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??

WWYD???

• You are a sassy single chick.
• You make plans to attend a NYE party with a single, platonic male friend.
• When ya’ll meet up, there’s another chick in the car with him. You didn’t know she was coming, but whatevs.
• When you get to the party, the party hosts want guests to remove their shoes at the door.
• You have on heeled boots that are difficult to get on and off and you don’t want to take them off.
• The hosts make you sit in the kitchen.
• Your male friend is texting you and tells you that you offended the hosts.
• The hosts tell you that you need to leave. You get mad (understandably) and tell your male friend to take you to your car.
• He says he’s too drunk to drive and offers to call you a cab.

Do you:

1. Take your soon-to-be-former male friend up on the cab offer and get the hell out of there??
2. Stomp out the house, walk 2 miles in high-heeled boots, in the dark, in a strange area on NYE to the nearest convenience store and call a cab from there to get back to your car??

WHAT WOULD YOU DO??????

(Editor’s Note: This did actually happen. This is the condensed version.)

This Can’t Be Life…

Myron has a very bad habit of making me watch TV shows or movies that I don’t really want to watch and then they turn out to be good and shit. Makes me mad too! I hate getting caught up! LOL!

So last night, I come downstairs and once again, he’s watching something that I have no interest in watching, National Geographic Channel’s Locked Up Abroad. Here’s a link about the show: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/locked-up-abroad/

The premise is this: folks go overseas for business or pleasure, and end up in the pokey for various reasons. The episode that I got caught up in last night was about a chick named Lucy, a British nursing student who gets hooked on crack, racks up enormous debt and is convinced by a “friend” that the solution to her money woes is to be a drug mule transporting cocaine back to the UK from Argentina.

Brilliant, right?? But this chick’s story was so wild, that it didn’t seem believable. She gets caught trying to leave Argentina, hitchhikes across the country alone (and she’s a single, white woman at that..o_O) with a map and 2 dollars, gets to the Brazil border with no passport to go through the crossing, swims across a damn river to get into Brazil, hitchhikes some more to Sao Paulo, gets to the British Embassy to get an emergency passport and then manages to catch a flight back to the UK.

Seriously? This can’t be life can it? I have to admit that I couldn’t really believe it, even though the real life person narrated the program. Who manages to maneuver across a South American country with little to no funds?

When I go on vacation, I’m trying to stay out of trouble and out of the reach of the local authorities. I’m trying to go sight seeing and lay my ass on the beach..and not not go “hiking” in countries at war with the US (remember this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23hikers.html).  Swimming across rivers and fighting off lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my!) is not my idea of fun.

So that’s why I watch these silly people on shows like Locked Up Abroad…and blame my husband for getting me caught up in watching these train wrecks on TV! LOL!

Do you watch Locked Up Abroad too?

Link Love Special Edition: Trayvon Martin

Some of the bloggers I’ve been reading and their reactions to the Trayvon Martin case:

The Black Snob: No Apologies: On The Killing of Trayvon Martin and Being “Good”

Nineteen Sixty Nine: Heavy Heart

Average Bro: Random Thoughts About Trayvon Martin

Carolyn Edgar:  CNN Blogs and on her personal blog

Los Angelista: All her posts related to Travyon Martin

Very Smart Brothas: Let’s Talk About Trayvon Martin Today

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Sham Investigation Into Trayvon Martin’s Killing

Andrew Cohen: Travvon’s Martin Killer Was Looking For Trouble…And He Found It (a legal perspective on the case that will go to the grand jury)

I hope this is informative to all who read this. I am praying that there is justice for Trayvon and his family.

The Burden Of Proof

This morning, my husband left our home to run some errands, wash the car, and get his hair cut. He went alone. I was still in bed, sleeping in on a Saturday morning. As is my normal routine, I said a quick prayer for his safety while he was out and about. I imagine most wives might do the same for their husbands. Or moms might do the same for their sons, sisters for their brothers…wanting their loved ones to come back home safe and sound.

My husband is 38 years old, college educated and works an office job every day. He is a dedicated brother and son. He is gentle and kind and has a huge heart. He is really, quite simply, a really nice guy.

My husband is a black man, a tall, large black man at that, and it’s because of that I pray every time he leaves the house.

Unless you have been under a rock for the past 2 weeks or so, you can’t  help but to have heard about the growing uproar about 17 year old Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed by a volunteer neighborhood watch leader, while coming from the store where he was getting candy for his brother. Trayvon was holding a package of Skittles candy and a can of iced tea when he was murdered.

It seems that Trayvon’s only crime was being a black male walking alone in a gated community. If you have a black brother, son, cousin or father, this is the story of their lives.

The burden of proof falls on good men like my husband all the time. The burden to prove that they are not robbers, or rapists, or murders, or drug dealers. The police stops just because “they fit the description”. Clutched purses in stores or elevators. Being judged because they wear jerseys or their pants sag low, like all of the popular rappers that are on the radio. In a way, it seems that I’d gotten jaded to reading or hearing about black (or brown) men being harassed by the police. The men I know just knew they had to charge it to the game and govern themselves accordingly. Black mothers and fathers educate their sons about how to behave if stopped by the police: speak clearly and politely, don’t act belligerent, have slow movements.

