion and I hope you will too. Here’s how to get at them:

Please send all press inquiries to: press@Theonion.com

Chairman David Schafer (davidkschafer@gmail.com)

President and CEO Steve Hannah (shannah@Theonion.com)

COO Mike McAvoy (mmcavoy@Theonion.com)

Update: The Onion apologized. Yeah, no. The comments on the status are a mixed bag. Read at your own risk.

Ambition

When I first graduated from college, like most naive kids I thought I was going to be much like Pinky and the Brain, and take over the world. By the time I was 40, I thought I would be a big time bank branch manager with a staff, making long money. I never aspired to be CEO, but I’d be damn close to it!

Of course, life never turns out quite like you expected. I’ve got quite a bit of good experience in my years in Corporate America and I am definitely a senior level professional, but I’m not in management. Part of of that is circumstance, I’ve worked at several different companies and my tenures haven’t been particularly long but part of it is by design, I’ve seen what my friends who manage people have to deal with and I’d rather herd cats. Managing people and getting them to execute is more than a notion. I wouldn’t mind being a manager, as long as managing people doesn’t come along with it. I do have friends who have those titles. But as long as I can continue to get paid well, I’m good with being on the professional track. I guess I adjusted my level of ambition over the years. *shrugs*

What about you? Are you where you want to be career wise? Are you a manager? Or are you pretty good with what you are doing and where you are at??

Odds And Ends: Hump Day Edition

• I’m thinking about doing a vlog for ya’ll. Do I need to set up a YouTube channel and alla that? Do I have to wear make-up? Where is the best place to film a vlog in your house? As you can see I have questions..lots of them.
• Do you have the Songza app on your phone? This Essential Motown playlist is giving me ALL OF THE LIFE right now!
• I’m eating cake right now at work. Don’t tell Myron.
• I’ve been trying to get the energy up to do some real blogging instead of all these Odds and Ends random ass posts but every time I think of a topic I want to talk about, I forget it.
• Cassandra at Cohab Chronicles links to this blog called Friday 5 for post ideas. I think I’m going to start using some of these prompts. I really want to write, it’s just sometimes the flesh is weak…and then it falls asleep.
• Shit married people do: walk around the house singing the operatic version of “As Long As My B*tches Love Me” by Lil Wayne/Future/Drake. Said lyrics go like this:I’m on that good kush and alcohol/I got some down b*tches I can call
  I don’t know what I would do without y’all/I’mma ball til the day I fall

• Yeah, we’re a bit ratchet and a whole lot of silly. But it was funny though! LMAO!!!
• Are ya’ll watching House of Cards on NetFlix? That shit is crazy good!!!
• We are history nuts so we are looking forward to watching The Bible and Vikings on the History Channel. March 3rd cant get here fast enough.
• March 3rd is also my brother’s birthday. He’ll be 28. I feel really old now.  *sigh*
• I normally look forward to the NBA All-Star games and skill challenges like the 3 Point Shoot Out and Slam Dunk contests. They were absolutely horrible this year. And I didn’t even bother to watch the actual All Star game. I did turn back long enough to see Alicia Keys crash and burn. That was vindication enough.
• How does a grown man slap a toddler on a plane, call the kid a racial slur, and be able to walk off the plane under his own power?? Shouldn’t there be dismemberment involved?
• I have eaten ALL this cake and drunk some punch. I really need a nap now.
• That’s all I got for a Wednesday afternoon. What are ya’ll doing??

Muddling Through

This post has been in my head for a few days but I’ve been struggling to get it out and on the screen. As I’ve alluded to and if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve made mention of being back on the interview grind. I’m not ready happy about it either. I am working and I am certainly grateful for full time employment and weekly paychecks but this role is just a means to an end. It’s contract which means when I don’t work, I don’t get paid. When I sick, I don’t get paid. If I have a dentist appointment, I don’t get paid. Notice a pattern there?? When I took this role, I decided that I wouldn’t get comfortable again, and I haven’t. But I still don’t like the grind of interviewing.

 I was talking to my mom the other day, and she knows I’ve been interviewing and we started to talk about my old job and I realized something. I am still very angry about being fired. I really thought I had processed and unpacked my feelings about that entire situation but after I got off the phone with her after venting about a job that I haven’t been to in almost 4 months, but apparently I haven’t.

