Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The GOOD NURSE and the 'Shed (Part I)

You know, I always wonder about folks who pull up my blog on a regular basis and read my random thoughts. Yeah, yeah, my friends and coworkers and my Auntie Joyce (Hey AuntieJ) read because they know me…

My book club sistas, who know me to be notoriously quiet, read it. Let's just say that they aren't fooled by my quiet facade anymore, LOL.

But what about people who don’t blog, but happen upon my blog by chance or by way of another blog?

I always wanted to meet someone who took time to read my ramblings…

So when I got a blurb in my comment section a few weeks ago…

"Hey LL, I am a good friend of Tayari aka celie..anyhoo, i absolutely love your blog...by the way..i live here in Atl, we must meet over coffee and a good slice of poundcake... Nurse Cook."

I was like… Hmmmmmm.

Lo and Behold, a resident of LURK CITY speaketh!!
...I didn’t respond to the comment. Thought about it, but didn’t respond.

Plus, I don't really drink coffee.

So Tayari and I happened to be emailing back and forth one morning and I told her that her girl Nurse Cook wanted to meet up for coffee. I made one particular statement to Tayari in particular:

"I needed to talk to you and make sure she ain't special..."

Meaning... she ain’t crazy or anything, is she?

I wanted to know if The Good Nurse was psychotic, or an axe-murderer or something like that. I needed to know if I needed to bring my glock or have my shank ready for a bit of... Shanktification.

And I don't like dealing with stuck-up or overly literary folks... You know, Tayari fools with that literary crowd. I'm not on that level. I mean, I just ain't there yet, and probably won't get there. I ain't smart enough to be around literary types. And I would probably have to put the smack down on a stuck-up broad.

Tayari responded: "She's actually a friend of mine from "real life". She's really really cool. You will be happy to know her."

Okay. Cool. That was good enough for me. And Tayari knows that if she was lying, there would be some payback...

...I would heckle her at her next book signing and reading.

So I tell Tayari to tell her homie to hit me up on my Oldgirl email account. We could hook up.

Well, The Good Nurse and I played tag on email, and tried to get together for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t pan out. You see, we are some Divas (although I am 1% Diva), with some Diva-like schedules, and it was sort of like double-dutch jumproping.

...We had to jump in where we could get in.

Well, I told her that we would get up by the end of the year, LOL.

I even spoke with her briefly on the phone once. The GOOD NURSE is a bit off the chain... I couldn't really picture her and Tayari hanging out. The Good Nurse seem like the type that will have you 'bout locked up somewhere, LOL!!

But after emailing back and forth for a couple of weeks, we decided to hook up last Friday…

Now, my plan was to drive in to work and work the 6:00 am-2:30 pm schedule. Jet at 2:30 pm, go home, change out of the head scarf, sneakers, and sweats, and then meet up with The Good Nurse.

But it didn’t go down like that.

Problem: I am as spoiled as milk left out in the summer heat for a few days. Hen-Dog chauffeurs me to work each and everyday. I balked at driving in to work, especially since I went to sleep at 2 a.m. the night before. So I laid in bed until Hen called with my daily wake up call (Wake up, Little Girl!), and I decided to ride with him. I would have to figure out how to get home and change later on. My decent clothes were laid out at home, and I could just get dropped back off and change and it’s all good.

Of course it didn’t work out like that.

First of all, it looks like everybody and their mama took off from work due to the long 3 day weekend, Mardi Gras, etc. I think there were only three people from my group at work on Friday. The work load had kicked up (as it usually does on Fridays. Talk about ass backwards!) So we worked like some Hebrew slaves back in the labs that day. It didn’t help that I’d drank some caffeine laced steamed milk drink that morning, and I wasn’t feeling all that great.

And then, my baby brother Milk and Cookies was in town on military leave for the weekend, and he wanted to see me. He drove down to my job, so I had to babysit him and do my work at the same time... So I was a bit perplexed and exhausted, to say the least (My bro can be as clingy as a two year old at times). I was not in the mood to be going home and changing. If I went home, I was gonna crawl in the bed and take a PHAT nap. I was going to have to go as I was.

(Note to self: Simply bring a change of clothes to work.)

Milk and Cookies asked what I was doing later on.

“I’m hanging out with someone who reads my blog, one of Tayari’s homegirls.”
“Okay,” he said. "Where ya'll going?"

"Some place called The Watershed."
"Where is that at?" he asked.
"Down off of Ponce somewhere," I responded. “You can go with me if you like. We are having dinner, and it’s on me.”


Milk and Cookies smiled. His 32 teeth sparkled. His diamond earrings twinkled in the afternoon sunlight. There was even a twinkle in his eye.

Yeah, Milk and Cookies is always hungry. He wanted something to eat. And he gets especially giddy if it is free food, you know. I had 3 debit cards and 7 credit cards on me. I think I had enough money to feed the hungry boy, myself, and the Good Nurse.

I think...

And he was my bootleg ride home. Ya'll know how much I LOVE being chauffeured around!

Really though.

Anyway, I am PISSED at The Good Nurse right about now. Now, I asked her a couple of weeks ago where she would like to eat. (I ditched that whole sitting down for a cup of coffee idea. I ain't a big fan of coffee!) Anything was fine with me, as long as I didn’t have to fool with no craziness like some chittlins and pig feets, etc.

She suggested The Watershed. But you know, she was acting like she wasn’t all that sure about it. Like she didn’t know a lot of restaurants in town, but she was thinking about the Watershed. And the way she was saying it was with a low level of enthusiasm, like ...

“Oh, let’s go to McDonalds.”

So I went and looked up The Watershed on the net, and found the website. I perused the food and the menus. Thought to myself after seeing the food so lovingly arranged on the plates:

“What the hell?? This is some ‘foo-foo’ sh**!”

She and Tayari were running partners back up in Illinois somewhere, and had been running around in the cornfields up there, and I assumed that they didn’t know what good food was.

Whatever. This was a fan of my blog. Hey, wherever she wanted to go, we could go… even if it was on the "foo-foo" tip!

What she SHOULD have been saying was…

“Check it out, LadyLee... Listen up: We going to the %$#@%@ 'SHED, and that's that!!!!! You hear me?"

Uh, why do I say that?

Because... it was the BEST southern comfort food I’ve EVER had. EVER.

To be continued…



1 comment:

  1. I have been missing out on my readings. Now I have to catch up. That menu makes me hungry...

    ReplyDelete

Slap the *crickets* out the way, kindly step up to the mike, and SAY something!!