Operation Stealth Baby Shower

Last January, my boss, The Darth Sista T, called a meeting. We discussed regular group business and all, then she said something that shocked us all...

"I will be on medical leave for 3 months later this year. I am pregnant."

We were all shocked, then we were all happy!!

Fast forward several months...

The Darth Sista is now big and swole with child. She's breathing hard. She is waddling when she walks down the hall. And you better get out of her way when she needs to make it to the bathroom! (LOL! I won't get into how I relentlessly pick on her! LOL!)

She is due in mid-June, and she is trying to work up to the very hour before she delivers. I have been quite frightened. I told her don't go into labor in her office. (This will be alright, though. Hen-Dog is more than ready to deliver that baby. I, on the other hand, will straight up faint if we have to deliver a baby at work. THE HORROR!)

"Lady X", the youngest member of our group, called me over to her desk one day. She motions for me to lean down, and she whispers in my ear.

"Me and Hen-Dog were talking. We wanna give the Darth Sista a baby shower, but just our group only."
"Well, you know me, I'm making a blanket." I'd been bringing in the blanket on a stealth basis and consulting with Cowgirl Cre on some isshas I was having with it. "We can all put our name on that and give it to her."
"Well, we don't know the ethics rules, LadyLee."

She gave me that "look". You know, that look that said she wanted me to do something. I knew exactly what she wanted me to do.

"Well." I sighed hard. "I'll go talk to the Director, and see what she says. "

*Lady X gives smiles like Celie smiled.*

I think everyone on the floor knows by now that I ain't afraid of "The Director". Yes, she terrorizes people, and takes a bit too much pleasure in ruling with an iron fist. I think that is just a function of Management in general: make employees' lives a living hell. But she's a sista, and she's my age (heck, she might even be a few months younger than me). So, uh, I ain't scared of her.

Whatever.

So I went and talked to our beloved Director.

I explained that my group wanted to have a private party, and we just wanted to get her take on the ethics rules. I wasn't really even trying to be courteous. I just didn't want to hear no ish later.
And you know me... I took the opportunity to throw in there somewhere that I wasn't scared of her.

LOL!

"You all can do that, LadyLee! That's not a problem!"

That was cool. I got up to leave.

"I want to come to that baby shower, LadyLee!"

*Blank stare* *crickets*

I wanted to say "Never mind!", but uh, that would've caused an argument.

I shrugged.

"So I can't come to the baby shower?"

She looked a little hurt. (Clutch the pearls... Management has feelings? WOW!) I leaned back in the chair. "Well, you're the Captain of the ship. I can't tell the Captain where to go on her ship. I can't tell the Captain not to come down to the cheap deck and dance with the peasants."

A semi-politically correct answer. Hmmm.

She laughed hard, then checked her massive schedule. "Well, I have a meeting that morning. I'm just gonna bring a gift."

I shrugged again.

You gotta understand. Management is the enemy. Management is "The Dark Side". They love throwing people under the bus. It's like some type of weird game with them. That was one reason we were being all secretive about it. If not, there would've been much discussion in the lab about us giving the boss a party. Tooo many opinions floating around. Who wants to deal with that? And who wants to watch what they say when management is around? BUMMER.

Overall, we like our boss. She will throw your behind under the bus, as that is some special requirement they must have, but she seems to care about the job, the mission statement, etc. (Whereas, I don't. I just care about them getting my check right. LOL! ) .

So, the week before our party, our diligent "Lady X" typed up what each of us was to bring. There are only 7 of us in the group, so the list wasn't hard to make up. I was to bring salmon croquettes, fried chicken and biscuits. (I wanted to yell "Why can't I bring the cups and the forks and the ice?" LOL!!)

So, I got up Thursday morning at 4 a.m., and cooked a whole mess of fried chicken wings, salmon and biscuits.

Took me 3 dayum hours. (I was being lazy... only used one skillet!). That was okay, because I lazied around, and I even got a little writing done. I threw everything in my special big roaster I use for barbeque, and drove to work. I left home at 8 o' clock.

