This little Piggy...

Seriously that's adorable.  You can't tell me that's not adorable.  Baby toes are probably about the cutest things around, but I'm doing this wrong for an alphabet blog.  I have to put the picture of the letter... But still... baby toes!!!  And I actually know those toes!  They belong to one of the world cutest little girls!

Ahem... back to the way I'm supposed to do this...

OKay so growing up, I'm sure everyone heard the song head, shoulders, knees, and toes, right?  Growing up I did not know there was another verse to that song... (Eyes and ears, and mouth, and nose...)  I often sit and wonder about stupid trivia and the origin of the song is something I've looked up a few time, never satisfied with the answers.  It seems that someone took another tune, 'There's a Tavern in the Town" First sung by Rudy Valee as the Drunkards song.  It was actually Trinity University College's school song!  Tell me what kind of college has a song about a drunkard as their school song?  And how do you get a children's song from that?

Such questions I fear I will never find the answer to.  In the meantime, I need another picture of toes.

Toes are marvelous things.  One would think that they are completely unnecessary to the human but one would be wrong.  For the first they help with balancing.  Have you ever tried to stand on one foot without your toes touching the ground?  Bloody hard to do.  I know, I just tried and I almost just fell and the vodka in my Kool-aid had absolutely nothing to do with it.  Now put the toes down and magically, you can balance... Well you can... I just nearly fell again.  This time I'm pretty sure it was the Kool-aid.

I might as well say now that I just finished watching Saving Mr. Banks and the voice in my head, which is normally, Meredith Grey from Grey's anatomy is now speaking in a slightly exaggerated British accent so it might leak out to my writing.  Also I must note that I am cracking up here because Meredith Grey does not do British very well...

I don't know about Men, but women abuse the hell out of toes.  If I were a toe and capable of autonomous thought, I would cuss out the woman of who's foot I was on.  We cram toes into shoes and cramp them into a shape that toes weren't meant to so into all for the sake of the legs looking good and making the butt look good.  Screw the butt!

Oh hang on, laughing fit...

The toes of the world are vastly under appreciated.  We walk around like they aren't doing us any good or harm, we paint them garish colors, and some of us, don't take care of them yet still let them see the light of day. (Seriously, if you have fugly toes like I do, just please, keep them covered.  No one wants their next meal ruined because they happened to look down because your neon green nail polish caught their eye and they see ashy, misshapen sausages staring up at them.

Of course I totally feel that toes get us back for people not treating them right because dude!  Have you ever banged your toe into a table leg?  That ish hurts!!  But you are bound to give your toes some serious TLC directly afterwards.  Tell me you aren't going to cradle that foot and pray the pain away.

And speaking of bouund... Did you know that in China, it was considered a thing of beauty to bind women's feet?  I mean seriously?? is this:

Look beautiful?  It would certainly fit some of the Manolos out today but damn that even looks painful.  Supposedly the Emperor Li Yu asked his concubine to bind her feet into the shape of crescents and do a lotus dance for him on just the big toe.  How this because a symbol for beauty, I haven't a clue.  Seems to me that after awhile that would have hurt so much I would have to let those puppies bark.  But however that became a sign of wealth and beauty among women, it lasted until early in the 20th century.  Around the same time that America was begging for blacks and women to have the vote and have say in government, people in China were begging to stop biding women's feet.

We stuff our feet in these:

And think we are pretty, but for centuries, women who cam from money in china, wore these:

I don't know about you, but I'll take the red heels of death. (If you've ever seen me walk in heels after a few drinks you'd understand why I say that)

Men have it lucky.  Wait, time for another toe pic...

Did I mention that I love my friends?  I asked for toe pictures and several of my friends sent me pictures of their toes!  Even after I told them that they were going on the internet and all of my million readers would see them, they said it was cool.!  I love my friends.  And By the way, I love that color!

I saw a snarky e-card once that said if a man has a foot fetish and cheats on his wife, does that mean he got off on the wrong foot?  I laughed a little hard at that.

I love the phrase Twinkle toes.  According to the urban dictionary, it refers to someone who is light and graceful on their feet.  I.E. Ballet dancers.

She:

 would be a twinkle toe. They: 

would be twinkle toes.  And even still, She:  

is my personal hero because I would still be in that position on my death bed which I would have been moved to shortly after attempting that position...

TOE PIC!!

Not that I have a foot fetish by any means but I love kids toes.  I don't think I have met a kid yet that didn't enjoy a round of this little piggy.

"This little piggy went to Market;
This little piggy, stayed home;
This little piggy had roast beef;
And this little piggy, had none;
And this little piggy cried wah wah wah all the way home!"

According the the wikipedia page on the origins of the song, it started from "The Nurse's Song" written in 1728 (See no one can complain about today's musical artists ripping off other song!  We've been doing it since the dawn of time!)

I love playing that game with babues because of the tickle factor.  I'm big on tickles and the fact that I get to tickle baby feet, well the giggle I get from most babies alone is enough to make it well worth it.  Then there's that odd baby, that looks at me with an expression on their face akin to "Who are you and why the $#(& are you touching my toes?"

Anyone notice that the middle piggy is eating a cow?  Just thought I'd put that out there...

TOE PIC!!

Men don't have it any easier in the toe department.  They like to take care of those puppies too but let a man go to a nail salon and get a pedicure and suddenly he's gay.  Because manly men aren't supposed to enjoy someone massaging their feet and scraping all the dead skin off and generally making them look and feel better.  Bollocks. (Sorry, laughing fit.  British Meredith Grey just screamed that loudly in my head!)  Personally I think that a man that can openly do that and not care about the labels' society wants to brand him with is a real man.  He's an even better man if he sits right next to his girl and gets one while she is getting one.

TOE PIC!!

Love the red and green nail polish!  Right now mine are dark purple.  Not that anyone will ever see them until I have had a pedicure but that's the color they are.  A lot like the T above.

I'm pretty much out of things to say about toes.  But let's go over the basic points again...:

1. Don't bind your toes.  They look bad.  Woman alive today who had bound feet can barely walk now so if they aren't being treated well they can't get away.  No bueno...

2. If you have fugly feet, wear socks.  I have fugly feet and toes.  I wear socks everywhere.

3. If it's winter, please wear close toes shoes. No one wants to see Frost bite piggies.  That's like looking at week old vienna sausages.

4. Treat your tootsie's nice.  Don't smash them into things.  Doctors can do nothing but tape them up and charge you five hundred dollars for a fifty cent roll of tape.

5. Take care all of you that wear those high high heels.  It's not good for your foot and worse for your toes.  You may look good but when you are hobbling around at 80, you can bet it was because of all those look good moments where you crammed your tootsies into Manolo Blaniks and Jimmy Chos... Yes I know who they are!  Just because I wear converse and nike doesn't mean I don't know the good shoe designers!

6. Don't laugh at the man getting the pedicure.  If he's that nice to his feet, think of how nice he'll be to yours...

And finally, just so we can end the blog on a good foot (Snort giggle) My last toe pic!!

Stay Frosty Bloggies!! Love ya!!  Big thanks to my friends that sent me toe pics!!!  You guys rock!!

Super Schmaghegy Smartbutt!! Sweet Stereotypes!!!

I gotta tell you, I have been looking forward to this blog FOREVER!!!  No seriously I decided on the S blog when I was still on D... and I was all like "Aw man! I can't wait for S, I gotta get through like ten letters though!!" And here I am!!! S, S, super duper S!  Subperulous, Schmexcellent, Super S!!!

So okay, first the picture....

(There was some debate as to whether I should make this Original size, X-large, or Large.  Large won out but the more important question is who was I debating this issue with...)

