The Men In My Life

 

There’s a blog that I visited that spoke of single mothers and the need for a man in a boys’ life.  I didn’t comment only because, I was really tired yesterday but, it did get me thinking about my own life and how that relates to me.  When my son was born, I was a single mother.  I was married but, we were separated and he lived almost three thousand miles away so, he wasn’t around.  It was hard as hell for me because, my son had colic really bad(what is it with boys and colic?) he also had asthma and woke up every two hours to eat(he’s still greedy.)  I used to wonder what life would be like for my son, not having his father around.  Would he have this void that couldn’t be filled?  Would he have issues because of it?   I never had to worry about him seeing males because, the world I grew up in was full of males.

From the moment he arrived, he was surrounded by loving uncles.  They would toss him around, let him use them as a chair(like in the pic) or just love him to death.  My oldest brother was right there in the hospital with me the day he was born. 

My youngest brother, who was 18 years old, would change his diapers for me, baby sit when needed and when I was dog tired in the middle of the night, would take his nephew and keep him until he fell asleep. 

Many mornings I woke up to find my son still in his uncle’s room.  Both of them knocked out.

Children don’t know that, the situation they are living in is different from someone else until they are told.  Even though I was married when I had my son,  I never understood the concept of calling a child a “bastard.”   That’s a bad seed to sow into the mind of a child…IMO.   If I wasn’t married when I had my son, would my brothers love him any less?  Would my father dote on him any less?  Would he be a different person than he is today?  I say no to all three.

Many single mothers are doing one helluva job with their children.  My brothers’ best friend was raised by a single mother.  He is in his 30’s now and he is a wonderful husband and father because, he is a wonderful human being.  And really, isn’t that what it all boils down to anyway?  Raising a good person?

Many single mothers have positive role models for their sons.  Whether it’s their uncle, their paw-paw, special someone their mother used to be romatically involved with, or a married friend whose husband is involved in his life. It’s wonderful when the father is there and he’s a great role model but, the reality is, life is not black and white….it’s deep shades of gray(another post.)

 

I look at my son now and he has got to be one of thee most well-adjusted young men on the planet.  Kids just want to be loved.  I know there are kids out there acting crazy but, I think that’s because they didn’t have positive male role models more than the issue of  daddy not being in the home.  Also, mom didn’t check that behavior when they were young but, that’s another post.

My son has never seen his biological father, and he is almost 17 years old.  He has a wonderful relationship with his paternal grandmother though and she loves him to death.  My son and I talked about it once and he told me that, it used to bother him a bit when he was young, but that was because he would say he would come to see him and didn’t.  I asked him if he ever felt like he missed out on anything because of it and, he answered no.  I don’t think he did either.  Just look at the pictures. All of them are of him and one of his uncles.                  

                                                            

Except this one.  I met my husband when my son was 7 years old.  In those 10 years, their relationship has grown to one of father and son. I feel really blessed to be with a man who loves my children so much but, I also know that, I would never marry a man who didn’t.  The beautiful thing about kids is the fact that , they can’t feign happiness. You can tell when something is wrong with a child.

I have been on the blogs of many single mothers and their children are simply beaming.  

I love my husband dearly but, I think that, if I had never met him, my son would have turned out just fine.  My son has a multitude of uncles who went above and beyond the role of  uncle.  They have always been there for my son and always will be.   Being married when you have a child doesn’t give you that kind of support…..being loved does.

Funny Friday

Yesterday, I was helping my son study chemistry.  He read a paragraph to me and then I begin to say in a deep, stern voice,

Purple Knight, you HAVE to REMEMBER  the three SUBATOMIC FARTICLES; protons, neutrons and electrons. That’s a guaranteed test question.

my daughter:  ma, you do know that you said FARTICLES right?

me: I did?

my son: yeah ma, I heard it too.

me: well…you know what I mean, humph.

kids:*falling out laughing at me*  and singing,  momma said farticles, momma said farticles!

