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I'm still around. Just getting back into the swing of things.

Holiday wrap-up

I'm back from a much needed break and I must say that I enjoyed my christmas break. It felt so good to get out of my usual "college town" element and be amongst traffic, skyscrapers, cars (as opposed to big trucks). I really didn't ask for much (just a gift card to Wo.rld Mar.ket) but I received that and more. I got a chance to spend some quality time with my family, who I really only get to see once a year. My brother marked his one year anniversary of purchasing his house (or his 1st house as he likes to say). My cousin also closed and moved in on his condo in Buck.head (the "old money" Buck.head as he likes to say). After 25 years, my mom was finally able to afford to do some renovations to her house. She basically got a new kitchen and both bathrooms totally re-done. I'm so happy for her because my mom deserves every blessing she gets. Unfortunately, my other brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were not able to make to to At.lanta for the holidays. He and my aunt got into a little disagreement last year and called himself boycotting her house until she can get some act right. I think the sad part of my visit was seeing my grandfather. I'm glad that he was able to make to see another Christmas but his health is deteriorating. He has dementia and his eye sight is not that great. He doesn't have much of an appetite either. It was sad to see a man who used to give me piggy back rides to needing help getting in and out of a car.

I think the memory that I will cherish the most from this Christmas was that I was able to hang out with one of my older cousins. She's 4 years older than me and when I was little I looked up to her. She was the closest thing that I had to a sister. When we were younger, our grandmother would make us matching dresses. Whenever she would come to town or I'd go visit her, we always had to share a room. But of course as we got older, we grew apart. She went to college, got grown, got married, and had a baby. I went off to college and did my thing. It wasn't until this past Christmas that we were able to talk like women. Her and I went out every single night that I was in At.lanta. Ca.fe Inter.mezzo, Jus.tin's, Len.nox Mall, Mag.ic City (Good Lawd! I never thought I'd go to a strip club with a family member). We talked about the things she's going thru with her ex-husband and her daughter. We talked about dating and the challenges that come with it. It was like hanging out with one of my girls. It felt really good to reconnect with her. When I left, we exchanged information and promised to keep in touch. I'm going to try to go to Detr.oit for the super bowl and she's going to try to come to Hou.ston for the NBA All-Star Game.

I gotta get to watching the Rose Bowl (Hook 'em Horns!) I'll post about my new years tomorrow.

See you in '06

I'm officially on vacation and will be away from my computer. I'm flying to Atlanta for Christmas and will spend the rest of the holidays in Florida.

I want to wish everyone that comes across my nook on cyberspace a wonderful Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa and prosperous and blessed new year.

5 random facts

I wasn't tagged by anyone but since I don't have anything to blog about, I'm tagging myself.

1. My brother knocked my two front teeth out when I was 5. He and I were wrestling. He pretended to be on the ropes of a wrestling ring as he climbed on the back of the sofa. He landed on top of me with his knee hitting my mouth. He tried to hide me from my father by putting me in the closet of his bedroom but I was moaning too loudly. When my father came to get me, I just pointed to my mouth. When I opened it blood poured out of my mouth along with two teeth. Luckily they were baby teeth and they grew back. The pictures that I took all snaggle tooth were some of the cutest pictures I've taken when I was little.

2. To this day, I cannot watch the movie Children of the Corn. I was really young when I saw it the first time, maybe 8 or 9. When my brothers and I would go to visit my father during the summer, we'd have movie night every Friday night. We'd each get to pick a movie to rent. Children of the Corn was picked by one of my brothers. My father didn't want me to watch it but being the big girl that I thought I was and the fact that I didn't let my brothers out of my site, I sat and watched it. I don't think I slept for the rest of the summer. I slept with all the lights on in my room because I was not going to let that creepy spawn of satan kid get me in my sleep. I tried to watch it again a few years ago, but I couldn't get thru it.

3. I played the piano for 8 years. I took lessons thru the community education program that was offered in my hometown. I got my first piano lesson when I was in the 2nd grade. Playing the piano was my way of expression because I was an introvert. Through the years, I went from taking lessons at the community center to an actual music studio. I learned how to play everything from nursery rhymes to Beethoven and Mozart. I was apart of a quartet where we learned music theory and technique. I even had an arch nemesis. Her name was Candace and she was a level ahead of me. She could play the hell out of Ms. Sullivan's grand piano. She was the star pupil and we all wanted to play like her one day. During the summer of my last year of lessons I won a scholarship to study at a music conservatory for the summer. But I turned it down. At that point, playing the piano wasn't fun anymore. All of the rigor seemed forced on me instead of me wanting to do it voluntary. I often think about what would have happened if I kept playing piano.

4. Sometimes, I work movie quotes into conversations. They're usually quotes from my favorite movies like What's Love Got To Do With It or Coming To America. For example:

somebody: I'm sorry
Moi: Sorry? Damn right ya sorry. Sorriest muphucka I eva seen. (Ike Turner played by Laurence Fishbourne, What's Love Got To Do With It).

5. I'm 27 years old and still sleep with a teddy bear. I'll put it to the side when I find a man to snuggle with at night.

It's so Icyyyyyyy!