Now a disclaimer.  The disclaimer is very important in this blog.  There is a video following this.  It is not for the racist, the bigoted, and the generally stupid as hell.  If you are any of those three then first off, what the hell are you doing here anyway, the way I talk about people you should have been gone like eons ago.  Secondly, if you are offended easily, get over it, it will serve you no purpose in life and certainly not on this blog.  Crap, I'm meant to be disclaiming... seriously if you don't know how to take a joke then just close this now, cause I'm about to embed a video that I find quite hilarious and it's the basis for this blog so yeah... I have disclaimed, you have been warned... now those of you that are left, go enjoy the video and I'll see you when you stop laughing... what am I forgetting... oh yeah DO NOT WATCH THIS AT WORK IF YOU DON'T HAVE HEADPHONES! I HAVE OFFICIALLY DISCLAIMED SO YOU CANNOT HOLD ME RESPONSIBLE IF YOU GET FIRED FOR PLAYING THIS!

Have you stopped laughing or should I sit back and wait a few more minutes?

So I ran across this YouTube video totally randomly in 2011 and I was floored.  I was laughing so hard I didn't even catch the meaning until the fifth or sixth time of watching.  In case you missed it My Favorite Martian is basically saying take all the stereotype you've ever heard of and blow them out your rear end because 90% of them are shit.  And it's not just the cultural stereotypes that need to be tossed out it's all of them.  

A definition of Stereotypes:

The definition of a stereotype is any commonly known public belief about a certain social group or a type of individual. Stereotypes are often confused with prejudices, because, like prejudices, a stereotype is based on a prior assumption. Stereotypes are often created about people of specific cultures or races.

Almost every culture or race has a stereotype, including Jewish people, Blacks, Irish people, and Polish people, among others.

Stereotypes are not just centered on different races and backgrounds, however. Gender stereotypes also exist. For example, if you say that men are better than women, you’re stereotyping all men and all women. If you say that all women like to cook, you are stereotyping women.

A lot of stereotypes annoy the piss out of me but I'm going to pick a few and see how long this gets.  The first Stereotype that pisses me off is the ones about those on food stamps.

Want me to say it?  I'm on food stamps.  I need government help to feed my family.  Am I proud of it? No.  Am I going to put on a shirt that says that I get government aid, probably not. As soon as I can get off of it, am I going to march in my social services office and give them their card back? Yes.  Does this mean that I am on Welfare? No!  Am I ashamed of welfare? No.

People seem to think that all government aid is lumped together in one big ball of nedy lazy people that are taking advantage of your tax dollars.  That is not true.  That is not false but as a general stereotype it is.  There are always, always ALWAYS going to be people everywhere that will be given a hand and take a whole arm.  That is not all people.  The general stereotypes that I run into if I happen to be unlucky enough to have to sit through a discussion about government aid is that the people who need it are fat lazy good for nothings that would rather draw the benefits than do something with their life. The people on Medicaid are taking the free healthcare and popping out baby after baby after baby so that the people not on it have to pay through the nose for their care to cover other's care.  That they're all druggies who can't be trusted. Oh and my favorite, the people who don't need aid can't afford lobster for dinner, but people on food stamps can get it anytime they choose to.

Seriously, don't make me laugh.  Starting from the bottom.  If I could get lobster on food stamps, don't you think my ass would have learn to love that shit ages ago?  I JUST got to try lobster when my mother took us out for Christmas dinner and I'm freaking 34!  90% of stores that accept EBT/SNAP benefits have certain items that you cannot get on food stamps.  They don't fly.  You have to pay cold hard cash for them and let me tell you most steaks (The good one, t-bone, prime rib, porterhouse, etc), lobster, fresh seafood (the stuff in the seafood case not the prepackaged stuff) and NOTHING from the butchers block counter (The fresh meat they cut for you) can be bought with stamps... at least not in North Carolina.  You get tot he register and think we're getting away with that shit and the register tells us nope uh uh, cash please.  Hell this afternoon I wasn't able to use my EBT card for some black grapes because that is what they classify a gourmet item.  And the thought that the states should restrict what you can buy on stamps, they already have but what most people are calling for is no sugar type stuff.  They already have that program.  It's called WIC.  As for sugary stuff on stamps, let me ask you this... a gallon of apple cider costs what? Four maybe five dollars?  Guess what? Kool-aid costs two bucks.  And with that small thing of kool-aid we can make drinks for depending on the household up to three weeks. (insert double stereotype that poor folks guzzle kool-aid... I will handle that later.)  The government would have to up the food stamp roof to accommodate cutting out sugary stuff. because the healthy stuff costs so much more. That is not an opinion.  That is a cold hard fact.  Is it a fair fact? No.  But it's still a fact.

Next that welfare people are just druggies.  Seriously, do I have to debunk that one?  I have never tried to get welfare in NC but I tried just after my divorce in New Jersey.  They told me I couldn't get welfare because I had kids.  I asked then who does get welfare?  The woman told me that people with no kids who are trying to get a leg up on life.  That is per a reform that took place and went into effect almost ten years ago.  And the ones that were already on the old system were being phased into the reform which meant they were going to have to stop being the stereotype that unfortunately some of them created.  No more free checks and no more people with a blatant substance abuse problem.  And I love the people who post things on Facebook about all government aid recipients need to be tested for drugs before getting their benefits.  They tried that in Florida.  They spent 26 million dollars that the country technically doesn't have only to come up with one person.  Everyone else passed because here's the thing.  If you know that you are down on the food chain enough to have to ask for help feeding your kids, you know that it's defeating the purpose if you have a coke habit.  It's the ones that don't know just how far down on the food chain that find a way to do drugs and still get aid and somewhere in the back of their heads a little piece of them knows it's not going to last because the government keeps track of everything you buy with that card.  At any given time Social services can tell me how much I spent, where I spent it, and depending on the store what I bought.  Would I mind doing a piss test if they asked me to? Honestly? No.  Because I like the majority know that doing what they don't want you to do is the best way to muck it all up.

Having baby after baby after baby... Again, those of you crying about that have you ever trued to sign up for MedicAid?  Ever?  More than likely not.  The state of New Jersey tells you flat out.  We are covering the kids on this application.  We are not covering anymore.  If you need help for these, then you should be smart enough not to have anymore.  No shit that is exactly what my caseworker in NJ told me.  In NC they did one better.  The application asks if I would be willing to be sterilized and that if I am not it may affect the decision to give me aid.  For shits and giggles I told them no I would not be willing to be sterilized. (I had my tubes tied after my youngest daughter because we could barely scrape by with them and I wasn't bringing another into the picture especially when we had a loveless marriage on top of that.) The result was me being called to an itty bitty room and interrogated about my intention to have more children that I couldn't afford and that the government was going to have to support.  They tried to go the shame route on me.  There was one loophole to this interrogation however.  I could have very easily said that religion prevented me from saying yes.  There isn't a thing they could do about it then, but instead being the sarcastic ass I am, I started laughing and told the stern faced woman that I wouldn't agree to be sterilized because I had been sterilized years prior.  That gave the woman a good pause.  To which she actually apologized for the shaming she had tried to give me.  So no, you can't get on Medicaid and pop out babies like a pez dispenser. It doesn't work like that.

Fat lazy good for nothings... I'm not even going to try and disabuse people of that one.  For every one of us that are on government aid that are trying to do something with their lives there are five more that have simply given up and are content to sit and do nothing.  And yes, I said given up.  In most cases, they go out and they get the job, but it's minimum wage and it's part time but yet the state will cut benefits like it's a full time job.  You can make $150 a week and feel good about yourself and the state will see that you are making money and cut your benefits.  Normally this would be okay but if that $150 isn't guaranteed every week, then that cut in benefits stats to gain on you.  Say you made 150 week one, 75 week two, 100, week three, and 80 the fourth week.  But your benefits were cut $600 because you had a paycheck that said $150.  Your pay adds up to $405.  You are now $195 short on what you normally have to support your household.  The government aid system was not set up to deal with flexible hours and pay.  For most families, that missing $195 is an electric bill or maybe their share of the rent.  After six months of that you are now down about $1,200.  So yeah, I say given up because against odds like that, you really can't win.  Months of choosing which bill you are going to pay that month are going to pile up like a tsunami and engulf you so the thought it is, give up go back on full benefits, catch up with bills and not try to get ahead again.  Not fat lazy good for nothings.  People who have been knocked down so many times they don't know how to get up anymore.

