*HaPPy BiRThDay CHELE*

One of the Originals is celebrating a birthday today!!

***HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHELE***

Ya'll know I had to hook That Oldgirl Chele up with a LadyLee style birthday card...

And thanks to the LBeezy, I've FINALLY figured out how to send cookies through the mail! So I hooked Chele up with some oatmeal spiced apple cranberry walnut cookies and triple chocolate chip pecan cookies!!


Now, I also sent her a 26 page, 7200 word story. Don't worry, I ain't posting it here! (Ya'll know I'm longwinded, but that's TOO much right there, LOL!)

Shoot, Nikki, the Iniquitous One, read it, thoroughly critiqued it. We had a very spirited discussion over IM last night about what we both liked and didn't like about it... Ya'll know Nikki is like, the writing guru and all... I was glad to hear what she had to say. So I have a bit of work to do on it. So look out for me to work on that Nikki!!!

But, I DO have a story... One only Chele would understand... so, uh, you don't have to read it, as it is a epilogue of sorts to the story I sent her, and you will be scratching your head saying "What the heck is LadyLee talking about?"

Ya'll be alright... skip your tails down to the food!

As for now, a side story for Chele...

"The Mission"

LadyLee was on a mission.

She was on a mission to stand on the same stage where the legendary Chele sang, in a club deep in the backwoods of Alabama. The very same stage where Chele sang a perfect rendition of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces”, blowing away the red neck crowd.

LadyLee wanted to stand on that stage.

Terry, Mr. Cheap Seats himself, was in the ATL on business that week, and offered to drive her down to the place, some three hours away. They made it there a little later than LadyLee cared for, around midnight, on a Saturday no less. So, it was no suprise that the place was packed to the hilt. They couldn’t even get into the parking lot.

“Is this the place?” Terry asked. He peered out the window, squinted hard at the dimly lit area.

“Yeah, Joe-Bob’s Hoe-Down.”

“You sure you wanna go in there?”

“Yeah, man! Chele sung up in this camp! They know her. She said they were cool, real cool peeps.”

“That's a huge confederate flag draped across the front of the building, Lee. You want me to go in there with you?”

“Na’wl, I can go by myself,” LadyLee said. She slid out of the car, grabbed the large paper bag she’d brought for the ride and slammed the door. “You just do as I said. You stay out here with the car running. Don’t even put it in park. Keep it in drive, hold your foot on the brake.”

Terry frowned. “I may just get out and smoke my cigar.”

“No, Terry! It’s your car, smoke in the car, Man.”

“But what if I need to go take a piss, LadyLee?”

“No Terry! You sit on these cheap car seats of yours and hold it. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Terry sighed. He gripped the steering wheel.

LadyLee clenched the bag in her hand and ran across the gravel parking lot, past the pickup trucks and motorcyles.

LadyLee walked into the lobby.

No one was there.

“Hello?” she said.

No one answered.

She saw a table there, and a metal box with a lock on it. But there was no one around.

The music was loud as hell. People were hooping and hollering something awful. The racket was coming from behind a black velvet curtain to the left of the entrance.

LadyLee pulled back the curtain, went inside. It was dark and everyone was staring at the stage, where a woman was singing just a bit too loud and a bit too hard. Glass crunched beneath herfeet. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the floor was sticky.

LadyLee shuddered. "This is too nasty," she said under her breath.

No one paid her any attention. The people were too busy dancing hard and waving their cowboy hats in the air. LadyLee made her way through the crowd, and jumped up on the stage.

The music ceased.

LadyLee waved at the crowd. “How ya’ll doing tonight?”

No one said a word.

“Who are you, gal?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“I’m LadyLee… the Original Oldgirl!”

“Who gives a damn, ya nigra?”

“You should,” LadyLee said.

“We don’t allow no coloreds up in here,” the woman on stage said. She was standing there, staring LadyLee down, like she was ready to fight. She smoothed down her thin wispy hair. “You better get on outta here.”

