Monday...

Good Monday Morning...

On my way to the dentist this morning. I wonder how that's going to go? I will be getting a few fillings. They are surface cavities, so hopefully I don't need novocaine. I told my boss "If they deaden my head, I will not be coming to work!" She looked perplexed at the head deadening statement, but I think she knew what I meant.

Alas, I don't want to meditate on that now. The gorgeousness of Dr. Watson better keep me calm. LOL.

Weekend. I had a great weekend. Nothing like a 3 day weekend, man.

Really though.

LadyTee's birthday! Friday was exciting, as it was LadyTee's 44th birthday. We try to spend our birthdays together, since we don't talk much or hang out that much. Yes ma'am, it is not like the old days when we were 10 and didn't have busy lives. The last couple of years it hasn't worked out that well because I have been skipping out to some warm country near the equator for my birthday. (This year I bought a car, so no traveling).

Here's her birthday card!

We usually do a movie, lunch, and some shopping for our birthdays. This year for my birthday in February we went to see Albert Nobbs and we ate at Chow Baby. For LadyTee's birthday, we went to see Hunger Games.

Normally I wouldn't go see some young adult film. I like the themes of Young Adult fiction, and I have written one YA story, which I like a lot. But the teenage angst is a bit unnerving from an adults point of view.

But I learned about this movie a month ago from Play Mama, who was reading the book. She told me what it was about, and I remember saying "That doesn't sound interesting at all." She urged me to go pull a sample from my kindle, and I bought the trilogy.

I LOVED the book. I read for style moreso than entertainment, and this book was superbly written. It was close to 400 pages, and I read the bulk of it in one day. The movie was good, and I think someone who hasn't read the book would really enjoy it (LadyTee really like it. I can tell based on how much she talks during the movie, lol). But the book was MUCH more detailed. MUCH.

And the movie had that "Cops" show feel to it, where the cameraman is running and not still, running with the action. This was a bit disturbing since we were sitting close to screen. You need to sit waaaay back from that type of thing.

We went to see it in the hood to avoid the crowds. This was a good idea, as the theartre for the first show was 1/3rd full. There were 4 shows at the ATL Movie theater in Camp Creek. Other theaters had 24-40 shows per day. Hmm... Thank goodness for the hood!

I liked that there were some black folks in it... The tributes from district 11, Rue and Thresh.

Now, they were from the agricultural district, where they picked crops... hmmm, was this a throwback to slavery days? This looked to be the black district, with a heavy sprinkle of white folks.

Why couldn't they be from the lumber, electronics, or seafood District?? Hunh??

Al Sharpton, are you gonna protest this? (I am surprised this didn't come up with the movie critics.)
I was just glad to see some diversity. You don't see that much with the super popular teen flicks.

And to top it off, they were killed in the Hunger games. Sigh. But they played their parts.

The movie was a little violent. I am surprised that the rating was PG-13. Good movie, though! I would've stood in line at midnight to go see it if I was a teen. (Play Mama hit up the midnight show with her kids. She got home at 3 in the morning, just a texting my sleep behind. LOL)

We had a late lunch at KiKu Hibachi grill. There was much fire going on.
And the food was quite good. One of my meat cheat days if I wanted it. And it was all good, even though I had an unsual case of the itis afterwards. I had a Women of Color writing group that evening, but an Oldgirl came home and went STRAIGHT to sleep.

Ugh!

Anyway, it was a good time. We spent some 2 hours in the restuarant, talking about things, about life, which was good since we don't talk all that often.

No major shopping this time. We went to the Wal-Mart, which is my favorite store! I only spent 10 buck in there, which is STrANGE!

Saturday and Sunday were errand days for me. I stocked up on my vegetables for the week. Organic produce prices are dropping, which means a drop in my grocery bill, which is a GREAT thing.

I did a good bit of reading this weekend. I'm trying to finish up the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy. I didn't get any writing done. Taking a small break until April, and I will get crunk again. Well, that's not exactly the truth. I am working on a short story anthology as a surprise for someone's birthday, so I am editing that down, and I do have two more short stories to finish up before the week is up. I still can't believe that by the end of the first quarter of this year, I will have finished the second half of a novel AND written several short stories. That is highly productive for me. Highly.

No telling what the rest of the year will bring.

I can't wait to see.

Song of the week. For some strange reason, i've been listening to Chico Debarge. Not sure what that's about. Not going to post his songs. But as usual, I have been stuck on Jill Scott. There's this one song that has caught my attention.




I'm interested in that song because it makes me want to pick up a story I was working on some 6 years ago that was a bit difficult to write. If you read my Sweet Heat Manuscript, there was a situation between Samuel and Maria, the married chick he worked with at the computer store. That was a heck of a "situation". I may have only spent a page talking about it, but the short story, which should be no more that about 1500 words... is from that married chick's point of view. I had been wondering why she was behaving the way she was, when she had a seemingly perfect husband at home. Hmm.

I might be able to finish that story now. I come across remnants of it written on a raggedy scrap piece of paper whenever I am cleaning off my bookshelf. I think I may be able to finish it now.

Songs help me a lot. If I can transfer the emotion out of a song onto paper, then I am good. All good.

So that's the gist of my weekend.

Gotta go holler at this dentist, see what he's talking about.

I hope he knows that this is gonna be a good week on purpose... and he better not have my grill all achy...

Better not!

You have a good week. On purpose!