My Vida Loca!! (Part IV)

okay...

So I get an email from Tayari Jones....

"Ladylee, where are you? I need your help, I am stranded. (404) 555-1234."

....um, okay....

Well, I sat there and looked at it for a moment. Wondered what the heck being stranded had to do with a comment I left on her blog somewhere. Then I looked at parts of the sentence, trying to analyze it. I mean "stranded" could mean anything.

Like stranded mentally. Stranded could have been some type of metaphor for one's state in life.

It did not occur to me that "stranded" meant... well, stranded.

It did not occur to me to call her. I still didn't get it. I sat there analyzing the email.

I wasn't calling no damn body, that's for sure.

I twisted around in my chair (the "Queen's chair", my favorite chair; no one is allowed to sit in it besides me. Everyone HATES my chair, LOL). The lab was bustling. My coworker Que was verbally kicking Da'Kari's ass about his army ambitions. Several people were surrounding them, all talking to my brother. The Infamous Hen-Dog was dancing and singing to the overly loud music booming from the bootleg speakers we'd hooked up to my laptop. I believe "S" another chemist was destroying the electric slide or doing one of her juke joint dances...

In other words, everyone was doing the usual.

"Yo, Que!!! Come here!" I yelled over the blaring music.

She looked my way. My brother breathed a sigh of relief. I think she was a split second from grabbing him by the neck and ramming his head through the wall.

She walked over to where I was sitting.

"Que, check out this email." I pointed at the screen.

She looked at it, and then frowned up. She bent down and leaned closer to the screen.

"Hmmm," was her only comment.

We didn't say anything for a moment.

She stood up and folded her arms across her chest.

"Um, Ladylee, maybe you should call her."

"You think so?" I asked. Even though there was a phone number, this really hadn't crossed my mind. (Yeah, the Oldgirl can be a little slow.)

"Yeah," Que said. "She could be stranded, you know, like on I-285 or something."

It wasn't until she said that that it registered with me. "Stranded" meant "stranded".

(Yeah, I am slow.)

Well, I dialed the phone number then stepped into a side room where we keep our chemicals, away from the music.

I don't even remember much of what was said. The only thing I remembered is her saying "'Gub'ment name', I emailed you 45 minutes ago, where are you? I'm stranded, and I've only had raisinettes and a diet coke today, and-"

I don't remember anything else. I heard a thread of panic in her voice. I remembered sitting on the side of the road the day before looking crazy after my flat tire. Yeah, I knew what panic sounded like.

She definitely had the sound of being "stranded" in her voice.

So shoot, I understood.

But, to tell the truth...

At that moment, I was screaming in my mind... "I can't believe I'm talking to Tayari Jones on the PHONE!!!!!!!!!!"

So I must say, I um... missed much of what she said. I hung up the phone and thought for a moment. I didn't have my car with me. It was sitting in my garage (I hate driving on a spare, and besides, I carpool, which means I play a "Diva" and allow the Infamous Hen-Dog chauffeur me back and forth to work.)

I remember asking Que if she had the Forerunner at work that day. She said no. I walked over to a dancing Hen-Dog and asked him if I could borrow his car.

"Yeah, you can borrow my car, as long as you put some gas in it. Hell, you can do whatever you want to do."

*Ladylee kicking the hard eyeroll*

That wasn't going down. I didn't have any cash on me. I had no debit cards, no credit cards, nothing. I had my new driver's license and my checkbook and that was it.

"That's alright, man."

Da'Kari was standing off to the side. I think Que was lighting him up again.

"Kari, we need to go help somebody, and we need to roll in your ride."

"That's fine, as long as you put some gas in my car."

*Ladylee kicking the hard eyeroll*.

I wanted to slap him. This boy lives with me rent free and he is talking about me giving him gas money. Little Buster.

So I had a ride. And Da'Kari would be useful since he is mechanically inclined.

I called Tayari back. It turns out that she was stranded at her parents house on the "bougi" side of SWATS. Her car had been parked in her parents garage since January, and wouldn't start. I told her that I get off from work at four, and I would come over afterwards. She said that was alright.

Okay, so I hung up the phone...

And hopped and screamed all around the lab... LOL!! Folks were looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

I was yelling something like...

"HAAAAAAAA!!!! HA HA! I'm gonna meet Tayari Jones! I'm gonna meet Tayari Jones!"

Something like that.

I'm sure no one understood what the heck I was saying. All I know I was terribly terribly excited. I haven't been that excited since living in New Orleans a few years ago and getting a call about an offer for my Atlanta job. I ran around like crazy when I found out I was knew I was getting the hell out of New Orleans!

Well, after all that excitement, I was a little lightheaded. I was pretty much done for the day... My mind was shot. I had more stuff to do around the lab, some instrument maintenance and repair, but my mind was SHOT. I couldn't THINK straight. Plus I had to babysit my brother. For some reason, I thought he was going to walk the 4.5 miles back to my house. He looked at me like I was half crazy. He said he would just hang around for a couple of hours and ride home with me and Hen-Dog. So I took him over to the building adjoining ours. He has some bizarre fascination with this light-eyed sister in that building, and I took him to see her (Yeah, I'm talking about YOU, Melissa!! LOL!!)

So we left at quitting time and went home. I had kind of calmed down, because I figured by that time, her folks or someone else would have helped her. Oh well... I called back to see if she still needed help. She said yes. Her folks were out of town, so she was truly "stranded."

Okay, Ladylee gets all excited and worked up all over again.

Da'Kari went and changed clothes. I didn't. I was in my work gear: jeans, sneakers, t-shirt and scarf. Oh well, no time to dress up!

