Gratitude for Things Big and Small

I fell a bit behind on my Happy Black Woman reset, and today is hardly the day for me to catch up as I have been in bed sick...after getting a clean bill of health from the doctor just this morning!  But seeing as how I am grateful that whatever this is probably will not kill me (it will just slow me down for a few days), here is a list of 10 other things I am grateful for in my life:

1. The husband, who came home after a long day and did a load of laundry, baked a cake for someone, and will probably have to sleep on the coach tonight so that he won't catch whatever it is I have.
2. Health insurance, for after listening to snippets from the GOP debate last night, there but by the grace of God go I...
3. My friends, because these are the people who have chosen to be in my life, even after getting to really know me.
4. Family, because they may not have a choice in being related to me, but they have a choice whether to care.
5. Children
6. Church folks who plan programs but fail to place limits on the amount of time given to each speaker...although I was beyond tired by hour 3, it was great to see everyone and to hear their reflections.  Next time I'll remember to take a snack though.
7. Caller ID
8. Skills that will always enable me to earn a living, or at least be useful.
9. Compassion for others.
10. Forgiveness and grace

I Picked a Fine Time to Give Up Alcohol...

I am only joking, but for the past few days I've been wondering if I should have just given up crack instead (another very bad joke).

Seriously, though it is a little weird to be invited to parties and happy hours during the weekend of the big Morehouse vs. Howard Classic and not be able to enjoy a drink or two.  At the same time, it was also pretty weird that the after-game tailgate consisted of a lot of us standing around in an unlit parking lot.  Or that the "offical" after-party that the alumnae association had spent the better part of the summer planning had few, if any alumnae in attendance...where were you my sisters and brothers?

Since there was no one around to hear my explanation as to why I was only drinking club soda, I took a quick survey of the club, chatted with a few folks outside, switched out of the cute heels into my flipflops, walked back to my friend's hotel, got hit on by a couple of good looking guys on the elevator (apparently Mama still has a lil' sumthin' sumthin'), and then watched the rest of the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game.  After receiving some disappointing reconnaissance from the field concerning some of the other post-game festivities, my companions and I went to Clyde's where I had a midnight lobster dinner with fries and three diet Cokes.

And while it would have been nice to have had a drink or two, I did not feel deprived.  Of course, that is how I feel today...check me out later in a week or so to see if I haven't taken a nosedive off the side of this ricketey teetotaler wagon.

How dry I am...

The Busy Black Woman meets the Happy Black Woman

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Rosetta Thurman, life coach and author of the Happy Black Woman blog at a Happy Hour she sponsored at the Dirty Martini bar in DC.  I meant to write about that experience then, but life has a way of messing with my good intentions.  However, sometimes things happen for a reason.  Read on...

OK, so at the aforementioned event, I met several very interesting women: fellow bloggers, Spelman sisters, people I follow on Twitter, business women, and generally all very positive people.  It was not at all like some of the typical DC networking events where there is a list to get in or where you get the feeling that even after you make it past the velvet rope, you are being judged for every single choice (like breathing a certain way).  This was just very cool. 

And I have a confession to make--I went to this event with no clear idea of what to expect.  I saw the event posting and RSVP'd and just showed up. 

Boomerang!

(This should have posted two weeks ago, but you know how things get sometimes.  And for whatever reason, it felt as if I was writing in circles :)

On Sunday the 14th, we celebrated the birthday of pioneering Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry with a poll on the Busy Black Woman Facebook page of our favorites among her various film roles.  And by chance, BET treated us to one of her earliest roles in the film Boomerang.

Now, there was no above-and-beyond winner, as we ended up with a tie between crackhead Halle in Jungle Fever and ethereal Halle in Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Of course, I chose TEWWG because it was a film produced by a Busy Black Woman (the Oprah), based on a book written by a Busy Black Woman (Zora Neal Hurston), with a screen play adapted by a Busy Black Woman (Suzan Lori Parks) because Busy Black Women acknowledge the great work of their peers...  But if I had to choose a second best performance, I would probably go with crackhead Halle. 

Or, I might have chosen Boomerang, which may or may not have been among the choices offered, but that is what the husband voted for once he realized there was a poll.  If you were not old enough to see R-rated movies in the 90s or if you were living under a rock somewhere, this movie was Eddie Murphy's last really funny film.  It featured Halle as the "nice girl" opposite Robin Givens as the "not-so-nice girl".  I will not spoil it for you by telling you how it ends, but I will say that Halle made two major contributions to this film: (1) the line that essentially launched Toni Braxton's career and (2) her signature ear-length bob (because before there was the Rachel, there was the Halle haircut).

And that brings me to the point of this article--can we "boomerang" back to the 90s?

Last Day of August

Folks, 2011 has been one grand never-ending challenge and the Busy Black Woman is tired.  Really tired.  So I've decided that it is time for a new start!

