In this era of fake news, fake political candidates, and fake people all around, my prayer and mantra for 2017 is simple: Do not waste time on people and things that don't matter.
In 2016, I spent too much time and money on things and people who didn't matter. I allowed myself to become distracted by stuff that, for me and Black Man Not Blogging, didn't really matter for our happiness. These distractions not only didn't improve the quality of our life together; they decreased it with additional and unnecessary stress.
The good news is that, for the most part, we're okay. Yeah, Trump and his ilk really suck, but instead of a lot of hand wringing and commiserating, I'm going to do the one thing my late mother She Who Is Exalted (SWIE) did better than anyone I know: Play the hand you've been dealt. My mother was a black female without a college education and with six kids, so playing the hand she was dealt was her survival skill. Now it will be mine.
She also didn't spend a lot of time on things or people who didn't matter. She was too focused on her purpose: Raising six children who didn't end up on drugs or in prison. For the most part, she succeeded. To the extent that what someone wanted from her detracted or distracted from her purpose, she really didn't have much time for them. She was too busy playing the hand she was dealt.
Well, relatively speaking, I've got an even better hand to play. I am educated. My job is pretty secure. I make decent money. I have good health insurance. My elderly father is safe and well cared for. Most of my siblings are retired and living like teenagers with money. There are things I want to see, do, and be while I'm still relatively healthy. I want to enjoy more of the people I love and what I've worked for. I refuse to get my anxiety up over things I can't control.
I do not want to waste even a second on people and things that don't matter 2017. That is my prayer and my mantra.
Happy New Year to you and yours. May you also not waste even a second on people and things that don't matter in 2017.
Showing posts with label SWIE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SWIE. Show all posts
Mothers, Your Children Are Learning From You, But You May Not Live To See The Results
Today would have been my mother's 80th birthday,. I refer to her in this blog as "She Who Is Exalted," or SWIE. It's funny to me how so much of what she taught me I only started applying after she died. So my message to all you moms out there is this: Your children are learning from you, but you may not live to see the results.
One of the things I learned from my mother was to be observant of people and pay attention to what they say and do, then plan how to deal with them accordingly. Like my mom, after I've seen and heard enough, I've pretty much sized someone up and I plan accordingly. Unlike my mom, I didn't get good at this until later in life. There's at least one person who is gone from my life who my mom warned me about from childhood. Another person in my life is someone she met while I was in college and said, "Something ain't right about" that person. It took me years to see what my mom saw after only one meeting. And she was right. Still is. But she didn't live to see that I learned the lesson.
There are a lot of little things I learned from watching my mom that, when I don't do them, my life gets chaotic. My mom was vigilant about always making sure we never ran out of toilet paper (no small feat with a family of eight); making sure there was always, always food in the fridge (for her, poverty wasn't a lack of money; it was an empty fridge); paying all her bills on the first of the month (which I now do); packing lunches and laying out the next day's clothes the night before (me, not so much); doing laundry daily (she washed towels every day -- again, we were a family of eight); keeping her house and us on a cleaning schedule; and making sure she never had less than a half a tank of gas in her car (she was afraid she'd need to get a sick child to the hospital in the middle of the night).
My mom's standards about children are those I hope to live up with kids of my own because they are seared on my brain. My mother would never let us leave the house in wrinkled or dirty clothes or without our hair being combed. When I see a child out and about with wrinkled or dirty clothes or messed-up hair, I instinctively cringe and hear my mother say, "Where do you think you're going? Not like that you're not." My mother believed that children's appearances represent their parents' best efforts, and she refused to be misrepresented, especially when she worked so hard to keep us clean and fed.
My mother also insisted on manners. We were taught not to ask for as much as a glass of water when we were visiting someone else's home. We could have whatever was offered to us, and not too much, but we were not to ask. And we were never, ever to open someone else's fridge. My mom didn't want us acting like we hadn't been fed.
My mother also had higher expectations for her daughters because she felt the world was not fair when it came to women, and women had to be smart and fend for themselves because there were usually children depending on us. She drilled into our heads to never, ever, EVAH depend on a man. We girls heard this time and again: "Do for self." "Always have your own job, your own car, your own money, and your own home." "Get your education so you don't have to depend on no man." She didn't live to see all four of her daughter become homeowners, but she did live to see all of us girls get some kind of college degree, have our own money, and have our own cars. She knew before she died that we were capable of taking care of ourselves.
When it came to romance and men, my mom's advice was practical. "You better try on them shoes before you buy 'em." "Use birth control. Ain't no excuse to get pregnant nowadays if you don't want to be."
The three character traits my mother could not stand were laziness, stinginess, and whining. Whenever we were getting too lax with our chores, she'd go on a rant and rave that would have us all ducking for cover and running for the exits. When we didn't want to share, she'd threaten to take whatever we were hoarding away from us and shame us into sharing by saying , "That's your sister (or brother)! You're supposed to share with her (him)." And when we whined about life not being fair, she'd suck her teeth and say, "Hmpf. Who promised you fair? Well, they lied to you!." Even now when I start to indulge in a personal pity party, I am reminded of what my mother said and become thankful for the times when the pendulum of good fortune swang in my direction. And when the pendulum of good fortune swings away from me, I'm reminded of another lesson my mother taught me. "Everybody falls down. Everybody. You can lay down there for a while, but then you have to get up." To this day, I have no patience for laziness, stinginess, or whining. I am my mother's daughter. And as much as I doubt it sometimes, I am resilient.
So mothers, I write all this to say that even when you don't think your children are learning from you, they are. They really are, but you may not live to see the results. Just keep on planting those seeds of wisdom, even if they sprout in your children's heads and hearts after you're gone. You will have done more for your children than many other parents who had no wisdom to impart. And here's the kicker -- the wisdom gets handed down to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some of whom you might not ever meet. My husband, Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB), is constantly quoting his grandmother: "Don't say once what you can't say twice." "Cain't nobody ride your back if you don't bend over." "I'ma give you what you need. If you need a hug, I'ma give you a hug. If you need an ass whuppin', I'ma give you that, too."
Another lesson my mother taught me that she didn't live to see play out in my life was this: "You only get one mother. Y'all gonna miss me when I'm gone."
Truer words were never spoken.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
One of the things I learned from my mother was to be observant of people and pay attention to what they say and do, then plan how to deal with them accordingly. Like my mom, after I've seen and heard enough, I've pretty much sized someone up and I plan accordingly. Unlike my mom, I didn't get good at this until later in life. There's at least one person who is gone from my life who my mom warned me about from childhood. Another person in my life is someone she met while I was in college and said, "Something ain't right about" that person. It took me years to see what my mom saw after only one meeting. And she was right. Still is. But she didn't live to see that I learned the lesson.
There are a lot of little things I learned from watching my mom that, when I don't do them, my life gets chaotic. My mom was vigilant about always making sure we never ran out of toilet paper (no small feat with a family of eight); making sure there was always, always food in the fridge (for her, poverty wasn't a lack of money; it was an empty fridge); paying all her bills on the first of the month (which I now do); packing lunches and laying out the next day's clothes the night before (me, not so much); doing laundry daily (she washed towels every day -- again, we were a family of eight); keeping her house and us on a cleaning schedule; and making sure she never had less than a half a tank of gas in her car (she was afraid she'd need to get a sick child to the hospital in the middle of the night).
My mom's standards about children are those I hope to live up with kids of my own because they are seared on my brain. My mother would never let us leave the house in wrinkled or dirty clothes or without our hair being combed. When I see a child out and about with wrinkled or dirty clothes or messed-up hair, I instinctively cringe and hear my mother say, "Where do you think you're going? Not like that you're not." My mother believed that children's appearances represent their parents' best efforts, and she refused to be misrepresented, especially when she worked so hard to keep us clean and fed.
My mother also insisted on manners. We were taught not to ask for as much as a glass of water when we were visiting someone else's home. We could have whatever was offered to us, and not too much, but we were not to ask. And we were never, ever to open someone else's fridge. My mom didn't want us acting like we hadn't been fed.
My mother also had higher expectations for her daughters because she felt the world was not fair when it came to women, and women had to be smart and fend for themselves because there were usually children depending on us. She drilled into our heads to never, ever, EVAH depend on a man. We girls heard this time and again: "Do for self." "Always have your own job, your own car, your own money, and your own home." "Get your education so you don't have to depend on no man." She didn't live to see all four of her daughter become homeowners, but she did live to see all of us girls get some kind of college degree, have our own money, and have our own cars. She knew before she died that we were capable of taking care of ourselves.
When it came to romance and men, my mom's advice was practical. "You better try on them shoes before you buy 'em." "Use birth control. Ain't no excuse to get pregnant nowadays if you don't want to be."
The three character traits my mother could not stand were laziness, stinginess, and whining. Whenever we were getting too lax with our chores, she'd go on a rant and rave that would have us all ducking for cover and running for the exits. When we didn't want to share, she'd threaten to take whatever we were hoarding away from us and shame us into sharing by saying , "That's your sister (or brother)! You're supposed to share with her (him)." And when we whined about life not being fair, she'd suck her teeth and say, "Hmpf. Who promised you fair? Well, they lied to you!." Even now when I start to indulge in a personal pity party, I am reminded of what my mother said and become thankful for the times when the pendulum of good fortune swang in my direction. And when the pendulum of good fortune swings away from me, I'm reminded of another lesson my mother taught me. "Everybody falls down. Everybody. You can lay down there for a while, but then you have to get up." To this day, I have no patience for laziness, stinginess, or whining. I am my mother's daughter. And as much as I doubt it sometimes, I am resilient.
So mothers, I write all this to say that even when you don't think your children are learning from you, they are. They really are, but you may not live to see the results. Just keep on planting those seeds of wisdom, even if they sprout in your children's heads and hearts after you're gone. You will have done more for your children than many other parents who had no wisdom to impart. And here's the kicker -- the wisdom gets handed down to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, some of whom you might not ever meet. My husband, Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB), is constantly quoting his grandmother: "Don't say once what you can't say twice." "Cain't nobody ride your back if you don't bend over." "I'ma give you what you need. If you need a hug, I'ma give you a hug. If you need an ass whuppin', I'ma give you that, too."
Another lesson my mother taught me that she didn't live to see play out in my life was this: "You only get one mother. Y'all gonna miss me when I'm gone."
Truer words were never spoken.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
Advice From a Mature Black Professional Woman to Younger Ones
I have a colleague from college, a black woman, who is extremely successful in her profession. She has been an innovator in her field, and some of the most newsworthy successes in her profession are due to her. After speaking to her a few months back after not having spoken for decades, we started catching up on each other's lives. She said that if she could give one piece of advice to young black professional women, it would be this:
Plan for marriage and children as meticulously as you plan your career.
My colleague is approaching fifty and she's single with no children. Mind you, she's not some tragic case wallowing in pity, but she just didn't envision that she wouldn't have married and had kids. Like many women in our generation, she thought that if she just put her effort into her career, all the other things she wanted -- marriage, children -- would simply fall into place. She thought the career part was the hardest part of one's life to get in order. Finding a suitable mate and producing kids, well, not so much.
Wrong.
Before you start creating visions in your mind of this woman, let me just say she's very pretty. She's also kind and well-spoken and funny. She'd be the perfect person to be a wife and mother.
Simply put, I think my generation of black women got it wrong when it comes to work/life balance. I know many black women from college who are single, and within that group are many who have not had children. I'm not saying that marriage and children are the holy grail for black professional women. What I'm saying is that if you even harbor a thought that those things are or might be important to you, you're going to have to make as much of an effort to achieve them as you make in achieving your career goals. Unlike what my colleague thought, achieving career success does not mean that love, marriage, and children will just, as she thought, "take care of themselves." They simply don't fall into place because you are a successful professional black woman.
I didn't value marriage and children during my early career years. In fact, I started devaluing marriage and family early on in life, starting with my own mom. I remember how my mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), used to say that the one job she really wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom. I, riding high on feminism, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, pre-teen hormones, and way too many choruses of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," informed my mother that she lacked ambition. Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home mom, a job that my pre-teen self had decided required neither qualifications nor skill? I told my mom that if education was so important, as I was always told by her, why didn't SHE go back to school, get her high school diploma, go to college, and get a better job?
"Because I've got six kids to raise," she responded dryly.
My mother was a saint. Any other black pre-teen telling her mother that she "lacked ambition" would have had the taste slapped out of her mouth, or at least would have been in need of some orthodontic work.
What I saw from marriage and children as a child was constant struggle. I saw my mom and dad trying to pay the bills, keep us fed and clothed. I couldn't understand taking on so much responsibility when you didn't have to. From what I saw of my parents' marriage, a husband was just another human to feed and clothe. What was the point?
With age comes wisdom and discernment. I know now that there's a lot more to marriage and children than struggling to pay the bills. Maybe if I had realized this earlier in my career, I might have had some impetus to try harder at finding a mate and having kids earlier.
Anyway, I just thought I'd pass along my colleague's advice. If you even think you might want marriage and children in addition to your career, you're going to have to work at getting them.
And, quite frankly, I'd be more than happy to be a stay-at-home mom right about now.
Plan for marriage and children as meticulously as you plan your career.
My colleague is approaching fifty and she's single with no children. Mind you, she's not some tragic case wallowing in pity, but she just didn't envision that she wouldn't have married and had kids. Like many women in our generation, she thought that if she just put her effort into her career, all the other things she wanted -- marriage, children -- would simply fall into place. She thought the career part was the hardest part of one's life to get in order. Finding a suitable mate and producing kids, well, not so much.
Wrong.
Before you start creating visions in your mind of this woman, let me just say she's very pretty. She's also kind and well-spoken and funny. She'd be the perfect person to be a wife and mother.
Simply put, I think my generation of black women got it wrong when it comes to work/life balance. I know many black women from college who are single, and within that group are many who have not had children. I'm not saying that marriage and children are the holy grail for black professional women. What I'm saying is that if you even harbor a thought that those things are or might be important to you, you're going to have to make as much of an effort to achieve them as you make in achieving your career goals. Unlike what my colleague thought, achieving career success does not mean that love, marriage, and children will just, as she thought, "take care of themselves." They simply don't fall into place because you are a successful professional black woman.
I didn't value marriage and children during my early career years. In fact, I started devaluing marriage and family early on in life, starting with my own mom. I remember how my mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), used to say that the one job she really wanted was to be a stay-at-home mom. I, riding high on feminism, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, pre-teen hormones, and way too many choruses of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," informed my mother that she lacked ambition. Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home mom, a job that my pre-teen self had decided required neither qualifications nor skill? I told my mom that if education was so important, as I was always told by her, why didn't SHE go back to school, get her high school diploma, go to college, and get a better job?