And I will never say another word on Government assistance again.  It's not a topic that I discuss often.

Stereotype Number two and this was mentioned with the kool-aid vs healthy drinks line.

African americans drink nothing but kool-aid and eat fried chicken.

Have you ever seen a painting or drawing of a black family gathering?  Nine times out of ten the prominent food/drink there is Fried chicken and kool-aid.  Because that's what we drink/eat.  Yeah, we do.  But we drink and eat so much more.  Fried chicken goes back to slavery times.  And let me tell you.  Back then more slave owners ate fried chicken that the average modern african american family.  Someone, somewhere put flour on a piece of chicken and threw that bitch in some hot oil and chowed down and it was the greatest meal ever.  Chicken farms.  Hell unless you were lucky enough to have a dairy farm with a cow for beef and a pig for pork you could always find a chicken.  The truth is, chicken is one of the cheapest meats out there.  To make my family chicken wings for dinner, do you know how much it costs?  About 11-20 bucks and we have left over for days. Bag of wings is 7-9 bucks and the oil is about 2.  So depending if I'm making them to eat tonight or to eat for days, I'm still spending less than $25 bucks.  Now you get a whole bunch of people together that have the stuff and know how to cook the stuff, you get a lot of fried chicken, you will get potato salad, cornbread, and there is no doubt that you will get about five different desserts.  Is this a bad stereotype?   No but it's not a totally correct one either.  Have you ever heard of a kid drinking city punch?  You think that's slang for Kool-aid don't you?  Haha no.  City Punch is another way of saying water.  I actually saw on television one woman talking about all the kids telling her that they drink city punch and she went on and on about how the sugar in their diets was going to cause them to be obese and what not.  I think the show that was airing this let her go on and on because either they didn't know what City punch was or they wanted to see just how deep this woman could stick her foot in her moth and down her throat.  She was complaining about them getting fat on water. Hmmm...

Seriously the kool-aid and chicken thing is one of my favorite stereotypes.  I can't say for why totally but it makes me laugh. And if you come from my family, Hells yeah you're going to get fried chicken , all that other mess I don't eat, and five different desserts and if no one thought to buy a few cases of soda, Hell yeah you're going to find both Kool-aid and Cool-aid.  You figure that one out...

Women are bad drivers.  Well, you try putting on your make up in those tiny mirrors.  Let's see how well you drive!  Go on, how bout you shave on your way to work.  Go on!  See how well you drive?

Blacks are better at sports and dancing.  Have you ever noticed that a lot of the dance moves that blacks do look like we're having sex or getting the crap beat out of us or running away?  I'm going to let that marinate in your brain.  As for sports.  It's mostly the ones that we're running in.  Football.  We catch the ball and twenty guys start running at you.  Hell yeah I see a whole bunch of burly guys running at me at top speed, you bet your ass I'm going to run.  Baseball. We ain't hitting the ball.  We're hitting someone that pissed us off and then we're running because their brother/father/posse is coming after us. Track. WE ARE RUNNING AWAY.  Swimming. WE ARE GETTING AWAY.  Basketball. I don't know about them but I;m bouncing my ex husbands face into the floor over and over and over again and science tells us that if we drop it from high enough it's going to hit the ground harder usually so yeah I'm going to shove the butthead's face through an itty bitty hoop and slam it on the ground.  Y'all really think we thinking about the mechanics of the sport?  Ha!!  Good one.

I'm spent bloggers.  I'm hungry, my dinner is calling my name and since the kids are away, my big ol' tub that takes forty minutes to fill is calling me too so stay Frosty, guys!! Till next time!!

The Random things that Roam aRound in my bRain....

If you didn't figure it out from the title, this is the R blog and the subject is going to be random things that I think about that start with R!! Yay!  Fun!!

So Random things that start with R....

Random People

Wow, that sounds like I'm about to just name random people and call out the attack squad doesn't it?  Hehe no, I'm not... or am I??  LOL.  No. I mean actual people that are just so random, you have to love them.

Personally Random people are my favorites among my friends.  Everyone has a random friend.  The one that can look you in the eyes for the briefest of seconds and say the very thing that is floating across your brain but they make it sound funny and not sarcastic and rude which is how it sounded in your brain... That's your random person.  The person who always has a one liner that comes out of nowhere and makes everyone rofl, THAT'S your random friend.  I have a couple of them.  They are some of my best friends actually.    Everyone needs one or two.  In my opinion, they spice life up kinda like Emril thinks he's doing when he throws something in a pot and screams "BAM!"  (I've had his spices, they aren't all that)  We all need spice in our lives.  Even the quiet librarian type that wears the froudy clothes and big glasses.  Yes, she needs spice and chances are she simply hasn't found her random friend yet.

Being called Random is not an insult.  You know how the "I'm so popular everyone should bow down I can do whatever I want and my shit doesn't stink because I'm a cheerleader" girl (no, I like them, the sarcasm hanging all over that last sentence was purely coincidental...) always turns to her friends and points out the outcast and says "Ohmigawd!  That guy is soooo random!" (admit it, you said it in a valley girl, stuck up sort of way and if you didn't before you just went back and did...) Well, that guy should be thrilled that that itch thinks he's random because I think being random is awesome.  I was actually called random once as an adult.  I was sitting on the stoop in the development we lived in and I said something and one of the women looked up at me and said, "You're kinda special.  You're just so random."  Now I get that she thought she was insulting me and I could have let my face fall and acted hurt but I wasn't going to give her that.  I looked up and told her that being special and Random were two of my best features.  That she never knew what she was going to get from me and it just meant that she would have to keep on her toes and dust off her brain to try and figure me out.  That sad part about that was maybe five people around her understood that I turned her insult back on her but she never did.  That's the beauty of being random.  No one knows what you are going to do or say next.

Now onto the next r...

Road Rage

This a very funny r and one that I... reportedly... suffer from but I gotta be honest with you... I don't suffer from it at all.  As a matter of fact, I enjoy every minute of it.  What? I do!  There is something really special about road rage that releases a whole lot of stress for me.  Other people feel tired after a bout of road rage takes them over, me? I feel like I could drive across the country and back again.