“You must be Betsy,” LadyLee said. “Chele told me about you.”

Betsy eyes widened. “You know Chele?”

“Yes I do.”

“How is she?"

"She's just fine," LadyLee said. She looked out at the crowd. "She told me to tell you all 'Howdy Do!'"

"Howdy-Do!" the crowd replied in unison.

"Betsy, Chele wanted me to bring this.” LadyLee pulled a big wavy black wig out of the bag, held it high in the air.

“It’s Betsy’s special wig!” someone in the crowd yelled.

“I gave that to her as a souvenir after she sang here on this very stage,” Betsy cried. “She didn’t have to give it back.”

“Well she told me to bring it back.”

Betsy held out her hand for the wig. LadyLee snatched it out of reach.

“No, Betsy. Let me hold the microphone.”

“What?"

"Gimme the mike!"

"You gonna sang a song?”

Ladylee's face scrunched up. “Hell no. I ain’t singing. My name ain’t Chele.”

“Well what you want the mike for?”

“Don’t worry about all that,” LadyLee said. “Just give it to me.”

Betsy reluctantly held out the microphone. LadyLee snatched it up.

The crowd was so quiet that LadyLee had to squint past the spotlight’s glare to make sure someone was out there. They were there, but staring at her a bit too hard.

“I just have one thing to say….

"What's that?" someone in the crowd yelled

LadyLee took a deep breath and screamed into the microphone:

"Happy Birthday Chele!!!"

Betsy gasped. "It's her birthday?"

"Sure is!"

The crowd hooped and hollered. Betsy jumped up and down. The band started playing music again. Betsy grabbed another microphone and sang Chele's favorite Patsy Cline song "I Fall to Pieces".

LadyLee snuck off stage, still gripping the microphone, wig and paper bag in her hands. No one noticed. They were caught up in their relvery. When she got near the velvet curtain that separated the lobby from the club, LadyLee hit the mike with her hand, causing a squeak so loud that the whole crowd turned her way.

"I'm outta here!" LadyLee yelled into the mike.

"Tell Chele we said hello! And give me my wig, gal!" Betsy yelled. "Don't forget to leave my wig!"

"NO!" LadyLee screamed.

"What?" Betsy said. She frowned hard.

"I said hayle no!" LadyLee said. She reached down, pulled something out of the paper bag. "I have one more thing to say, though."

"You better say it, leave my wig, and then get the hell outta here, gal" Betsy growled.

LadyLee took a deep breath, raised her hand in the Celie crooked two fanger point and hollered:

"Obama/Biden '08!!"

LadyLee hurled a stack of Obama Biden '08 church fans high in the air over the crowd.

Then she ran like hell, snatching the velvet curtain down as she went.

"Get that Nigra!!!!!" Betsy yelled.

There was a loud ruckus, tables and chairs falling over, glass breaking, a bunch of cursing and yelling. LadyLee grabbed the money box from the table in the lobby and ran out the front door. She was running so hard that she ran right into a row of motorcycles, knocking them all over.

"Terry!!!!!! Open the car door, open the car door, Man!!!" LadyLee yelled as she weaved her way through the gravel parking lot.

He pushed the door open. LadyLee dove in. Terry took off, tires screeching and smoking as they tore off down the road.

LadyLee sat up. Terry noticed the awful wig in her hand.

"What in the world is that, LadyLee?"

"Betsy's wig!"

"I'm not even going to ask," Terry said.

"Chele said it would get me in the club. Belong to some chick up in there name Betsy."

"And you didn't give it back!?"

"Hell no! Are you crazy!? Chele told me to bring it back, not to give it back. Betsy can't have it back. It's Chele's special role play wig, and she wants it back as soon as possible."

*Terry looks at LadyLee with raised eyebrows*

"Ya'll are some crazy females!" he said. "Crazy indeed!"

LOL!!!! Yeah, uh.... that should make you LAUGH right there, Chele!!