"Because I've got six kids to raise," she responded dryly.
My mother was a saint. Any other black pre-teen telling her mother that she "lacked ambition" would have had the taste slapped out of her mouth, or at least would have been in need of some orthodontic work.
What I saw from marriage and children as a child was constant struggle. I saw my mom and dad trying to pay the bills, keep us fed and clothed. I couldn't understand taking on so much responsibility when you didn't have to. From what I saw of my parents' marriage, a husband was just another human to feed and clothe. What was the point?
With age comes wisdom and discernment. I know now that there's a lot more to marriage and children than struggling to pay the bills. Maybe if I had realized this earlier in my career, I might have had some impetus to try harder at finding a mate and having kids earlier.
Anyway, I just thought I'd pass along my colleague's advice. If you even think you might want marriage and children in addition to your career, you're going to have to work at getting them.
And, quite frankly, I'd be more than happy to be a stay-at-home mom right about now.
Big Mama's Dead, So Get Your Shit Together
Most of us black folks who came of age in the '60's and '70's grew up with at least one matriarchal figure in the family who held things together and held up the triflin' folks in the family. This matriarch was usually older, someone who always kept a roof over her head, paid her bills, and always had a meal available for anyone who crossed her threshold. She always seemed to be able to dig down in her bra and find a twenty for someone to "hold," knowing full well she'd probably never get it back. She'd co-sign for some young'un in the family trying to get a car or some furniture and wouldn't think twice about mortgaging her house to get her child or grandchild out on bail. She was the kind of woman who maybe worked a menial job, cooked up a storm on Saturday night for family card games, and pulled herself together for Sunday school and making a huge Sunday dinner. She was Big Mama. And if there were an Olympic sport for putting everyone else first and ignoring your own health, the Big Mamas would have medaled for sure. They were overweight, ate a fat-laden diet, were often hypertensive or diabetic, and oftentimes smoked like chimneys.
Well, I've got news for the generations of black folks behind me. Big Mama's dead, so get your shit together.
Anyone in the generations behind me looking for that same kind of black matriarch to fill the shoes of the Big Mamas before her is destined to be disappointed. No one wants the role. I know I don't.
Times have changed, and nobody, least of all elderly black women, can afford to carry any other grown-ass adults who make unwise decisions and end up in need because of them. The financial setbacks that can come for co-signing for folks or mortgaging your house to help someone are far harder to overcome now than since the Great Depression. As my late mother, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted) used to say, "Money's as tight as Dick's hat band." As a child, I never knew who Dick was, but he and his hat band were always invoked when my mother didn't have it to give.
The Big Mamas of my childhood WERE the social safety net that government wasn't, or wasn't on time enough to be. They were the ones who would take folks in when they lost their jobs, who'd keep a drug-addicted niece or nephew from losing their kids to the foster care system, who not only raised their kids and their grandkids, but their great-grands as well.
Black mothers today do well just to raise the children they have. Elderly black women do well to keep a roof over their heads. Taking on the created problems of grown-ass people who don't have their shit together is more than most black women of any age can handle. And given how the Big Mamas of the past ignored their health tending to everyone else, well, that's not a model my generation wants to emulate.
So, if you don't have your shit together -- a steady job, a roof over your head, a way to take care of your own kids and stand on your own two feet, well, don't go looking for Big Mama. Big Mama's dead, and nobody's going to to replace her. Nobody wants to.
Well, I've got news for the generations of black folks behind me. Big Mama's dead, so get your shit together.
Anyone in the generations behind me looking for that same kind of black matriarch to fill the shoes of the Big Mamas before her is destined to be disappointed. No one wants the role. I know I don't.
Times have changed, and nobody, least of all elderly black women, can afford to carry any other grown-ass adults who make unwise decisions and end up in need because of them. The financial setbacks that can come for co-signing for folks or mortgaging your house to help someone are far harder to overcome now than since the Great Depression. As my late mother, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted) used to say, "Money's as tight as Dick's hat band." As a child, I never knew who Dick was, but he and his hat band were always invoked when my mother didn't have it to give.
The Big Mamas of my childhood WERE the social safety net that government wasn't, or wasn't on time enough to be. They were the ones who would take folks in when they lost their jobs, who'd keep a drug-addicted niece or nephew from losing their kids to the foster care system, who not only raised their kids and their grandkids, but their great-grands as well.
Black mothers today do well just to raise the children they have. Elderly black women do well to keep a roof over their heads. Taking on the created problems of grown-ass people who don't have their shit together is more than most black women of any age can handle. And given how the Big Mamas of the past ignored their health tending to everyone else, well, that's not a model my generation wants to emulate.
So, if you don't have your shit together -- a steady job, a roof over your head, a way to take care of your own kids and stand on your own two feet, well, don't go looking for Big Mama. Big Mama's dead, and nobody's going to to replace her. Nobody wants to.
Godspeed and God Bless, Etta James
To say that Etta James was an icon is an understatement. Having grown up with an Etta James superfan as was my mother SWIE ("She Who Is Exalted"), I think of Etta James as the soundtrack to my mother's life.
My mother's young womanhood was cut short at the age of 19 with her marriage to my dad and the birth of my oldest sister shortly thereafter. Her dancing and drinking days were mostly confined to the walls of her household after she married. And a lot of that dancing happened to the music of Etta James.
If Sam Cooke, Luther Vandross, and Teddy Pendergrass were my mother's top musical boyfriends, Etta James, Dinah Washington, and Aretha Franklin were her musical best girlfriends. I grew up watching my mom bop and stroll to "Tell Mama," and take long drags of her cigarette and hang her head to "All I Could Do Was Cry," as if what happened in that song was happening to her. I sometimes wondered whether my mother had actually loved someone else instead of my dad just by the way she responded to that song. At the height of her career, Etta sang like she was going through some things, and she was - drug addiction. My mother was going through some things, too, at the same time -- too many kids and too many miscarriages in too little time (six kids, three miscarriages, ten years), not enough money to feed all her kids all the time, and an abusive husband. It was like they commiserated as fellow love martyrs even though they didn't know each other. Etta sang the way my mother felt, and my mother felt what Etta was singing. I'm sure that if they'd known each other, they would have gotten along famously and swapped life stories, with their "tell it like it is" personalities.
As a child, I dismissed Etta James' music as "old folks' music." As an adult, I re-discovered her, along with Dinah Washington, and realized that many of the singers I liked copied much from them. What I loved most about Etta was she was living proof that a deep-throated raspy alto could deliver a song with haunting emotion, beauty and femininity with the best of them, because she was among the best of them.
Godspeed and God bless you, Etta, for seeing my mom through some tough times with your music.
My mother's young womanhood was cut short at the age of 19 with her marriage to my dad and the birth of my oldest sister shortly thereafter. Her dancing and drinking days were mostly confined to the walls of her household after she married. And a lot of that dancing happened to the music of Etta James.
If Sam Cooke, Luther Vandross, and Teddy Pendergrass were my mother's top musical boyfriends, Etta James, Dinah Washington, and Aretha Franklin were her musical best girlfriends. I grew up watching my mom bop and stroll to "Tell Mama," and take long drags of her cigarette and hang her head to "All I Could Do Was Cry," as if what happened in that song was happening to her. I sometimes wondered whether my mother had actually loved someone else instead of my dad just by the way she responded to that song. At the height of her career, Etta sang like she was going through some things, and she was - drug addiction. My mother was going through some things, too, at the same time -- too many kids and too many miscarriages in too little time (six kids, three miscarriages, ten years), not enough money to feed all her kids all the time, and an abusive husband. It was like they commiserated as fellow love martyrs even though they didn't know each other. Etta sang the way my mother felt, and my mother felt what Etta was singing. I'm sure that if they'd known each other, they would have gotten along famously and swapped life stories, with their "tell it like it is" personalities.
As a child, I dismissed Etta James' music as "old folks' music." As an adult, I re-discovered her, along with Dinah Washington, and realized that many of the singers I liked copied much from them. What I loved most about Etta was she was living proof that a deep-throated raspy alto could deliver a song with haunting emotion, beauty and femininity with the best of them, because she was among the best of them.
Godspeed and God bless you, Etta, for seeing my mom through some tough times with your music.
Amy Winehouse, Unsung
Today I heard that Amy Winehouse passed away. I'm so sad for what could have been. She was a unique and amazing talent, a voice that you recognized instantly because she sounded like no other. I put Amy Winehouse up there with the greats -- Etta James, Dinah Washington, Whitney, Aretha, and the like. It wasn't that she could do the vocal gymnastics of Christina Aguilera or Mariah Carey -- it was her phrasing, that of an old soul who had listened to far more masters and learned far more from them than her contemporaries ever did. Her talent is what many young artists hope for and will never, ever achieve.
My heart and prayers go out to her family. What an incredible, incredible loss. I can't help but think that if she had known her true worth and the value of her incredible gift, she would still be here.
My favorite Amy Winehouse song is "Me and Mr. Jones." It reminds me of my childhood, of my mom, of family card game gatherings with clouds of cigarette smoke, fatty foods, Sock-It-To-Me cake, Seven and Sevens all around, and shouts of "Who dealt this mess?". It is the music of my mother's generation. Plus, I think even my mom would have smiled a wry smile at the turn of lyric, "What kind of fuckery are we?" and gotten up to do the stroll. Here's the link:
http://youtu.be/HXjx2fo4XhA
Rest in peace, Amy Winehouse. I wish you had known how truly phenomenal you were.
My heart and prayers go out to her family. What an incredible, incredible loss. I can't help but think that if she had known her true worth and the value of her incredible gift, she would still be here.
My favorite Amy Winehouse song is "Me and Mr. Jones." It reminds me of my childhood, of my mom, of family card game gatherings with clouds of cigarette smoke, fatty foods, Sock-It-To-Me cake, Seven and Sevens all around, and shouts of "Who dealt this mess?". It is the music of my mother's generation. Plus, I think even my mom would have smiled a wry smile at the turn of lyric, "What kind of fuckery are we?" and gotten up to do the stroll. Here's the link:
http://youtu.be/HXjx2fo4XhA
Rest in peace, Amy Winehouse. I wish you had known how truly phenomenal you were.
Use What You've Got, and If You're Not Going to Use It . . .
"If you're not going to use something, give it to someone who will. No sense sitting on it when it could do someone else some good."
~ My mother
"If you continually give, you will continually have."
~ A friend of mine
"Give. That's where your blessings come from."
~ My mother-in-law
Summer's finally here! Yay! I've got tomatoes ripening on the vine in my little garden, roses blooming out of control, some barbecued chicken and burgers and cilantro-lime grilled corn in the fridge that BMNB grilled yesterday, as well as a pitcher of sweet tea with lemon. Life is good!
Because there are a few trips I'd like to take this summer that I hadn't really planned on, I'm watching my budget closely. My personal theme for the summer is, "Use what you've got." When you think about it, how often do we buy stuff that we really wouldn't need if we poked around our garages and pantries a little more or used what already works? I had this experience a few months ago when I saw a George Foreman grill on my local Freecycle listserv and decided I wanted it to grill fish and veggies. I got it as well as a grilling cookbook. Sometime later while going through unopened wedding presents in my garage -- yes, I'm ashamed to say I still had some unopened wedding presents 7 years later -- I found a -- you guessed it -- brand new George Foreman deluxe grill.
What makes matters worse is that it was a wedding gift from my own sister, The Writing Diva. I sent her a nice note thanking her, if I had not done so already, for the wonderful grill. I then gave my Freecycled grill to someone in my own family. I got to thinking, "What else do I have in my own garage that I've been buying or acquiring from Freecycle?'
I am annoyingly good at stocking up on things I think we'll need when they're on sale (Solar lawn lights @ $1.oo apiece from the Dollar Tree -- SCORE!), and I store them for when I'll use them. The problem is that I often forget that I even have them. So before I step foot into a store to buy something, I'm checking my pantry and my garage first.
I'm not good at finding a way to use the food I already have in my pantry to make a dish. I usually decide what I want to cook, look in the pantry to see if I have what I need, and buy what I don't have. I'm going to try to be better at making what I cook fit what I already have in my pantry. Why throw out food? I did this recently when I was cooking a dish that called for red wine. Although I didn't have the specific type of wine called for by the recipe, I did have a bottle of red wine that someone had given me. SCORE! I used what I had and the dish was not any worse for the use of a Cabernet instead of a Zin.
I'm also using what I already have that works, even if it isn't the most up-to-date version. Sure, I could join a gym or buy a bunch of exercise DVDs. I already have a bunch of weights, yoga mats, yoga pillows, and exercise DVDs, though, and, even more, I still have an entire series of Yoga, Pilates, Tae-Bo and other exercise videos on VHS. Since my DVD player also plays VHS tapes, I'm using what I've got. Time to reconnect with Billy Blanks, Susan Powter, Rodney Yee and the like.
And as much as I want an iPhone and despise my Blackberry for its lack of apps, I've told my husband not to purchase an iPhone for me as he had planned. For the moment, it works, and I want to use the money for our travels.
I've also started going into the depths of my closet, pulling out old summer clothes, and dressing accordingly. Sure, I've picked up a few new summer things to supplement what I've got since much of what I have doesn't fit me, but I'm also dragging out what still fits -- skirts, sandals, t-shirts and the like -- and wearing those, too.
I'm also invoking my late mom's credo: If you're not going to use something, give it to someone who will. As I finally start cleaning out closets and clean out my garage to make room for a home gym (I have a never-used weight bench in a box in my garage and I can't get to it because I've got boxes up to the rafters -- and we have a three-car tandem garage!), I'm going to let go of stuff that neither I nor BMNB use. Mind you, this is much harder for BMNB than for me. He believes that if you paid for it, you hold on to it because you might need it someday and you might not be able to afford to buy it again. I recently got him to budge on this a bit by getting him to let go of a Black & Decker electric edger that he never uses because he uses a weed eater to edge our lawn. At first, he wasn't sure. "Honey," I said, "You know you don't use this. What's the point of hanging on to it? Give it to someone who will make use of it. Besides, we need to free up space in the garage." Luckily, the person we gave it to is someone my husband likes alot -- our handyman.
As I watched our handyman drive away with the edger riding shotgun in his car, I saw that wistful look in my husband's eyes, like that of a child made to do a good deed by his mother that he's not quite on board with. I then reminded him of something one of my friends has in her signature block in her email: "If you continually give, you will continually have."