Now don't get me wrong, my road rage has almost gotten me in trouble a couple of times.  The first time that I can remember it nearly getting me in trouble was in Newport News, Va. We used to live there when Randy was stationed at Norfolk Naval Base.  I was on my way to Langley AFB via highway 64 to do some grocery shopping and needed to get out of my lane to the next so I could take my exit and get there but this dumpy white woman in the next lane was riding my six.  I sped up and so did she, I dropped back and so did she.  Despite the fact that I had a signal on that she saw, she refused to let me come over.  And i know she saw it because in my rearview I could see her stupid grin.  No doubt she thought she could have some fun with the nigger woman and yes I can say it like that because you have no idea how many people I met in Virginia who had no problem calling me that.  Anyway, I missed my exit, a fact I made abundantly clear by my gesturing and cussing and I saw her give her passenger a malicious smile.  That was it.  I had tried to play nice.  I had tried to be a good person and a good driver but she wanted to be a bitch so okay, I could play that game.  There was no one behind me so I hit my brakes, which she wasn't prepared for and swung behind her.  I didn't threaten her, I didn't do anything in my car that would suggest that when I caught her, I would do her harm but I followed that woman very close on her tail well through the Hampton Roads. She got over, I got over.  She sped up, I sped up.  I rode that woman's bumper like she was a big ol bar of chocolate and I was a hungry PMSing fat girl.  The entire time I wore this wide malicious grin that probably made me look like the joker.  She even thought that she could hop off the highway and lose me but no. I kept up.  She ran lights, I ran lights.  We did this for maybe an hour.  Finally she drove into a police department parking lot and I guess she thought that I was going to keep going and let her go but I pulled in right behind her.  She pulled into a parking spot and see I was young and dumb so I blocked her in.  A cop who was watching came over and inquired what was going on.  I got out and told him that I  had been on 64 and had tried to get over because I needed to get to Langley and this woman had ridden my six so hard that I couldn't get over and I missed my exit so I decided to give her a little back and that I just wanted to ask her why she would do that to someone she didn't know.  That I hadn't threatened her in any way and the only reason I could think of that she was do that to me was because I was black.  She further proved my point on that when she jumped out and told the cop that this Nigger has followed her and was going to kill her.  The cop looks back at me and says to her. "With a baby in the backseat?  She was going to kill you?" (I had JoJo in the back.  He had peacefully slept through all of this but then Jojo always did sleep through my driving.)

The woman went on to tell the cop that she had run red lights to shake me and had done illegal turn arounds and gone the wrong way on one way streets (That she hadn't done.  I'm not that stupid and never have nor will be) and the cop is standing there listening to her.  Finally he looks back at me and says "You said you just wanted to ask her why.  Ask her."  I swear on all that is holy that this woman didn't realize the hole she had dug herself into and she looked the cop right in the face and said that they were just having some fun with the nigger.  I had no clue what happened after that because the cop told me to get in my car and go and to be nice and not scare the white people anymore.  He was white and he said that with a smile so I smiled and drove off.  I don't know nor do I care what happened to her.

My next forary in to memorable road rage was in Cali.  Another person on the road.  I can't remember if they were white or black.  I just know it was a man.  He tried to come over into a lane I was already in and I honked at him.  I let it go, he pulled along side me and flipped me off.  Then he tried again to get over, I honked and sped up.  He pulled along side me again and this time made some really rude gestures.  I reached over and took the one and only gun toy my children have ever had (Which looked incredibly fake.  Seriously this thing was bright orange) and pointed it at him.  To say he hung back was an understatement.  He nearly hit his brakes.  I lost track of him.  I guess it was about two or so miles down the road that I see red and blue lights.  And I'm like WTF? I'm not speeding, I'm not doing anything wrong but nevertheless I stopped.  Cop get out and approaches the car and say he needs me to throw all weapons out.  I'm like what the hell are you talking about?  He asks me point blank do I have any guns in the car and I told him only this one and I held the kids toy gun out the window.  Now the look on his face was awesome.  He actually fell out into laughter.  When he was able to compose himself he says to me that they got a frantic 911 call that there was a woman in a green taurus station wagon pointing guns at random people on the highway.  Did I know what he was talking about.  Now I don't lie to cops.  I usually tell them the truth.  I told him yes I knew who would say that but he tried twice to run me off the road so yes, I pointed this at him.  It's not my fault that he couldn't tell a bright orange gun from a real one.  The cop looked at the toy and told me that I was not nice and not to do it again.  Then he says into his shoulder walkie talkie that it was a toy gun not in any way real looking at all and explained it.  It may have been static but from the smile on the cops face, I think that was laughter coming from dispatch.  I don't know what they said after that but he said yes and told me that he needed to bring the gun toy wit him.  He said I could pick it up and named the station.  I told him I don't like guns when they finished laughing over it, they could trash it.  He let me go and that' was my last memorable trip into road rage and the story of how my son lost the only gun toy he ever had in my presence.

There have been other trips into road rage but none as funny as those two and I have made some serious mistakes, such as flipping off a police officer in NYC.  But we live, we learn.  Just remember, be careful who you decide to play a game with on the highway, you never know what their limit of road rage is.

That's it, I have no more r topics... I kinda do but I don't.  And I think I've rambled on long enough.  Stay Frosty!!

Questions, Queries, Quotes....

It's time for the Q blog!!!  Throw your hands up in the air and wave 'em like just don't care!!!

So if you read me regularly (or as regularly as I post) then you know I have been saying that I was going to do the Q blog for some time now but I never seem to get it up. (Although I managed to have time to do a million and a half personal blogs.)  My only excuse for that is to hang my head and smile pretty and hope you forgive me.

I decided to do the Q blog on quotes that people say but most have no idea where they come from.

Let's start with a simple one.

"Don't let the cat out of the bag."

This is actually a market expression.  Many many years ago when live animals were sold at market to consumers (Think they sold you the pig, you had to make your own chops and all that no nice prepackaged stuff) Some marketers would put a piglet in a bag and sell it to you.  Well naturally, the piglet would not like being in the bag and he would thrash around and generally be in a panic.  Some retailers would substitute a cat for the piglet because let's face it, an angry cat thrashing around sounds the same as a piglet in distress.  At least that's the thought.  I don't hear it and quite honestly think the sharp claws trying to rip the bag to shreds would have given it away for me. But I digress.  The phrase was coined because naturally you wouldn't want to open the bag and a cat comes flying out instead of you seeing the piglet you bought at the bottom of the bag or rather  Give away the secret of the deception.  Hence "Don't let the cat out of the bag" means  Don't tell the secret.

"You'll catch your death."

This one goes back to the nineteenth century.  You will mostly hear older people say it.  Back then, death was such a constant presence in most households that doing something like stubbing your toe could eventually lead to death.  You could stub it, the nail could come off, most people went shoeless you got dirt under the nail which turns into an infection and boom, you're dead.  To catch it, means you were chasing it.  If you intentionally go out in cold weather with nothing warm on you were all but telling death that you were done on this earth and you were ready to die.  And a cold was the quickest way.  Nobody was exceptionally healthy so going out and getting a chill that would lead to the weakening of your already not so awesome immune system... you get the picture.

"Hell bent for leather" -Sarah Brown

Hell bent for leather does not actually seem to have an origin and many think that it is actually two phrases combined.  Hell bent means recklessly determined.  Your mom told you not to touch the pot on the stove, your gram told you the same thing, you even say someone get burned already but you still want to touch it.  You are recklessly determined to get hurt. Hell bent meaning you will go as far as hell to get your answer.  Hell for leather was actually coined by Rudyard Kipling in 1889 as a way of recklessly riding a horse.  No one knows if the leather in this case is the leather riding crop or the wear and tear on the leather saddle but most take the combined phrase to mean that you will continue on the path to destruction no matter what.

"Mind your P's and Q's"

Another phrase that people are of split minds on.  I actually explored this one years ago when it crossed my mind that I wanted to know where it came from and I found that it came from Old Ireland where there are public houses, or pubs aplenty.  They serve their beer in Pints and Quarts. Honestly I knew about then serving pints of beer but I never ever heard of a pub serving a quart of beer, so i highly doubt the validity of this origin explaination.  The second that I found was mind your pleases and thank you's  R being the Please and Q being the latter half of the phrase Thank you which sounds like Q.  The basic meaning of this phrase is mind your language.  Because using please and thank you is always the way to be on the right side of the harsh language wall.  So I guess if I tell someone to "please go eff themselves, thank you very much" I guess I'm minding my p's and q's and am therefore minding my language....

And Lastly...

"Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!"