Really though.

So with that... Let's get our virtual eat-on...

It's Friday! That means we're having a fish fry.

"Uncle Cre, pull the witch kettle out and fry this birthday girl right here some fish!!!!"




Yeah, that's good fish right there. Fried outside in hot grease like that?

Shoot, that's GOOD fish.

Got some snow crabs for you too!!!

And since you likes the fine wines, Chele, We DO have plenty of Australian Barossa Grenache, i.e., Bee-yotch on Ice..
Bitch on ice - so nice, so nice...

(You know, I should've sent you a bottle Chele!)

Yeaaaaah!!!

T'ain't no party like an Oldgirl party because an Oldgirl Party, don't... stop!!!

Happy Birthday, Chele! Make it a good one!

(Uh, with that black wig... I know you will.)

Can we all just get along??

All this talk about washed up terrorists, Joe the Plumber, the fragile economy, and what not...

It's dragging me down!!

Can we all just get along?

Instead of all this debating, can the candidates get their dance on?!

LOL!! Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. I'll tune in for that...

But as for now? I am just ready for this election to be OVER. November 4th can't get here fast enough.

Ya'll have a good evening!

Monday Ramblings: "Holler at your Girl!"

Man, how ya'll gonna let me get away with posting only one time last week?

What is up with that?

Holler at Your Girl, why don't cha.

It's cool. I've been wanting to post. Been needing to post. I even have several posts in draft.

But I notice something when I am very tired or upset. My ish get too serious, too frickin' thought provoking.

Be revealing too much of myself. Be talking to myself a little too much.

And that ain't good.

So I've chosen to wait on something more...

SMURFY.

Because you know how we roll over here in the House of LadyLee: We keeps it Smurfy.

Anyway, I must've put in 110-120 hours at work over the past 2 weeks.

I told my doctor this on a recent appointment. She gave me the evil eye. Told me that my health has been good for the past few months (I have an autoimmune disease), and that she is glad she hasn't had to call me in a while, since all my blood work been coming back looking good, but she could tell that I was a bit tired and stressed.

I guess my sitting askew in the examination room chair with my head laid up against the wall (I refuse to lay on the medical table), gave that away.

LOL.

She scolded me. I nodded as usual, blinked like a bat in the headlights. She squeezed my joints, each and every one, and pronounced me all good (for now). We're cutting down on one of my meds, and I have to take it easy. I messed around and left the house this thursday without taking my medicine and I felt like I was in some wierd clip of the Matrix.

(Man I was glad to get home THAT night.)

I'm still slightly anemic, even though I take a gazillion iron pills a day. That's cool. I can only do so much.

Anyway, let's see... the money that I made from the all the overtime will pay off my birthday cruise and set me straight on my writing classes until June 2009.

All this probably came from me sitting in front of the TV watching this financial fiasco unfold on the news channel, then running around the house yelling "The Lord is my provider, I am sufficiently supplied all day, er'day 24-7, and I don't receive this crap they talking about on that their TV!!!!! I'm gonna have more money coming in, I'ma pay my bills, and I'ma live a happy life in Jesus name! HOLLER at your GIRL!!"

Sorry ya'll, my convos, prayers, and wailings to God are a bit outside of the box, unorthodox to say the very least. That Holler at your girl = my way of saying "Hear me, answer me, hear my cry!" I think I even followed that up with a hard Rockette kick... or two. All I know, the cats scrambled out of my way... REAL FAST.

(I tell you, you figure out where and Who your faith is in when there's a bunch of mess going down. Really though. And I bet my sister Kentucky was sitting upstairs whispering quietly to herself... "What the world is wrong with Lisa?")

With that said, I am enjoying a nice 3.5 day weekend. I left early from work on Friday, because I had too many hours. I was walking around snapping at my boss about the horrific thoughts of working for free and quipping "Don't worry... I GET'S my TIME" (I've been known to calculate my hours in my head and simply... walk off). She scrambled to get some papers signed to make my hours "legal". I went home, took a 4 hour nap, and she called me, updating me on some calculation I flubbed. I hung up with her and went back to sleep.

