B-L-O-A-T AND THE BOOBIE-DO!

B-L-O-A-T! It sounds and looks exactly like it feels. Big, nasty and overpowering. I first noticed it a couple years back when I was in my mid thirties... okay maybe more than a couple. Up until then you could not tell me anything. I could eat what I wanted even if it was ladened with salt. And drinking? Well, I not only could drink what I wanted, I drank everything -- and all the time. And, oh was I fly! I was skinny and curvaceous at the same time. There used to be a song out back in the day whose chorus was "The men all paused when I walked into the room." And they really did, however, I should actually say when I "backed" into the room because it was not the front that got their attention. Hmm, how can I put it, there was another fitting song from back in the day called "Baby Got Back."  I was skinny with quite a big bumper, and I had a true coke bottle shape on top of that. So, I wore only nicely fitted (not tight) but clingy clothes to accentuate my blessings. I had nothing to hide. Oh, those were the days.

One day I found myself feeling a little... full. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a window and had to ask if it was my imagination, or were my pants riding a little high above my insteps? In fact, my pleats had disappeared and my pockets stuck out. That's when I saw it. I had a pouch that made me look three months pregnant.

Immediately I dropped to my knees. No, not to pray that time, but to do do 300 sit-ups. I did not choose that number, either, I just did not stop until I got that high. I was working on pure adrenalin and angst. And I did not stop doing them for about a month. It did seem to help, that is until I got a little too comfortable and forgot. so I slacked off. Oopsy!

Fast forward a few years, and I now look five to six months pregnant, no joke. When I am bloated, I no longer have "back," I have front and back. And the thought of doing sit-ups repulses me. Not that they would help anyway. It gets so bad that once when I went to a night club in this extended state, a guy asked me to dance. When I said no thank you, he asked if it was because I was pregnant? And, I, being more than irritated at that point still tried to be nice while explaining that I was not pregnant. Do you know that SOB argued with me and tried to call me a liar because it was obvious from my belly that I was. Needless to say, I have not been to a nightclub since.

All because of the BLOAT. and these days, I am BLOATED more than I am not. Two weeks before my "special week" and one week after. In short, more than half the month. And the rest of the time... I look three months pregnant again, only this time I am happy with it because the other days are so bad. I actually feel like I can feel it blowing up somethings. It's like that little Ty-D-Bowl man is in my belly with a tire pump. I am waiting for the day he goes too far and it pops.

At any rate, here I sit here lamenting the loss of the good old days. Staring at a ton of clothes in my closet, but knowing that I can only fit a handful of them at a time as I rise up and down the scale. I now shop for empire waists, loose fitting tops, and jackets that may help me hide my belly. And I silently suck it up while admitting to myself that I can do nothing about it. When I am BLOATED, I am a boobie-do! my tummy sticks out further than my boobies do and, unfortunately, I think it is only going to get worse.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

My husband is sick with a cold. But you would think he is suffering from Typhoid, Mono, and H1N1 Flu all rolled up into one. (No offense honey  if you are reading this) However, I swear men are the biggest babies. My child handles a cold better. I don't know, maybe I am just jealous, because when I am sick, I get one evening to lay around if I am lucky and then it's up the next morning regardless to how I may feel: dog walking, son dressing, breakfast cooking, and house cleaning. Will he sit by my side in the room and watch Lifetime Movies with me? No way! But did he expect me to lay by his side and watch basketball, the news, political debates, and the weather channel all day? Absolutely, and I had better not think about using my computer because that would defeat the purpose. And I could only leave to make breakfast, lunch and dinner.... oh yeah, and bring up medicine. To make matters worse my five year old was busy begging me to sit downstairs and watch him play with his Wii, and he did not understand why he had to lay in the bed with us instead watching "Daddy" tv. Meanwhile, I needed to create lesson plans, work on a project, grocery shop, and shop for my son's birthday party which is less than a week away -- none of which I got to do. 


So how do I handle it? First, I count down to 8:30 when my son goes to bed and then I painstakingly watch the numbers change on the digital clock until the Nyquil kicks in and my husband passes out. That is when I sneak out of the room like a teenager climbing out of the basement window so as not the set the alarm off. I tiptoe down stairs and quietly begin my work at 10:45 P.M. I do all the things I couldn't do earlier like post a blog, read my email, plan a lesson until 1:00 A.M. And tomorrow, while he has the day off and is still resting, I will be leaving work exhausted, but will be rushing off to accomplish some of the other crap I couldn't do on my one day off.


Honestly though, as annoyed as I can get about the whole thing, I must admit that I love the fact that he wants me there by his side. And quite frankly I wouldn't want it any other way. I suppose one way to look at it is that I am actually just frustrated that the weekend is so short, because I need one more day to do all the things I need to do. And, in reality, I don't mind him taking care of my husband when he is sick (I just wish his cold didn't last so long). 

