Currently…

This is a good way to slide a blog in on ya’ll!

ENJOYING – How quiet the office gets when it’s Friday and everyone has gone to lunch.

LOVING – the new lip glosses that I just ordered. (Thanks @3kids1036!)

FEELING – like I don’t want to do any work for the rest of the afternoon since I’m going to be mad busy all next week.

THINKING ABOUT – the couples dinner that we’re going to tomorrow evening at this place – Mockingbird Bistro. Can’t wait!

LISTENING TO: My Dirty South-Midwest Rap playlist on Spotify. I got over 200 songs, yo!

WATC HING – 24:Live Another Day..I’m behind on my episodes but I’m going to binge and catch up this weekend. Jack Bauer is back, baby!

MAKING ME HAPPY – My husband, who puts up with my shenanigans!

Have a good weekend!!!

 

 

 

What Has Always Bothered Me About 12 Years A Slave

First let me say that I have not seen the movie. I have a copy of the book that I haven’t read yet. So I am not commenting on the acting at all. I’m quite sure it’s a magnificent film. 

A friend posted the following article on FB:  Lupita Nyong’o And What It Means To Be Black

This was my response in her status:

This is a great article. I must admit that while I’m thrilled that Lupita won, it makes me feel some type of way that it took a British director, a British actor and a Kenyan actress to tell a Black American story about slavery. Other blacks in the Disapora love to look down their noses at us ‘regular Blacks’ without acknowledging that they were the ones who sold us down the river. Then they come the US and don’t bother to understand the racial dynamic in play while they benefit off the sacrifices on my ancestors. I’ve written a book. I shouldn’t have blogged in your comments! Lol!

As a descendant of American slaves, this bothers me. A lot. It’s like having a small pebble in your shoe while you are walking down the street. And I probably sound petty but were there no Black American actors and actresses who were considered for the roles? Maybe there were..maybe there weren’t, I don’t know. And yes I realize that slavery existed in quite a few places, like the Carribean and Brazil, but this ain’t about those places. I’m glad the movie got made, I’m certainly glad Solomon Northup’s story was shared with the masses but still…it just doesn’t sit too well with me.

Bowlarama!

Above are a few pictures from Myron and I’s 40th birthday bowling party on this past Saturday.  (And yes, I semi-bowled in a dress..LOL!)

We had a really good time, despite the fact I stressed myself out unnecessarily about the guest list. We paid for 20 folks to bowl, eat and drink which as you can imagine wasn’t all that cheap.  I had to chase folks down for responses and some people that I thought we going to come declined to show. And I was upset about that I must admit. It’s not that I don’t think folks don’t have their own lives and social calendars, but my husband and I really try hard to support folks when they have an event so I was a bit salty about some of the folks who declined. And of course I was all in my feelings about it, because I consider myself a loyal friend. But much like my peeps on Twitter and my husband pointed out, I have to give people the opportunity to explain themselves and they did. After a lecture from my husband (he secretly enjoys that, I think) about getting my mind right, I was OK and got my grown and sexy on to go kick it!

But at any rate, we had a good turn out! I had all that anxiety and drama for nothing.  We ate, drank and were very merry and got some nice gifts. I wasn’t expecting anything so that was such a nice blessing. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness. And I collected some rain checks for birthday lunches from some of my friends who couldn’t make it! #WINNING

Forty is starting out on a high note thus far!! I’m ready to keep it rolling!

Thirty Nine

Today is the last day of my fourth decade on this planet. I turn 40 tomorrow. I’m still unpacking that in my head. I. AM. TURNING. FORTY. YEARS. OLD.

I feel some kind of way about it ..I think.

It seems like yesterday that I was graduating from college, then hustling to find a job, then moving to Dallas for said job, then hating Dallas and running back home after 6 months, leaving my college boyfriend in the process. Then I dated a good friend that I’d known since college, then broke up with him, started and finished grad school, bought a house, ran the streets with my sorors and other girlfriends, traveled out of the country for the first time, had good dates and horrible ones and suddenly I was 30. It’s like my twenties were a blur.