I have to admit that BMNB also successfully let go of some of his Bill Cosby-esque sweaters from the '80's that he had not been wearing. At first I offered them to my nephew who has a son about BMNB's size, but he declined, saying he didn't want his son to get laughed at at school. My niece and her husband, however, snapped them up happily. "We love old school stuff! We'll take them." Knowing that something he wasn't even using made one of his beloved nieces that happy made it easier for BMNB to let go.
I've been on the receiving end of this giving, too. My brother moved this spring and gave me back a gift I'd given him long ago -- a poster commemorating the Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibit at the DeYoung Museum, which he had later professionally matted and framed and was going to throw out because he didn't want to take it to his new digs. It now hangs proudly over my fireplace mantle. That day, my brother also gave me a framed Toni Morrison poster, a framed poster of the Apple computer ad with a black and white picture of Jackie Robinson and the caption, "Think Different," as well as a chain saw, a power saw, and a printer. My brother also gave away camping equipment -- a tent, a stove, lamps, cookware, tarps, inflatable mattresses, and the like -- to my niece, who loves to go camping. Clearly he was living my mother's example of giving stuff you aren't going to use to someone who will.
I would imagine that I'm not the only one who will be cleaning out my closets and my garage this summer. If you have something you're not using, give it to someone who will, whether it's to a family member, to your local Freecycle group , to the Goodwill, the Salvation Army, your church, or some other organization that will make use of it or sell it in their thrift shops. You're keeping stuff out of landfills and bringing joy to someone. No sense in sitting on it when it could do someone else some good, as my mom would say.
As my mother-in-law wisely says, "Give. That's where your blessings come from." And when you're giving from your closet or your garage, it doesn't really cost you anything. What could be better?
~ My mother
"If you continually give, you will continually have."
~ A friend of mine
"Give. That's where your blessings come from."
~ My mother-in-law
Summer's finally here! Yay! I've got tomatoes ripening on the vine in my little garden, roses blooming out of control, some barbecued chicken and burgers and cilantro-lime grilled corn in the fridge that BMNB grilled yesterday, as well as a pitcher of sweet tea with lemon. Life is good!
Because there are a few trips I'd like to take this summer that I hadn't really planned on, I'm watching my budget closely. My personal theme for the summer is, "Use what you've got." When you think about it, how often do we buy stuff that we really wouldn't need if we poked around our garages and pantries a little more or used what already works? I had this experience a few months ago when I saw a George Foreman grill on my local Freecycle listserv and decided I wanted it to grill fish and veggies. I got it as well as a grilling cookbook. Sometime later while going through unopened wedding presents in my garage -- yes, I'm ashamed to say I still had some unopened wedding presents 7 years later -- I found a -- you guessed it -- brand new George Foreman deluxe grill.
What makes matters worse is that it was a wedding gift from my own sister, The Writing Diva. I sent her a nice note thanking her, if I had not done so already, for the wonderful grill. I then gave my Freecycled grill to someone in my own family. I got to thinking, "What else do I have in my own garage that I've been buying or acquiring from Freecycle?'
I am annoyingly good at stocking up on things I think we'll need when they're on sale (Solar lawn lights @ $1.oo apiece from the Dollar Tree -- SCORE!), and I store them for when I'll use them. The problem is that I often forget that I even have them. So before I step foot into a store to buy something, I'm checking my pantry and my garage first.
I'm not good at finding a way to use the food I already have in my pantry to make a dish. I usually decide what I want to cook, look in the pantry to see if I have what I need, and buy what I don't have. I'm going to try to be better at making what I cook fit what I already have in my pantry. Why throw out food? I did this recently when I was cooking a dish that called for red wine. Although I didn't have the specific type of wine called for by the recipe, I did have a bottle of red wine that someone had given me. SCORE! I used what I had and the dish was not any worse for the use of a Cabernet instead of a Zin.
I'm also using what I already have that works, even if it isn't the most up-to-date version. Sure, I could join a gym or buy a bunch of exercise DVDs. I already have a bunch of weights, yoga mats, yoga pillows, and exercise DVDs, though, and, even more, I still have an entire series of Yoga, Pilates, Tae-Bo and other exercise videos on VHS. Since my DVD player also plays VHS tapes, I'm using what I've got. Time to reconnect with Billy Blanks, Susan Powter, Rodney Yee and the like.
And as much as I want an iPhone and despise my Blackberry for its lack of apps, I've told my husband not to purchase an iPhone for me as he had planned. For the moment, it works, and I want to use the money for our travels.
I've also started going into the depths of my closet, pulling out old summer clothes, and dressing accordingly. Sure, I've picked up a few new summer things to supplement what I've got since much of what I have doesn't fit me, but I'm also dragging out what still fits -- skirts, sandals, t-shirts and the like -- and wearing those, too.
I'm also invoking my late mom's credo: If you're not going to use something, give it to someone who will. As I finally start cleaning out closets and clean out my garage to make room for a home gym (I have a never-used weight bench in a box in my garage and I can't get to it because I've got boxes up to the rafters -- and we have a three-car tandem garage!), I'm going to let go of stuff that neither I nor BMNB use. Mind you, this is much harder for BMNB than for me. He believes that if you paid for it, you hold on to it because you might need it someday and you might not be able to afford to buy it again. I recently got him to budge on this a bit by getting him to let go of a Black & Decker electric edger that he never uses because he uses a weed eater to edge our lawn. At first, he wasn't sure. "Honey," I said, "You know you don't use this. What's the point of hanging on to it? Give it to someone who will make use of it. Besides, we need to free up space in the garage." Luckily, the person we gave it to is someone my husband likes alot -- our handyman.
As I watched our handyman drive away with the edger riding shotgun in his car, I saw that wistful look in my husband's eyes, like that of a child made to do a good deed by his mother that he's not quite on board with. I then reminded him of something one of my friends has in her signature block in her email: "If you continually give, you will continually have."
I have to admit that BMNB also successfully let go of some of his Bill Cosby-esque sweaters from the '80's that he had not been wearing. At first I offered them to my nephew who has a son about BMNB's size, but he declined, saying he didn't want his son to get laughed at at school. My niece and her husband, however, snapped them up happily. "We love old school stuff! We'll take them." Knowing that something he wasn't even using made one of his beloved nieces that happy made it easier for BMNB to let go.
I've been on the receiving end of this giving, too. My brother moved this spring and gave me back a gift I'd given him long ago -- a poster commemorating the Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibit at the DeYoung Museum, which he had later professionally matted and framed and was going to throw out because he didn't want to take it to his new digs. It now hangs proudly over my fireplace mantle. That day, my brother also gave me a framed Toni Morrison poster, a framed poster of the Apple computer ad with a black and white picture of Jackie Robinson and the caption, "Think Different," as well as a chain saw, a power saw, and a printer. My brother also gave away camping equipment -- a tent, a stove, lamps, cookware, tarps, inflatable mattresses, and the like -- to my niece, who loves to go camping. Clearly he was living my mother's example of giving stuff you aren't going to use to someone who will.
I would imagine that I'm not the only one who will be cleaning out my closets and my garage this summer. If you have something you're not using, give it to someone who will, whether it's to a family member, to your local Freecycle group , to the Goodwill, the Salvation Army, your church, or some other organization that will make use of it or sell it in their thrift shops. You're keeping stuff out of landfills and bringing joy to someone. No sense in sitting on it when it could do someone else some good, as my mom would say.
As my mother-in-law wisely says, "Give. That's where your blessings come from." And when you're giving from your closet or your garage, it doesn't really cost you anything. What could be better?
No, She's Not Sorry -- Nor Should She Be
So Virginia Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, thinks Professor Anita Hill should consider offering an apology and an explanation for "what she did with" Mrs. Thomas' husband.
Indeed.
As cool and rational as she was in 1991, Professor Hill did the right thing: She declined the invitation to apologize, as an apology presumes some wrongdoing. She did nothing wrong.
Let that be a lesson to women everywhere: If you stand up and tell the truth, and you've done nothing wrong, don't apologize.
However, I think Justice Thomas owes black people an apology for invoking the racialized metaphor of a lynching to question the motivations of his accusers instead of dealing with the accusations head-on. It seems Justice Thomas wants a color-blind society only when it suits his purposes.
As for Mrs. Thomas, she's lucky she asked someone as poised and well-mannered as Professor Hill to consider an apology to her husband. Had she asked the same of me, I would have, in the tradition of my late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), invited Mrs. Thomas to, well, plant one on my pretty posterior, to put it nicely.
Indeed.
As cool and rational as she was in 1991, Professor Hill did the right thing: She declined the invitation to apologize, as an apology presumes some wrongdoing. She did nothing wrong.
Let that be a lesson to women everywhere: If you stand up and tell the truth, and you've done nothing wrong, don't apologize.
However, I think Justice Thomas owes black people an apology for invoking the racialized metaphor of a lynching to question the motivations of his accusers instead of dealing with the accusations head-on. It seems Justice Thomas wants a color-blind society only when it suits his purposes.
As for Mrs. Thomas, she's lucky she asked someone as poised and well-mannered as Professor Hill to consider an apology to her husband. Had she asked the same of me, I would have, in the tradition of my late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), invited Mrs. Thomas to, well, plant one on my pretty posterior, to put it nicely.
The Benefits of Being Raised Black: Who Promised You "Fair"?
Who promised you "fair"? Well, they lied to you.
- My late mother's response whenever I said, "That's not fair."
When I read the California Supreme Court's decision upholding the state employee furloughs, of course I was mad because the legal reasoning was so twisted. The justices clearly reached high into the far recesses of their collective behinds to pull out that decision. Before I could complete my thought of, "That's not fair," the voice of my late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), came into my head:
"Who promised you 'fair'? Well, they lied to you."
At that point, I laughed, thankful for having been raised black.
Black parents don't sugarcoat anything. Life's not fair? Well, who promised you "fair"? Life knocks you down? I'll let you lie there for a little while, but then you have to get back up. Get cheated out of something you worked hard for? The world doesn't owe you a damn thing. Expecting someone to do something for you for free? Ain't nothin' free but Jesus. Do something stupid on the job that everyone else does and get singled out because you're black? Well, that's on you, according to black parents. See, you forgot you were black. Heck, I wasn't even allowed to believe in Santa Claus because my mom wasn't going to give some old guy the credit for putting Christmas presents under the tree that SHE paid for.
Growing up black means growing up expecting life to be unfair and learning to "build a bridge and get over it," as one of my nephews would say. Black parents teach you to expect unfairness because NOT to teach you this would be a disservice to you, leaving you unprepared for how the world REALLY works. Black children are taught to be resilient in the face of unfairness because life is unfair, and life for black people tends to be really unfair. You'd be crazy or depressed if you perpetually expected fairness as a black person.
So when arguably unfair things like the California Supreme Court's decision happen, you learn to shrug it off, laugh, and build a bridge and get over it.
Thanks, Mom and Dad.
- My late mother's response whenever I said, "That's not fair."
When I read the California Supreme Court's decision upholding the state employee furloughs, of course I was mad because the legal reasoning was so twisted. The justices clearly reached high into the far recesses of their collective behinds to pull out that decision. Before I could complete my thought of, "That's not fair," the voice of my late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), came into my head:
"Who promised you 'fair'? Well, they lied to you."
At that point, I laughed, thankful for having been raised black.
Black parents don't sugarcoat anything. Life's not fair? Well, who promised you "fair"? Life knocks you down? I'll let you lie there for a little while, but then you have to get back up. Get cheated out of something you worked hard for? The world doesn't owe you a damn thing. Expecting someone to do something for you for free? Ain't nothin' free but Jesus. Do something stupid on the job that everyone else does and get singled out because you're black? Well, that's on you, according to black parents. See, you forgot you were black. Heck, I wasn't even allowed to believe in Santa Claus because my mom wasn't going to give some old guy the credit for putting Christmas presents under the tree that SHE paid for.
Growing up black means growing up expecting life to be unfair and learning to "build a bridge and get over it," as one of my nephews would say. Black parents teach you to expect unfairness because NOT to teach you this would be a disservice to you, leaving you unprepared for how the world REALLY works. Black children are taught to be resilient in the face of unfairness because life is unfair, and life for black people tends to be really unfair. You'd be crazy or depressed if you perpetually expected fairness as a black person.
So when arguably unfair things like the California Supreme Court's decision happen, you learn to shrug it off, laugh, and build a bridge and get over it.
Thanks, Mom and Dad.
Tidings of Comfort Food and Joy
I hope you had as wonderful a Christmas as I did. My Christmas wasn't about expensive gifts or overworked hostesses bearing overladen platters of food, but about gathering with family and exchanging small but meaningful gifts -- a photo of a departed, beloved pet; recipes from my late mom, SWIE; books to inspire travel; even a book of Sudoku puzzles. It wasn't the price but the thought put into the gifts that counted. And it was nice to have just about everyone gathered around without there being a funeral as the reason.
Indeed, one gift I treasured greatly was a book of my mom's recipes given to me by my sister. You see, I had been hankerin' for some good ol' chili beans like my mom used to make, but I had long forgotten how she made them. Luckily, my sister had it all written down. The gift of that recipe means that my mom's comfort food -- my comfort food -- will still live on.
If you're nice, perhaps I'll share the recipe with you, along with some of my mom's other comfort food recipes, like chili chicken. Good eatin', y'all.
Tidings of comfort food and joy . . . .
Happy Holidays . . .
Indeed, one gift I treasured greatly was a book of my mom's recipes given to me by my sister. You see, I had been hankerin' for some good ol' chili beans like my mom used to make, but I had long forgotten how she made them. Luckily, my sister had it all written down. The gift of that recipe means that my mom's comfort food -- my comfort food -- will still live on.
If you're nice, perhaps I'll share the recipe with you, along with some of my mom's other comfort food recipes, like chili chicken. Good eatin', y'all.
Tidings of comfort food and joy . . . .
Happy Holidays . . .
Taking Up
I against my brother
My brother and I against our father
My brother, my father and I against our uncle
And all of us against the infidel . . .
Old Arab Proverb (I'm told)
When I was a child, as part of a large black family, I was trained, as were my siblings, to "take up" for any of my siblings if any one of us got into a fight. Mind you, since I was the youngest, I didn't have to make good on this familial pact. It was understood that if any one of us got into a fight or was threatened with one, and there was another one of us around, they had better "take up" for the one who was in a fight or threatened. If we got home and our parents found out that we didn't take up for one another, we were going to get it. We would be judged, and there would be hell to pay. Didn't matter if your sister or brother started the fight -- that would be dealt with later -- all that mattered was that if there was going to be trouble, you'd best be fighting alongside your sibling instead of sitting on the sidelines or fighting against them.