It usually takes about 5-6 minutes to get to work, but it took me about 30 minutes that morning. (ATL traffic SUCKS!).

There were several stealth cellphone calls between myself and Lady X.

Me: "She there yet?"
Lady X: "No, but we have a look-out posted."
Me: "Well, bring me a cart. Just sit it over by the elevators."

Well, that got all messed up. Lady X put the cart on the other side of the building somewhere.

So, Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia, my trusty bootleg "work-for-free" writing editor, and new member of our group, brought a cart to my car. We got everything out of my car, and headed up the elevator to the breakroom...

I'm peaking around corners, moving fast... I'm scared we're going to run into the Darth Sista...

Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia is at ease (as usual). She was acting like she was taking a stroll in the park, pushing the cart all slow (this is the way she usually acts, lol).

I didn't say anything to her. She's sporting the HUGE Pam Grier afro right now. I was afraid that she may remove a razor blade from that fro and try to cut me if I pissed her off.

Well, we got everything set up. And we all huddled in the break room and waited around for the Darth Sista to arrive.

I had my laptop and 3000 song library for the party. There was much discussion over what type of music the Darth Sista liked.

"She likes jazz, and real slow music," Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia said nonchalantly.

We all looked at her. "No she don't. That's the type of music YOU like!"

Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia laughed hard. She almost got away with that one.

There was NO way we were going to play anything Cynthia liked. She likes the type of music that plays when you just broke up with someone, and you are sitting in the back of a dark club, drunk as hell, crying and about ready to either shoot someone or slit your own throat.

NO WAY.

I cued up some Anita Baker. Can't go wrong with that, can you?

Now, we kind of told the Darth Sista we wanted to have a 9 o'clock meeting, so we could iron out some group business before she went into labor and left us looking crazy (lol).

She didn't expect a thing. She also noticed that the breastfed baby of our group wasn't on our meeting reminder emails. I know this made her apprehensive, because she thought we wanted to complain about his breastfeeding a$$. (Later, the director asked me why "Tom" wasn't at the party. I told her it was because breast milk wasn't available. LOL!)

But she came in the meeting, with her notes and trusty planner, ready to fight with us...

We yelled "Congratulations!!"

She was shocked...

And she even started crying.

(Wow... management cries? WOW!!)

Once she calmed down, we all sat down and ate. We had fried chicken, salmon, biscuits, croissants, orange juice, chips. (Shoot, all we needed was some grits, and that would've set it off. LOL).

We also had a lovely cake.

And we made quick work of that cake.

There were many nice gifts... diapers, baby girl outfits, toys, giftcards...

And of course, I made a baby blanket.

I like making baby blankets. Why? Because it's a cheap gift. Only requires about 8 dollars worth of yarn. Yeah, it takes me about 30-40 hours to finish, but it's CHEAP! And you know me, I LOVE anything hand made. (I hate buying ish in the store. Let's take it back to Celie days! LOL)

I've never made a baby blanket like this one before. I wanted to do something with a bunch of squares. My crochet mentor Cowgirl Cre frowned up at this project when I first discussed it with her ("You do like those squares, don't you girl?") .It took A LOT more time and concentration than usual, as I had to whipstitch all of those squares together (Uggh). But uh, I won't be doing that again. I will stick to my regular type of blanket, the one shown below. I made this one back in April for one of my Book Club sista's granddaughter.


Takes less time and concentration. (I must be getting LAZY. HUMPH).

All in all, it was a good time. We played MUCH Anita Baker and Earth Wind and Fire. Whatever leftovers we had, we gave to the rest of the people on our floor.

And none of us were any good for the rest of the day. We all had the "itis". I really needed a cot and a blanket. Really.

But, our boss will be gone all summer. (Thank Goodness!!! I've already made my summer plans, lol!). This means I will have a great summer, i.e., I will be working 10 hours a week!

LOL!!

But it felt good to do something for our boss. She deserved it. Compared to the rest of management, she is STELLAR.

So Darth Sista... we just wanted to you to know that we love and appreciate you. You're a decent boss (don't worry, we won't tell the rest of your management peers).

We hope you have a safe delivery, and a great summer!!