At 39, the memories of my fourth decade are more crystalline, more frozen in time, more focused. I guess as you get older, you want to trap more of those memories in your subconscious.

In my thirties I:

• Sold my house
• Moved to Minnesota for my then boyfriend
• Proved to myself I could live somewhere else and have a good life
• Left a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere and moved back home
• Dated an ex (for the second time) that I shouldn’t have
• Got therapy when I needed it
• Went to the Bahamas and swam with dolphins
• Saw Prince in concert
• Bought another house
• Got laid off/fired a couple of times
• Lost my final remaining grandparent
• Met the coolest dude on the planet
• Planned and pulled off a wedding for 150 people
• Married that really cool dude
• Got a lesson about who is a true friend and who wasn’t
• Saw the Grand Canyon
• Became an aunt to my brother’s 2 adorable children
• Put my feet in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico
• Supported my spouse in the loss of his dear mother
• And really for the most part came into my own

I’m sure my life event list could be longer but those are some of the ones that really stick out to me. And that’s what is so wild, that’s just ten years’ worth of stuff. Now that I read that, I guess I don’t feel so uneasy about turning the big four oh after all. It might be just another day, but it’s another day I get to learn, growth, evolve and LIVE.

Now that’s worth celebrating, don’t you think?

I’m Still Here

My life hasn’t had too many words as of late but perhaps the pictures can speak for me.

We had a very good Easter:

My mom and my niece in their Easter dresses.

Miss Chandler is missing some front teeth!

Happy Easter from the Macks!

Daddy’s little girl.

It’s spring time in Houston (FINALLY) and Lent is over so it’s time for crawfish!! We went to the Pearland Crawfish Festival this weekend.

Corn, potatoes and bugs..10 pounds worth!

Lots of ducks to win a prize.

The brothers Mack: middle, oldest, youngest.

And of course, everyone loves a Carnival!

 

Hopefully it’s warming up where you are!

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??

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?????

I Have Questions, You Have Answers: Round 9

You know the drill, chat at me in the comments!

• What’s on your Christmas present wish list? If you have kids, what do they want?
• Are you doing anything charitable for the holiday season?
• Been to any holiday parties? How were they?
• What are your plans for Christmas? Are you traveling anywhere?
• What’s on your Christmas dinner menu?
• Do you even celebrate Christmas?
• What are your plans for New Year’s Eve?
• Are you ready for 2013??

Odds And Ends: It’s Monday, Bishes!

• How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. We laid low on Friday and Myron whipped up a tasty curry chicken dish. Our house was smelling like an Indian restaurant all evening. I’ll have to snag the picture off his FB page to show you guys.
• Saturday was a lot of sleeping. We woke up, ate French toast, fell asleep again, woke up and ran a few errands to pick up some shoes I’d ordered and hubs got an early Christmas present: a new Nexus 7 tablet. I’ve played with it a bit, I’ll try to have a full review up sometime this week.
• Hung out with my BIL and my homegirl @CaliGirlED to watch some football yesterday and my Houston Texans are 11-1, baby! Bulls on Parade! My husband had a GREAT time and is currently at work drinking a LOT of water. 🙂
• Got a pedicure yesterday. What’s the big deal you say? Well the fact is that I got BLUE TOE NAIL POLISH!!! LOL! Being that I am risk adverse and resistant to change from my normal pinks, red and oranges..going blue is a walk on the wild side. Hubs liked it too. Now green polish is probably a bit too much for my delicate sensibilities right now.
• I decided I’m going to do some Christmas cards this year. I felt quite trifling after all the nice ones we got last year from folks. Hubs wants to take pictures but it’s December 3rd, I might need to get in where I fit in with these cards.
• Does anyone out there use Amazon Prime? I signed up for it to get free shipping when I ordered a case for Myron’s tablet and you get 30 days free. Is it worth the $80 bucks per year??
• Read this article on the NY Times site this morning and had a lot of say about it on Twitter –