 So I’m mad. I’m mad because I have a lot of movement on my resume in my 20s and early 30s and I think it’s hindering me somewhat as I stare age 40 dead in the face. I’m mad because I had a job that I really liked and people that I liked working with that at a decent company, with decent benefits and a really decent boss (well before I ended with the demon that fired me). I’m mad because I got fired and even the HR rep knew it was some bullshit and said as much. I’m mad because this company was supposed to be my last stop, at least for a while, where I could build some tenure and perhaps move around to a few different roles and now I’m back out here in a still somewhat down economy, grinding.

 I’ve actually had several interviews and phone screens in the last month or so, but I’m mad that employers are assholes and don’t even have the decency to tell you if you have gotten the job, especially if you took time off to interview (recall that don’t work, don’t get paid thing, right).

 I’m mad at myself because the folly of my youth is catching up with me and biting me in the ass. I’m mad because I’m ashamed to be complaining when there are folks who still need jobs. I’m mad because I shouldn’t be comparing myself to some of my friends who have been at their companies for 10 years and I’ve had multiple jobs in that time, but I do. I’m mad because I thought I knew what to do next and I don’t.

 So yeah, I’m kind of muddling through right now. And I’m kinda mad right now. Sorry.

 But not really.

Odds And Ends: The Call of Nature Edition

How was your weekend? Mine was great!

•  Friday night, hubs and I went to hang out with Beautifully Complex, her fiance’ and his brother at Fedora Lounge. Little did we know that it turns into the club after 10pm complete with valet parking. In a strip shopping center.  Doing too much you say? We thought so too but a good time was had by all.
• Saturday, we lounged around and had a hearty breakfast, then took a nap and then dragged oourselves from the couch to head to a baby shower for some friends of ours. We went, ate (really good baby shower food), cooed, oohed and ahhed and then made a break for it to go to the main event of the evening: Serious Cigars Customer Appreciation Event. Beautifully Complex’s fiancé is a diehard cigar buff and he invited us to come to this party that his cigar shop has every year. Free food, free open bar with top shelf likka and prize giveaways?? What’s NOT to love!! Here are a couple of pics from the party.




• Sunday, I was lying in the bed resting quietly when Myron came in our bedroom and mentioned that he wanted to check out this restaurant that he’d saw on TV that morning. The place is called Lucille’s and we hit up their brunch. Here are some Instagram shots I took.






• We’re family right? So we can share things with each other right? Good. Because I want to rap a taste about the middle of the night pee. Yes, THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT PEE. The MOTNP is when you are deep in the REM sleep and dreaming about the things you would do to Idris Elba (if you weren’t married) and the urge comes on so STRONG. Yet, you try to suppress the call of nature because you are in that good ass sleep and it’s Idris, yanno?? But the URGE defeats you and you stumble out of bed to the bathroom, in the dark but luckily since you are a girl, you just need to sit (provided that dude you live with has put the seat down) and you don’t need to cut on the light to harm your delicate eyes. So you do your business, stumble back to bed, poke your husband in the butt so he can move back over, lie down and get comfortable. And you can’t get back to sleep. MOTNP – I hate you.
• That’s all I got! What’s going on with you?????

Odds And Ends: The Tuesday Edition

• I’m really wishing this recruiter would call me back about scheduling this second interview. I gave her dates and times I was available on Friday.
• Myron and I were both sick as dogs about a week ago. Two sick married people in the house is no fun. We were both very stabby.
• The weirdest thing about being sick (we both had upper respiratory crud) was that my ass hurt. Like I could barely walk hurt..pain all in the hip bones hurt. I started to break down and use Myron’s crutches. My booty is fine now though, thanks for asking.
• The Z-Pack is your friend.
• We finally saw Django Unchained this weekend. The scene with the Ku Klux Klan members arguing over the pillowcases…funniest shit ever. It got 2 thumbs up from the Macks. Next up for us: Zero Dark Thirty
• Nerd Girl is hosting the book club over at her spot again this year. Since I was a lame and didn’t participate ANY last year, she made me pick the first book of 2013. We’ll be discussing on February 11^th.
• Taking hubs to a co-ed baby shower this weekend. THIS should be interesting.
• Looking to go to Puerto Rico in the fall. I think the 52 week savings challenge will be the vacation fund.
• We’re back in the gym tonight after an absence. Pray my strength I don’t pass out on the treadmill.
• Myron cooked yesterday’s and today’s dinner last night. Today’s dinner is going to be SO good that I’ve been quietly seat twerking about it all day. What??? You don’t do the happy dance for good food? Just me? Oh.
• I had a meeting with one of the managers that I support yesterday to make some changes to his financial model. Why hasn’t he sent them to me yet? Why do I have to chase down people who need me to do work for them? The joys of Corporate America.
• I really wish I was independently wealthy.
• That’s all I got, what’s going on with you??