So old man winter is cracking his whip something fierce. Not only is it cold but it's also raining. I don't mind the cold weather but it would be so much better if it wasn't wet. Since today was a dead day for students to study for finals, the Chancellor decided to give staff and faculty the day off. How sweet of him :-). And I was hoping last night that I'd get a phone call saying that campus would be closed today. When I woke up this morning, I was thinking of ways to get out of a meeting I had. The meeting was in a building not too far from my office. But in the the wind and rain, it would have been the worse walk ever. So while mulling over excuses to skip out of this meeting, my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and it was my staff phone tree buddy. I couldn't hold back my excitement because I'd be able to roll back over and go back to sleep.

After I woke up, I called my best friend from work to see what she was getting into for the day. She used to live 2 buildings down from me but she recently moved into a house. She told me she hired cleaners to clean her townhouse for her and wanted to know if I'd leave the spare key that I had for them under the door mat. This meant that I had to acutally leave my wormth and comfort of my house. So I bundled. I tried to go out my back door and damn near busted my ass on my back patio because it was covered with ice. Tried to open the back gate and the hinges were frozen. So I go out of my front door and once again, I almost slide down my front side walk. Mind you, I only put on some sweatpants, sweatshirt, wool coat, and left my head rag on because I thought it would be a simple walk a few doors down. But noooo...I look like a fool trying to pick myself up only to fall again. When I finally caught my balance, I decided to run thru the grass and apparently, the lawn service hasn't come around lately because as I took my first step I sank a couple of inches into the earth. Because there is also ice on the grass, my steps were extra crunchy and wet.

[HIJACK] Can someone tell me why some people, particularly clear people, will wear a coat, scarve, hat, and gloves...with some flip flops? As if your feet are immune to jack frost nipping at your toes? These same people are always the first ones to get sick, and then can't figure out
how they got sick. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't get it. [/HIJACK]

So I finally arrive at her back porch only to discover that the hinges on her back gate are frozen too. Now, why I thought her gate wouldn't be frozen while mine was? I have no idea. But it would have been a valid assumption. The inside lock on the front door was locked so I couldn't get in from the outside. So, I'm standing there trying to figure out how to get the gate open because the latch is moving but it's not opening. I give my friend a call to let her know about the gate and she called maintenance on 3-way. The operator said a maintenance man couldn't get there until after noon and the cleaning crew was coming at 10:00. After we hung up, I began to shake the gate and I noticed that I started to budge. I then put my whole body into it. You would have thought I was trying to break into the house. At that point the gate finally opened. As soon as I step foot on the back patio, I slip (and I'm airborne for a brief moment) and fall. By this time, I'm soaked and my new wool coat is dirty.

As I'm walking back to my house, tired and wet, who do I see pulling up? My friend. She is laughing hysterically at me as I call her every degrading name for a woman in english and spanish. She's still laughing at me. Then she had the nerve to offer me a ride back to my house. A 2.5 second ride to my house. I hoped my wet ass in the seat and cursed her out some more. She laughed even more as I told her about everything that happened. To make up for it, she fixed me some gumbo.

So much for my relaxing day. Now if old man winter can add a "wintry mix" to the whip cracking action, I may be able to sit home again tomorrow.

Christmas just ain't Christmas...

This post starts off in one direction and veers a right into another...just go with it.

I'm beginning to get into the Christ.mas spirit. I'm not the type of person that gets warm and fuzzy when stores start putting up displays after labor day or excited like I used to when the Christ.mas catalogs would come out. There are a few key things that need to happen in order for me to get festive. I need to hear certain songs and smell familiar scents.

I remember when I was growing up my brothers and I would alternate Christmas' with our parents. The Christmas' that we'd spend with my father involved him driving down from Maryland to Flordia to pick us up. I'd get excited because I knew the car ride would include songs that marked the season. There was "the tape". I swear my father has had to create that tape a million times because it's been worn out over the years. This tape included "This Christmas" by Donnie, "Give Love on Christmas Day" by The Jackson 5, "Someday at Christmas" by Stevie, "Gee Whiz, It's Christmas" by Carla Thomas, "The Christmas Song" by Nat, "Jolly Time of the Year" by SalSoul Orchestra, "Happy Holidays to You" by The Whispers, some song by Luther before he went solo, and of course..."Silent Night" by The Temptations. Man...it STILL doesn't get any better than hearing "Merry Christmas, from The Temptations" in that deep bass voice. I tell you, Christmas for me doesn't start until I hear those songs.

When we'd finally arrive to my father's house, I knew I could look forward to my stepmother baking christmas cookies from scratch. She would stay up all night baking cookies and I'd literally dreamt of cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar plums dancing in my head. All week, people in my office are bringing in baked goods and those familiar smells are bringing back memories and putting me in the spirit.

Speaking of my office...next week is the staff holiday dinner. I have to say that my department does a great job at putting programs together for families. Because when you think about it, we're together for 8 hours of the day so we're basically an extended family. But many of us single folk within the department are feeling a little excluded from the christmas gathering because this dinner is being advertistised as a "dinner for families to gather together and celebrate the holidays". Knowing this, several staff members have been putting guilt trips on us single people because we're not coming. Last year, there was a table designated as the "homeless for the holidays" table. Personally, I didn't feel the christmas spirit. And it's pretty much going to be the same thing this year. That's why we're all gonna get together and have our own celebration. The dinner is being done with good intentions but I just wish we could do something different as a staff rather than something that makes a select few feel excluded.