Link Love

So many of my friends have moved on to other venues; my blogroll was primarily a list of dead links or archived writings (valuable in their own right and I want to re-link).

I'm starting fresh! Give me ideas--I'll re-post this for a few days because I assume most people have more exciting lives than I on a Friday night. Who should I be reading?

A Day in The Life...

Ok, more than a day. This is an opportunity for me to say, "Look how tired but happy I am!" and a real diary-like entry for the future.

Friday, I left Texas, en route to Louisiana for Spring Break. My sister and her crew had come to visit for their Spring Break, so we traveled as a mini caravan.

At least, until I was pulled over by the most talkative (but friendly) cop in Texas. I thought the speed limit was 70 because it was daytime. He claimed it dropped to 60 at some point and I was going 74 (yes, speeding either way, I know, I know).

I told him I hadn't seen it drop (I really hadn't) but that I fully acknowledged I was going 74. I don't argue with cops or try to talk my way out of anything. It's a matter of pride for me, even though I cannot afford a ticket. He asked me where I was going.

"Louisiana."

"Long ride," he said. (Yeah, that's why I was going 74). He then launched into a story of how he had been stationed at Ft. Polk and how far was my hometown from there and the lack of big cities, etc. etc.

I mostly nodded and smiled then drove away happily with my warning. I would only go 72 in a 70 mph zone, I decided. That's a compromise, right?

After two stops and about nine hours, we made it home. Bed, you think?

Wrong! I had a Lemon-and-Lime anniversary party on Saturday for which I needed to decorate. I'd thought the party was the 20th which would give me time to get home to prepare. I was wrong and we were on the clock. It was a relatively casual party, but still!

Coti deserted me, my sister promised she'd come cook the next day, mrs. o was exhausted from her own too busy week. So, Janna, T'niya, Tren, Mama and I went to work in the main room while Dee (one of the honorees) cleaned the kitchen and unpacked groceries.

We made all sorts of lovely discoveries. The last renters of the place hadn't cleaned. It was filthy. We planned to use three tables for a buffet style meal and set up eight for guests. We only set up six, because so many were broken. Below you can see our efforts-in-progress.





I made it back to my parents' at 2 AM and couldn't sleep. I decided to read. Around 4 AM, I dropped that book in my damned eye and realized, it was time.

Of course, I woke up at 5, fell back to sleep, and woke up for good at 8. I was excited about the day and had so much to doooooooooooo.

Coti, in makeup mode, agreed to play chauffeur. I went to every store in town, I swear (which amounts to fewer than ten, but still) for last minute items like pans. And, I changed my mind again and decided I wanted to do a small candy buffet. I had jars; I just needed yellow and green candies. I bought every bag of lemonheads and Andes mints at Dollar General, then bought the little green and white mints from another store. My sister brought green jolly ranchers, lemon drops, and green and white candy rings from a neighboring town. Coti and Tren filled a center vase with lemons and limes, and voila!





But food. I'd decided we'd have sandwiches and salads. Plus, the hubby involved wanted wings. So, our menu (sandwich wise) was mini burgers, mini pulled pork sandwiches, these hot deli sandwiches I make on rolls with a spinach and cream cheese based spread, and chicken salad sandwiches. Salads were chef's salad, potato salad, coleslaw, a fruit salad, and pasta salad. And we were going to have barbecue wings and Italian wings.

No way could I do that, all alone in, a day, in a kitchen with one really small stove. I had so much help. Coti cut up meat and cheese for the deli sandwiches, ran to the store, and stopped at everyone's house to pick up miscellany. Tren made chicken salad, she and Mama made sandwiches, and assembled deli sandwiches. My sister made the green salad, patted out some of the hamburgers and she and Tren fixed up the punch. Tesha made half the coleslaw, seasoned the chicken, made potato salad, cut up lemons and limes. Mama cut up the honeydew (we wanted green and yellow fruits for the fruit salad with a few strawberries to make it "pop" but we didn't know how to approach that honeydew :-). Mrs. O peeled potatoes and sliced rolls. I seasoned the hamburgers and patted out most of them, made coleslaw, cut up strawberries, made a pasta salad, made limeade and lemonade, made the spread for the deli sandwiches, prepared the roasts for the pulled pork, and made barbecue sauce. I also made pitchers of way too strong margaritas, mojitos, and lemon drop martinis (I was serious about the yellow and green, y'all). That stuff was so strong, I didn't touch it. I don't like to taste alcohol in my alcoholic drinks. Initially, I planned to mix and pour as the night proceeded, but my cousins said no, we were not going to run and serve the whole night. So we set up cups and set the pitchers and ice out. I also had two punchbowls, one with a limeade based punch and the other with a lemonade based punch.