College isn’t for everyone, but EYE cannot in good conscience suggest to a black/brown kid to skip college/trade school/military svc when the majority of our black/brown kids are already undereducated coming out of high school. Per the usual, the NYTimes article is written from a place of privilege and that’s annoying. The playing field for US that encourages entrepreneurship is still not level and the barriers to entry to run your own business for people of color are still very high. Not to say that it cannot be done because it is occurring, but right now if I had a kid, I’d be sending them to college.

That’s all I got this morning..what’s going on random with you?

 

 

At The Movies With The Macks: Skyfall/Lincoln

Hubs and I took in a couple of a flicks over the last few weekends in Skyfall, the 23rd installment of Sir Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 and Lincoln, Steven Spielberg’s film about our 16th President.

Let’s start with Skyfall. I’ve always been a casual fan of the Bond series and really started to pay attention when Pierce Brosnan stepped into the role because I was a fan of the TV series Remington Steele when I was a kid and always found him to be super Rico Suave, even when he was kicking the ass of some villain. But since Daniel Craig took over the role with 2006’s Casino Royale and became the first blond Bond, I’ve been really paying some attention. Not only because Daniel Craig is sizzling HOT but because he brings a certain grittiness to the role of 007. Dare I say it…James Bond likes to get grimy and me likey quite a bit. At any rate, I looked forward to Skyfall and it did not disappoint.  There was less overall action (but there is a fantastic chase scene to kick off the movie) than Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace but the story line was more nuanced, as it took the viewer into the pasts of both M and 007  and even dared to query if 007 and his spycraft was outdated and passe’. Since this is the 50th anniversary of the Bond film series, the nods to the past were quite appropriate. The movie wraps up at Bond’s abandoned childhood home with a twist you won’t expect and I’ll leave with you that. This is a definite must see. Read a review from the LA Times here.

*********************

I have to admit that Myron wanted to see Lincoln more than I did, being that he is a big history buff in general and is interested in the Civil War specifically. Now don’t get scared and think this is a sprawling, epic (read boring and long) bio-pic about Lincoln’s entire life. It isn’t. Instead, Spielberg smartly chooses the 4 month period between January and April 1865 to frame the movie, when Lincoln, fresh off re-election attempts to get 2 big ticket items accomplished: end the Civil War and get the 13th Amendment passed, which would abolish slavery. Spielberg quite deftly weaves in several story lines such as the relationship between Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln who is grieving the loss of their son Willie, the tension between Lincoln and his oldest son Robert, who has been forbidden to join the Union Army, and the back room dealings that the Lincoln cabinet had to undertake to get the necessary votes (these scenes are some of the funniest of the film). Tommy Lee Jones is a straight up scene stealer as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, an aging abolitionist and has a very interesting back story based on historical fact. Daniel Day-Lewis melts into character as Lincoln, down to the halting deliberate gait that he was known to have.

A comment related to the slavery story line: I noted a bit of discussion on my social media feeds about the lack of screen time given to the treatment of slaves in the movie. There is a notable opening scene where two black Union slaves speak with Lincoln and one dares to question the President about further rights for blacks and there are a few other scenes involving Lincoln’s house servants, who are both free people of color and his interaction with them, but to be fair this was not a movie expressly about slavery. It was first and foremost a film about trying to get the 13th Amendment ratified and the inner workings of Washington DC government at that time period. It’s a political movie that just happens to be tackling a difficult, soul wrenching topic. I think it’s done quite masterfully. This is a definitely a must see (in particular for older children and teens) and needs to be added to your DVD collection as well. Read the NY Times review here.

Are you planning to see Skyfall or Lincoln this holiday season? What other films are on your to be seen list?