Let's take a trip back to the medieval times shall we?  no not the totally awesome fantastic, I might just be a little biased because I love it show, I mean the actual Medieval times.  When a lady was a lady and the silk and jewels were real and no body bathed regularly.  Yeah.  Fun fact.  June brides are and always have been so popular because June is when most people took their yearly, or bi annual bath.  If you got married in June, there was a good chance your mate was reasonably clean.  Back to the topic.  It was customary for the man in the house to take the first bath in the nice clean water.  Followed by any sons, then mom, then the daughters and finally, the baby.  Keep in mind that if this was an annual bath and most people had lice and other lovlies crawling on them the water was now cloudy and vermin infested and if you dropped the baby into the water and it went over his head you probably couldn't see the baby for the grime and cloudiness of the water.  And because everyone was such a good parent back then it was apparently common for people to toss out the bath water with the baby still in the water.  This is just my warped thinking but one if the baby slipped below the waters surface and i didn't notice, the bay is probably dead by the time I throw out the bathwater.  I'm just saying... baby didn't make a sound and I've now picked up the tub and tossed it.  Yep.  Baby is gone.

So that's the origin of some quotes that I have heard and used but had to go and look up.

Now remember guys, mind your p's and q', don't go out without a coat or you'll catch your death and don't be hell bent for leather and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Hehe Stay Frosty y'all!!

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickles....

First off, Today is a special day.  Today is one of my best friend's birthdays.

Happiest of happy birthdays Andi!!  I love you!!

I am one of the few people in my family that can say that rhyme.  As I know of, I am the only one in my family that can say it drinking...

That's a whole new kind of sad.  But a funny sad.  I'm actually laughing about that...

So in case you haven't guessed by the title, This is the P blog... I'm going to have to slow down... I'll be at Z in no time with nothing left to do...But start back at the beginning!

Okay, I have no idea what that P is made up of, but it looked cool so I snagged it for tonight's blog.  It looks almost like Groceries.  Pretty sure if I actually went to the site that hosted the image I'd find out but I'm lazy and at the moment I am watching Once Upon A Time.  At this point considering it's a new episode the fact that I'm writing during it means I love y'all.  Okay so I admit it, I'm blogging during the commercials... I still love y'all though...

So I thought about a topic for P for a few days and the only topic I could come up with that I could write anything about was parenting.

Now bear with me, I'm going to try not to make this one of those blogs where I condemn people but I may get off track.

In my life I have had the chance to observe a lot of parents and the way they interact with their children and I have been around long enough to see how some of those children grow up.  Sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm appalled.

When I was a teenager I had a friend, H.  She was, for lack of a better word horrible.  She wasn't a champion bather and she littirally ran roughshod over her mother, a weak spirited woman that I actually never saw again after high school.  They lived in a one bedroom apartment and her mother let her have the bedroom while she slept in the living room.  The place was always cluttered with dolls and cats and I never liked going in because the smell was just... Anyway, H and I were the same age and somewhere in high school, her mom gave up and sent her to live with her dad in NYC.  Her dad wasn't any better in the parenting department as far as I am concerned and the result was that H ran rampant.  His passing away and leaving H a lot of money didn't help.  I kinda lost track of her after that but then shortly after I had Jay our paths crossed again and honestly all I can see was the kind of woman my mother always warned me to stay away from so conclusion the hands off passive parent thing was not something that was a good choice here.

Again when I was a teen I babysat for my mother's coworker and her husband.  They also lived in a one bedroom apartment but they turned the dining room into a bedroom for their boys.  They were very hands on and as a teenager, I always thought they were a little too into their sons' lives.  But then I was a teenager who only craved freedom and space anyway I could have it.  Because the mom was friends with my mom I was able to keep up with them for a awhile.  We all lost touch when her oldest son was in high school and I just went on a Google search and found her youngest son who is now 18 and a senior in college.  I do know that not long ago, her first son made her a grandmother or so I'd heard but both boys have awesome career paths and were/are smart as whips.  So in this case, I guess interactive parenting worked.

My mom bought me up the way she was brought up. She grew up in the age of Children were to be seen and not heard and spare the rod, spoil the child.  She didn't really expect me to be silent unless spoken to.  We talked.  She encouraged that.  Did I tell my mother everything I did? No.  If i had I'd be in a convent and she probably would have had a couple of strokes by now.  I can't say I was a bad girl but I wasn't as glinty gold as I looked from a distance.  Enough said in a blog.  

But I digress, I look around at some parents today and I can't fathom the childhood they had that would give them any indication that they way they are parenting is stellar.  Since I have been down here in Charlotte, I have seen parents who let their children basically run wild.  And I'm not talking about the run wild as mention with H above, I mean well and truly wild.  They don't care if their child steals, swears, and treats people around then like trash.  Across the street from my house I have a woman that moved in about two years ago.  For the first year we never saw her kids.  Didn't know she had kids but this year, they are every freaking where.  Most recently, they have been chasing each other all over the yard with a cap gun or locking each other out of the house.  The few times I have seen her she has been yelling at her kids from the car.  So I'm going to go with hand off parenting here.

I myself am trying the interactive yet hands off approach with my kids.  I'm in their face, I back off, I'm here when they need me, I'm quietly watching, I'm up in their rooms while they are at school, I'm logging onto their facebooks to read the messages and see what they're posting.  I'm all over my kids lives, especially my daughters.

There was a post on Facebook that I used to see. "Parents: Please remember that when you are done raising your kids, the rest of the world has to deal with them."  I take this to mean try and teach them the golden rule.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  If you want others to treat you with respect you must treat them with the same.

There is one kind of parent that really annoys me.  Those are the parents that drag each other on shows lik Maury and demand paternity tests.  Shaniquanaynay is dragging Demarion on the show because he knows he the daddy.  He knows it.  Ain't no way no how that he cain't be the daddy!  She ain't slept wit no one else and the chile even look like him!!  She's up there acting a fool and Maury gets the results and the baby isn't even his.  So then she's crying and running off stage and all unconsolable. But here's the kicker, she comes back with two more guys and she's back acting a fool.  Not as much of a fool since at this point she's admitting to both of these poor men that she was sleeping around on them.  one of them is denying he's the dad and the other is hoping he is the dad but then, neither of them is the dad.  She runs off the stage crying and is inconsolable.  But wait, now this woman is back and she has another man to test.

At what point does this woman realize that every single show will one day be in reruns and her child will see what a fool she's acting on national television.  If you were that child and you grew up and saw your mother acting like that would you or would you not be embarrassed.  Me personally, I would be embarrassed.

I'm no expert on parenting nor do I reserve any right to say that anyone is doing it wrong.  I just simply don't agree with most people's practices.

As always, I'm interested to see if anyone has any input.  Feel free to comment and give me your thoughts on parenting.  What makes a good parent to you?  What kind of a parent are you or do you hope to be?

Well, it's late and while my favorite movie is on, it is after midnight and it won't go off until after 2 am and even that aside, it's a serious tear jerker (A romance...The Holiday I am totally in love with Jude Law.  He's my celeb crush.  If you are out there Jude and read this, please come kiss me.  I don't want anything else from you... right now.  Just a kiss) and I don't want to go to sleep crying... again... (Let it go.)

So goodnight! Sleep tight!  Tomorrow is Cyber Monday so if you have online shopping to do this is the day!  Have fun!!

O...O...O... Oh!

Yes! I am returning to the Alphabet blog!!

I sat and thought a lot about this blog.  At first only one O word kept coming to mind but in the end I really didn't want to blog about orgasms.  One because I don't remember what those feel like to describe it and two because I didn't really want to do another blog that had to do with sex.  I already did K for Kinky and I may have scared a couple of people with that one.

This was is sort of connected to sex but not really.  I chose Online Dating.

We have Match.com. eHarmony, Plenty of Fish, Single parents Dating, Military Singles, OK Cupid, and about a million other sites out there but do any of them really help?

I have one friend that met her husband on I think Match.com and they're happy.  They're good.  They are the success story that the site likes to tell everyone.