I was on my feet for nine hours, on four hours of sleep. And the night before, I'd gotten about five hours then taught and drove all day. You know where this story is going, right?

My back! My ankles! I couldn't bend over by the time the party actually started. The hot shower didn't help as I hoped it would. I kept my cute little open toe heels on for all of ten minutes before I retreated to the kitchen and my house shoes. It was lovely and we were all in good moods, but Dee and Mike like blues music and I can't get down with it.

I made it until midnight. I had to come home and have mama rub my back with Bengay. Muscle aches beat my cute black dress and shoes! I'm getting old, y'all, for real.

I was supposed to go to Family and Friends' Day at my cousins' church. Church started at 11. I rolled over at 10:52, thought about making it, realized my clock was an hour behind and flopped back over.

I finally stumbled up, my eyes full of sawdust (I didn't drink the stuff I made. I did, however, have Malibu coconut rum and pineapple juice), and my body aching. I ate a plate of collard greens so I could have something on my stomach to take three ibuprofen for my poor body. A few hours, a coke, and this long story later, I feel better.

I could go again! But I think I will just climb in bed with this book I found.

No use in overdoing it :-p

How Addicted Am I to Social Media?

Twitter is down and I'm contemplating finding all my Twitter friends and making them my Facebook friends because I miss the conversations!!!

What to Do with Myself...

Because I'm helping coordinate her reception and take care of a few wedding details, my friend Dee volunteered to cook my portion of my family's Christmas dinner. Dee is a throwback to another time with the soul food cooking, so I happily agreed.

So it is Christmas Eve. I've wrapped 97% of the presents I'm going to wrap. Dee is making collard greens, ham, and chicken spaghetti and offered to make the dressing. That is more than enough for my share.

And I have nothing Christmas-y to do. My son is gone with his dad, my sister is doing last minute shopping, and my parents don't feel well.

I am at a loss as to what to do with myself! I'm supposed to make a white chocolate cake, but I'm almost out of the notion of trying a new recipe. I made red velvet cake and a fudge cheesecake at Thanksgiving, so I don't want to do those again. Peach dumplings can't be made until tomorrow and the crescent rolls I need to make the dumplings cost $637 in a town with two little grocery stores, so those are iffy (I refuse to drive out of town on Christmas Eve. REFUSE!!). My mom already made lemon pies. That is about the extent of my dessert repertoire.

I need a task.

The African American Perspective at the Unapologetic Mexican

Intro stolen from matttbastard:

This week, The Unapologetic Mexican has a series of guest posts featuring various African-American responses to the election of Barack Obama, The African American Perspective, which runs through November 16th.

Posts so far have included:

Moya Bailey After the Morning After, After the Night Before
Black Amazon Can’t Think After Yet
Jose Vilson The Forever After
matttbastard Barack Obama: [Re]defining Possibilities

Today is my turn to wax sorta-poetic: Assessing the Secret of Joy

Carmen will also post today (here it is:
Is Barack Obama the needed bridge between blacks and Latinos?), Kevin tomorrow, and Lex on Sunday.

**ETA: I'd like to thank Nez and his "cocky assistant," M, :-p for the opportunity.

Co-Blogger Kim Does NOT Know the Rules

Dear Kimi,

On today, your birthday, the year in which you, mrs. o, and I* all turn 28 for the seventh time, you are expected to announce your birthday upon the blog so that it may be treated as the great day of reverence that it is. You must allow people to come adulate and bask in the greatness that is you.

Happy Birthday, sweetie.

_______________________________________
*in an amazing!!!! coincidence, I think our temporary co-blogger, BFP is the same age, as well. This is the best 1974 1980 blog in the whole world!!!

I Love Your Blog

BFP loves my blog.

::does southern (b)elle swoon::

Okay, with that out of the way, I'm going to do this meme, too. There are so many blogs I love, though I'll try to keep this (reasonably) brief.

No surprise that I have to reciprocate the love first. I love La Alma de Fuego and its proprietor. So much that I'll stop there to keep from embarrassing myself with further fan girl behavior.

And Just_Me, k8, and Ragey are all special to me. My blogging life would be a lot lonelier (more lonely?) without them.

Ms. Sylvia? Gets mindless adoration.

Matttbastard--my favorite funny, on point political blogger.

Kevin, who some time ago said of me

She’s one of those bloggers that once you start reading her, you feel like she’s your sister.

That was also swoon-worthy and so very special to me because I feel the same way. A funny, sweet, brilliant brother with politics I love. ::sigh::

Quaker Dave. He's just... Quaker Dave.

Noemi. I especially love the posts about Texas and the poetry.

My favorite Mami. She's just bad!

Liss. As I told her before, mrs. o and I sit and ponder how absolutely delightful she must be in person.