Tenure

Year one

I danced a mean tango

With him.

I looked into his Eyes

That would not

Could not

Look back.

I pushed.

He shoved.

I won,

Because he won.

He smiled,

Made friends,

Sang the Faerie song

One Midsummer’s Night Eve

Side by side

With the sighted

While he

Was blind.

 In September

Of year two,

I met his genius

And watched it

Slowly slide

From A

To F,

From sweet

To hard,

Clean

To disheveled.

Flippant… cold.

Dancing eyes turned dark

Empty.

I heard myself ask

for missing work

And cringed.

I knew

I was watching

Him watch

His mother

Slowly Fading,

Body failing

Slowly dying

In May.

Year three

Brought an Angel.

Tall

Graceful.

She spread her wings

And wrapped

Lost souls,

Outcasts,

Cool kids,

In the light of her smile –

A child

Saving children

From others

And themselves.

A child

With an adult illness

Ever smiling

while checking numbers.

Teaching the teacher

Patience, tolerance.

Mission complete,

She died.

An angel on loan

From heaven,

Leaving me to teach.

Tenured.

Sole Survivor

The sole of my "Handmade in Italy" leather shoe had begun to peel away like the hull of an overripe, black banana. It would flap back and under my foot when I walked. I was not frustrated though, it was time. I had had them for over eight years, and though I own upwards of eighty pairs of shoes (mostly F.M.P.'s from pre-mommy years), I had begun to wear these exclusively. They were the right height and had the best support for the grueling seven hours I must be on my feet at school. 


What did frustrate me, however, was the cost to repair them. I may not have understood everything the little aproned cobbler with his thick Asian accent said, but I did understand 45 dollars. And though I thought they were worth it, I had to pass. Between the economy, the housing market, and having a kindergartner with a growth spurt every other month, money is not as fluid as it used to be.  So I kindly smiled at the Hakky Shoe Repair man, said thank you for the quote, and embarrassingly removed my flappers from the counter and placed them back into my little bag. 


And, as if to pour salt into the wound, I noticed that immediately to the right of the repairer of worthy, exquisite, beloved leather shoes, was the trafficker of all things synthetic -- Payless. So I did what any teacher desperate for black economical foot coverings would do. I looked over my shoulder, scanned the scene, and quickly... and sheepishly, slipped into the store.


Miraculously, I did find something that would suffice, and I am pleased to add that they were on clearance for $10.00. Being that they were a fake suede as opposed to that shiny plastic leather, I felt confident that no one could figure out my dirty little secret. I must admit, they have changed a lot since my early days of being a college student on a budget who had to shop there. They really did have some cute styles albeit of the foot binding and numbing, suffocating "pleather" type that causes tiny little needles to form in your back. 


Wait a minute, did I just say I had to shop there when I was in college -- talk about coming full circle, or life repeating itself! Here I have arrived so to say, having a career and my own classroom, yet the reality is that I was shopping there because I had to twenty five years later. Ouch! That hurts! 


But then again, I suppose I should comfort myself that on the same day that I spent $10.00 on my shoes, I signed my son up for $133.00 worth of basketball lessons. Which was the day before I had to register for the $120.00 soccer league. While we are at it, this was two weeks after the monthly $130.00 piano lesson deductions. And, it was three days after securing the $350.00 two hour moon bounce party for his birthday (cake, pizza, and decorations not included). 


I must add, we are not rich people by any stretch of the imagination, so it is a wonder I am not strapping cardboard to the soles of my feet with duct tape. 


All in all, after recounting that exhaustive and yet incomplete list, I have realized that I should not be crying over my inability to add another 100 dollar pair of shoes to my dusty collection, I should be grateful that I am blessed to be able to provide my son with these great opportunities that I could not even fathom as a child. I suppose sometimes we have to climb to the tiptop of the biggest tree we can find (the part that would bend under our weight) in order to see the forest. 


That being said, I am now proud to admit that I am saving so that I can build a pack of socks and some underwear into next month's budget and all I can say is, "Who needs Victoria Secret's with those mean models taunting us with those unrealistic, pre-child and childlike bodies, anyway? Walmart and Tar-jay, here I come!"

What was I saying?

I have lost my memory. Has anyone seen it? Well, I have not actually lost it completely, but I feel my short term memory definitely dangling by a thread. Thank goodness most of my posts are based on my long-term because I would have nothing to write about.


Now, let's get back to this memory issue. I can't quite put my finger on when it first began, but I can say that it started a few years ago when start feeling as though a lot of things were always right there on the tip of my tongue (i.e.: words, names, titles, etc.) Back then I was aware, and it was no big deal because we all have our moments. But those moments began to manifest themselves more frequently. 