I probably have a free profile on all of them... including Christian Mingle.com.  The problem with that is they don't allow you to communicate with each other if all you have is the free membership.  Paying members can message you and see all the stuff you want them to see but if you aren't a paying member you can't write them back.  Yes Match.com has free communications weekends but honestly, I never see the commercials until Saturday night when the weekend starts on Friday and ends Sunday.  Not enough time to update my profiles.  Or remember all of my log ons.

I paid for Single parent's meet for three months and let me tell you.  It was a waste of money.  most of the people there didn't have kids, didn't want kids, or didn't want a black woman with kids.  If I were 25 and had no kids then maybe they'd consider me but not a thirty year old with kids.  Nope.  I did get a couple of letters from a few guys though.  The one that made me pay the site simply because I wanted to write him back was a scam I think.  It appeared five minutes after I signed up and he told me all about himself.  Way more than he could have possibly have written in five minutes>  Anyway, I paid, and wrote him back, waited for his reply which  came two days later and what he replied was the same exact letter he wrote in the first place.  It took me all of five minutes to realize that the site had a profile that wrote women various letters based on their likes and dislikes to lure them into paying so they can respond.  That guy aside I got a few hits from some guys but they were all across the country and way older than me.  I don't mind a guy older than me but when I was 30, I wasn't looking for a 55+ guy.  And there was one guy I really hit it off with.  I mean I actually would have liked to have met this guy but then in response to one of my letters, he sent me a reply to another woman and a steamy one at that.  When I called him on the wrong name, he tried to apologize but said "I'm sorry, I talk to so many women here that it's hard to keep you all straight."  Wrong! Sorry!  not me!!  I'm ghost.  Stopped paying for that one and let the account go.  It's been about five years on that one.

Christian Mingle is probably a nice site but apparently God wants about $35 a month billed in one easy lump sum of $100+ to show you the match he's picked out for you.  How about I propose a new deal?  I go to church and pay my tithes.  Pay partial attention to the sermon and pray really hard?  How about that?  Deal!

I'm not above online dating sites.  If they were cheaper or rather free, I would actually try to use one the way they are supposed to but then there's other concerns.

Is anyone really who they say they are online?  I don't think so.  I try to be honest but let's face it, even I embellish a little bit.  In body type they offer, Slim, Athletic, Average, Curvy, A little more to Love, and BBW (Big Beautiful Woman).  I'm not Average (Although if America keeps going the way they seem to be, I will be) but at the same time I wouldn't describe me as Curvy because to me that says I have big boobs, small waist and or a big booty.  I have hand sized boobs and a little more booty than average with a not to thin waist.  But oh the things I can do with that booty! Ahem.  A little more to love makes me think I'm outfight saying I'm large but not so large as to make you think, Damn!  I'm not that large.  So usually I alternate between Curvy and A little more to love.  I think I have used BBW once and the men that responded were DEFINITELY in the BHM (Big Handsome Male) category and I'm sorry that's not a turn on to me.  I reserve the right even in my deplorable singlehood to be a little choosy.

Every now and then I talk myself into finding one of the cheaper sites and paying for them but then the news has a conveniently placed story about cyber dating gone horribly wrong and I talk myself right out of it.  And I usually don't even try the free for months to come.  They scare me just that bad.

It's always a possibility I guess.  Not now and maybe not ever for me, but There are success stories out there that aren't made up by PR execs in a smokey office.

One day my doofus in Tin Foil will come and if I have to use an Online Site to find him, I just might have to screw up the courage to do so.

As always comments are appreciated...

Feel free to Write on my Google+ page your suggestions for P.

Till then!!

What's in a name?

So I didn't really have to think about the N blog too much.  I've been thinking about the topic way to often as of late and figured, it deserved a blog.

Names.

When I pregnant with Olivia, The Dr. told me it looked like a girl.  information that I then sent on to my then husband.  He went to Turkey one night when the ship docked and got a tat on his upper arm of our children's names.  He sent me a picture later and I noticed that he had named our third, yet to be born child Olivia already.  I mean, how much more solid is a childs name than ink in injected into skin?  I told him that the doc wasn't sure if it was a girl and honestly, when he said we needed a kids with vowel name, Olivia was NOT where I was headed.  He then told me that if it was a boy it would be Oliver and he'd get it fixed, and if it wa a girl she would be Olivia.  No if's ans, or buts... from an Ocean away.

I so could have been the petty one and named my daughter Ysabel, or Abigail, or Iolanthe, or any number of names that start with a vowel as well as totally bucking him and going with another consonant like B because deep down I wanted to name my daughter Bronwyn.  It was in a book that I'd just read and I thought it was a good solid, unusual, but still totally awesome name.  But I was a good wife and named my child Olivia.  To be honest, I didn't like the name and further didn't like it when we went to his grandfather's home in NY for his funeral and his children from his second marriage assumed right off the bat that we had named our third child after their mother, Olivia; a woman I had never heard of nor met.  I am embarrassed to say that he made me acquiesce and agree that I had named my child after this woman that I am sure was a good woman just no one I knew anything about other than she married my then husband's grandfather and had a crap load of semi good looking kids with.

But whatever, that's in the past and Olivia is Olivia and she isn't going to change.  You will rarely hear me call her Olivia though.  I stick to Livy and other pet names.  I haven't called her Olivia on the regular ever.  Only when I am upset and trying to get her attention.

So my topic is names.  What possesses a parent to give a child a name?  Family names?  Purpose specific names?  What?

A personal favorite boys name of mine is Sebastian.  Also Nathan.  I don't see me ever putting them together for one child's name so as I see it, I need to have at least two more boys to have my two most coveted names.  I have to have so many more Girls, you'd think I was a Dugger to have all the girls names I like...

An old college buddy named her child Evian.  I asked her how she came up with that considering the trend at the time was to take actual words and turn them backwards for names.  I dared hope she wasn't doing this because Evian backwards is naive.  She outright told me because she liked the water.  I was done.

A girl that I grew up with and who I considered my best friend until middle/high school is named Semajh.  I always, always ALWAYS wondered where her parents got such an inventive name from.  They were Afrocentric, they celebrated Kwanzaa, they did all the stuff that I only read that black people do, I considered them the blackest people I knew at the time and figured the name had African roots.  I was all that more jazzed.   I had a friend with an African name!!  No.  The story I was told, not sure by whom is that they were expecting a boy and when a girl came out, they turned the name James (The name they had settled on) around and added an H.  My bubble burst all sorts of ways.  Don't get me wrong I still thought, do think that Semajh is a totally awesome name.  It's pretty and unique to me but the story behind it, too a little bit of the glitter away from it for me.

Speaking of Unique. I've met at least three women in my lifetime that named their daughters Unique. Okay sure one of them pronounced it "Uni-kay" but it was still Unique.  It seemed it was actually a popular name for a minute there.  My question is this:  If fifteen hundred other girls are named Unique, is the symbolism of the name not lost?

I have had two female friends that named their daughter's Heaven.  One who followed a trend and went with Neveah.  I personally like the backwards version.  I don't have much to say about naming your child Heaven.  Are you trying to say this is where they will go when they die or were you describing the event that created said child?

Precious.  In my experience (and yes I have had experience with this name) most girls who are named this are entitled little shits.  Yes I said it.  They think that because they are named Precious, they are precious.  Naw chickie, you might be precious but you are a precious hot mess.

And what about the moms that name their children Mercedes, Bentley, Porsche, and Royce when they know they should have gone with Yugo, Toyota, Chevy, and Dodge.  And in case you are wondering these too, are names that I have personally come across.  In this case all at one time when I was a photographer.  The mother came in and sat her children down and one by one called out the names and my mouth had to struggle not to drop on the floor.  Why?  I just wanted to ask why?

And this goes back years.  My mother once taught a set of twins named Inowseeallah and Nowiseeallah.  Yes, you read that right.  If you break it up, that was I now see Allah and Now I see Allah.  I can only wonder where those two are now a good thirty years later.