I have never actually done anything like this before, and if I make it to the other side, we'll see if it is something I would recommend, but I am about to embark on a major life overhaul.  I am really about to do the unthinkable, unimaginable, and frankly the scariest thing I possibly could do...

I am going to focus on ME for an entire month.  I will not drink anything alcoholic for the month of September.  I am going to put myself on a dedicated exercise schedule, including walking, weekly yoga and ballet classes, and maybe even riding my bike again.  I am going to take control of the clutter in my house and set weekly goals for cleaning and organizing.  I am going to set a bedtime.  I am going to prepare for the day ahead the night before (or maybe a few nights before if needed).  I am going to go through all of my unread and unanswered email.  I will read a book or two.  I am going to church every Sunday in September.  I am going to cook.

In other words, the Busy Black Woman is going to do what she often scoffs at others for doing--I am making New Year Resolutions...in September.

There are a lot of reasons why I need to focus on self-improvement and again, since I almost never make resolutions, this will be a challenge.  Like most people, the road to this particular personal hell has been paved with good intentions, years in the making.  Everyday I strive to be a good wife/daughter/sister/aunt/friend/lawyer/BBW but that all gets to be overwhelming especially when I look back over that list, and no where does it suggest that I want to be a good me.   So starting September 1, I am going to do everything in my power to insert 'me' into my list of good intentions.

Why put off tomorrow what I could very well start today?  Well, technically I am starting today by making this declaration publicly on my blog so that people know I am serious and want to be held accountable for falling short.  Also, it helps that I have a few de-cluttering and organizing tasks planned to keep me occupied for the rest of the day.  But in all honesty, because I do have one last day in this month, I also want to enjoy one last guilt-free drink at a party this evening. 

I do need to make clear that I am not abandoning my BBW ways since that is the essence of who I am.  But I am going to take a hard look at how those activities impact me, and whether the BBW persona limits the growth of me, the person.  That means that I might actually say NO to the things that conflict with my new agenda.  I will ask for help.  I will not continue to carry the world on my shoulders and then get frustrated when no one offers to help.  Some of ya'll might not like what I have to say (I'll be blogging about my progress throughout the month)...and I am totally ok with that. 

Well, if the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, then here goes:

Red Beans and Rice Monday: The Irene, MLK Memorial, VMAs, et al Recap

I finally get to do a recap of an award show!  But only a partial one since I only caught the last half hour...So this will be a recap of my weekend instead (I know, you can barely contain your excitement).

Clearly the biggest news of the weekend was not Hurricane Irene.  She came, she dumped a lot of water on us, and she took out a lot of tree branches.  But in the DC area, that could have been any heavy thunderstorm.  Still, I did my Busy Black Woman best to be prepared for the worst case scenario, which was losing our power for ten hours.  Thanks to my strategic planning, we now have four 50-pound bags of sand, a three-gallon cooler full of filtered tap water, lots of non-perishable snacks, and a bucket of Harris Teeter fried chicken. 

And we know that the biggest news was not the cancelled MLK Memorial Dedication, since a lot of the activities took place with a few minor changes before Irene made landfall.  The Very Important People who attend galas and luncheons and prayer services and special fraternity dedication ceremonies got to do all of that stuff and then promptly left town.  The rest of us mere commoners got to see the Memorial all week anyway since it opened last Tuesday.  The husband and I went down there last night, and like every other monument, it was teeming with tourists and their cameras, which means I will be cranky in a few weeks because of the unnecessary foot traffic jams caused by picture-posing clumps of people standing in the middle of the sidewalk.  So the only thing we missed was another speech by President Obama...darn!

In other words, it is a really beautiful monument:

B-cube Update - Don't Mess with Mother Nature

Don't you just hate that?  You spend two good hours writing a great piece about the upcoming weekend of MLK Memorial Dedication festivities; save, post, and tweet the link; head off to dance class then to dinner...only to learn that it was all for naught.

Darn events cancelled due to the approaching hurricane.

But better safe than sorry folks.  Hurricane Irene is now expected to be a lot worse on our region than originally predicted.  Apparently, they can see just how bad it might be from the International Space Station!  The last hurricane that came through this way was Isabel, and I remember how the resulting damage delayed my uncle's funeral by as many as ten days.  Obviously, the images of Katrina remain with all of us...and though I was long gone from New Orleans by the time Katrina hit in 2005, I did have the misfortune to be living in the city during the Great Flood of 1995.  It was during my first year of law school and one thing I will never forget was watching someone kayak down St. Charles Street because there was no other way to navigate the city (pun intended...and that memory might be slightly exaggerated--the person could have been in a row boat) and I was stranded on the third floor of my building for two days with no power because the water was waist-deep.  The point, Mother Nature don't play!