#1 "The New Adventures of Old Christine": I'm not sure how I ended up recording this show. It was on my DVR when I got home and I'm guessing that since I'm a Wanda Sykes fan that I set my timer for it and forgot about it. Either way, this show is funny. The characters are naturally funny without trying too hard. I'm a little surprised she wouldn't tell that one guy "I love you" back but she's an oddball anyway so...
#2 Betty Crocker Bacos imitation bacon bits: They're delicious on a salad and considering I don't eat real bacon, they're an excellent substitute.
I woke up and after waiting for the maintenance guy in my apartment to fix an issue, I headed out to run errands. I used to people watch more when I was younger than I do now. There are times that I observe people, but then there are times when I'm so focused on getting things done that I just don't care what everybody else is doing. On my way from the bank to a CTA stop to put money on my Chicago card, a guy strolled by me, said "Hello," I said "Hi" and kept it moving. He goes, "Eh, cah ask you a question?" and immediately my eyes rolled. I don't know what he was getting ready to ask and anybody who can't find anything better to do than hang by an el stop on a weekday isn't somebody I feel I'm going to get some beneficial information from. Maybe it was beneficial, but it just looked like he had a lot of free time on his hands. I just kept walking. I really didn't want to hear it. (My instincts were right. A police car rolled by and he disappeared faster than Casper!) A few days back I was on my cell and this guy screams out, "Eh 'scuse me, 'scuse me, oooh she bad! Don't you think she bad?" I'm sure it was meant to be a compliment, but it just made me cringe. First of all, the guy was my father's age, and I know some women like older men, but I can't stand it when folks who could've been my father walk up to talk to me like we're on the same level. You should be trying to teach me something not trying to undress me. Gross!
However, there are times when I will stop and listen to people speak about a bunch of nothing. There's a special place in my heart for the elderly.
I had a debate on Facebook that went from being civil to completely ignorant with one user, and while I won't focus on how the forum did not go the way I originally planned it, it's still on my mind. So, I'm going to voice my opinion about how I feel about the topic of hair and health here where I can do it without somebody testing my patience. Of course comments are always welcome.
The original comment was from a user who mentioned someone saying something offensive about her natural hair. My mother wears her hair naturally and I like it. My brother does, too, and I like his. I can see the beauty in natural hair as well as relaxed hair, and I unapologetically have no desire to not have a perm. It's a preference. But I thought the comment that was made to the person who started the forum was dumb. There's absolutely no logic in insulting someone for the way she chooses to wear her hair. If she likes it natural, she's not bothering you. If I like mine relaxed, I'm not bothering anybody either. But I made a couple points:
#1 I'm running into women who wear their hair naturally who somehow have convinced themselves they have the golden key to happy life, like women with relaxers are somehow lost and don't accept ourselves.
#2 I'm really getting tired of sistas spending so much time worried about their hair. I wish this type of energy would be focused on our health. I've seen too many women with beautiful hair and their health (sexual health, diet, blood pressure) are shot to shit.
When I was in Atlanta, my godfather showed me how to load, unload and shoot a gun. Before I went into the shooting range, I was excited to do it. My mother, on the other hand, was ready to leave as soon as we pulled into the parking lot and looked terrified the entire time we were there. She's definitely the "lover, not a fighter" type although I'll never underestimate her strong woman radar. But anyway, my godfather (who is a veteran) was patiently teaching me about aim and what not to do. After I left the shooting range, I looked at my target and all the holes in it (specifically the one in the neck) and completely lost interest in guns and shooting ranges. Was it a skill worth learning? Absolutely. Does it make me want to go out and start collecting guns? Nah. Do I own one? You already know it's illegal to own a handgun in Chicago. There are some folks who are really in an uproar about the recent news in Wisconsin that made it legal to carry a concealed weapon. Personally I'm not jealous.
After so many years of being beaten over the head with advice on drinking more water, I was completely surprised by this article " Drinking six to eight cups of water called 'nonsense' in editorial." If you drink eight cups of water, you may be interested in reading this. I'd never heard of hyponatremia (low sodium levels in the blood) before. Anyway, I drink a daily cup of green or brown tea and enjoy an occasional cup of iced coffee, but I still have an issue with drinking a bunch of water. It's so much easier to do while exercising than it is just sitting in a newsroom or flopping down on my couch. My colleague Barbara Mahany helped me out with suggestions like adding lemon (I use lemon juice) to make it a little more tasty. Her " feeding hungry jocks" article definitely made me more enthused about drinking a few glasses of it. It's been around 100 degrees all this week, and because I'm hard-headed and completely ignore newscasters, I've spent everyday this week either jogging or walking my regular four miles in parks. It's therapeutic and gets my mind off of any type of stress. (I ended up sitting under a tree for an hour because I was so hot, but it was still a stress reliever.) And guess what? It makes me drink water. Exercise = wanting to drink water, not too much, just enough.
I missed doing this last week (the past two weeks have been crazy hectic personally and professionally and I've been out so much that I couldn't sit still long enough to write this), so I'm doing a rundown of 10. These are therapeutic. They force me to think of things I enjoy instead of complaining about what I don't like.