These kids are going to be the death of me yet…*sigh* good thing they’re cute 🙂

Are You a Gladys Kravitz?

If anyone has watched TV Land and caught an episode of Bewitched(I watched it when they aired the program on regular television….(you know, on the big behind tv  that sat on the floor with KNOBS and no remote…yeah, that thing-a-ma-jig.)   Well,if you did then, you should be familiar with their nosey neighbor, Mrs. Kravitz.

Gladys Kravitz  was always snooping around Darren and Samantha, peeking inside of the windows and popping up at the house, always trying to find out what the heck was really going on inside of that house.  She didn’t miss anything.

  I have a confession to make….

I am the Gladys Kravitz of my area. 

I don’t go as far as she did, but, I don’t miss anything either.*  hanging head in shame, now looking up,head tilted to the side  to see what’s going on*

Everyone around here is like that though.  That is, the people  who were back here before Katrina are. 

Where’s what Mrs. Kratvitz(moi) has noticed…..the neighbors behind me have been MIA for about a month now.  They purchased the house after the storm(I saw the real estate transaction in the newspaper….always looking to see who is moving around me.)  At first, everyone was worried because, since the storm, people have been buying houses and you don’t know who is going to move around you but, they were really cool neighbors. 

Except for New Years 2008.  They had guests that went across the street from the house, popped firecrackers and SET THE GOLF COURSE ON FIRE.  I’m downstairs and I started  to smell smoke so, I open the door and look in the front..nothing there, look to the back of the house…FIRE ON THE GOLF COURSE! 

You could smell smoke in the house for three damned days.

There has been no activity in the house for over month…no cars, no lights on….nada.  They must have moved because,  the grill is gone, the outside patio furniture…gone.  The three big behind garbage cans the city gave everyone(you’re only suppose to have one..they had three of’em)…gone.

They only lived in the house for a year.  That’s an odd blip because they purchased the house gutted out and fixed it up to live in it and now, they’re gone.  No  “for sale” sign..nothing.  I hope nothing has terrible happened to them.  We were just getting to know them.

When their daughter graduated, they  invited the neighbors over to the  party which was nice(my neighbor said, that’s so we couldn’t call the police when they tried to do all of that “boomity-boom”  loud music late at night when people are trying to rest…lol.)  They seemed to really like the area, it’s really quiet back here and most people dig that.  Even the neighbor right next door to them is perplexed.  If they moved, it must have been in the middle of the night because,  no one saw any time of moving van around there or anything…. it’s all so spooky.

I guess I’ll have to keep my “radar” on and see if anything pops up.  I’ll keep you all posted.

The Mardi Gras You Don’t See….The Mardi Gras Indians.

One tradition in New Orleans clings onto to its ancestral strength of hard work, persistence pride, and the yearly renewal of respectfulness to its origins… that’s the pride of a Mardi Gras Indian. On Mardi Gras day, each year, “tribes” of black Indians, parade through their own neighborhoods singing and dancing to traditional chants, particularly unique to the Mardi Gras Indians.  This tradition, has but one root cause and meaning, “To honor the Indians that helped us in our struggle to reclaim our freedom.” 

Archives now record for the first time, some known successful cases of blacks escaping into the bayou.  It is said that tribes such as the Chickasaws,Seminoles and Choctaw of Louisiana were responsible for the freeing of Africans and men of color from slavery, by hiding them in the bayou and teaching them how to live off the land.

There is a lot of history that goes along with the Mardi Gras Indian that, I will probably post at a later date.   The youtube clips show a tribe from the uptown area just hitting the streets.  The other clip is of different suits from different tribes with music from the Wild Magnolias( one of the tribes) in the background.

There are about 38 known tribes that hit the streets on that day.  They meet and compete with a “showdown” as to who has the  prettiest suit.  Spyboy against Spyboy, Flagman against Flagman, Big Chief against BigChief  and the like.  Back in the day, they used to actually fight in the streets on Mardi Gras Day, but, thanks to the late, great Big Chief “Tootie” Montana it changed into a showdown.  His suits were hard to beat.  Often 100-200 pounds, he’d walk the streets  with the prettiest suit  in the city. All of the suits are magnificent and are always sewn by hand by the individual Indian along with some helpers, usually family members.  ENJOY!!!