Then worked half a day on Saturday.

Hard sigh.

So make that a 3 day weekend. Something like that. I think with that 4 hours of pay I will go purchase some clothes. The Oldgirl needs some new gear.

Yeah!!!!

I have spent the past couple of days watching football and just RELAXING.

That Original Oldgirl Chele, one who I shamelessly jock, has a birthday coming up on Friday. I've been spending my time working on her birthday card, and I am about to go bake her a tin (maybe two. I can't deal with all those sweets sitting around the crib) of chocolate pecan and oatmeal raisin walnut cookies.

I've also been working on a story for the occasion of said Oldgirl's birthday. My goal is to write a 500 word story for peeps birthday.

This story, titled "I Fall to Pieces" has 4 chapters, and is 7,269 words long.

*Chele standing in her front yard, holding the stack of pages in her hand and frowning REAL hard. She glances from side to side, wondering if she is on Candid Camera or Punk'd*

And if I must say, it is one of the best doggone stories I've ever concocted. Take some of the fluff you've enjoyed here and push it to that other level, and you have this story.

Almost made me jump up after I did my final edits, smash the laptop on the floor, raise balled fists high in the air and yell

BOOOOYAH!!!!

(Couldn't do that. Need to print it out. And can't bust up the laptop, either, as another laptop is not in the budget right now).

It is too long to post. And it is private, about her and her Boo, for her eyes only. I consider it her personal property. If she let me post a piece of it, then I might do that.

I said might.

She wrote a post the other day about taking a vacation and skipping off to some old plantation turned B&B with her man and uh, twerking some things out. Man, I felt the BIG Celie smile permeating all through that post.

I ain't mad at you Chele. Do YOUR thing, Gal!

LOL!

Now, I am sure that the story can be cut down by some 95% to fit my 500 word maximum word count.

But why would I do that?

'Tis that Oldgirl Chele's birthday!!! 'Tis a special, most glorious day, I say!!!

If I could bust out a 500 page epic novel for her, ya'll know I would.

**LadyLee jumping up from sofa and singing "I jock! I jock! I jock and I won't stop! Yooowayy!!**

So I will leave it as is. It's so thick that it would be a travesty to fold it. I've been making it more detailed, but I am mailing it off tomorrow. Time to leave it alone. I'm going to go stand down in line at the 24 hour black people post office and mail it. (Ya'll have read my renderings of the Crown Road post office in Hapeville... of how negroes get crunk and be ready to fight when the lines are too long! Ugh!)

I hope you like it, Chele. I really do. You might be so uh, glowing, that you may toss the papers up in the air and let them fall all about you... while you laugh hysterically.

So, as for the rest of my weekend, I'm going to sit here and finish up the card and watch TV. I have another couple of stories that I am working on that I may peruse. One of them I developed in my fall writing class. It is entitled "Jawbreaker". It is 27 pages long and needs some editing. Another is a short offshoot of that story about a minor character that the class was enamored with, titled "She Gone". It's only 6 pages long, but needs some consideration.

So, uh... Original Oldgirl Critique Team, and the IOCT Conglomerate (yo, that's a private critique team dear to my heart. You shorties don't need to know what that's all about, lol).

Ya'll got some, uh, material coming your way, if you want it.

Only if you want it, that is.

Holler at your GIRL!!

I'm going to sit here and enjoy the rest of this holiday, the beloved day that Columbus "discovered" the Americas.

If it wasn't a shame, I would set up a mock up of one of his ships in my front yard and paint the words Happy Columbus Day across the front.

LOL!!!

Ya'll have a Happy Monday... And don't work too hard!!! LOL

A New Principle

You may ask...

"Where is the Oldgirl?"

The answer will be...

"She is busy."

(Or maybe you don't care, and it is something that I ask my ownself).