I admire people who do traditional things like name their boys Junior.  My father is a junior.  However in the case of my father, the man he is junior to, is not his father.  We don't know who his father is/was.  Something like that can seriously detriment a child.  Fortunately I don't see it done very often, actually haven't come across it other than my father but I don't understand what would possess my Grandmother to name my father Jr when that man wasn't the father. And after Junior what is next?  III, IV, and V?  That's awesome but after 18 I would change my name from Jr. to II.  It's just a maturity thing to me.

Then we have the Celebrities of today. Gwyneth named her daughter Apple.  Her son is named Moses but back to Apple.  "Because apples are whole and pure." Hmmm...

Beyonce named her daughter Blue Ivy and then went so far as to try and copyright it so no one else could name their child Blue Ivy.  Why in the hell would a sane person name their child Blue Ivy?  There was no need to try and copyright that name...

Courtney Cox named her daughter Coco.  I guess if it was good enough for Coco Chanel, it's good for Coco Cox-Arquette... (I'm a twisted individual and, for some reason I see the Cocoa Puffs bird bouncing up and down saying "I'm Cuckoo for Coco Cox!  I'm Cuckoo for Coco Cox!"  God I'm evil.)

David Duchovny named his child Kyd.  I don't even have a joke for that. I don't... I just... no...

Bono named his daughter Memphis Eve.  Coming from a guy who's name is Bono, is this really a stretch?  Just sayin...

Frank Zappa named his children Moon Unit, Dwezil, and Diva Thin Muffin... Uhm... yeah...

Rob Morrow named his son Tu so that the boys name is Tu Morrow.  Tomorrow... get it?  I want to brak out into a chorus of "The sun'll come out... Tu Morrow! Betcha bottom dollar that Tu Morrow, IT WILL SHINE!!!" But I'm thinking he gets this often.  If he doesn't, I need to start a movement. (Note, even my computer's spell check keeps auto correcting this childs name to tomorrow.)

Jermaine Jackson (The brother of the guy who named his sons Prince Micheal and Blanket (Technically Prince Michael II)) named his child Jermajesty... I really hope that this is a girl.  I really really hope so.  I also hope that she waits until he is a senile old fart and dependant on her and she beats the hell out of him for it.

(BTW, my source for that list save Beyonce was: 20 most bizarre celebrity baby names)

imagine if ANY of those children had gone into politics...

President Apple, Vice President Kyd, Secretary of state Jermajesty... Thank God they will probably want to be stars like Mom and/or dad...

And Lastly, people who names their children after Bible.  It's an inspired idea but here's the thing... the people in the bible are in there because they did great things... well except for Judas and if you name your kid Judas then you have way bigger problems than I can cover in this blog... Do some parents realize that they are setting their child up for either a great destiny or a great fall by naming them Jesus, Noah, Moses... and those are the only names I can come up with off hand that are Male.  The girls had fairly regular names... Mary, Elizabeth...  But come on, Jesus was the savior of the world and the son of God.  What exactly are you hoping your child will do when he grows up?  Be the next Messiah?  Noah built a really big ship and saved all of the animals we know today from drowning.  Are you setting your son up to be a master Shipbuilder? and Moses... well, God spoke through him and brought down an entire civilization with plagues and then split a massive sea in half so another civilization could be free.  I actually have no modern day job to compare that to.  Great Army General?  Biowarfare genius?  Awesome Scout guide?

And while the girls had fairly decent names, there was also Jezabel whose name has come to basically mean tramp and whore. Or Delilah who was a temptress, a traitor and a tease.  Rahab was a dancer.  Way to set her up for a career as a stripper, mom! Sappira is actually quite pretty and I've actually used it as a pen name but she was a woman that hid money from the church and lied to the apostles.  God personally smote her.  Don't think I'll be using that one again...ever. Eve listened to a snake and made a mistake.  I don't think she qualifies as a biblical bad girl but there ya go...

And what if your kid grows up to be a Satanist or Atheist?  "Hi, My name is Jesus and I'm a Satanist..." I don't see that going over well...

(Source: Naughty Biblical Women)

So basically after rambling this long, my point is that people should be careful what they name their children.  You may be trying to say one thing but everyone else might construe it totally different.  A name can either be a destiny path for a child or a huge yolk around their necks.  Think about that when you have an innocent, defenseless newborn in your arms and you are giving them the name that they will be known by during their entire lives and maybe afterwards.  Be kind to your kids.  Do research before you name them...

Mmmm Mmmmm MMmmm

So if you have ever listened to Weird Al Yankovic, then you know where the title of this blog comes from.  When I think of M, his song...

So I've been absent for a good minute from the alphabet blog...  I actually could consider my last blog Manless part of the Alphabet blog and call that M but tonight I think I have a good topic.

Let's talk about manners.

When I was a child, I spoke to my mother in a manner befitting the fact that I was a child and she was the adult.  In fact I spoke to all adults in the manner.  Even when I was so mad I could scream and shout and throw worlds biggest temper tantrum, I still spoke to them with the respect their age granted them.  That was how I was raised.

I don't find that this is the case now.  Children today speak to adults in such a manner that I wonder how they are still standing where they are.  Some of these kids... Man my mother would have slapped them in the next week and would be waiting there to slap them back again.  It'd be like watching a game of Pong, this week, last week, this week, last week...

I was in the store the other day and a mom was calling her little boy.  She kept screaming for him over and over.  First of all my kids know that if I have to call you more than twice, your butt is roadkill anyway.  You don't ignore mom.  The fact that this woman was in Wal-Mart screaming for her son, who turned out to be about ten and she called him a total of ten times before he even acknowledged her was a little too much for me.  When he finally did acknowledge his mother, his response was, "Will you leave me the hell alone? I'm lookin' at something!"

Does that little boy know how lucky he is that he wasn't my child????  Forgetting the fact that she called him ten times, he cussed at her AND told her to leave him alone.  If she had decided to slap the little shit across the store I would have gladly kicked him back to her so she could do it again and again.  We could have played a nice little game of soccer.  OMG! And the mom, who sadly fit every stereotype of white mothers. Come on, I'm not offending anyone here.  Throughout time there has been a distinct difference in the way white women mother and the way black women mother.  A black mother would have knocked every tooth in the boys head out.  Some white mothers would have yelled and screamed, some white mothers would have walked away, and yet still some white mothers would do with this woman did and say, "Okay but hurry up."  It was at this point that I wanted to smack the mother.

I'm not a non violent person sometimes.  I mean I don't try to be.  I would have mini strokes fifty times a day if I did try to be or think non violent thoughts all the time.  All I can say to my defense is at least I only think my violent thoughts.  I haven't actually voiced them in a few weeks since I told a woman (in wal-mart, no less) that if she didn't stop waving her hand like she was dismissing me that I would snatch her bald.  *Picture old television shows where the snooty rich person was trying to tell the help they were dismissed they would do that palm facing down go away wave with their fingertips.  This woman was doing that to me and another black man. I told her if she waved her bright yellow nails at me one more again (Yes I said that) I would snatch the hair off her head.*

Back to the woman at hand. This woman stood there for a good five minutes before she realized that the three other women in the aisle besides me were looking at her like she was stupid as hell. Then she politely announced to the boy that she was leaving and if he wasn't in the car when she left he'd be sorry and she walked away.  The boy, perhaps meaning to say it after she walked away or maybe he was actually sucky at snappy comebacks said, "Whatever. Bye!"

It was at this point I left. I just left.

And Children aren't the only ones being rude.  Since I have been down here I have faced the worst kind of Racism there is... Elderly racism.