 

The SAG Awards

This morning, I brought my son to school and while waiting for him to get his things out of the trunk, here comes this kid going inside of the gate with his pants hanging off of his butt.  Me ,being the person that I am, calls him over;

me: young man,come here…why are your pants sagging?

him:huh?

me:your pants are sagging young man

him:huh? my pants not sagging.

me: son, I’m staring at your pants on your buttocks, that is not uniform regulation.

him: *pulling up pants* walks inside of gate and the pants fall again.

my son: *standing there looking totally embarrassed*

 

Heck, I don’t care, these young men need to be told that they are sagging and to pull those damned pants up. I came home and wrote a letter to the principal about the situation and proposed that he put stiffer penalties on young men caught sagging.  Penalities that will wake up the parents because, this is what I know for sure, children do what they can get away with.

Sending your child to this school, ain’t cheap.  It costs 7 thousand dollars a year to send your son here and I see kids get out the car with their parent sitting right there, and they are sagging and the parent says nothing.   My son does not leave the house without a thorough inspection from head to toe from me and his father.  At 7 grand a year, times 4 years..that’s 28 grand!!!  And you think you are going to walk around sagging?……not on my watch. 

 I love the excuses he used to come up with though if he was caught…the belt is too loose,the pants are made that way,I must be losing weight.  Yeah, pretty creative but, not going to work sonny.  He got so tired of us riding him that, my son gave up the fight a long time ago.  I also told him the next time I caught him sagging, I was going to make him go outside with nothing on but his”drawers” since he wants to show them so much…that might have something to do with his change of heart.  Which proves my point, children do what they can get away with.  He knows I’d do it, so, he just gave up the fight and *poof* no  more sagging issues here.

And before someone reads this and thinks it’s a black thing….think again.  Every, single time I go to Metairie all I see is  young, white males walking around with their pants hanging off of their butts.  Two weeks ago, we were at the doctors office and this white male was with his grandmother and his pants were so low that they started at the middle of his thigh.  He had to walk like a penguin.

But, I don’t blame the kids as much as I blame the adults.  They are kids, they are going to try you, that ain’t nothing new, we tried our parents.  But, they laid the law down and if you broke it, you got the penalty for it.  A lot of parents  today aren’t setting that law down like they should.  As I’ve said, my son tried it  but,  I guess the thought of being outside for hours in his “drawers” is not worth sagging for.  Lucky him because…it’s cold outside.

Best Friends Forever

Today, while I was painting my house, I had an unexpected visit from one of my oldest and dearest friends.  I really can’t remember a time when I did not know her.  We grew up three blocks from one another and went to the same elementary, middle and high school.  We also went to the same church, ran track together, was on the flag team together, went to every school dance or function together and we are both nurses. She was the maid of honor in my wedding and I was hers.  She’s smart as a whip(  our graduating class  had 335 students, she was ranked #4) and beautiful. 

 Due to the daily grind that is life, we don’t see each other that often but, somehow, when a crisis is happening, we seek each other out.  When my mom passed, she was the first person I wanted to talk to. When her mom passed, she came to my house.  Today, she told me that after being married for 20 years, she’s getting a divorce.  She needed a rock in her life and I gladly obliged.  We laughed and giggled like the crazy, goofy high school girls we used to be.  We have so much history we share that, it’s like talking to a piece of yourself. I know she must be hurting,  20 years is a lot of time to be with someone and have it come to an end.

I am just glad that she knows in her heart that, I  am a constant force in her life.  Someone who will always be there, even though we don’t see each other or talk too often.  Someone who will help her forget that hurt for a minute by making her laugh so much that she is holding her stomach, begging for me to stop.  Someone that I love with all of my heart….. my best friend forever.

Adventures Of Internet,Phone Chat Line Dating.