Because "taking up" was a common phenomenon among black families in the ghetto during the '60's and '70's, if you lived in the ghetto, you pretty much knew what your odds were going into a fight. There were people who wouldn't mess with me because they knew my older brother would take up for me. "Don't mess with her. Her brother's crazy." Just the knowledge that you weren't going to be the only one they'd have to do battle with was enough to keep the peace. Don't start none, won't be none. Talk about a deterrent. I guess it was the ghetto equivalent of NATO.
You don't expect when you're in your forties that your siblings would still have to take up for you, but it's nice to know that they would. I won't dignify the person or the act that caused me to seek advice, solace and support from my siblings, but my siblings made it very clear that they would take up for me. Between sips of iced tea and bites of an off-the-chain pound cake (my sisters may not be Southerners, but like Southern women, there's always dessert in their house) I was given an infusion of SWIE-wit and the confirmation that the pact still stood. A subsequent family meeting in my absence involving my oldest brother made clear that the pact still stood.
I am blessed beyond measure to have the family I was born into. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I know I am blessed.
The pact still stands. We may be sliding into middle age, but the pact still stands.
Thanks to our parents.
My brother and I against our father
My brother, my father and I against our uncle
And all of us against the infidel . . .
Old Arab Proverb (I'm told)
When I was a child, as part of a large black family, I was trained, as were my siblings, to "take up" for any of my siblings if any one of us got into a fight. Mind you, since I was the youngest, I didn't have to make good on this familial pact. It was understood that if any one of us got into a fight or was threatened with one, and there was another one of us around, they had better "take up" for the one who was in a fight or threatened. If we got home and our parents found out that we didn't take up for one another, we were going to get it. We would be judged, and there would be hell to pay. Didn't matter if your sister or brother started the fight -- that would be dealt with later -- all that mattered was that if there was going to be trouble, you'd best be fighting alongside your sibling instead of sitting on the sidelines or fighting against them.
Because "taking up" was a common phenomenon among black families in the ghetto during the '60's and '70's, if you lived in the ghetto, you pretty much knew what your odds were going into a fight. There were people who wouldn't mess with me because they knew my older brother would take up for me. "Don't mess with her. Her brother's crazy." Just the knowledge that you weren't going to be the only one they'd have to do battle with was enough to keep the peace. Don't start none, won't be none. Talk about a deterrent. I guess it was the ghetto equivalent of NATO.
You don't expect when you're in your forties that your siblings would still have to take up for you, but it's nice to know that they would. I won't dignify the person or the act that caused me to seek advice, solace and support from my siblings, but my siblings made it very clear that they would take up for me. Between sips of iced tea and bites of an off-the-chain pound cake (my sisters may not be Southerners, but like Southern women, there's always dessert in their house) I was given an infusion of SWIE-wit and the confirmation that the pact still stood. A subsequent family meeting in my absence involving my oldest brother made clear that the pact still stood.
I am blessed beyond measure to have the family I was born into. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I know I am blessed.
The pact still stands. We may be sliding into middle age, but the pact still stands.
Thanks to our parents.
Mama Was A Germophobe
Mama was a germaphobe . . .
Wherever there was a germ, she would burn it
And when she died
She left me Clorox and Pine-Sol
-- A parody of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," with apologies to The Temptations
I was cleaning one of my bathrooms yesterday, and the smell of lemon-scented Pine-Sol wafted from the sinks, countertops, toilet and bath tub. French lavender-scented Method All-Surface Cleaner had been slathered on the window blinds that I had previously dusted. The windows, mirrors and chrome sink fixtures shined with the assistance of Windex. I had finished sweeping and Swiffering the floor and was getting ready to mop and clean the baseboards.
I thought to myself, “Mom would be proud.”
You see, my mom, SWIE, was a germaphobe. Or rather, a germ assassin. Her cleaning philosophy could be summed up as this: If a surface was going to have contact with food, any human orifice, or feet, it had to be disinfected. Dishes, flatware, pots and pans were washed with dishwashing detergent and Clorox. Sheets, pillow cases, any manner of bed linens, bath towels, underwear -- no matter the quality or color – as well as bath mats were laundered in laundry detergent, hot water, and Clorox. Toilet bowls, sinks, showers, and bathtubs were cleaned with Pine-Sol. Floors were mopped with Pine-Sol. And kitchen towels were washed separately from bath towels, underwear or anything else in order to avoid any cross-contamination in the cleaning process. I think she even put bleach in carpet cleaning solution.
She came by this germ aversion naturally and through personal experience. My mom once briefly worked doing cleaning in a hospital, coming into contact with all variants of human effluents. I think that’s where she developed her love of Clorox. She might have also gotten her germ aversion from her mother, who had once worked briefly as a maid in a cathouse, or at least that’s what I remember her telling me. Contrary to popular stereotype, “soiled doves” of the bordello persuasion are pretty particular about their “work environment,” so to speak, or at least they were at that time. My grandmother said she laundered a whole lot of sheets in scalding hot water, detergent, and, I think, Clorox. And this was before washing machines. But my grandmother was always pretty particular not only about cleanliness but timeliness. She would always brag to my mother that she always had her house cleaned from top to bottom AND Sunday dinner on the table by 2:00 pm on Sunday, a deadline my mother wasn’t always able to meet.
In other words, my mother couldn’t stand dirtiness. She even had somewhat of a grading system.
If your house was dirty, she would say that it was “just nasty.” But it was the way she said “nasty” – drawing out the “a” to a long “aaaaahhhhh” that sounded like, “Well, that’s just naaaahhhsty.”
If your house was beyond nasty, it was filthy. Nasty was for untidy; filthy was for visible dirt, dust, mold, mildew, dried food, poop, etc. on surfaces exposed to food, human orifices, or feet. And then there were her superlative phrases: “That don’t make no kind of sense” added to “nasty” or “filthy” ratcheted up the dirtiness factor; “That don’t make a lick of sense” ratcheted it up another notch; and if “That don’t make a lick-a-bit of sense” was added to “That’s just filthy,” well, then, you had reached the height of uncleanliness in my mom’s book, to wit: “Well, that’s just filthy. That don’t make a lick-a-bit of sense.”
In order to maintain my mother’s sense of order and cleanliness, she had us kids on a cleaning schedule. Every day, the following tasks were carried out by the six of us: 1) Cleaning the front bathroom; 2) Cleaning the back bathroom; 3) Dusting and polishing the furniture in the living room, cleaning the patio window with Windex, and vacuuming the living room and the hallway; 4) Morning dishes; and 5) Evening dishes. Mind you, this was a 1200 or so square foot house. Cleaning the bathrooms entailed cleaning the sinks, toilets, and bathtub or shower with Pine-Sol, cleaning the mirrors with Windex, sweeping the floor, and putting out a clean hand towel. Bath mats were switched and the floors were mopped, with Pine-Sol, weekly. Evening dishes required two people – one to wash, the other to wipe – and entailed washing (with detergent and Clorox, of course) and drying dishes, putting away leftovers, taking the stove apart and cleaning all the eyes, wiping down the counters (with detergent and Clorox, of course) and wiping off the dining room table cover (she had a solid maple dining room table with a plastic cover), and sweeping the floor. I remember the discussion that went on about whether I, the youngest child, should be added to the cleaning rotation. The test? If you were tall enough to stand on a chair and put away a dish, you were added to the cleaning rotation. I think I was seven when it happened. My brothers had it worse -- they had the gender-specific chores of taking out the garbage, yard work, and poop-scooping added to their daily chores.
Morning dishes, however, was the most crucial task of the day. My mom got home at 4:15 or 4:30 every day, so morning dishes had to be done before she got home. Why? My mother refused to cook in a dirty kitchen. Absolutely refused. If she came home and the kitchen wasn’t clean – I mean, nothing on the counters except appliances, no dishes drying in the dishstand, no food bits in the sink -- she would change out of her work shoes into her house slippers, grab her purse, car keys, and cigarettes, and go to her sister’s house and leave us without dinner. That wasn’t such a big deal until my dad came home and wanted to know why there was no dinner. If you were the person responsible for there not being dinner, there was hell to pay. My dad loved my mother’s cooking almost as much as he loved us, and after a long day working on printing presses, he’d come home hungry and grouchy because of his hunger. He was not someone to be starved because of an indolent child who lost track of time watching Star Trek.
Weekends had their own rhythm. Bed linens were stripped and laundered – and I’m talking seven sets of bed linens – in – what else? – hot water, laundry detergent, and Clorox. Floors were mopped in Pine-Sol. My mom upped her cleaning game on the weekend, due in small part, I think, because of the possibility of a visit from her mother. If your house wasn’t clean, Granny would talk about you. My mother didn’t want to be “that” daughter – you know, the daughter that “don’t keep house” -- so if we got wind that Granny was coming, we would fly into action to clean and tidy the home beyond our usual tasks to meet not only our mother’s approval, but our grandmother’s.
My mom loved Clorox, Pine-Sol, Windex, and her BFF later in life would be Tilex. She would have loved the Swiffer. She was not an environmentalist; in fact, it was the germs of the environment that were to be battled and conquered, in her view. No "Simple Green" or "Seventh Generation" for her, no sirree. She would routinely take a week of vacation during the spring just to do spring cleaning on her house, washing walls, carpets, drapes, outside windows, etc., believing that no one would ever clean her house as well as she did because it was her house. She didn't like dirt or dirty smells, and woe be unto those who didn’t spray air freshener after “dropping some kids in the pool.” She would hunt you down, ask you, “Did something just crawl up inside you and DIE?”, and then, with one hand holding her nose and the other wielding Glade Air Freshener like a flame thrower, would kick open the offending bathroom's door like a DEA agent and prepare to do battle with your poop stench.
I don’t always meet my mother’s cleaning standards as to frequency, but I do meet them as to breadth and depth of cleaning, even ratcheting up my game a bit. My obsession is baseboards: You can tell if my life is all out of whack if there’s dirt on my white baseboards. My husband thought I was being obsessive when I told him that we had to go around our entire rental with pails of hot water and Spic-and-Span (Pine-Sol is too hard on paint) to clean all the white baseboards in a 2600 square foot house. When he saw the effect, he was hooked. A baseboard cleaning convert.
My mom would be proud of us. That is, if she came on the right day.
Wherever there was a germ, she would burn it
And when she died
She left me Clorox and Pine-Sol
-- A parody of "Papa Was A Rolling Stone," with apologies to The Temptations
I was cleaning one of my bathrooms yesterday, and the smell of lemon-scented Pine-Sol wafted from the sinks, countertops, toilet and bath tub. French lavender-scented Method All-Surface Cleaner had been slathered on the window blinds that I had previously dusted. The windows, mirrors and chrome sink fixtures shined with the assistance of Windex. I had finished sweeping and Swiffering the floor and was getting ready to mop and clean the baseboards.
I thought to myself, “Mom would be proud.”
You see, my mom, SWIE, was a germaphobe. Or rather, a germ assassin. Her cleaning philosophy could be summed up as this: If a surface was going to have contact with food, any human orifice, or feet, it had to be disinfected. Dishes, flatware, pots and pans were washed with dishwashing detergent and Clorox. Sheets, pillow cases, any manner of bed linens, bath towels, underwear -- no matter the quality or color – as well as bath mats were laundered in laundry detergent, hot water, and Clorox. Toilet bowls, sinks, showers, and bathtubs were cleaned with Pine-Sol. Floors were mopped with Pine-Sol. And kitchen towels were washed separately from bath towels, underwear or anything else in order to avoid any cross-contamination in the cleaning process. I think she even put bleach in carpet cleaning solution.
She came by this germ aversion naturally and through personal experience. My mom once briefly worked doing cleaning in a hospital, coming into contact with all variants of human effluents. I think that’s where she developed her love of Clorox. She might have also gotten her germ aversion from her mother, who had once worked briefly as a maid in a cathouse, or at least that’s what I remember her telling me. Contrary to popular stereotype, “soiled doves” of the bordello persuasion are pretty particular about their “work environment,” so to speak, or at least they were at that time. My grandmother said she laundered a whole lot of sheets in scalding hot water, detergent, and, I think, Clorox. And this was before washing machines. But my grandmother was always pretty particular not only about cleanliness but timeliness. She would always brag to my mother that she always had her house cleaned from top to bottom AND Sunday dinner on the table by 2:00 pm on Sunday, a deadline my mother wasn’t always able to meet.
In other words, my mother couldn’t stand dirtiness. She even had somewhat of a grading system.
If your house was dirty, she would say that it was “just nasty.” But it was the way she said “nasty” – drawing out the “a” to a long “aaaaahhhhh” that sounded like, “Well, that’s just naaaahhhsty.”
If your house was beyond nasty, it was filthy. Nasty was for untidy; filthy was for visible dirt, dust, mold, mildew, dried food, poop, etc. on surfaces exposed to food, human orifices, or feet. And then there were her superlative phrases: “That don’t make no kind of sense” added to “nasty” or “filthy” ratcheted up the dirtiness factor; “That don’t make a lick of sense” ratcheted it up another notch; and if “That don’t make a lick-a-bit of sense” was added to “That’s just filthy,” well, then, you had reached the height of uncleanliness in my mom’s book, to wit: “Well, that’s just filthy. That don’t make a lick-a-bit of sense.”
In order to maintain my mother’s sense of order and cleanliness, she had us kids on a cleaning schedule. Every day, the following tasks were carried out by the six of us: 1) Cleaning the front bathroom; 2) Cleaning the back bathroom; 3) Dusting and polishing the furniture in the living room, cleaning the patio window with Windex, and vacuuming the living room and the hallway; 4) Morning dishes; and 5) Evening dishes. Mind you, this was a 1200 or so square foot house. Cleaning the bathrooms entailed cleaning the sinks, toilets, and bathtub or shower with Pine-Sol, cleaning the mirrors with Windex, sweeping the floor, and putting out a clean hand towel. Bath mats were switched and the floors were mopped, with Pine-Sol, weekly. Evening dishes required two people – one to wash, the other to wipe – and entailed washing (with detergent and Clorox, of course) and drying dishes, putting away leftovers, taking the stove apart and cleaning all the eyes, wiping down the counters (with detergent and Clorox, of course) and wiping off the dining room table cover (she had a solid maple dining room table with a plastic cover), and sweeping the floor. I remember the discussion that went on about whether I, the youngest child, should be added to the cleaning rotation. The test? If you were tall enough to stand on a chair and put away a dish, you were added to the cleaning rotation. I think I was seven when it happened. My brothers had it worse -- they had the gender-specific chores of taking out the garbage, yard work, and poop-scooping added to their daily chores.