1. ABC's "State of Georgia": I haven't been a Raven-Symone fan since "The Cosby Show." I thought her other shows were more goofy than funny, but she has the right amount of balance on this show. I love her character on here, and I think Loretta Devine is surprisingly funny as well.
2. Starbucks caramel iced coffee: A co-worker gave me a sample he got in the mail, and I love the stuff. I don't care for caramel and I thought I only liked McDonald's iced coffee, but Starbucks' version is far better than I expected. I rarely go to grocery stores to buy things I've sampled, but I headed straight to Target's Starbucks to get these. Don't let Walgreen's cheat you. They're $7.99 there but only $5.95 at Target. Comparison shop, folks!
For the life of me, I just can't understand why somebody would complain about how bad their own neighborhood is and then move into another neighborhood to screw that one up, too. If you like being in the hood, stay there! (Yeah, somebody's going to be mad I said that, but I bypassed caring last month when my mail was stolen. I'm still mad about that.) It's aggravating to watch a neighborhood being ruined from folks who could care less while others who do care either have to move or watch their block go straight down the drain. One thing that I've loved the most about living in the neighborhood I've been in for over seven years was the decrease in ridiculous approaches I got. By approaches, I mean guys walking up to you spitting game that doesn't work on anybody but rats. Yeah, that might sound harsh, but it's the truth. Within this past year, there's been a significant change during my train ride (folks are selling candy to make-believe organizations, opening train doors jumping from car to car, putting their legs up on seats, blasting music without using headphones) and now I'm seeing folks hang out by my nearby el stops and just walk around randomly loitering. One perk of my own building was this beautiful set of flowers and freshly mowed grass. There's no porch. There's no stoop. So it's strictly for show and nobody hangs out. I came home one day to see two teenagers flopped down on the ground in front of the door. Extra tacky! Why would you need to hang out by the door when there's a lakefront and a beach a few minutes away? Although I preferred peaceful, quiet rides on the el station once it passed the downtown area, and I liked walking down the street with folks getting off of work, walking their dogs and working on their lawns, the neighborhood is changing. And to be honest, I don't care for it. One of the things that I really loved about living on the north side is the diversity and the peace. My mother has joked a few times about how she thinks I'll never move. I told her I genuinely liked the area. I like being able to take a walk without worrying about what neighborhood I'm going through. I like being able to jog at night. I like being able to go to a beach not overcrowded with litter and not being concerned about somebody shooting somebody else on the basketball court.
Earlier this year I got into a huge argument with a guy who tried to rationalize stealing. His logic was that if his family is in need, they're hungry and the lights are out, he should do everything he can to make sure they're taken care of. No doubt about it. I agreed with him, but stealing isn't the answer and he was trying to justify that illegal tactics are quicker and necessary for certain circumstances. He said as the man of the house, he has to do what he has to do. I told him, "That's not a man. That's a dumbass." You do more harm than good when involving yourself (and, by default, your family too) in illegal activities. Although he claimed to be past that stage in his life, the fact that he was defending what he'd done told me one thing--you'd do it again if times got hard and you're not altogether convinced it was wrong. That to me is simply unacceptable.
When I was in preschool, my mother and I were walking home and two guys tried to snatch her purse. My mother is a very even-tempered woman but she went stone cold crazy over these two guys trying to take what's hers. You never know what a person will do in a situation like that, and logic should've told her, "Let the purse go." Instead she let her fists go flying. Whoever told you a woman can't fight a man surely lied because I'm still astounded that she was defending herself so quickly.
Now I don't know what those two freeloaders were going through to make them feel like it was OK to rob someone of her possessions, but from then on, every time I hear about an incident like this, it rubs me a little harder than it might for someone else. It's personal to me. When my parents moved into their first house, I was the one to come home to see their place trashed and things stolen . . . twice. You know what they did? They refused to move. Place got robbed again. They stayed. My mother, once again, flipped out. She got an alarm, a gate and a dog. We didn't have any problems after that, but she's always been the type to feel like there's nobody on Earth who's going to run her out of any place. She was who I thought of today.
1. Regrets of the Dying blog: I’m still traveling vicariously through my colleague Jolanta’s travel blog, and she had a recent post linking to another blog. The information in that blog about the wishes of dying people made me go ahead and write one of my most recent blogs, which had a lot in common with that one. 2. Chocolate martinis from Olive Garden: I got one while hanging out with my mother, and it almost made me want to convert my love of hot chocolate to those. However, I’m not a big drinker—even though I’m developing a tolerance with all these wine and beer reviewers around me at work—so I doubt that’d happen.
My mother (and the coolest woman I know) spent a couple days with me this past weekend. Our mission: See "Transformers." That evolved into a chocolate martini, a trip to Olive Garden, a trip to Loving Hut, a five-mile walk, plenty of bottled water, chatting about men and more specifically "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." She'd never seen the film, but I had this feeling she'd like it. Although she cried through most of the film (she's such a sentimental sucker, gotta love her!), during our walk we had one of our usual super deep, super personal, philosophical conversations about our pasts. Of course I'm not dishing on anything she said. Everything she tells me goes to the grave, but I will dish a lil' bit on what I said. The question was: "If you were on your death bed, who would you want to read the raw truth in your journal? No friends. No family. Only a romantic partner. What would they find the most surprising?"
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