Trayvon Martin didn’t even the courtesy of being able to prove himself, it seems. He didn’t get a chance to explain that he was coming from the store and going back to his dad’s house, who lived in that community. Some dude with a tin badge and a 9mm, decided he saw a strange ni.gg.er in a neighborhood that SURELY he didn’t belong in, shot first and asked questions later. Trayvon Martin will not get a chance to graduate high school, go to college, get married, or have kids. He will not get the chance to PROVE himself, in life.

This is why I pray for my husband, and for my brother, who is only ten years old than Trayvon and even for my 62 year old father. The wrong circumstance and the wrong person and they could easily be a Trayvon, not getting a chance to explain their very existence, having to prove yet again…

…that they have a right to be a black man minding their own damn business in the United States of America.

Please help Trayvon Martin’s family get the justice he deserves and sign the petition asking for his killer to be arrested and prosecuted.

He never even had a chance...

(Editor’s note: Comments that are off topic and/or racist will be deleted. I am not even entertaining THAT.)

A Christmas Day Funny

My parents next door neighbors are from Honduras. They are really sweet, friendly  folks. They send my daddy tamales and have helped him fix my brother’s car and my mom sends over my niece and nephews hand me down clothes to their grandkids.

However, one thing my parents Honduran neighbors like to do is party. I mean Beyonce-style partay-ay-ay-ay! They don’t kick it a lot, but apparently Christmas Eve was a good a time as any for a throwdown. My parents said the music went on into the wee hours! My folks got NO sleep. LOL!

I mention all that because Myron and I went to my folks house for Christmas dinner. We pull up in the driveway and get out. I have my purse and gifts in hand and Myron was still behind me at the car, about to get the chitlins (that’s a WHOLE other story there) out. I had just made it into the garage when I hear someone scream, “Ayiiiiii!!!” I then hear “BUMP, BUMP, BUMP”!

I stick my head out of the garage and look across the yard. A friend of the neighbors had taken a nasty tumble between two parked cars in  their driveway. All around her are shards of broken Pyrex glass. She laid there dazed and confused.

I drop my stuff and sprinted across the lawn. Ole girl was still lying there on the driveway amongst all that damn glass! Myron got there to her first, so he and the neighbor lady who lived at the home were trying to lift the “victim” off the ground.  She kept mumbling something in Spanish and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” in English. Finally my dad comes outside, sees what’s going on and comes over to help. She was like dead weight but finally they got her up. The neighbor lady slowly escorted our “victim” into the house. We came over to my parents house, came inside and promptly cracked the hell up.

So as a Public Service Announcement to y’all I’d like to share the following tips:

1. Nylon knee-highs and yellow flip flops don’t mix.
2. Being drunk off your ass while wearing nylon knee-highs and yellow flip flops will probably lead to you busting your tail on the concrete driveway and getting trapped between a Honda Civic and a Honda CRV on Christmas Day.
3. It’s probably not a good idea to be carrying a Pyrex baking dish while wearing the aforementioned knee-highs and flip flops and being drunk off your ass….on Christmas Day.
4. No more drinking on Christmas Eve.

That was the hilarious start to our Christmas Day dinner. Can ya’ll top that??

The Death of Common Sense

Common sense is dead, and it’s been replaced by willful ignorance and laziness.

We ask the opinions of others all the time. Just the other day on Facebook I asked my friends where would be the best place to find an out of stock lipstick I’ve been trying to find. We ask for recommendations for movies, music, or the best place to get school clothes for our kids. To me that’s information gathering so you can make an informed decision.

I see the death of common sense when complete strangers write questions to another complete stranger asking about oral s.e.x on a Formspring page or write into a blogger about whether they should stay in an obviously bad relationship. I don’t understand. I don’t get it. There are much better resources that could be consulted for SERIOUS life issues, as opposed to some random person on the internet.

Reading twitter and FB yesterday in reference to the Troy Davis case made me realize how intellectually lazy people are. (I guess I really shouldn’t be shocked, but I was. Didn’t GI Joe say knowing was half the battle????) The internet is going nuts and folks are STILL asking who Troy Davis is?? I don’t claim to know everything about every single news event but Mr. Google is one of my very best friends for a reason. In fact, I’m a nosey curious person by nature. If I hear about/read about a topic on that’s being discussed, I’ll often go off on my own and do a little research on it before even offering an opinion on it. I might be wrong, but at least I tried to sound intelligent and add some value to the discussion. If I am truly stumped on a topic, I will try to seek out an SME (subject matter expert). There are plenty of folks around me who are extremely well versed in an area and can educate me.

I can’t say it’s an age thing and blame it on inexperienced 20 somethings who don’t really know shit, because that isn’t true. There are a whole lot of ignorant ass late 30 somethings running around half cocked as well, armed with wrong opinions. However, everyone is entitled to theirs, right???