Morning dishes, however, was the most crucial task of the day. My mom got home at 4:15 or 4:30 every day, so morning dishes had to be done before she got home. Why? My mother refused to cook in a dirty kitchen. Absolutely refused. If she came home and the kitchen wasn’t clean – I mean, nothing on the counters except appliances, no dishes drying in the dishstand, no food bits in the sink -- she would change out of her work shoes into her house slippers, grab her purse, car keys, and cigarettes, and go to her sister’s house and leave us without dinner. That wasn’t such a big deal until my dad came home and wanted to know why there was no dinner. If you were the person responsible for there not being dinner, there was hell to pay. My dad loved my mother’s cooking almost as much as he loved us, and after a long day working on printing presses, he’d come home hungry and grouchy because of his hunger. He was not someone to be starved because of an indolent child who lost track of time watching Star Trek.
Weekends had their own rhythm. Bed linens were stripped and laundered – and I’m talking seven sets of bed linens – in – what else? – hot water, laundry detergent, and Clorox. Floors were mopped in Pine-Sol. My mom upped her cleaning game on the weekend, due in small part, I think, because of the possibility of a visit from her mother. If your house wasn’t clean, Granny would talk about you. My mother didn’t want to be “that” daughter – you know, the daughter that “don’t keep house” -- so if we got wind that Granny was coming, we would fly into action to clean and tidy the home beyond our usual tasks to meet not only our mother’s approval, but our grandmother’s.
My mom loved Clorox, Pine-Sol, Windex, and her BFF later in life would be Tilex. She would have loved the Swiffer. She was not an environmentalist; in fact, it was the germs of the environment that were to be battled and conquered, in her view. No "Simple Green" or "Seventh Generation" for her, no sirree. She would routinely take a week of vacation during the spring just to do spring cleaning on her house, washing walls, carpets, drapes, outside windows, etc., believing that no one would ever clean her house as well as she did because it was her house. She didn't like dirt or dirty smells, and woe be unto those who didn’t spray air freshener after “dropping some kids in the pool.” She would hunt you down, ask you, “Did something just crawl up inside you and DIE?”, and then, with one hand holding her nose and the other wielding Glade Air Freshener like a flame thrower, would kick open the offending bathroom's door like a DEA agent and prepare to do battle with your poop stench.
I don’t always meet my mother’s cleaning standards as to frequency, but I do meet them as to breadth and depth of cleaning, even ratcheting up my game a bit. My obsession is baseboards: You can tell if my life is all out of whack if there’s dirt on my white baseboards. My husband thought I was being obsessive when I told him that we had to go around our entire rental with pails of hot water and Spic-and-Span (Pine-Sol is too hard on paint) to clean all the white baseboards in a 2600 square foot house. When he saw the effect, he was hooked. A baseboard cleaning convert.
My mom would be proud of us. That is, if she came on the right day.
The Hard Part Isn't That They Leave You
Today is the 11th anniversary of my mother's passing. And right now, a friend of mine is dealing with losing a parent to cancer as I did on this day eleven years ago. I've given all the usual advice about giving your loved one permission to let go and how parents will hang on even while suffering if they are afraid for the children or spouse they're leaving behind. What I didn't say was this:
The hard part isn't that they leave you; it's that they leave you behind.
Losing a parent is like having a hole ripped in your heart. And more likely than not, the person you would have looked to most to help you through such grief is the very parent who left you behind. The sage advice, the comfort, even the comfort food -- gone. You're on your own to pick up the pieces of your life and carry on.
It's funny -- as I've gotten older, I realize that there is no one on the planet that I hate so much that I would wish upon them the death of a parent. Even when people I don't particularly care for lose a parent, I become all mushy and supportive. Other than the loss of a child or a spouse, I can't imagine a more profound grief.
I remember saying to my mother in my mind shortly after her passing, "I understand that you have to go. Just don't leave me behind. Take me with you so I don't have to go through what I know I can't handle."
But it wasn't to be. Because it wasn't meant to be.
My mother used to always say that no one brings a child into the world to have them suffer; you bring them into the world that they may live their lives to the fullest. She was big on us children living a bigger and more full life than hers -- traveling, going to college, aspiring to big things. She always wanted more for us than what she had for herself. So the best that I can do -- that any child can do, for that matter -- to honor the passing of a parent is to live the life they gave you to the fullest.
Rest in peace, SWIE.
The hard part isn't that they leave you; it's that they leave you behind.
Losing a parent is like having a hole ripped in your heart. And more likely than not, the person you would have looked to most to help you through such grief is the very parent who left you behind. The sage advice, the comfort, even the comfort food -- gone. You're on your own to pick up the pieces of your life and carry on.
It's funny -- as I've gotten older, I realize that there is no one on the planet that I hate so much that I would wish upon them the death of a parent. Even when people I don't particularly care for lose a parent, I become all mushy and supportive. Other than the loss of a child or a spouse, I can't imagine a more profound grief.
I remember saying to my mother in my mind shortly after her passing, "I understand that you have to go. Just don't leave me behind. Take me with you so I don't have to go through what I know I can't handle."
But it wasn't to be. Because it wasn't meant to be.
My mother used to always say that no one brings a child into the world to have them suffer; you bring them into the world that they may live their lives to the fullest. She was big on us children living a bigger and more full life than hers -- traveling, going to college, aspiring to big things. She always wanted more for us than what she had for herself. So the best that I can do -- that any child can do, for that matter -- to honor the passing of a parent is to live the life they gave you to the fullest.
Rest in peace, SWIE.
If I Let You Smack My Behind, Can I Be A Lobbyist?
Talk about flying one's freak flag. California Assemblymember Mike Duvall recently resigned after his discussion about spanking one of his two mistresses was picked up by a hot mic in an Assembly hearing room. He went on about how this one mistress, reportedly an energy industry lobbyist, wore "eyepatch underwear" and liked being spanked because she was a "bad girl."
Well, hell, I'm a bad girl. I don't know what eyepatch underwear looks like, but if it's pretty, well, I think I'm qualified to be a lobbyist.
First, let me say that I've never quite understood how lobbyists do what they do. How do you persuade people to support something they're opposed to unless you bribe them, which is illegal? Mind you, I worked for a lobbyist once, a lobbyist who started out as an environmental lobbyist. Talk about a tough tour of duty -- your constituents -- trees, rivers, bears, etc. -- don't vote, don't have money to contribute. Hell, they don't even talk. But somehow she successfully lobbied on behalf of legislation saving some of California's rivers. Somehow I don't think she did it with eyepatch panties and getting her behind smacked.
But I digress. If all it takes nowadays to be a successful lobbyist is getting one's behind smacked and wearing pretty underwear, I'm your girl. Register me as a lobbyist. It definitely pays more than what a furloughed state worker attorney makes.
See, I've been wearing pretty underwear since I was a teenager. MATCHING pretty underwear, no less. My late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), believed that women should always wear pretty underwear and that that underwear should match. She believed this so much that she would buy all four of us girls matching, lacy Maidenform bras and panties at great expense to herself. At fourteen, I was wearing underwear prettier than what my own mother wore. And she didn't care. She didn't want her girls going out wearing ratty underwear. To this day, I am such a fanatic about this that I have embarrassed my adult nieces who wear unmatched underwear by pulling up my shirt and pulling down the top of my pants in public and saying to them, "SEE! THEY MATCH! And if a forty-something year-old woman can wear pretty, matching underwear, you have NO EXCUSE for not wearing pretty, matching underwear!" If ever something happened to one of my sisters and I had to ID one of them from the neck down, I could tell if she were my sister just by her underwear. "No, officer, that's not my sister. She wouldn't be caught dead in a bra that didn't match her panties!" I even have two sets of underwear -- pretty underwear for work and pretty underwear just for BMNB. But that's MY business.
So, the pretty underwear thing? I got that.
Now, for the behind smacking.
You see, I've had a big behind most of my life. Mind you, it's not a Janet Jackson "onion" -- Arsenio Hall defined an "onion" as a "butt so round it makes you want to cry," -- but it ain't flat either. And I've been getting it smacked or touched most of my adult life. It's been rubbed up against by strange men on the dance floor (not to my liking), smacked by a boyfriend or two, brushed up against by old men, and even smacked by an older male relative who is now dead and beyond the shooting range of my father, who would have killed him if I had said anything. BMNB won't let me discuss his personal predilection when it comes to my behind, but let's just say he appreciates it. That's HIS business. Needless to say, my behind is not a virgin when it comes to being smacked, fondled, rubbed up against, etc. I've always assumed that came with the territory, no pun intended.
So, the behind smacking thing? I got that.
If that's all it takes to be a lobbyist working in the California Assembly, well, then, sign me up. I could use the pay raise, since the state can't furlough lobbyists.
But I won't call you "daddy," though. My father's still alive, and that's just, well, creepy.
Well, hell, I'm a bad girl. I don't know what eyepatch underwear looks like, but if it's pretty, well, I think I'm qualified to be a lobbyist.
First, let me say that I've never quite understood how lobbyists do what they do. How do you persuade people to support something they're opposed to unless you bribe them, which is illegal? Mind you, I worked for a lobbyist once, a lobbyist who started out as an environmental lobbyist. Talk about a tough tour of duty -- your constituents -- trees, rivers, bears, etc. -- don't vote, don't have money to contribute. Hell, they don't even talk. But somehow she successfully lobbied on behalf of legislation saving some of California's rivers. Somehow I don't think she did it with eyepatch panties and getting her behind smacked.
But I digress. If all it takes nowadays to be a successful lobbyist is getting one's behind smacked and wearing pretty underwear, I'm your girl. Register me as a lobbyist. It definitely pays more than what a furloughed state worker attorney makes.
See, I've been wearing pretty underwear since I was a teenager. MATCHING pretty underwear, no less. My late mother, She Who Is Exalted (SWIE), believed that women should always wear pretty underwear and that that underwear should match. She believed this so much that she would buy all four of us girls matching, lacy Maidenform bras and panties at great expense to herself. At fourteen, I was wearing underwear prettier than what my own mother wore. And she didn't care. She didn't want her girls going out wearing ratty underwear. To this day, I am such a fanatic about this that I have embarrassed my adult nieces who wear unmatched underwear by pulling up my shirt and pulling down the top of my pants in public and saying to them, "SEE! THEY MATCH! And if a forty-something year-old woman can wear pretty, matching underwear, you have NO EXCUSE for not wearing pretty, matching underwear!" If ever something happened to one of my sisters and I had to ID one of them from the neck down, I could tell if she were my sister just by her underwear. "No, officer, that's not my sister. She wouldn't be caught dead in a bra that didn't match her panties!" I even have two sets of underwear -- pretty underwear for work and pretty underwear just for BMNB. But that's MY business.
So, the pretty underwear thing? I got that.
Now, for the behind smacking.
You see, I've had a big behind most of my life. Mind you, it's not a Janet Jackson "onion" -- Arsenio Hall defined an "onion" as a "butt so round it makes you want to cry," -- but it ain't flat either. And I've been getting it smacked or touched most of my adult life. It's been rubbed up against by strange men on the dance floor (not to my liking), smacked by a boyfriend or two, brushed up against by old men, and even smacked by an older male relative who is now dead and beyond the shooting range of my father, who would have killed him if I had said anything. BMNB won't let me discuss his personal predilection when it comes to my behind, but let's just say he appreciates it. That's HIS business. Needless to say, my behind is not a virgin when it comes to being smacked, fondled, rubbed up against, etc. I've always assumed that came with the territory, no pun intended.
So, the behind smacking thing? I got that.
If that's all it takes to be a lobbyist working in the California Assembly, well, then, sign me up. I could use the pay raise, since the state can't furlough lobbyists.
But I won't call you "daddy," though. My father's still alive, and that's just, well, creepy.
Ain't That A Shame?
I was lying on my love seat this Sunday, recuperating from setting up a veggie garden for my mother-in-law and other sundry family errands, and I saw a PBS special on Antoine “Fats” Domino and his performance at Tipitina’s, post-Hurricane Katrina. Commentators, including New Orleans musical greats Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas, talked about how devastated he was by and after Katrina, to the point that he couldn’t bring himself to perform at the first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival after Katrina. This from a man who decided he was no longer going to tour and leave the city he loved so dearly. When he took the stage at Tipitina’s, it shook me out of my afternoon malaise to the point that I was not only rooting for Fats, I got up and did the dance my mom, SWIE, used to do whenever a Fats Domino song came on – the stroll. Or at least my version of it.
My mom loved her some Fats Domino. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm!
After he performed “Blueberry Hill” and “Walking,” I believe, I was at a loss as to what else he had to perform. Little did I know that, prior to Lennon and McCartney and other songwriting duos of the 60’s, Domino and his writing partner, David Bartholomew, were the most successful songwriting duo in the U.S. I pulled out my BlackBerry and Googled Fats Domino. When I saw his song catalog, I thought, “Well, damn! If I had that many hits, I wouldn’t tour any more either.”
It got me thinking about New Orleans, or, as my college classmates from the area called it, “N’awlins.” I visited once over 11 years ago for a weekend to attend a conference. To this day, I have never eaten as well as I did there. I can’t even tell you what I saw or where I ate, but I remember I ate real good, back-to-back meals mind you, so much so that I ditched the conference in search of the next good meal. I literally ate my way through New Orleans. I could have starred in my own movie: The Thing from California That Ate New Orleans.
If you eat a bad meal in New Orleans, you’re either a fool or just stupid. There’s just no excuse for bad food in New Orleans when just about everybody there can throw down in the kitchen.
When I started thinking about New Orleans and all that it has given us – jazz, zydeco, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, the Marsalis family, Harry Connick, Jr., the Neville Brothers, beignets, Café du Monde, Galatoire’s, Dooky Chase, po’ boys and more – I thought: Where is New Orleans’ bailout?
I mean really. I have never owned a GM or Chrysler car. I have never banked at Goldman Sachs and the like. I have never bought insurance from AIG. If these corporate behemoths survive, I won’t know the difference.
But I have savored the sights, sounds, and tastes of New Orleans. If New Orleans were swept off the map, that WOULD matter to me. If I had a vote as to where my federal tax dollars would be going, they would be going to New Orleans. And not just to rebuild it, but to protect it. This city existed before this country was even a country. It deserves to be respected and protected.