Thanks to the Paula Dean fiasco, we are ALL aware that today's elderly generation grew up calling black people n!%%ers and coons.  It was socially acceptable back when they were young.  They did not all get the memo that times have changed and that they can have the tar beat out of them for saying that now.  And while I have been racially slurred by elderly people in the past nothing gets me more than when an elderly person says "Oh you can let me go ahead of you, you're young, and I've earned my way to the front of the line."

I kid you not, this has actually been said to me on more than one occasion by someone who is NOT family.  I mean seriously??! WTF?  Ask me if you can go ahead of me, don't tell me that deserve to go ahead of me!

Those of you that know me on Facebook know that I had an encounter with a woman (In walmart) where she had a cartful of things and I had three things and when the cashier finished ringing her purchases the woman turned to me and told me that not letting me go ahead of her in line should teach me a lesson about expecting people to let me skip line because I only had a few things.  Keep in mind that I never in any way intimated that I wanted to go ahead of her.  Nothing came out of my mouth, nothing was communicated from my eyes, or my stance that I know of.  Maybe I'm very talkative in body motions.

Being my mother's child, I have a very low tolerance for rude people no matter the age.  My grandmother raised her that way and she raised me that way.  My Great Grandmother probably didn't have to raise my grandmother to respect her elders because way back then, nobody blinked an eye when someone smacked their kid across the room.  Didn't matter what they did.  If they got a smack, they deserved it.... usually.

Ugh.  What are your thoughts on manners? I'm curious..

Live, Love, Laugh, Let's talk about L!

So I know I've been absent from this blog for awhile but I have really good excuses this time I promise.  None of which matter but for the record, they are really really good.  Plus, I believe that if people want to read what you write, they will be okay with you taking breaks as long as you come back before the interest completely dies away.

So anyway, I've been thinking about the L blog for a long time and everytime I thought I had a topic that I could BS on for over a thousand characters I kept coming back to the L word that is quite literally on my mind always.  Love.

Every now and then I have to put a disclaimer in my blog.  I have to cover myself so here is a blanket disclaimer:

Now whether or not the current object of my probably unfounded attraction is among my readers or not is not of my concern.  He is aware that I like him.  He is aware that I am as confused by that attraction as anyone could be. He is also aware that based on the fact that it is clear that he doesn't feel the same about me that I can't seem to shake said crush. So honestly, if by some glory of God he wanted a deeper look into the jumble that is my psyche and read my blog he cannot be surprised at what he finds because he was and is the only guy that I have ever laid myself before as an open book.  The only thing I will never say here is his name because I respect him more.  THAT BEING SAID NOTHING I SAY IS ABOUT HIM OR IN REFERENCE TO HIM...


If you know me you know I'm telling the truth when I say it's on my mind all the time.  Yes I do have other interests and do occasionally think about other things and other people but for the most part the topic of Love is always there.  In the forefront, in the background, hanging off to the side biding it's time until it can make one of those blazing returns to the front of my brain.  It's always there.  It's my constant companion and for better or worse (usually worse) it's become the voice in my head. And it sound A LOT like Meredith Grey-Shepperd from Grey's Anatomy.

Wikipedia defines Love as:

The English word "love" can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection ("I love my mother") to pleasure ("I loved that meal"). It can refer to an emotion of a strong attraction and personal attachment.^[1] It can also be a virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection—"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another".^[2] As well, it may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.

I can't argue with them.  I don't know what love is.  Aside from loving my children and my mother and my family, I do not know what love is.

I love fried chicken.
I love writing and making jewelry.
I love laying in my bed and soaking up all the warmth it has to offer me.

But I have a feeling that's not the kind of Love people are talking about.

I had a friend once tell me their definition of love.  And I asked them because they are in a committed marriage of ten plus years.  By that person, Love was defined as:

"You live and die for that person.  Your first thought in the morning is of them, your last thought at night is of them.  If you had to choose between living life while they die or letting them live at the extent of your own life, you'd die in a heartbeat.  Without the other, you aren't anything..."

To tell the truth, it was at this point that I began to hear blah blah blah, ramble, ramble, ramble, mush, mush...  I had the feeling that she was overdramatizing something that was in reality much simpler and way less sickening in real life.

For the first, I personally live and would happily die for my children. And this is not because I have no romance in my life.  My first thought in the morning is unfortunately not of my children in pretty terms.  It is usually something like "Why are they poking me in the face?"  My final thought of the night is usually how much I love my bed.  If I had to choose between keeping my life and watching a man die, I may make a plea to take my life for theirs but I'm a spoiled selfish only child who would probably just plead not to kill them.  I'm pretty sure I would never say take me not him.  Sorry boo, whoever you are I understand that I seem like a total shit right now but chances are that you knew that when you started dating/married me.  I would however give my life for my children.  I love them.  And that last part, with him, I'm not anything???  Seriously??  I don't have them now so does that mean I'm nothing now?  Wow... I'm nothing.  Nothing sure does feel like a solid slightly overweight black woman that it's severe pain because she's sitting in a chair instead lying down like the doctor told her to.

I was married.  I was not in love with my husband.  I was in love with being married.  I stayed because on a really effed up plane of existence, he offered me a sense of security.  He was the father of my children, he was the provider of my home, he was the one I had promised before God and 17 people to  honor, cherish and a couple other things.  If loving him was supposed to be anything like what my friend described, not, I wasn't in love with him.

Thanks to romance novels that I have been reading since I was about 14 years old, I had some ideas on what I'd like love to be.

In romance novels, the hero and the heroine always meet by chance.  It is attraction at first sight.  I'll give them this.  Or rather, I will give them the attraction part.

There is always always, Always a conflict that keeps them apart.  Okay but usually the conflict isn't as legendary as it is in the book.

You should always trust the oldest person that give you advice. DEBUNK!!!  I call the flag on this one!  No details given but I'm calling the BS flag here.

If you love the other person, sex will always be amazing.  Even if he has you up against a wall after you've worked all day, he's now ripped your last pair of good stockings to hell and there's a picture frame gauging you in the back. It will be amazing.  I could wish this on a thousand stars but I'm pretty sure that when I find my doofus in tin foil we're going to have a couple of kinda bad off sync sex.  Nobody gets it right every time.

Everything is happy in the end. Not even going to dignify that with a smart aleck wisecrack.

So, being the person that I am, I have taken the ideals from purely fictional romance novels and real life and formed my own opinions of what love is.

1. People who love each other must first like each other.  That whole thing of "We hated each other at first" I'm sorry, but if I hate someone I am so not going to hang around them long enough to see the other side of the coin.  Why do that to myself?  I obviously have a good reason for not liking them and I honestly can't see that one day I would like to grow old with them.

2. People who are in love must want to be together.  Not all the time.  No one can be with another person 24/7 and not want to go just a teeny bit insane.  If I had to stare at someone day in and day out and never get a few hours to myself every now and then I'd be sitting in a corner babbling to myself.  Freaking, go watch a football game for an entire Sunday or something!  Gah!!

3. People who are in love understand that sometimes you have to be different to be a match.  After all, two identical puzzle pieces never fit together. One piece has to have a give so the other can take.

4.  There are no perfect couples.  If you think you are perfect together and there are no problems, no arguments, no conflict whatsoever, you are a fictional, probably Disney character and you should see serious help for not only your relationship problems but also the fact that you are an animated character that thinks they are real.

As I believe that Love is ever changing, right now, that's all I got.  I don't much about love, but I know what I want.  I know that I call the man I'm meant to have any future with a doofus in tin foil but maybe I'm his nerd in nylons, his geek in glasses, his slob in silk, or his bookworm in brocade.  I'm not trying to be his princess in pearls.

As always I welcome comments.  If you have something to share, please share it here.  I will try to answer if it warrants a comment.  Please understand that this blog is public so watch your language.  Also understand that two things will happen if you choose to ignore that last request.  One, you will look like the buffoon, not me and if it offends anyone it's running the chance of being deleted.