On A Centennial

Today is January 13, 2013.

One hundred years ago today, 22 college educated black women conceived an organization for the betterment of women, the African American race and on a larger scale, mankind. The fact that they were even able to visualize such an ideal during a time when most woman and all blacks were considered lesser than in greater society is amazing itself.

I’m not going to go into the history of my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. You can go online and look at our website or pick up the excellent book, “In Search of Sisterhood” by Soror Paula Giddings. I’m not going to get into the struggles that affect black Greek lettered organizations, because what affects one, affects them all.

Instead, I’m going to tell you what being a Delta means to me. I was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. via the Eta Beta chapter in the spring of 1994. I was 20 years old. I was a finance major and active in several clubs on campus. I was watching the Deltas like a hawk. The Deltas on campus were the bomb..they were the president of this club and that club, our campus queen was a Delta, top administrators were Deltas and I wanted to be just like them.  I went to the rush, along with several hundred other girls, and submitted my application. I waited on pins and needles for a call for an interview and when it came, I cried. But I wasn’t there yet. I interviewed and waited some more. It was make or break time. Did my service, grades and recommedations speak enoiugh on my behalf?? It all came down to the vote of those women in that chapter. It did. I “made line” and entered into the sisterhood with 28 other women on that spring day in April.

I reflect on that day nearly 19(!) years ago and I think of the hours of service to those less fortunate, the thousands of dollars collected in dues in fundraisers for scholarships and donations to other non-profits, the hours spent planning and meeting thinking of programming that assist our communities and youth and I don’t think people really truly realize that all this WORK is done by an ALL VOLUNTEER ARMY. This is not a boast or a a “humble brag” but simply the truth. While it is certainly true that you don’t need to be in a sorority to do community service, I certainly believe that the collective efforts of my sorority have a greater impact as a whole.

Growing up without any sisters, my sorors have become the sisters I never had. Whenever I have needed a listening ear or to be tapped on the shoulder because I may have been getting out of line, my sorors have been there for me. Through college and grad school, marriages, babies, divorces and deaths, we’re still standing together. We all get busy with life, but one phone call is all it takes to reconnect. That type of bond is invaluable and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. Sorority life is not for everyone, and I respect that. But it was for me and I am glad to be in the fold.

Happy Centennial to my beloved Delta Sigma Theta!!! My first love is, and will always be..D-S-T!!!!

Food Friday: TIH’s Chicken Bryan

 

 

 

 

 

 

I originally wanted to try the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for chicken with goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes but when I realized I was going to have to layer the cheese and tomatoes under the skin before I baked it I decided not to because I have texture issues.

So I decided to do a quick search for a similar type recipe and then I remembered that I like the Chicken Bryan at Carrabba’s which is essentially the same thing. So here is the recipe I used from food.com.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used 4, but cut them in half to make 8 pieces because they were so thick.)

kosher salt, to taste

fresh ground pepper, to taste

olive oil

4 ounces goat cheese (I used about 6 oz. for 8 pieces)

6 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

2 -4 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped

4 teaspoons onions, minced

4 teaspoons garlic, minced

8 tablespoons butter, divided

6 tablespoons white wine (I used pinot grigio.)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1 large lemon’s worth)

Directions:

1)  Brush chicken on both sides with olive oil, season to taste with Kosher salt and cracked pepper.

2)  Grill chicken until done (internal temp of 165F) – prepare lemon butter sauce while chicken is grilling.

3)  Sautee onion and garlic in 2 Tbps butter until soft and fragrant.

4)  Add white wine and lemon juice, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 10 minutes to reduce.

5)  Add remaining 6 Tbsp butter, a little at a time, until it melts and mixture is emulsified.

6)  Add chopped sun-dried tomatoes and basil, heat until hot (but do not overheat or sauce may break).

7)  Top nearly-done chicken breasts with 2 oz each of the goat cheese until cheese warms and softens.

8) To serve, spoon lemon butter sauce over chicken breasts.

Probably the only change I would make is slicing the chicken breasts length wise to make them thinner cause mine were so thick and actually grilling them (like on the grill or in a grill pan). I sauteed them and they turned out fine but they didn’t have the grill marks on them. The picture below is how they turned out for me.

Enjoy!