I remember watching a “60 Minutes” broadcast in which the rebuilding of New Orleans was discussed. They examined another city that lies below sea level, Rotterdam, and the technology used to protect it – a surge protection barrier that closes off the city and, I’ve read, is strong enough to withstand a 1 in 10,000 chance surge, a high level of protection. Why can’t we do that with New Orleans?
We could, if we had the will.
To borrow from a Fats Domino song, ain’t that a shame?
My mom loved her some Fats Domino. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm!
After he performed “Blueberry Hill” and “Walking,” I believe, I was at a loss as to what else he had to perform. Little did I know that, prior to Lennon and McCartney and other songwriting duos of the 60’s, Domino and his writing partner, David Bartholomew, were the most successful songwriting duo in the U.S. I pulled out my BlackBerry and Googled Fats Domino. When I saw his song catalog, I thought, “Well, damn! If I had that many hits, I wouldn’t tour any more either.”
It got me thinking about New Orleans, or, as my college classmates from the area called it, “N’awlins.” I visited once over 11 years ago for a weekend to attend a conference. To this day, I have never eaten as well as I did there. I can’t even tell you what I saw or where I ate, but I remember I ate real good, back-to-back meals mind you, so much so that I ditched the conference in search of the next good meal. I literally ate my way through New Orleans. I could have starred in my own movie: The Thing from California That Ate New Orleans.
If you eat a bad meal in New Orleans, you’re either a fool or just stupid. There’s just no excuse for bad food in New Orleans when just about everybody there can throw down in the kitchen.
When I started thinking about New Orleans and all that it has given us – jazz, zydeco, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, the Marsalis family, Harry Connick, Jr., the Neville Brothers, beignets, Café du Monde, Galatoire’s, Dooky Chase, po’ boys and more – I thought: Where is New Orleans’ bailout?
I mean really. I have never owned a GM or Chrysler car. I have never banked at Goldman Sachs and the like. I have never bought insurance from AIG. If these corporate behemoths survive, I won’t know the difference.
But I have savored the sights, sounds, and tastes of New Orleans. If New Orleans were swept off the map, that WOULD matter to me. If I had a vote as to where my federal tax dollars would be going, they would be going to New Orleans. And not just to rebuild it, but to protect it. This city existed before this country was even a country. It deserves to be respected and protected.
I remember watching a “60 Minutes” broadcast in which the rebuilding of New Orleans was discussed. They examined another city that lies below sea level, Rotterdam, and the technology used to protect it – a surge protection barrier that closes off the city and, I’ve read, is strong enough to withstand a 1 in 10,000 chance surge, a high level of protection. Why can’t we do that with New Orleans?
We could, if we had the will.
To borrow from a Fats Domino song, ain’t that a shame?
Mama Used To Say
And mama used to say, Take your time, young man...
Mama used to say, Don't you rush to get old...
Mama used to say, Take it in your stride...
Mama used to say, Live your life...
"Mama Used To Say," by Junior
Whenever I hear the song “Mama Used To Say” by Junior, it reminds me of all the things my mama used to say:
Don’t you rush to get old. You’re only a child once. Then you have to grow up and get a job.
I brought you in the world, and I can take you out.
Fast money is no money at all.
Who promised you fair? Whoever told you life was fair, they lied to you.
I don’t have to do nothing but die and stay black.
You need to stay out of grown folks’ business.
Get your education so you don’t have to depend on no man.
I’m not your friend; I’m your mama. You can have lots of friends, but you only get one mama. (So true!)
What goes around, comes around.
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothing at all.
God don’t like ugly.
God looks after fools and babies.
Don’t make me stop this car.
You’re getting on my one good nerve.
You have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. (Well, this is what black parents said when I was a child.)
The world don’t owe you a damn thing.
We all fall down, and you can lay down for a little while, but then you’ve got to get up.
There’s no excuse for being funky. A bar of soap only costs (fill in the blank).
You can never have too much toilet paper.
Mama used to say, Don't you rush to get old...
Mama used to say, Take it in your stride...
Mama used to say, Live your life...
"Mama Used To Say," by Junior
Whenever I hear the song “Mama Used To Say” by Junior, it reminds me of all the things my mama used to say:
Don’t you rush to get old. You’re only a child once. Then you have to grow up and get a job.
I brought you in the world, and I can take you out.
Fast money is no money at all.
You can't ride with me unless you comb your hair.
Do for self. Don’t depend on nobody.Who promised you fair? Whoever told you life was fair, they lied to you.
I don’t have to do nothing but die and stay black.
You need to stay out of grown folks’ business.
Get your education so you don’t have to depend on no man.
I’m not your friend; I’m your mama. You can have lots of friends, but you only get one mama. (So true!)
What goes around, comes around.
If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothing at all.
God don’t like ugly.
God looks after fools and babies.
Don’t make me stop this car.
You’re getting on my one good nerve.
You have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. (Well, this is what black parents said when I was a child.)
The world don’t owe you a damn thing.
We all fall down, and you can lay down for a little while, but then you’ve got to get up.
There’s no excuse for being funky. A bar of soap only costs (fill in the blank).
You can never have too much toilet paper.
Do it right the first time and you won't have to do it again.
You can always come home. As long as I have a home, you have a home.
You can do anything you set your mind to.
And the most important thing:
Ain’t nobody going to love you like I do.
Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!
Sisterhood of the Motherless Daughters
My poor husband, Black Man Not Blogging (BMNB). He doesn't need a calendar to know when Mother's Day is coming. My annual stank attitude around Mother's Day is more than enough warning.
If my attitude around Mother's Day had a smell, it would be this: Picture a huge pot of gumbo with every kind of meat you can imagine in it -- shrimp, crab, oysters, sausage, chicken, fish. Now imagine that pot of gumbo left outside, covered, for 30 days in 100 degree heat. Imagine that at day 15 someone threw in a dead skunk and put the cover back on.
That smell on day 30 would be the smell of my stank Mother's Day attitude.
Mother's Day is a stark reminder that, going on eleven years, I unwillingly joined what I call the "Sisterhood of the Motherless Daughters" -- women whose mothers are deceased. You know us when you see us. On Mother's Day morning, usually before church, we're at the cemetery. Most of us are in our late 30's and up, taking on the body shapes of our mothers. In my case, that means a wide butt and a tummy. I didn't get my mother's late-life ample bosom, though.
We acknowledge each other in a knowing way; we're all bearing flowers, most of us dressed well to celebrate the day on what I would call the "receiving end" -- being acknowledged as mothers. For my biological sisters and I, all of us childless and middle-aged, we don't celebrate the receiving end of the day. My "spiritual" sisters in this sisterhood lovingly place flowers at the crypts or graves of their departed mothers. Some laugh and joke, some talk to their deceased mothers, some join hands and pray, but we all seem to acknowledge each other with that slight, encouraging smile that says, "Yes, I know what you're feeling; it's tough for me, too."
I rarely see as many sons at the cemetery on Mother's Day as I do daughters, which makes my membership in this sisterhood all the more emphasized.
Mind you, I have much to celebrate even without my mom, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted). I have a great mother-in-law -- I could not have asked for better. My dad's wife is kindly and funny and a force of nature even going on 95 years of age, and although she is sweet, I can't bring myself to call her my "stepmom" because that title includes the word "mom" -- a title I only use in speaking of or to SWIE. I could celebrate Mother's Day with either of them. I have in the past celebrated it with my mother-in-law. But at this juncture in life, I feel about Mother's Day the way I imagine Jews feel about Christmas -- I'm happy for those who celebrate it, but I feel I have nothing to celebrate.
There's so much I miss about Mother's Day, and none of it has anything to do with not being a mother myself, but rather, being a motherless daughter. I miss the competition between my siblings and me to figure out what Mom would want and to be the first to go out and get it. Although she would appreciate our gifts equally, we would kid each other about how "our" gift was the one she really wanted or loved. Our last minutes forays through Macy's would put contestants on "The Amazing Race" to shame.
I miss the inevitable phone call between Mom and her best friend, her older sister, comparing what they got and talking about other people's triflin' children who didn't deliver the goods on Mother's Day.
After Mom died, my sisters and I transferred all our Mother's Day gift-giving energies to my mom's sisters. Although they appreciated the Estee Lauder perfume (one of my aunts said she liked smelling as good as "white ladies"), they were even more appreciative of the visits from all four of us.
Then they, too, passed away, leaving my sisters and me kind of bereft. Now, we just bring extra flowers to the cemetery for my mom, her sisters, and her mother on Mother's Day. Anything else on that day -- going to church with my mother-in-law, doing Mother's Day events -- just feels false to me. I had a good run of 64 years with my mom. My days of celebrating Mother's Day, other than the visits to the cemetery, are done. Mother's Day to me is just a reminder of all that I lost, hence the annual stank attitude I didn't even notice I had until a few years ago.
When I explained this to BMNB recently, he said, "I understand." I know he didn't mean it in the cliched, Bill Clinton-esque "I feel your pain" way, but it just sounded that way to me.
"No, you really don't," I calmly told him. "But someday, you will. And I wouldn't wish that on you for anything in the world."
For those of you who still have mothers, do cherish them and enjoy Mother's Day. Because you never really know how many Mother's Days you're going to have, and I wouldn't wish membership in this sisterhood on anyone for anything in the world.
If my attitude around Mother's Day had a smell, it would be this: Picture a huge pot of gumbo with every kind of meat you can imagine in it -- shrimp, crab, oysters, sausage, chicken, fish. Now imagine that pot of gumbo left outside, covered, for 30 days in 100 degree heat. Imagine that at day 15 someone threw in a dead skunk and put the cover back on.
That smell on day 30 would be the smell of my stank Mother's Day attitude.
Mother's Day is a stark reminder that, going on eleven years, I unwillingly joined what I call the "Sisterhood of the Motherless Daughters" -- women whose mothers are deceased. You know us when you see us. On Mother's Day morning, usually before church, we're at the cemetery. Most of us are in our late 30's and up, taking on the body shapes of our mothers. In my case, that means a wide butt and a tummy. I didn't get my mother's late-life ample bosom, though.
We acknowledge each other in a knowing way; we're all bearing flowers, most of us dressed well to celebrate the day on what I would call the "receiving end" -- being acknowledged as mothers. For my biological sisters and I, all of us childless and middle-aged, we don't celebrate the receiving end of the day. My "spiritual" sisters in this sisterhood lovingly place flowers at the crypts or graves of their departed mothers. Some laugh and joke, some talk to their deceased mothers, some join hands and pray, but we all seem to acknowledge each other with that slight, encouraging smile that says, "Yes, I know what you're feeling; it's tough for me, too."
I rarely see as many sons at the cemetery on Mother's Day as I do daughters, which makes my membership in this sisterhood all the more emphasized.
Mind you, I have much to celebrate even without my mom, SWIE (She Who Is Exalted). I have a great mother-in-law -- I could not have asked for better. My dad's wife is kindly and funny and a force of nature even going on 95 years of age, and although she is sweet, I can't bring myself to call her my "stepmom" because that title includes the word "mom" -- a title I only use in speaking of or to SWIE. I could celebrate Mother's Day with either of them. I have in the past celebrated it with my mother-in-law. But at this juncture in life, I feel about Mother's Day the way I imagine Jews feel about Christmas -- I'm happy for those who celebrate it, but I feel I have nothing to celebrate.
There's so much I miss about Mother's Day, and none of it has anything to do with not being a mother myself, but rather, being a motherless daughter. I miss the competition between my siblings and me to figure out what Mom would want and to be the first to go out and get it. Although she would appreciate our gifts equally, we would kid each other about how "our" gift was the one she really wanted or loved. Our last minutes forays through Macy's would put contestants on "The Amazing Race" to shame.
I miss the inevitable phone call between Mom and her best friend, her older sister, comparing what they got and talking about other people's triflin' children who didn't deliver the goods on Mother's Day.
After Mom died, my sisters and I transferred all our Mother's Day gift-giving energies to my mom's sisters. Although they appreciated the Estee Lauder perfume (one of my aunts said she liked smelling as good as "white ladies"), they were even more appreciative of the visits from all four of us.
Then they, too, passed away, leaving my sisters and me kind of bereft. Now, we just bring extra flowers to the cemetery for my mom, her sisters, and her mother on Mother's Day. Anything else on that day -- going to church with my mother-in-law, doing Mother's Day events -- just feels false to me. I had a good run of 64 years with my mom. My days of celebrating Mother's Day, other than the visits to the cemetery, are done. Mother's Day to me is just a reminder of all that I lost, hence the annual stank attitude I didn't even notice I had until a few years ago.
When I explained this to BMNB recently, he said, "I understand." I know he didn't mean it in the cliched, Bill Clinton-esque "I feel your pain" way, but it just sounded that way to me.
"No, you really don't," I calmly told him. "But someday, you will. And I wouldn't wish that on you for anything in the world."
For those of you who still have mothers, do cherish them and enjoy Mother's Day. Because you never really know how many Mother's Days you're going to have, and I wouldn't wish membership in this sisterhood on anyone for anything in the world.
Girl, Put Your Records On (Do It For SWIE)
Girl, put your records on
Tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down . . . .
from Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On"
You don't need me to tell you that times are hard. The Dow fell over 700 points today. Folks are losing their jobs and their homes. Those who aren't are trying to make the same stagnant wages cover higher costs. It's tough all over.
Yet, it could be worse. It could always be worse. Ten years ago today I was experiencing one of the darkest days of my life: Making funeral arrangements for my mom, whom I refer to on this blog as SWIE (She Who Is Exalted). Mind you, my mother wasn't dead. But she was terminally ill with both cancer and Alzheimer's, and I was scheduled to return to my teaching duties in Mississippi. There wasn't much I could do for her but make funeral arrangements.
And even though this day ten years ago was one of my darkest, it doesn't color how I remember my mother. I don't remember her as she was before she died; I remember how she was when she lived.
My mother was a Dancing Queen.
Which leads me to ask all of you mothers out there:
When was the last time you danced with your child?
When was the last time you played board games or cards with your child and put your favorite records on? (or your CDs or MP3s -- you get my drift.)
We're all going to die, and if you're lucky, your kids will bury you and not the other way around. But do you want the most indelible memory they have of you to be picking out your casket instead of remembering you dancing to your favorite songs?
You see, SWIE loved music. Loved it! On the weekends my mother would clean her house or cook to the sounds of Aretha, Dionne, Etta, Whitney, Angela, Roberta, Stephanie, and Patti (Austin and LaBelle), among others. There was something about Aretha's "Don't Play That Song (You Lied) that would get my mom singing at the top of her lungs, "You LIED . . . baby, baby you LIED. . . ," as if she'd been cheated on just yesterday and Aretha was telling HER story. I heard that she cried like a baby when my father got saved and broke all her Dinah Washington records because he considered them "devil music." (Quite frankly, I think the devil gets a bit too much credit for some things, music being one of them).