There’s a really wonderful blog that I frequent and she brought up the subject of internet dating.  Now, I must confess, I never dated anyone from the internet before but, that’s only because I really wasn’t into being on the computer for hours on end like I am now.  One of my brothers met his wife on the internet and they have been married for 11 years and have two beautiful children.  Their marriage is as strong as any I have ever seen, they really are “yin and yan-ish. Now, while I didn’t use the internet, I did use a phone chat line service for this area and that’s where my adventures begin.  My girlfriend and I got on the service together and between the two of us, we had some pretty amazing times.  Yes, people lie their azzes off on those things but hey, don’t people you meet on the street trying to hook up with you lie as well?  Ya gotta weed out the bad ones from the good ones.

First off ,on this chat line you had to put a small bio about who you were and who were trying to meet.  I really don’t remember much of what I put but, I know that I put I was petite. I never used to tell men that I was a nurse when I first met them because, you could hear the “cha-chings” going off in their head. For the longest, many men thought I was unemployed because I never would tell them my occupation.  I remember my service was blowing up though and I talked to many men.  I met quite a few as well.  This one guy in particular, I had been talking to him for quite a bit on the phone about all sorts of things.  I remember he told me he was 5’8” tall,worked as an engineer at Shell and he even sent a picture of himself to my email addy.  My girlfriend looked at the picture and said “he’s nice looking.”  Well, we set a date to meet.   He did a no-call/no-show so, I contacted him via email to find out what happened.  He said, he chickened out and apologized and wanted to meet.  So, another date was set.  We met at the mall(always meet some place really public) and I am sitting there waiting for the person in the picture to walk up to me, you know the 5’8”,nice-looking guy.  Ok, let me say that, I am  exactly 5 feet(or 60 inches, which ever makes me sound taller..lol) Here comes this guy heading my way who is…..SHORTER THAN ME!!   He had a jehri curl(did I mention this happened in the year 1998?) ,and looked NOTHING LIKE that picture!!!  I mean zero, the picture wasn’t him, it was his brother(so he said.)  Well, we went on to eat anyway (mainly because it’s hard for me to say no to a restaurant) and here’s what I found out over the meal….he had CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE…WTF?!!!  Upon hearing that, I excused myself ,ran and found a pay phone. I called my girlfriend and the conversation went like this;

me: girl, this sucka is shorter than my azz, he’s sporting a jehri-curl and has just informed me that he has CHF. He…

girlfriend: interrupts me with..BWHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  And continues to laugh so long and so hard, I started frigging laughing like crazy.

me: I’ll call your crazy azz back when I get home.

So, I go back to “ultra-short,jehri-curl,CHF” man and we had a pleasant lunch but, that was all.

Another guy I met was really, really handsome.  He was about 6 feet,nice complexion(no pock marks or anything),jet black curly hair but, I swear, every time this man opened his mouth you could hear the crickets going off.  It was like nothing was in there.  I used to imagine going inside of his brain and yelling,”HELLO” knowing that, I would get that echo back at me…HELLO…hello..hello.  He was a no-go too.

I remember one my girlfriend met as well.  She told him to meet her on the job(why, I don’t know.)  She knew what he would look like and they were going to have lunch at the hospital cafeteria.  Well, we are sitting at the nurses station and she spots him;

her:  there he is right there.

me: why is he walking like that?

her: I don’t know.

me: he walks like he has a peg leg.

her:*laughing* shut up with your crazy azz.

me: all he needs is the eye patch and he could be Captain Blye.

her:*pokes me in the ribs* laughing so hard she gets up and walks to him.

Well, she went to lunch and came back 40 minutes later with this story; Captain Blye had diabetes. He was in fact, a “brittle diabetic” meaning that, even with insulin his blood sugar is very hard to keep at a normal level.

me: told you he had a peg leg.  No man with two normal legs walk that way.

her:*hits me on the head with someones chart*

We had many, many adventures like these and to be honest, we laughed more than we were angry because, we weren’t looking to get married or anything. We had nicknames for them and made sure we weren’t going out to meet the same men, we had fun.  Probably because we were on there together, we are both crazy as hell and love to laugh.