First, I could not remember a co-worker's name -- for a minute or so, anyway. Then I began to forget to pay a bill. Well ...ur humph... maybe I wanted to forget so I could go shopping. So I guess that one does not count. Lastly, there's the old walk into a room and forget what you went for, only to walk out again and immediately remember. And I swear it really happened that when I re-entered to get whatever I was going for the first time -- I forgot again. I go in and out of the house so many times in the morning before I leave, that I now wake up 15 minutes earlier just to compensate.


Recently, I have hit an all time low. I have forgotten my students' names. And, that is a little more than annoying. But I am clever, I am a teacher after all. When it happens, I just smile and call them all "Baby." I know we are not supposed to use such terms of endearment, but when you are older, Black, and female, you can get away with it. They pull the race card on hiring, and I pull it with memory loss. Besides,  don't they expect us to talk that way? Example: "Baby (said really slow with an almost southern fake twain), would you go over there and lay that on my desk." Or maybe it's " Baby (said really slow with an almost southern fake twain), let me explain this to you another way." 


Now the most important part is making good eye contact so that they know which "baby" I am referring to. Besides, they seem to like it. I think it makes them feel special. I don't know, maybe they don't get the endearment tags at home, or maybe it's some weird innate "Mammy" thing that makes them feel comforted and special. And don't you be jealous because you can't pull it off. 


At any rate, those are not really the moments that worry me the most, though, because my own mother used to forget our names. She had three names that had to pick from and would call out any one them in a seemingly random order. If we corrected her, she would snap, " You know who I am talking to!"


Honestly, though, it's the bathroom thing that is scaring me most. Lately, I have noticed students missing in the middle of my class. They were there when I took attendance. I never saw them leave. Yet, in the middle of class I suddenly notice their seats empty. I have stopped freaking out, however, because every time they return, I discover that my initials... in my own handwriting, have mysteriously appeared in their agendas.


Some say I just have a lot on my mind, I say otherwise. I am not divulging my age, so I will talk about an incident I observed with my oldest sister. We were in the Bahamas, on a private van tour of the island. The entire family had gotten out of the van to go and look at the Queen's stairs, with the exception of my elderly mother. 


My sister, who was in the lead, suddenly and unexpectedly began frantically searching on the ground for her wallet. She was in tears with fear of having lost her credit cards and passport. All eight of us  joined, her scouring the grounds from the stairs to the van. We even wondered if she had been pick-pocketed. Once we reached the van, we opened the door to look on the floor. My mom, who had been quietly enjoying the air conditioning, saw the look of fear and anxiety on our faces and immediately said, "What's wrong? You are not looking for her wallet that she asked me to hold, are you?"


So there you have it. My sister asked my mother to hold her purse, and ten minutes later, she had no idea where it was. And why did this happen you ask? She was suffering from the onset of menopause. So, without giving away my age, I ask, why am I blanking out, (or short circuiting as I like to call it)? I don't have the foggiest idea... because I can't remember.

Super Woman, Paper Girl

I heard the loud rumbling of the big blue truck inching its way down the street. The brakes would scream out each time it came to a halt. Finally it stopped noisily in front of our house and was followed moments later by a heavy knocking. The driver had been going door to door in search of little boys who were interested in having a paper route. Just as my mother was about to close the door on him, I yelled out that I wanted to do it. I wanted a paper route.

My mom was hesitant; with my father being bed-ridden, she knew she would have the sole duty of helping me. So she did what any desperate mom would do, she painted as horrible a picture as possible from the grueling seven days a week crack o' dawn wake up calls, to afternoons spent trying to collect monies from delinquent customers. But nothing could deter me. 


Next, she ran it by my dad assuming he would save her by saying absolutely not; however,  she must had forgotten I was a Daddy's Girl. In short order, the paperwork was signed, and I became the proud owner of the Tacoma Ave Plain Dealer paper route.

The first thing I learned about were the contests in which the goal was to get new subscribers. The more you got, the more gifts you'd earn. Now the fact that I was a girlie-girl loving my baby dolls, while the prizes were all hard-core boy toys like basketballs, footballs, and boy scout flashlights was of no consequence to me. I was all caught up in the hype and excitement of the drive. Every yes made me want to ask even more, and it did hurt that my mother made me ring every single doorbell on the street. i guess she got caught up in it too.


Now picture this: a tiny little eight year old girl with pigtails ringing your bell, yelling out  “Paper Girl,” and asking you to subscribe in a high pitched sweet little voice. Needless to say, it did not take long for my numbers to top one hundred. After a few months of success, they even offered me the Hathaway Ave route as well. It was over three blocks away. We took it and my numbers then reached well over two hundred. 