Seems a lot of folks revel in being permanently stuck on stupid.

How depressing.

The Ex-Factor

FB is the debbil!!!! (AR Gal, 2009)

I wanted to share this yesterday over on Black n’ Bougie but since my job refuses to let me be great in commenting and I got home too late after hanging out with hubs I decided to bring this little scenario over to my joint. Follow along with me now…….

When Myron and I started dating and became pretty serious (seriously discussing marriage), we both did some maintenance on our FB pages. We both defriended  prior ex-BFs, ex-GFs, ex-FwBs and his case he defriended his ex-wife. They have no kids together and no other ties so I asked him to let her make it.  He didn’t do it callously either. He took the time to send her an inbox explaining why he was doing it. Of course, she has to reply back with the obligatory “Are you sure?” and “I just want you to be happy” fake concern. *insert eye roll here*

So after that we get engaged, time passes by then we get married. Life goes on, right??

So can someone out there explain to me, that after nearly 8 months of  us being married, she sent him a friend request?????

Myron was baffled. He was like I told her over a year  and a half ago why I was defriending her and I didn’t even have to do that.

Well TIH is nosy, so I told him to inbox her. He did and asked her what did she want because she knew that he wouldn’t be accepting her request and his wife wouldn’t like it. She replied back: LOL!! Well I hope all is well with you guys. That was it.

*TIH scratches head*

I don’t understand people. She knew that wasn’t going to fly so I guess she was just fishing around. But why???  Did she think our marriage had gone bad that quick??? I guess the world will never know.

Do ya’ll keep up socially with ex-S/Os or ex-spouses?? What do ya’ll think the ex-wife was thinking (or smoking)??

Where Ever You Go, There You Are….

You CAN be too connected!

…and nobody really cares but you. Seriously.

I wholeheartedly embrace technology. Really I do. I have a FB acccount, a Twitter account and a blog. I have a laptop, a BlackBerry, and a Nook Color e-reader. My husband has an Xbox with a Kinect and we stream movies on it via NetFlix. We are very much plugged into the Matrix. Red pill, blue pill..all that good stuff.

But there is part of the tech train that I just can’t get onboard and that is the location based social media that seems to be so popular these days. I don’t really do FB Places, Foursquare gives me the creeps and I don’t plan on geo-tagging every tweet I send with my location. Can’t do it.

I know with FourSquare you are supposed to win prizes and get discounts for dethroned the previous mayor of said random business but hell that’s just to much work. I can barely remember my name. I’ll pass.

And why are ya’ll using FB Places to check in at home?? What’s the effing logic in that?? I was reading my timeline last night around midnight and one of my FB friends had checked in at home, which in turn listed her apartment complex. She is a single woman. Did I mention she did this around midnight??? WTF??  Obviously some one else had my same thought process because they asked her, “Are you really putting this on blast all over FB??” I wish I would have been on my laptop to like her comment.

And that’s probably my biggest issue with all of this location based stuff. I think we get lulled into a false sense of security and let down our guards. There are still crazy people out there. Craiglist killer, anyone??? Hell, there might be a crazy person on your FB friends list and you don’t know it.

I know that the information that you put out there on the internet is forever, but that’s why folks have online handles or blog anon (at least semi-anon). That’s why my tweets are protected and my FB page is locked up tighter than Ft. Knox.  I can’t have control over every aspect of my online activities, but the things I can control I’m locking up tighter than a gnat’s asshole. I’m not paranoid but I think you can limit your exposure. I think that’s being safe AND smart.

And really, I don’t care that  you stopped at Target on the way home from work. Trust me on this. 

Are you concerned about your online footprint? Let me know in the comments.

Not In My Job Description

Let's have a toast to the assholes, douchebags and jerkoffs!

Yes, I sit right next to the project administrative assistant.

HOWEVER,

• No, I cannot book your conference room.
• No, I do not have a projector.
• No, I don’t know where the admin is. (At least not all the time.)
• No, I cannot see the Project Director/Resource Manager/CIO’s calendar.
• No, I will not take a message for the admin. There are sticky notes and a whiteboard in her cube.
• No, I don’t know how to use the copier scanner. (Well, I do but just like I had to learn you can too.)
• No, I am not going to turn around because I hear you hovering around outside my cube because the Project Director/Resource Manager/CIO is not in their office and you want to know where they are. I have to hunt their asses down when I need them just like you do.
• No, accounts payable cannot rush your ACH payment on your invoice. They send payments out every Wednesday.
• No, overseas employee you cannot book your time to the project.
• No, other department you will not be booking your miscellaneous travel to a cost center that you think no one looks at. I review EVERYTHING in the budget monthly.
• No, I am not your beyotch because we need to do this implementation and do it under budget. So I am going to question your travel request.
• Yes, I am the project accountant. I am cute but I do other shit too. That’s why they hired me.
• Please get over yourself.

That is all.