I remember the last person I met on the chat line service.  It was this guy whose bio read;50 year old Creole living in the ___ area, looking for someone with “joie de vive.”   I called my friend and said, I left a message for“joie de vive “man(that was his nickname.)  He called me back and we talked quite a bit.  It turned out, he lived not too far from me, had graduated from Aug with my cousin and that his niece and I were really good friends in high school.  We met and I thought he was really attractive, with really nice hazel green/gray eyes.  He was very intelligent, measured at genius level(smart is always sexy to me), and was the perfect gentleman.    We went on quite a few dates so, I decided to bring him to the house to meet my people.  Lawd, brothers came from errywhere.  My mom sat him down and in typical New Orleans fashion asked the question; “whose your momma an ’em? and,what part of town are you from?”

After her inquistion, one of my brothers pulled me to the side and said”yeah, he’s cool.”  My dad who never gets out of his chair for anyone, got out of his chair and walked him to the door(that’s the daddy green light.)  We ended up going on many, many dates and long story short…..I married Mr. Joie De Vive.  We have been together for 9 years now and he is still is the sweetest man that I have ever met.  He loves me and the kids unconditionally and will do any and everything possible to make sure that we are safe and secure.  We are best friends and do everything together.

We laugh about how we met and the adventures we both had on the service before finding each other.  And to be honest, meeting someone on the net is no different than meeting someone anywhere else.  The only difference is that, you SEE what that person looks like right away so, you have the option right then and there whether or not to go any further.  On the net or chat line, you usually talk a bit before you meet.  You still have to check someone out no matter where you meet them.  Ted Bundy met women on a college campus, he was charming,handsome and approachable. He was also a serial killer.  You have to take the time to get to know a person,meet in public places, drive your own car, keep private information private until you know the person. 

I would tell anyone who has any reservations about the “new era of dating “to give it a shot.  You only live once, why deny yourself an opportunity to find love or at the very least, a really great story to tell.

You never know where love is lurking.

I’m sorry Ms. Franklin…whooo

Today I was surfing the net trying to get my Obama fix and I ran across a website where the host stated that it seemed like Aretha Franklin had an “off day.”  Many people agreed(including moi) but there had some folks that came on who were bashing the younger folks because of their opinion saying things like,”respect your past young people” as if saying Re Re sounds bad is disrespecting your past somehow.  I hate it when older folks try to bash younger people just because they are older as if being older (40’s and 50’s) makes your opinion more valid somehow.  So, here I am, an old foggie defending the young uns.

I am not young nor is my husband, in fact, Retha is only 6 years older than he is. I saw Aretha Franklin when she was on the Ed Sullivan show(see that’s how old I am, some of you are wondering what the heck is that..lol) When Re started singing, my hubby looked at me with that*gas face*(thanks LadyLee for that phrase) that pretty much said it all.  My father who is 80 years old, first response  was “Retha can’t sing  no more.”   But, it really doesn’t matter how old you are, if you had functioning ears you could hear she was having an off day.  I didn’t expect her to sound like she did when she was in her peak but sadly, she has lost her pipes. 

Not that it really mattered to us, we love Retha.  Seeing her up there took me back momentarily to a time in my life when life was simple.  When the milkman brought milk,juice, and eggs to our doorstep; when you knew the name of your mailman,the garbage men and every neighbor in your area.

When Ed Sullivan put on a “reeeally big show.”

When Soul Train with Don Cornelius was the hippest train around…love,peace and sssoooouullll!

When people you heard on the radio did not sing…..they could SAAAANG.

All in all,yesterday was simply beautiful….  even with “The Queen of Soul” having an off  day.

Happy Inauguration Day!!!!!

Well, the day has finally arrived….it’s official at 12:01 p.m.  PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!