Our day began every morning at 4:00 A.M. We threw on our work clothes and headed downstairs to retrieve the four or five bundles of newspapers that had been tossed on our porch. On Sundays we received were eight to ten stacks because the papers were two inches thick. Next we would unceremoniously drag them into the hallway for better lighting. Then we would roll them up and place rubber bands around them. This had to be done in order to be able to throw them.

After all 220 were wrapped and ready, we filled the A&P grocery store cart that stayed parked just outside the house. It’s funny, I could never remember where we got it from because we pulled our own groceries home in a personal upright folding cart. I suppose we found it in one of the empty lots nearby. Someone else had been brave enough to push it home, but then cast it away to hide their guilt. For us, finding it was like winning the lotto. It was not only big enough to hold all of the papers, but it also could hold more plastic  bags of dirty clothes than our little cart did when we had to go to the Laundromat.

I was always surprised that my mother had quite quite an arm and could really hurl those papers to just the right spot on the porches. I was getting pretty good myself, and could even make the top floor porches of the four unit apartment building. Though, I must admit, I did put a fair amount on lower roofs and in gutters. Which is why occasionally you would see people hanging out of windows or standing on banisters with broomsticks trying to get their papers, they had to -- we never threw another one to replace it.

Now, there were definitely hazards along the way. My mom carried a baseball bat for safety from stray dogs. Ironically, there was a pack of stray dogs that would be waiting outside our house in the morning. But they were not there to hurt us. They would follow us the entire route and then disappear.  It started out as one or two, but grew to about five. My mom eventually began saving scraps to throw to them in the morning. I always felt like they were angels sent to walk with us through the black of the early morning.  

She finally got a chance to use her bat one Sunday morning while I was delivering on one side of the street, and she was on the other. As I neared the apartment complex I saw him midair seconds before he landed and was on me. My delinquent customer, who had tired of my constant knockings on his door, let his German Sheppard loose when I neared his apartment.

My arm went up in a reflexive block. He grabbed it and threw me down. I lay writhing and hollering on the ground as he had moved and grabbed me by my waist. He snarled and snorted through clenched teeth that held tight while shaking me from side to side like a rag doll. 


My six year old niece stood frozen a few feet away screaming and crying out, "Grandma." over and over again. Seconds later my mother came flying over there like super woman swinging her mighty bat.  The dog took one crack upside the head, yelped, and ran. She scooped me up and threw me in the back seat of the car (we finally got one), grabbed my niece, and floored it to the hospital. Laying on the horn the entire way, she ran every red light. My only concern as I lay in a ball on the back seat was that  I wanted her to stop because I was afraid the police would arrest her.

As it turned out, I had been bitten in three places, but none were deadly. They patched me up and sent us on our way. And similar to the dedication of the mailman, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” we added, and “no dogs” as she and I returned later that evening to deliver the rest of our papers.

We did those routes two years in a row from the beginning of spring until the first snow fall each year when my dad made us stop for the winter. It was a lot of work and it was not easy, but yet she never hesitated. And though I made pretty good money (especially in tips), my mother never took a dime. (My sister on the other hand stole a fair amount.) 


And do you know that after having had her as a role model those many years ago, I actually forgot. Instead of being a super woman mom like her, I had the audacity one day to complain about driving my son to baseball practice two or three days a week. I honestly thought about not signing him up because of the amount of time I would have to put in. Meanwhile my mother put in not two or three days, but seven days a week -- at four in the morning, and another two or three days in the afternoon on top of that. Yet, she did so tirelessly and without complaint. I can only hope that from here on out I will become half the selfless mother that she was for me. And I pray that my son one day will look back and say I was truly there for him, too. 

My Valentine, My Heart!

I remember the day I first saw him. My heart skipped a beat. I know it sounds cliche, but I really did take pause.  I was selling my children’s book at our Christmas bazaar and had been sitting in the corner wedged between shiny jewelry, chiffon scarves, and knock off designer bags.  Behind me were these affectionately grotesque rag dolls that were made to look like the flight attendants. In short order– I was not getting much traffic. Suddenly, he entered the room. An Adonis, his imposing six foot four frame filled the doorway, towering high above the average everybody and looking fine in his polyester blue. He hesitated a moment and glanced around the crowded little room.  "Lord, if only this man would come to my table. Please come, please come, please come!"   He began to weave through the maze of shoppers, slowly zigzagging in my direction."Oh no, he is coming this way!"  I dropped my head and pretended to read, but I could sense his presence coming ever closer…

It has been over ten years …. and he still makes my heart soar. Happy Valentine's Day!