We headed out that way. Milk and Cookies was whining about being hungry, and I wanted to slap him. I managed to scavenge a few bucks from around the house for his gas. I damn sure wasn't going to feed him, though.

I called back and got directions once we reached the "bougi" side of Southside Atlanta, which happened to be 10 minutes from my house. I knew she was hungry and offered to bring her something to eat. (Ain't that a trip? I REFUSED to feed a whiny Da'Kari, LOL), but she declined.

We made it over there and we all talked for a minute. I was so damn starstruck that I just don't remember much of what was said.

I guided Da'Kari as he pulled into the garage and we commenced to rig up the jumper cables to her car. It wouldn't start, so we all ended up going in the house while Da'Kari's car ran, therefore hopefully giving her car battery some time to build up a charge.

While we were in the house, we watched her write up a post, and she showed us how to use the flicker photo program. She and Da'Kari added each other as friends on their MySpace pages. And she had a rough draft of the manuscript for her next book on the table, which almost threw me into cardiac arrest since I have been lobbying extremely HARD over on her blog for her to hand over the first 100 pages to me, no matter how jacked up it is... to which I had gotten no response. I could have easily picked it up....



But I was a good Oldgirl. I didn't steal it. Did it cross my mind? I ain't gonna say!!! Let's just say I had a clipped copy of chapter 32 of my manuscript in my backpack... A quick switcheroo could have went down. That would have been funny for her to pick up my piece of crap chapter 32 while I ran off with her stuff!!! LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!

I digress... (just the mere thought of it, though... damn, I know she LURKS on my blog... hope she doesn't read that!! LOL!)

Heck, I was so excited that I burned her a mixtape (CD) real quick on my laptop.

*Ladylee grinning hard like Miss Celie!*

I know she likes Sheila E.'s Glamorous Life, and I happen to have that on one of my 80's playlists. (She didn't get as excited as my book club sisters did.... Afterall, she is an IPOD person. A damn CD is probably a piece of ancient crap to her, LOL!)

*Ladylee's Celie smile fading*


The car still wouldn't start. Da'Kari checked the wires again, and Tayari suggested that we rev up his engine. Lo and behold, the car started.

She was very happy about that. We all were. And my brother was the hero of the moment.



Well, there had already been too much excitement in one day for me. I hung out with my favorite author and she taught us a little blogger and HTML stuff. I even caught a glimpse of her manuscript (no I didn't read and memorize ANYTHING... I just saw it... sitting there.) I was a bit wiped out and awestruck and pretty much down for the count. But she offered to take us to dinner at Up the Creek, a local seafood restaurant. Now, LadyTee and I were suppose to go there for my last birthday, but we never got around to it. So I'd never gone there, and it was a good thing also that my hungry brother would get fed. I was going to toss him from the car if I had to hear him whine while he drove us back home.

I thought she should follow us to the restaurant in her own car to make sure that her car was running right. On the way over there, my brother expressed concern that she would get mobbed at the restaurant or something. He asked her about that on the way in and she told him what I thought she would tell him: people don't really recognize writers...

Now, while at the restaurant, we shot a lot of movies with my camera... I know she was probably like "What is their problem?" LOL!! We waited awhile on our food and she was getting a bit antsy. But our food came. I had a wonderful pasta dish containing clams, lobster, fish and shrimp. Milk and Cookies had a fried seafood platter (I frowned upon this since he was trying to make weight for his upcoming army processing), and Tayari had a lovely shrimp combo!



Now, I must say, that I was happy to go out to eat with her. I was NOT expecting THAT. I wasn't going to ask her anything concerning writing or anything. I was just happy to be there.

...Until my brother commenced to asking her a bunch of questions about the writing life, like he was interviewing her or something. I didn't know he was that inquisitive about anything outside of his interests (This boy only thinks about horses, motorcycles, medieval swords, fast cars, women, and all things military).

So I started asking questions, concerning my own manuscript, concerning writing in general... and she answered all of them.

I picked her brain like a slave use to pick cotton.

I mean, I got some key answers to concepts that I have been struggling with in my manuscript for the past year. My manuscript is running over 600 pages right now, and she broke down how I should shave it down and what I needed to think about while doing it, etc... I even told her of a workshop I wanted to take and she thought it was a good idea. I must've asked a good 10 deep questions, and she answered them all without missing a beat...

Wasn't expecting that... AT ALL... She is definitely not all stuck up, that's for sure. I felt like I was sitting down talking to one of my homegirls or something...

Well, we finished eating and I was full. Da'Kari and Tayari decided to share some big berry and ice cream dessert.

I didn't want any. I needed for Da'Kari to take me to the Home Depot down the street so that I could buy a new dryer tube for my dryer. If I ate any of that, I wouldn't have made it to Home Depot...

Well when they finished off that monstrosity, they both had the "itis". And yes, I have home movies of those moments. LOL!!!

We left the restaurant and hugged goodbye. Of course, I filmed her walking away and getting into her car. (I know she was like... "Damn, What IS their problem?")

So my brother took me to Home Depot. I was feeling alright, but he was hurting BAD from all the itis, walking all slow and wide-legged and chewing on a toothpick.

Well, that is pretty much the end of My crazy week, My "Vida Loca".... and even though it was only Wednesday, and other crap happened later that week, meeting Tayari was the highlight of my week... no, the highlight of my YEAR. I had the most intriging convo about writing, learned sooooo much from her in a couple of hours...

Thanks a lot, Tayari...

Even though we came to your rescue... you helped ME so much more

...more than you will ever know:)