I have a confession to make, I am not patriotic.  I am not one of those people  you will hear defending America.  I couldn’t talk about how “great” this country was when all around it, people were being killed for no other reason than being black. People resumes were being thrown into “file 13″ no matter how qualified they were for the job, or there was always some rationale  to explain why the black person wasn’t promoted and yet, the white person was qualified to be” trained ” for the position.   The Pledge of Allegiance rang as hollow words in my ear…with liberty and justice for all…yeah, right. 

I think the first time I saw genuine “hope” for this nation was last summer when a young black couple moved into an area known as “old metairie” not too far from New Orleans.  Old Metairie is practically all white and was once where David Duke(KKK Grand Wizard) resided. The couple moved there because they wanted an area that was safe to raise their children.  Well, the couple went to bed and woke up with KKK and crosses burned into their front lawn.  The newpaper ran a story about it and long story short, on the 4th of July, people from all walks of life..Whites, Blacks, Jewish and Asians..about 2-300 people took turns to dig up the hate symbols and plant a new”lawn of love” for them.  I was like,WOW.  Then, I went to the NOLA blog for that area and the people who lived in the area were blogging things like,”we’re just trying to live in harmony” and how that is the “old way” of thinking and that they don’t want that hate-filled thinking in their area.  I was like,DAMN…in old metairie?

No, Obama did not give me my first glimpse of “Hope” or “Change”….Old Metairie did. 

I am sitting here in the comforts of my warm home, looking at the mass of people out there for this day.  We thought about going but, me and crowds don’t do well together and I hate being cold so, we decided to stay home and switch to all the different stations and watch everything.  Pretty much like I do for Mardi Gras when I don’t  HAVE to be out there.  It looks like the America of my heart. People from all walks of life, coming together for the good of this country. WE THE PEOPLE is what it looks like to me..finally. 
Do I think racism is over…NO.  I think racism will be here until the second coming.  There will always be someone, somewhere who thinks that way.  The beauty of it all though is, they are falling deeper and deeper into the minority.

As I’ve said before, I’m not patriotic…at least, I wasn’t.  I have a feeling that is about to CHANGE.  I am beginning to have HOPE for our country in a way that I’ve never had before.  Thanks  President  Obama and thanks to Old Metairie for giving this southern, cynical girl…..a new pair of glasses.

Grandstanding For Mardi Gras

This Mardi Gras, my husband and I have decided to something we have never done before in our lives, we’ve decided to sit in the grandstand seats on Fat Tuesday.  The grandstand seats are the seats at Gallier Hall and also at Lafayette Square which is across the street.  The grandstand seats are really thee place to be if you want to hear every single band perform because that’s where it’s going to happen.  All bands have to play in front of Gallier Hall and it’s also the place where the Mayor toasts Rex and Zulu  so, it really is the parade hot spot.   For any “bandheads”like myself,all bands also play under any bridge(i.e. on Canal and Claiborne for Endymion and on St. Charles and Lee Circle for uptown parades) because the bridge helps to project the sound.  Good luck getting a spot there though, EVERYONE wants to hear the bands play so, it’s hard to get a good spot.

Most people do not like grandstand seats and I can fully understand why.  Mardi Gras is a time for family and friends to get together.  Most people bring their grill on the parade route and they cook  red beans and all sorts of other dishes and spend the entire day there enjoying the festivities.  Also, why pay to sit in some bleaches when you can set up shop on the neutral ground (called the median by non-New Orleanians) for free.

This year, it will just be my hubby and me out there. Both of my kids are  in their schools’ marching bands(yea! Aug and Prep) and they have to march on that day so, they won’t be with us.  There’s no need for us to fight the crowds for a spot on the neutral ground because, we didn’t plan on cooking anything out there(there are plenty of vendors selling food  and you always run into someone you know, so we won’t be hungry.)

If you want the  freedom to run around and catch throws the grandstands are not for you.  But, if you are old -foggies like we are, who are pretty much done with Mardi Gras but have to be out there anyway(gotta support the kiddies) this is the place to be.