And then there were her "boyfriends" -- the male singers whom she would swear up and down were singing just to her. My mother's "boyfriends" included Teddy Pendergrass, Smokey Robinson, Freddy Jackson, Billy Ocean (whom I referred to as "Billy Goat Ocean" because, well, he looked like a goat) and Lou Rawls, among others. Her first "boyfriend" was Sam Cooke. I'm told that although my mother cried when President Kennedy got shot, she had really cried when Sam Cooke died. He was, after all, her "first."
But her number one boyfriend? You guessed it: Luther Vandross. Or rather, "Lutha." Lutha could do no wrong in her eyes. Mom cha-cha'd to "A Better Love," and took long drags on her Virginia Slims while listening to "A House Is Not A Home," all the while listening as if he were singing just for her and just to her. She would routinely command us to "put on my boyfriend Lutha," while we were sitting around the dinner table playing gin rummy or some board game, and we'd go plowing through the vinyl records in boxes to find just the right "Lutha" record.
And she wasn't trying to hear anything about Lutha's sexuality, period.
As much as she loved music, she loved to dance as much, if not more. Mom would put on records just to dance with us. When we were little, she would scoop us up in her arms and twirl us around with her to her favorite Motown songs. As we became teens, she would try to learn our dances and she would in turn teach us hers. We taught her the bump; she taught us the cha-cha. We taught her the rock; she taught us the stroll. But after a certain point, she'd get tired of our dances and do her own dance that I affectionately call the "Mom Dance": Think Chubby Checker's twist, but slowed down, and instead of twisting in a horizontal plane, you twist in a vertical plane, side to side, with your hip movements more staccato. And when she got going good, she'd lift one foot, then the next. As she got older, I think she just got more comfortable in her own skin and did her own dance, no longer feeling the need to learn our dances. (Plus, I think the freak and the dog were a little bit too nasty for her tastes . . . .)
On weekends, Mom would put on her records and play cards and board games with us. Gin rummy, Monopoly, Clue, you name it. When she was flush, we'd have Coke, Ruffles, and French Onion dip. You couldn't tell us we weren't living the high life. When she wasn't, it was more like Lipton's Instant Iced Tea and Ritz crackers. Either way, it didn't make a difference. Like her, we learned to make the best of what we had to the point that each of us had our own iced tea "style" or "technique" (my technique : Combine the instant tea with the sugar first; add the fresh lemon juice and stir thoroughly into a syrup; then add the water slowly, making sure the instant tea and the sugar dissolve). Our tea styles were so distinct that we could tell who had made the iced tea just by tasting it. No matter. We're were just sitting around, playing cards or a board game, and hanging out with our mom, listening to her favorite songs.
And, true to form, my mom would sometimes cheat in cards by distracting us with a fart. Silent but deadly, she would let one fly and then blame it on one of us and snicker. By the time you got over the shock of the smell, you'd probably already shown her your hand. Game over.
These are the indelible memories I have of my mom. Not her illness, but her joy. Not her suffering, but the fact that she actually liked hanging out with her kids.
So, what kinds of memories will your children have of you?
I know that times are hard and people are stressed, but do you really want your child to have far more vivid memories of your struggles than your joy? Of picking out your casket instead of picking up cards and smiling across the table from you in a game of gin rummy?
Your kids need to see you happy, period. And you need them to see you happy, even if you don't know it yet.
So, do me and SWIE a favor: Put your favorite music on and dance with your kids. Break out the chips and Coke and Monopoly and spend the evening with them seeing you having fun and enjoying them. There are always going to be bad times; the key is to create the good times for you and your kids in the midst of the storm.
Girl, put your records on . . . . .
As for me, I'll just think of my mom doing the cha-cha with Lutha up in heaven while he sings "A Better Love" just for her.
Tell me your favourite song
You go ahead, let your hair down . . . .
from Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On"
You don't need me to tell you that times are hard. The Dow fell over 700 points today. Folks are losing their jobs and their homes. Those who aren't are trying to make the same stagnant wages cover higher costs. It's tough all over.
Yet, it could be worse. It could always be worse. Ten years ago today I was experiencing one of the darkest days of my life: Making funeral arrangements for my mom, whom I refer to on this blog as SWIE (She Who Is Exalted). Mind you, my mother wasn't dead. But she was terminally ill with both cancer and Alzheimer's, and I was scheduled to return to my teaching duties in Mississippi. There wasn't much I could do for her but make funeral arrangements.
And even though this day ten years ago was one of my darkest, it doesn't color how I remember my mother. I don't remember her as she was before she died; I remember how she was when she lived.
My mother was a Dancing Queen.
Which leads me to ask all of you mothers out there:
When was the last time you danced with your child?
When was the last time you played board games or cards with your child and put your favorite records on? (or your CDs or MP3s -- you get my drift.)
We're all going to die, and if you're lucky, your kids will bury you and not the other way around. But do you want the most indelible memory they have of you to be picking out your casket instead of remembering you dancing to your favorite songs?
You see, SWIE loved music. Loved it! On the weekends my mother would clean her house or cook to the sounds of Aretha, Dionne, Etta, Whitney, Angela, Roberta, Stephanie, and Patti (Austin and LaBelle), among others. There was something about Aretha's "Don't Play That Song (You Lied) that would get my mom singing at the top of her lungs, "You LIED . . . baby, baby you LIED. . . ," as if she'd been cheated on just yesterday and Aretha was telling HER story. I heard that she cried like a baby when my father got saved and broke all her Dinah Washington records because he considered them "devil music." (Quite frankly, I think the devil gets a bit too much credit for some things, music being one of them).
And then there were her "boyfriends" -- the male singers whom she would swear up and down were singing just to her. My mother's "boyfriends" included Teddy Pendergrass, Smokey Robinson, Freddy Jackson, Billy Ocean (whom I referred to as "Billy Goat Ocean" because, well, he looked like a goat) and Lou Rawls, among others. Her first "boyfriend" was Sam Cooke. I'm told that although my mother cried when President Kennedy got shot, she had really cried when Sam Cooke died. He was, after all, her "first."
But her number one boyfriend? You guessed it: Luther Vandross. Or rather, "Lutha." Lutha could do no wrong in her eyes. Mom cha-cha'd to "A Better Love," and took long drags on her Virginia Slims while listening to "A House Is Not A Home," all the while listening as if he were singing just for her and just to her. She would routinely command us to "put on my boyfriend Lutha," while we were sitting around the dinner table playing gin rummy or some board game, and we'd go plowing through the vinyl records in boxes to find just the right "Lutha" record.
And she wasn't trying to hear anything about Lutha's sexuality, period.
As much as she loved music, she loved to dance as much, if not more. Mom would put on records just to dance with us. When we were little, she would scoop us up in her arms and twirl us around with her to her favorite Motown songs. As we became teens, she would try to learn our dances and she would in turn teach us hers. We taught her the bump; she taught us the cha-cha. We taught her the rock; she taught us the stroll. But after a certain point, she'd get tired of our dances and do her own dance that I affectionately call the "Mom Dance": Think Chubby Checker's twist, but slowed down, and instead of twisting in a horizontal plane, you twist in a vertical plane, side to side, with your hip movements more staccato. And when she got going good, she'd lift one foot, then the next. As she got older, I think she just got more comfortable in her own skin and did her own dance, no longer feeling the need to learn our dances. (Plus, I think the freak and the dog were a little bit too nasty for her tastes . . . .)
On weekends, Mom would put on her records and play cards and board games with us. Gin rummy, Monopoly, Clue, you name it. When she was flush, we'd have Coke, Ruffles, and French Onion dip. You couldn't tell us we weren't living the high life. When she wasn't, it was more like Lipton's Instant Iced Tea and Ritz crackers. Either way, it didn't make a difference. Like her, we learned to make the best of what we had to the point that each of us had our own iced tea "style" or "technique" (my technique : Combine the instant tea with the sugar first; add the fresh lemon juice and stir thoroughly into a syrup; then add the water slowly, making sure the instant tea and the sugar dissolve). Our tea styles were so distinct that we could tell who had made the iced tea just by tasting it. No matter. We're were just sitting around, playing cards or a board game, and hanging out with our mom, listening to her favorite songs.
And, true to form, my mom would sometimes cheat in cards by distracting us with a fart. Silent but deadly, she would let one fly and then blame it on one of us and snicker. By the time you got over the shock of the smell, you'd probably already shown her your hand. Game over.
These are the indelible memories I have of my mom. Not her illness, but her joy. Not her suffering, but the fact that she actually liked hanging out with her kids.
So, what kinds of memories will your children have of you?
I know that times are hard and people are stressed, but do you really want your child to have far more vivid memories of your struggles than your joy? Of picking out your casket instead of picking up cards and smiling across the table from you in a game of gin rummy?
Your kids need to see you happy, period. And you need them to see you happy, even if you don't know it yet.
So, do me and SWIE a favor: Put your favorite music on and dance with your kids. Break out the chips and Coke and Monopoly and spend the evening with them seeing you having fun and enjoying them. There are always going to be bad times; the key is to create the good times for you and your kids in the midst of the storm.
Girl, put your records on . . . . .
As for me, I'll just think of my mom doing the cha-cha with Lutha up in heaven while he sings "A Better Love" just for her.
Broke Cuisine
I recently heard from one subscriber to this blog – my sister, to be exact. She said she hadn’t read my views on John Edwards’ infidelity (pretty much a Democratic party male norm, to wit: Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Antonio Villaraigosa, Rev. Jesse Jackson (not only a philanderer but a spiritual counselor to philanderers)) or seen any comments by me on the passing of Isaac Hayes or Bernie Mac (both major losses to the African American creative community). What happened to Black Woman Blogging?
She’s now Black Woman Sleep Deprived. Now that I have a ‘tween living with me five days a week and going to PS 7, my days are planned around carpools, back-to-school night, checking homework and making lunches. My day starts at 5:00 am and ends at 10:30 or 11 pm. A big transition from my DINK (Double Income No Kids) lifestyle of less than a month ago.
In fact, when I embarked on this path, I became yet again in awe of my mom, SWIE, and the fact that she did what I’m doing with not just one child but with six children, seven days a week, not five. And of how she would make dishes that seemed so special to us but were in fact the product of two facts: 1) She was broke; and 2) she had six mouths to feed. I call these dishes “broke cuisine.”
I started thinking about “broke cuisine” because I had a hankerin’ for one of my favorite broke cuisine foods: Egg rice. My mother used to make this for breakfast on Saturday mornings, and I couldn’t think of the last time I had had it. I asked BMNB if he’d ever had egg rice. He, the Southerner for whom a day without grits is a day without sunshine, turned his head sideways and looked at me as if I were an alien. Nope, he had never even heard of egg rice. I exclaimed, “Egg rice was THE BOMB!” When I mentioned egg rice to my older sisters, they reminded me that that was what SWIE would make us for breakfast when she was broke. It figures – egg rice consists of leftover white rice sautéed with onion, with a seasoned scrambled egg or two added with crumbled bacon bits and salt and pepper to taste. Good eatin’, folks. I had no idea as a child that we were having egg rice because she was broke. I thought it was a special treat.
As a child, I also thought that “breakfast for dinner” was a special treat. I would rack my tiny mind trying to figure out what we kids had done that was so special that we got to have breakfast for dinner – pancakes, eggs, bacon, you name it. Again, Mom was broke. When I would brag at school the next day that I got to have breakfast for dinner the night before, my mom would later tell me not to tell people that we had had breakfast for dinner. As a small child, I couldn’t understand why. Now I get it.
One of my older sisters reminded me of another “broke cuisine” specialty of SWIE: Pork fried rice. My mom would take one or two leftover pork chops or any leftover pork, chop it up into tiny, tiny bits, saute them with white rice, add soy sauce and saute some more until the rice turned brown, add a seasoned scrambled egg and – here’s the variation – green onions. To this day I think my mom made better pork fried rice than most Chinese restaurants.
My oldest sister reminded me of another broke cuisine staple: Bean burritos. SWIE would take leftover chili beans and put them in burritos with rice to make the beans stretch. Again, good eatin’. I was blissfully unaware as a child that this was indeed broke cuisine. I was too busy smacking my lips and going back for seconds.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be as creative in the kitchen as my mom was. Through her cooking creativity, she shielded me from the truth of our condition – that, more often than not, our family was broke. You couldn’t have told the six year-old me, though – heck, I’d just had breakfast for dinner last night, so life was good.
What’s your broke cuisine?
She’s now Black Woman Sleep Deprived. Now that I have a ‘tween living with me five days a week and going to PS 7, my days are planned around carpools, back-to-school night, checking homework and making lunches. My day starts at 5:00 am and ends at 10:30 or 11 pm. A big transition from my DINK (Double Income No Kids) lifestyle of less than a month ago.
In fact, when I embarked on this path, I became yet again in awe of my mom, SWIE, and the fact that she did what I’m doing with not just one child but with six children, seven days a week, not five. And of how she would make dishes that seemed so special to us but were in fact the product of two facts: 1) She was broke; and 2) she had six mouths to feed. I call these dishes “broke cuisine.”
I started thinking about “broke cuisine” because I had a hankerin’ for one of my favorite broke cuisine foods: Egg rice. My mother used to make this for breakfast on Saturday mornings, and I couldn’t think of the last time I had had it. I asked BMNB if he’d ever had egg rice. He, the Southerner for whom a day without grits is a day without sunshine, turned his head sideways and looked at me as if I were an alien. Nope, he had never even heard of egg rice. I exclaimed, “Egg rice was THE BOMB!” When I mentioned egg rice to my older sisters, they reminded me that that was what SWIE would make us for breakfast when she was broke. It figures – egg rice consists of leftover white rice sautéed with onion, with a seasoned scrambled egg or two added with crumbled bacon bits and salt and pepper to taste. Good eatin’, folks. I had no idea as a child that we were having egg rice because she was broke. I thought it was a special treat.
As a child, I also thought that “breakfast for dinner” was a special treat. I would rack my tiny mind trying to figure out what we kids had done that was so special that we got to have breakfast for dinner – pancakes, eggs, bacon, you name it. Again, Mom was broke. When I would brag at school the next day that I got to have breakfast for dinner the night before, my mom would later tell me not to tell people that we had had breakfast for dinner. As a small child, I couldn’t understand why. Now I get it.