Renee. Always a breath of fresh air. She reminds me so much of my sister--she tells it like it is.

Speaking of telling it like it is:

• WoC PhD, who's a personal and professional inspiration for me.
• Nezua at UMX. (He's also one of the coolest people on Twitter :-)
  

Giftie Etcetera. It's like watching a life unfold through witty, self-assured prose.

And man, Kai's writing (and of course, the stuff he writes about!)

No, I did not list my WHOLE blogroll!

Question...

I so enjoyed all the food stories and tips I got last weekend (and talking back and forth in the comments) that I think I'll ask another question for this weekend.

A few months ago, I read a paranormal romance novel*, chock full of demons. There were demons like lies, violence, pain, etc. But guess who/what else was a demon according to the author?

Hope.

BFP and Sylvia and I hashed this out on twitter. We pretty much decided, "She's right." Anjali tried to get us to be a little less pessimistic, to no avail.

So, without giving you my reasoning (at first), I want to ask, do you think hope is a demon**?
_________________________________
*Yes I read the whole series. No, no comments or observations on my leisure reading are permissible.

**Doesn't have to be demon in the religious or otherworldy sense. Do you think hope is "bad"/leads people astray is another way to put it, I guess.

One Bad Mami

Mamita Mala explains why voting is only one of the tools we must use if we really, actively, want to bring about change.



Transcript below. H/T bfp and miss crip-chick

I’m going to say something extremely unpopular that goes against what the mainstream media and the candidates themselves are telling us and I’m specifically addressing this to my Latino hermanas and hermanos, your vote doesn’t count. In fact with all this hype around the Latino vote I’m gonna tell you not to vote. Now before you start throwing stuff at me, allow me to qualify my statements. Your vote does not count and you shouldn’t vote if you think that your vote alone is going to change the state of things in the United States. As my mentor Richie Perez, que en paz descanse, once told me, voting is just one weapon in our revolutionary toolbox and we all need to think not about just fixing what is broken in this country, but tearing it down and building anew and in building something new we need to use all the weapons available. So, yes vote on November 4th but not if you think your work is done when you walk out of that booth. There is a reason both John McCain and barack Obama haven’t brought up immigration at the last three debates despite the fact that redadas/raids keep tearing families apart.. There is a reason Sarah Palin is talking about and to hockey moms and not futbol mamitas, the ones who are bearing the brunt of the heathcare crisis. There is a reason we are not hearing/reading about the fact that there are two women of color, Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente running as a presidential team. We cannot just vote with our hands. We need to vote with our feet hitting the streets. We need to vote with our mouths yelling and spitting truths and that can happen around our kitchen tables and in our kalles. Mujeres latinas, we need to vote with our lips, tits, and hips and the history they carry, from forced operaciones that left our women sterile to attempts to take away all of our choices about our bodies.

So what does this Mamita Mala, this mujer want, seeing that is the theme of the night? This mujer wants you remember those that died to vote in this country, those that got their asses beat to vote, those who still can’t vote including the incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, residents of U.S. colonies like my patria/homeland Puerto Rico and millions of immigrants. Use your vote wisely the way a soldier is supposed to use weapon, the way a construction worker uses his tools. Use it to support and work towards something bigger. It doesn’t end on November 4th.

Happy Belated Blogiversary

...to BFP!!!

Yay!! Wheeeee!! Hooray!! Yippee!!

(I don't know how to make it look like confetti is falling, so here's a song)



Much love and appreciation for all that you do, on and off the blogs.

Fun Visit

I hadn't seen Elle in over a year. Now that she's living closer to us, I packed the boys up and we headed her way over the weekend. And, if it hadn't been for the fact that The Kid has grown like a weed and is a young man now instead of the little boy I remember, you wouldn't have been able to tell that we'd been away at all.

In college, as roommates, Elle and I often had this problem of talking about any and everything late into the night. We'd both be in our beds with the lights off, just chatting away. We did the same thing over the weekend. Of-course, it's 12 years after college, so I'm feeling the lack of sleep more than I did back in the day!

At any rate, we had a blast! Thanks Elle!

Even Under Harsh Bathroom Lights...

...my kid and I are too cute.

Thanks, Dave, for caring so much.

Peace.

I've Found the Solution

...to the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Call your best friend and talk for almost an hour about a little bit of everything and a lot of nothing.

Laugh a lot.

Get the validation you shouldn't need, but, ah, well.

Get over yourself. I want to be the perfect teacher already. I'm enjoying my "small" African American history class, but the students in my large survey--which is primarily lecture interspersed with brief discussions (usually analyzing various audio and visual clips)--just aren't engaging like I want them to for the most part. Some days they ask the best questions; some days they look like zombies.

