So Sweet... So Scandalous

One thing I don't worry about for my birthday:

Gifts.

Why? I don't know. I haven't worried about gifts since I was a child.

My birthday is my birthday.

It is my own personal day.

One of the best things I ever did on my birthday was on a birthday in my mid-twenties. I had the audacity to spend the entire birthday by myself... I even went to the movies. One of the movies I saw was Stargate. Can't remember the other movie I saw.

But that started... something. An enjoyment of myself.

And no one has ever heard me wail "No one got me anything."

Why?

Because it simply doesn't cross my mind.

And I'd probably lose my natural mind if it DID cross my mind.

My day. Belongs to me. It has been hijacked by others over the last 10 years. This is okay.

Still my day. I make sure to have a day around that time to myself as a gift to myself,

But when I get gifts, or even a card, it simply shocks me.

Someone thought of me?

TOTALLY unexpected.

So, with that said...

I was driving home in the pouring rain one night on the week leading up to my birthday and I got a text message. I was close to home so I didn't look at it.

Got in the house and looked at it...

It was from the LBigga, aka the LBoogie, aka the LBeezy.

"Are you at home, old girl?"

I texted back that I was.

She told me to go look on my front porch.

I reluctantly opened the front door. (I come in through the back of the house from the garage. I RARELY step outside the front door).

Wind whipped around my face. It was cold.

I looked to the left. To the right. Didn't see anything. Not even one of the locals walking the streets. (Yep. It was THAT cold.)

I came back in the house, and saw a box sitting on the black stool next to the kitchen island.

I opened the box... and it was packed with stuff...

An underwater camera...

Some candles...

The coolest card!

That is so sweet!

Leezie... that's her pet name for me... that and Leeazurus. I can see her painstakingly drawing that, biting her lip, penning that cursive "Leezie" on that envelope.

Man, it would've been a beast to get "Leeazurus" on a card. LOL!!

I really liked the birthday card.

It also contained a really nice traveling journal. A thought of the day was printed across the top of each left page. The top of each right hand page contained a space for a "Highlight of the day".

And at the bottom of that page was a scripture... always something about life's path... And you know how I feel about paths, man!

So Sweet.

And then things turned a bit scandalous.

A huge bright red feather boa was in the box.

Actually that was the first thing I saw when I opened the box (How could you miss such a thang?). I thought "Maybe she didn't have any tissue paper to cushion things with, so she snatched a boa from somewhere."

I hung it on the staircase so I could get a picture of it.


As you can see, Oscar-Tyrone was a bit interested in it. Dude got up and walked over to me REAL quick when I pulled it out the box. Looked at me half crazy when I put it on.

I caught him smacking his paw at it. He got yelled at real bad. We haven't had that problem since then.

That was scandalous. A feather boa. I've never had one of those.

If that was scandalous enough, the next item made me clutch the pearls.

There was a bottle of... gel in there.

I don't know much about this. Never used it in any of my escapades.

*LadyLee scanning the memories locked away in the back rooms of her mind*

No, I don't remember special lotions.

LadyLee has always been the spontaneous type.

More of a whip cream, Boone's farm, Sue Bee Honey type of girl...

(Wait... this is a PG-13 blog. We won't get over into that).

Nope, no emotion lotion. Something strange about flavored gels that get hot when you blow on them. I don't know who came up with that concept.

So SCANDALOUS.

I saw all this stuff... Thought there may be some type of riddle here.

I stared for awhile at the bottle of lotion... something looked very familiar....

Look at the name of it.

Sweet Heat.

I jumped up, almost knocking the table over. Oscar-Tyrone scurried out of the way.

Sweet Heat!!!!

That's the name of my first manuscript. The first one I ever completed.

Sweet Heat. 1080 pages long. The love story of Samuel "Sweet Heat" Heath and Vaughn James.

Sweet Heat.

I like all things Sweet Heat... even found a potato chip brand called "Sweet Heat" a few years ago:



Ya'll know how much I love some Sweet Heat. That there is my first baby there

LOL... Beezy, you thought of everything.

But looking at the plethora of items in the box, I thought, there had to be a riddle to be solved.

I know that emotion lotion was some ol' Stella craziness... i.e., I was supposed to go down to the DR and get with the sanky pankies (male sex workers) and handles some bizness.

(Uh, no. You needed to catch me in my dark days for that one.)

But the other stuff?

Beezy wrote in the card a reason for each item, in the fashion of "something old, something new, something borrowed, something new" style.

And yeah, the lotion was for some gettin' my groove back action.

This did not happen. Wasn't gonna happen.

First of all, LadyLee never lost her groove.

An Oldgirl stays groooovvvvyy. LOL

Although, when I sent a bellhop back to our old room to look for my camera (we'd just switched rooms, and I thought I left it there)... well, when I offered him a couple of bucks he said "Uh, there's other ways to pay for that."

Yeah right. My name is Oldgirl, NOT Stella!

Sweet scandalous gifts...

Enough to make an oldgirl smile and blush at the same time, lol...

My sista Kentucky peeked in my room one morning and said "Someone gave you a boa!?"

"Yep," I yelled. "The LBoogie hooked that up!"

LOL!

Thanks much for thinking of me LB... in your own very special, creative way:)