Man, I'm so busy that it's a...

It's a... crying shame.

Let's give you the scenario: I worked from 12 noon to 11 p.m. on SATURDAY.

Humph. Let's just say I was pissed. BOY, I was mad. I was HOT behind that. Ready to fight.

So that let's you know how busy I be.

And leaving my job at 11 p.m. on a SATURDAY night is no joke. That is because my job is located on the corner of what was once a world famous Male prostitute hustling strip.

And all them jokers were out there on Saturday night. ALL OF THEM. And they were crunk, and making that money, honey!

I'm too innocent to speak of the things I saw and heard Saturday night, lol... And with me being attitudinal, some of them brothas got the *gas face*. LOL

But my weekend ended on a great note. I got a chance to hang out with a new blogger, The Cyncere Sister.

Now, she is one of my book club sistas who I don't see much. I like her though. She cracks me up. She's the type of person you can run up on in a time of need.

"What's wrong, LadyLee??"

"Cyncere sister, they took my money!"

"Who took your money, girl?!"

"Them people. Them bad people."

"That ain't right, Oldgirl. Come on, LET'S GO GET YOUR MONEY!"

We'd go to whoever took my money, and she'd talk a WHOLE lot of trash to them suckers, to the point where they would be like...

"Good Lawd, somebody give back the money so she can stop tripping and get the hell up outta here!!"

She won't fight you, but she will talk PLENTY trash, for principle's sake, you see.

It's all about principle.

(Yeah, ya'll know folks like that. That's what you call "good peoples".)

Well, she'd been yanking on my shirt sleeve for a minute concerning some crochet lessons. I told her to holler whenever she was ready. She's been hollering HARD over email, so we set up a time.

Well, she came over on Sunday (with her 13 year old daughter "Baby Cyncere" in tow). I taught both of them the basic stitches and even showed her how to write up a basic pattern.

Last I heard, heck, she'd bought some yarn, and is working up a scarf from a pattern in one of her books...

YOU GO CYNCERE SISTER!!! YOU GO GIRL!

So, that made me smile. Made my weekend all the better, no matter how jacked up it started out.

It also helped me to understand to be appreciative of the small quiet times, no matter how hectic my world is at the time. There are times when my mind is buzzing hard, but that 4 hours spent crocheting and teaching was very dear to me.

So thanks Cyncere Sister. In the midst of it all, you taught this Oldgirl a thang or two... a new principle, I should say, to get me through.

Hope all is going well with you all... and I will try to get back up to speed soon:)

Lost and Found, Part II

So...

I was cruising down I-20, heading home from work after picking up a prescription at the White people's Kroger, when my cell phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Lesia!"

"Yeah, who is this?" I wait for a reply. Nobody calls me that. My fam calls me "Lee" or "Lisa". Hell, some folks even call me "LadyLee". Most throw an "A" on "lesia" and call me that, since that is my gub'ment name.

"Lesia."

"Yeah, wassup?" I couldn't place the voice. Didn't sound like any of the jokers I'd given my number to in the past.

"This Milton."

I think for what feels like forever, even though it's a few seconds.

Then the name registers. I'm on the highway, but I slow down.

It was my Father.

Hmmm...

I'm not sure how I was suppose to react. It wasn't like I'd been looking for him for years. I live downtown, and he lives in East Lake, which is about 10 minutes from my spot. I pass through his neighborhood all the time as a back street way home from my favorite Farmer's Market.

This past summer, I looked up the address on MapQuest. Drove past his house a few times, saying to myself, if he was outside, I would slow down and say something. But he wasn't. And I am NOT knocking on anyone's door unannounced. I don't get down like that.

But I must credit my baby blog sista, That Original Oldgirl The LBeezy, for getting my feet unstuck, and getting me to do something. We were reading a piece of Inspirational fiction together last spring , Tia McCollors' The Truth about Love, and there was a woman in the book who found out information about her father. She went down to his place of business to meet him and he just outright rejected her.