Initially, I worried about it on my own, not wanting to get ideas from my colleagues because I am so determined to appear like I have it all down pat. But I talked to a couple of people in my department and found 1) other people are trying to figure out how to best teach and reach students in the large classes 2) I'm not the only young(er) woman to have to pull a white male student aside and say, "The way you are addressing me before class is not appropriate and it will stop now" and 3) I am not the only new professor ever to have to write lectures for classes further on in the semester--honestly, I made it up to the Depression during the summer and I did teach post-45 in the spring so I can cull from and expand upon some of those (I'm good for the social movements of the 50s and 60s and the early Cold War, for example), but I still need a stronger WWI lecture, a good WWII lecture, and I want to write some killer ones on society and culture in the 80s and 90s.

I know this is not news for most folk, but it's hard for me to reach out for help and advice--always conscious of being "one of the only-" and so I don't want to admit weakness. But that shit was killing me and I'm so glad I did. Turns out, there's a slight chance that people aren't expecting me to be perfect!

And the last part of the solution--go to sleep, so the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day can become a memory.

Happy Birthday!!!!

Alex! This birthday has been a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time coming.

Love you!

Mobilization

Today, on the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's Louisiana landfall, my friend, Coti, found out that she is to be one of the 3000 National Guard troops mobilized by Governor Bobby Jindal. She leaves for south Louisiana tomorrow. Please keep her, as well as Alex--whom I know will be worried--in your thoughts.

Notes between Friends

Excerpts from a conversation between mrs. o and me on the phone this afternoon.

"mrs. o, what is he doing?"

"elle, i don't know. Joe Biden?"

"Girl, you know what I remember about him? 'Clean and articulate' and trying to discredit Anita Hill."

"Exactly. I'm trying to find out what the hell else he stands for."

"Did he even consider women like Sebelius?"

"Where is all the damned change? Another old white man?"

"I can't believe it."

"He's too smart for all this shit going on."

"I don't know. I'm trying to see the plan..."

The Vote for Alexandria

So my lovely Alexandria of The Road to Alexandria is a finalist in the Black Weblog Awards for Best Teen Blog. She blogs about being a young, black lesbian in the rural South, her life as a student, religion, and the ups and downs of her relationships with her mom, her girlfriend, and other family members.

Check her out and VOTE!!!!!!!

In a Minute!

My son is at the point where he doesn't want to have to go anywhere with me (says I take too long in stores) but he wants to keep up with me. So, when I'm out, he'll call me a million times asking where I am and then, "Mama, when you coming back?"

After a while, I get frustrated and just answer, "In a minute!!!!"

Anyway, I'm flying out today to canvass things before the big move. I'll be back in a minute!!!!

In the meantime, my co-bloggers might drop some knowledge. They're all busy mommies with crazy jobs, so be patient. And just in case you don't know, here's a partial list of what we like:

Kim blogs about motherhood, politics, and keeps me up on the blogosphere.

mrs. o talks about education, politics, and the celebrity world.

And my cousin Trin, WHO KEEPS PROMISING TO START POSTING (no pressure, darling :-), is the newshound. I get most of my news from blogs, so if not for her I'd have no idea what (else) was going on in the world. Almost every news story I post needs to hat tip her.

Mm-kay. See y'all in a minute!

Thank You!

I am seriously catching feelings for Jeremy Young right now!

I love, love, LOVE the new layout. Initially, I favored this template, but pink and green flowers on a blog helmed by three members of Delta Sigma Theta seemed somehow not quite right! :-)

No, seriously, there were some issues, and since the butterfly was my other favorite, voila!

You know when you sit down to do some serious work and you clean your house thoroughly first so no clutter can bother you and the good smells soothe you?

I'm feeling like that.

And how I felt when I was drinking milk and eating warm brownies out of the pan last night.

I'm just thinking and feeling in exclamation points right now!

Thank you again, Jeremy!

Heavy Heart

My brother's best friend died last week (http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=7661). He was 34 years old, was driving home at 3:50 in the morning a few weeks ago and slammed his car into a building. How that happened has been largely unspoken.

I didn't know him very well. My brother and I haved lived in different cities since we ventured off to college. What I do remember of Greg was an inviting, warm, friendly face. He's clearly done a lot for his community in Ft. Worth, and for students at TCU. He touched so many people's lives and he was someone that students at TCU as well as his friends, like my brother, depended on. It is so sad to see his life cut short.

It makes me think of my own mortality and whether I will have left such an indelible mark on the world around me. It's a scary thought to think of leaving my family behind. Scarier even more to think of how easily such a thing could happen.

Please say a quick prayer for Greg's family and friends and for my brother. And let your loved ones know you love them. Our time is short.