One of my older sisters reminded me of another “broke cuisine” specialty of SWIE: Pork fried rice. My mom would take one or two leftover pork chops or any leftover pork, chop it up into tiny, tiny bits, saute them with white rice, add soy sauce and saute some more until the rice turned brown, add a seasoned scrambled egg and – here’s the variation – green onions. To this day I think my mom made better pork fried rice than most Chinese restaurants.
My oldest sister reminded me of another broke cuisine staple: Bean burritos. SWIE would take leftover chili beans and put them in burritos with rice to make the beans stretch. Again, good eatin’. I was blissfully unaware as a child that this was indeed broke cuisine. I was too busy smacking my lips and going back for seconds.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be as creative in the kitchen as my mom was. Through her cooking creativity, she shielded me from the truth of our condition – that, more often than not, our family was broke. You couldn’t have told the six year-old me, though – heck, I’d just had breakfast for dinner last night, so life was good.
What’s your broke cuisine?
Your Women's Do-It-Yourself Self-Esteem Kit
“You may not get what you deserve in this life, but you’ll damn sure get what you settle for.”
My friend “Trevor”
I spent the weekend with one of my favorite female relatives, and she was recounting her horrible marriage to her ex, a much older man who, in my opinion, is worth more to the world decomposed than alive. That aside, she told me how he had called her his “retirement plan” because he had had no intention of working and had planned to live off of her, until she got wise and divorced him.
I asked her how she had gotten into such a sorry relationship to begin with. Her response: Lack of self-esteem.
Mothers (and fathers, for that matter), can you imagine how much heartache and pain you could spare your daughters if you sent them out into the world armed with self-esteem?
Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve got way too much self-esteem. Not the kind of self-esteem that would make me try to squeeze my size fourteen behind in a thong and size eight Daisy Dukes. I’m talking about the kind of self-esteem that gives me little if any patience for people who are trying to get over on me like my relative’s ex-husband tried to get over on her. Especially if they’re male.
I’m talking about the kind of self-esteem that made a professor at U.C. Berkeley make her diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband into a toe ring. In her view, wearing the ring on her toe symbolized that her ex was “beneath her.” That’s the kind of self-esteem I’m talking about.
When it comes to my self-esteem, to borrow a phrase from an Erykah Badu song, “I get it from my momma.”
My late mom, whom I have referred to in this blog as She Who Is Exalted, or SWIE, had self-esteem in spades. Like me, she didn’t always have it, but the mom I knew in her late thirties and forties is much like the woman I’ve become in my mid-forties. I know my worth, and I don’t settle for anything or anyone unworthy of me. Life’s too short. I’m sure if SWIE had known she was going to check out at age sixty-four, she would have adopted that attitude a lot earlier.
My mom gave as good as she got, checked my dad when he needed it (often), and let us kids know that she was the momma and we were the kids, period. Yes, she put up with a lot just because of us six kids, but she had her limits, and she was quick to let you know when you had reached them. Like she did with my poor aunt.
At some family gathering, one of my aunts made the mistake of saying something rather, well, unflattering about my oldest sister. My mom sprang into action. She gather up us kids and took us home. Then she went back and cussed her sister out for talking about one of her kids. Then she came home like nothing happened. We begged and pleaded for her to tell us what she said to our aunt, but she told us that it was none of our business. Mind you, she said this as calm as an assassin, standing in her customary position at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes or something, her right leg bent at the knee and crossed behind her left. I don’t think she even looked up at us. She simply handled her momma business and got back to the task at hand – feeding her brood of six unruly children.
It was years before we found out she had called her sister a two dollar you-know-what (our other aunt told us). We were like, “Way to go, Mom!” We were proud that she had stood up for my sister and, in effect, us. Her response? “I’m not proud of that.”
That’s okay. We were.
So since SWIE isn’t here to share with you what I learned, here goes:
A woman with self-esteem stands up for her kids, but most important, stands up for herself.
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t stay in abusive relationships, be they verbally or physically abusive.
A woman with self-esteem knows her worth and doesn’t settle for anything less. She has no problem telling an exploitive employer, lover or husband to kiss her behind (more on that later).
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t wait for men to do things for her – she does things for herself.
A woman with self-esteem makes and manages her own money, and sometimes her husband’s money, too.
A woman with self-esteem stands up for other women and children who can’t stand up for themselves.
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t care what anyone – male or female – thinks of the clothes she wears or how she wears her hair, ‘cause she’s the one who paid for them.
Now that you’ve got some of the rules, here’s the women’s self-esteem playlist (to get your self-esteem mojo going) and SWIE’s self-esteem lexicon of phrases to go with it. (Warning: SWIE was prone to curse words, as am I, so I won’t edit at the risk of losing the essence of who we both were/are).
Playlist
Ruth Brown, “If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Sit On It”. Mind you, this song supposedly talks about furniture in a second-hand store. But with lyrics like, “If I can’t sell it, I’m gonna sit on it, ‘cause I ain’t gonna give it away,” you know what she’s really talking about. Takes a lot of self-esteem to sing those lyrics.
Aretha Franklin, “Respect.” No brainer. And Aretha didn’t always have self-esteem either. Chain of Fools, anyone?
Whitney Houston, “Step by Step” and “Greatest Love of All.” For the woman who is coming back from the abyss of self-doubt and moving toward self-esteem.
Anything by Millie Jackson. My mom used to say that Millie was downright nasty. Takes a lot of self-esteem to be a nasty woman.
Erykah Badu, "Tyrone." Both funny and empowering, especially the last line, "But you cain't use my phone."
Prince, “Little Red Corvette.” Okay, work with me on this. The lyrics include the verse, “I guess I should have closed my eyes when you brought me to the place where your horses run free; I got a little ill when I saw all pictures of the jockeys who’d been there before me.” Now, it takes a woman with a lot of self-esteem to not only have up photos of the prior “jockeys,” but to not care what the next jockey would think. You don’t have to be that woman; you only need to have her self-esteem.
Jill Scott, “Golden.” Then again, everything Jill does is golden.
India.Arie, “Talk To Her.” This song provides guidance on how you should expect people to talk to you or any woman for that matter: “When you talk to her, talk to her like you’d want somebody to talk to your momma . . . Don’t get smart with her, have a heart-to-heart with her just like you would with your daughter . . .”
And my favorite:
Leslie Gore, “You Don’t Own Me.” I first heard this song in the movie “The First Wives’ Club.” Gotta love these proto-feminist lyrics:
And don't tell me what to do
And don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display, 'cause
You don't own me, don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me, don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay
Okay, now that you have the playlist, here’s the lexicon of self-esteem phrases from SWIE:
1. When some man tries to tell you that you need him:
“I don’t need you. I was born by myself, and I’m gonna die by myself.”
2. When some man tries to make you think you need his money:
“I GOT a job. I make my OWN money. You don’t have shit that I can’t get.”
3. When some man expects way too much of you:
“Oh see, you just want too much sugar for a dime.”
4. When your husband gets on you about your spending:
“I made this money. I didn’t see you up on my job. Did I ask you to pay my bills? I didn’t ask you for shit.) (Substitutions: “a God damned thing” can be substituted for “shit” when appropriate)
5. When your kids try to get over on you:
“Oh, you must think I’m a fool. Ain’t nothing you can do or think of doing that I ain't already thought of.”
6. When you husband/lover threatens to leave you:
“Please. I got you; I can get another.”
7. When you’ve finally reached your limit – at work, at home, etc:
“Oh, see, you can kiss my PRETTY black ass.” (Now, that might not work as well for white women, but you get the point.)
Okay, ladies, copy these phrases in your new self-esteem notebook, tee up your IPod self-esteem playlist, and get to steppin’. My momma didn’t raise no fools, and now that you’ve read this, consider yourself raised. By SWIE.
As my friend “Trevor” pointed out to me once, “You may not get what you deserve in this life, but you’ll damned sure get what you settle for.”
My friend “Trevor”
I spent the weekend with one of my favorite female relatives, and she was recounting her horrible marriage to her ex, a much older man who, in my opinion, is worth more to the world decomposed than alive. That aside, she told me how he had called her his “retirement plan” because he had had no intention of working and had planned to live off of her, until she got wise and divorced him.
I asked her how she had gotten into such a sorry relationship to begin with. Her response: Lack of self-esteem.
Mothers (and fathers, for that matter), can you imagine how much heartache and pain you could spare your daughters if you sent them out into the world armed with self-esteem?
Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve got way too much self-esteem. Not the kind of self-esteem that would make me try to squeeze my size fourteen behind in a thong and size eight Daisy Dukes. I’m talking about the kind of self-esteem that gives me little if any patience for people who are trying to get over on me like my relative’s ex-husband tried to get over on her. Especially if they’re male.
I’m talking about the kind of self-esteem that made a professor at U.C. Berkeley make her diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband into a toe ring. In her view, wearing the ring on her toe symbolized that her ex was “beneath her.” That’s the kind of self-esteem I’m talking about.
When it comes to my self-esteem, to borrow a phrase from an Erykah Badu song, “I get it from my momma.”
My late mom, whom I have referred to in this blog as She Who Is Exalted, or SWIE, had self-esteem in spades. Like me, she didn’t always have it, but the mom I knew in her late thirties and forties is much like the woman I’ve become in my mid-forties. I know my worth, and I don’t settle for anything or anyone unworthy of me. Life’s too short. I’m sure if SWIE had known she was going to check out at age sixty-four, she would have adopted that attitude a lot earlier.
My mom gave as good as she got, checked my dad when he needed it (often), and let us kids know that she was the momma and we were the kids, period. Yes, she put up with a lot just because of us six kids, but she had her limits, and she was quick to let you know when you had reached them. Like she did with my poor aunt.
At some family gathering, one of my aunts made the mistake of saying something rather, well, unflattering about my oldest sister. My mom sprang into action. She gather up us kids and took us home. Then she went back and cussed her sister out for talking about one of her kids. Then she came home like nothing happened. We begged and pleaded for her to tell us what she said to our aunt, but she told us that it was none of our business. Mind you, she said this as calm as an assassin, standing in her customary position at the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes or something, her right leg bent at the knee and crossed behind her left. I don’t think she even looked up at us. She simply handled her momma business and got back to the task at hand – feeding her brood of six unruly children.
It was years before we found out she had called her sister a two dollar you-know-what (our other aunt told us). We were like, “Way to go, Mom!” We were proud that she had stood up for my sister and, in effect, us. Her response? “I’m not proud of that.”
That’s okay. We were.
So since SWIE isn’t here to share with you what I learned, here goes:
A woman with self-esteem stands up for her kids, but most important, stands up for herself.
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t stay in abusive relationships, be they verbally or physically abusive.
A woman with self-esteem knows her worth and doesn’t settle for anything less. She has no problem telling an exploitive employer, lover or husband to kiss her behind (more on that later).
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t wait for men to do things for her – she does things for herself.
A woman with self-esteem makes and manages her own money, and sometimes her husband’s money, too.
A woman with self-esteem stands up for other women and children who can’t stand up for themselves.
A woman with self-esteem doesn’t care what anyone – male or female – thinks of the clothes she wears or how she wears her hair, ‘cause she’s the one who paid for them.
Now that you’ve got some of the rules, here’s the women’s self-esteem playlist (to get your self-esteem mojo going) and SWIE’s self-esteem lexicon of phrases to go with it. (Warning: SWIE was prone to curse words, as am I, so I won’t edit at the risk of losing the essence of who we both were/are).
Playlist
Ruth Brown, “If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Sit On It”. Mind you, this song supposedly talks about furniture in a second-hand store. But with lyrics like, “If I can’t sell it, I’m gonna sit on it, ‘cause I ain’t gonna give it away,” you know what she’s really talking about. Takes a lot of self-esteem to sing those lyrics.
Aretha Franklin, “Respect.” No brainer. And Aretha didn’t always have self-esteem either. Chain of Fools, anyone?
Whitney Houston, “Step by Step” and “Greatest Love of All.” For the woman who is coming back from the abyss of self-doubt and moving toward self-esteem.
Anything by Millie Jackson. My mom used to say that Millie was downright nasty. Takes a lot of self-esteem to be a nasty woman.
Erykah Badu, "Tyrone." Both funny and empowering, especially the last line, "But you cain't use my phone."
Prince, “Little Red Corvette.” Okay, work with me on this. The lyrics include the verse, “I guess I should have closed my eyes when you brought me to the place where your horses run free; I got a little ill when I saw all pictures of the jockeys who’d been there before me.” Now, it takes a woman with a lot of self-esteem to not only have up photos of the prior “jockeys,” but to not care what the next jockey would think. You don’t have to be that woman; you only need to have her self-esteem.
Jill Scott, “Golden.” Then again, everything Jill does is golden.
India.Arie, “Talk To Her.” This song provides guidance on how you should expect people to talk to you or any woman for that matter: “When you talk to her, talk to her like you’d want somebody to talk to your momma . . . Don’t get smart with her, have a heart-to-heart with her just like you would with your daughter . . .”
And my favorite:
Leslie Gore, “You Don’t Own Me.” I first heard this song in the movie “The First Wives’ Club.” Gotta love these proto-feminist lyrics:
And don't tell me what to do
And don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display, 'cause
You don't own me, don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me, don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay
Okay, now that you have the playlist, here’s the lexicon of self-esteem phrases from SWIE:
1. When some man tries to tell you that you need him:
“I don’t need you. I was born by myself, and I’m gonna die by myself.”
2. When some man tries to make you think you need his money:
“I GOT a job. I make my OWN money. You don’t have shit that I can’t get.”
3. When some man expects way too much of you:
“Oh see, you just want too much sugar for a dime.”
4. When your husband gets on you about your spending:
“I made this money. I didn’t see you up on my job. Did I ask you to pay my bills? I didn’t ask you for shit.) (Substitutions: “a God damned thing” can be substituted for “shit” when appropriate)
5. When your kids try to get over on you:
“Oh, you must think I’m a fool. Ain’t nothing you can do or think of doing that I ain't already thought of.”
6. When you husband/lover threatens to leave you:
“Please. I got you; I can get another.”
7. When you’ve finally reached your limit – at work, at home, etc:
“Oh, see, you can kiss my PRETTY black ass.” (Now, that might not work as well for white women, but you get the point.)
Okay, ladies, copy these phrases in your new self-esteem notebook, tee up your IPod self-esteem playlist, and get to steppin’. My momma didn’t raise no fools, and now that you’ve read this, consider yourself raised. By SWIE.
As my friend “Trevor” pointed out to me once, “You may not get what you deserve in this life, but you’ll damned sure get what you settle for.”
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