This bothered me, and it was something that LBeezy and I discussed. She listened as I verbalized my thoughts about it and how it reminded me of myself a bit. I think I've called my father twice in the last 5 years or so, just to say hello, and he was very aloof. I think he was just shocked or something and didn't know what to say. I pretty much took it as a cue not to bother him.

Anyway, The LBeezy made a suggestion: I should send him a note in the mail with my phone numbers, and if he wants to call and meet, then that would be that.

I thought it was an excellent idea and decided to do it. She even gave me a deadline for the task, which was August 6th, I believe.

So, I did that and he called yesterday. What is this, almost 2 months later. This doesn't surprise me. I hear that we are a lot alike. I myself woulda waited and thought on the matter.

Now, I said I was estranged from my Father. I don't know if "estranged" is a good word. I just don't know him. And my Mama (who I am estranged from), has said so many awful things about him when I was growing up that, heck, I thought I would do myself good just to stay away from the man.

But, later on, in my 20's, my Auntie Joyce and I talked about it, and she pretty much let me know that most of the stuff said was simply not true. I was completely unnerved by one of my Mama's ex-boyfriends who would look at me as if he was about to wail or something. I mean, this dude would be happy to see me (very strange). He told me one day, "You was almost mine, you were suppose to be mine, blah, blah, blah!!" This unnerved me, because it made me think that Milton might not even be my father. My Aunt, who seems to know EVERYTHING (lol), cleared this up. She said that it was true, that this dude did wish that I was his, but Milton was indeed my father. We've discussed over the years my thoughts on it all.

So I made a goal to talk to Milton by the time I turned 30.

Well, I am 38 now. Uh, age 30 has long since past.

I asked my Aunt for his information some 5 years ago, and she gave it to me. She was fully supportive of me contacting him, and thought there wouldn't be any problem.

I must admit all that my Mother has said about him has continued to occupy my thoughts, and it has taken much to undo such. I mean, I don't want anything from the man. No issues of grilling him about why he wasn't there. None of that. I wrote all of that in the note I sent.

Darius wrote on his personal blog this week about "To do" lists, namely things on the "to do" list of life. It is on my list to sit down and talk to my father. Period. Have dinner and convo, and go on about my business. I'm grown now, my Mama ain't in the mix to muck things up (as usual), and that's that.

So, like I said, he called. I haven't had a face-to-face talk with him since I was 10 years old, and I attended his parents funerals (was forced to do it by my Mother, really), and he was upset that I didn't come by the house. I think after that, I let it go.

But he called, and I think we talked for about 10 minutes. This was odd to me because I haven't talked to him for 10 minutes total during my whole lifetime. He asked me how I'd been, if I had a job, if I was married and had a family, and how my Mama was doing.

He asked when I was coming over. I said he would have to let me know when a good time was. He said, "Hell, whenever, in the middle of the night, I don't care. I just want to see you before I croak!"

I told him that my schedule didn't permit me stopping by anytime soon, as work is very time-consuming for the next couple of weeks. So I would have to let him know.

He asked why I hadn't been over in all these years. I said that I was simply afraid. I don't know him, and have heard too strange stuff about him. So that's all it is. He said he understood. (Yeah, he is familiar with my Mother's tactics).

Then he said something that was odd. "You know I love you, don't you? Always have."

I was like, "Well, thank you very much."

He was a bit hurt by that. Asked why I didn't feel the same way. I simply said I don't know him. I'm just grown now, out from under my mother's influence, and wanted to see and talk to him.

I mean, what are you supposed to say to such?

I rarely tell people that I love them. It has to be forced and yanked out of me. And it unnerves me something terrible to hear people tell me that they love me. Just a bit of my quirky personality. I wasn't raised hearing such things. But for me love is action. Plain and simple. If I have love for you, my actions tell you this. You can tell me this, or I can tell you such all day long, but for me action speaks louder than those three words. And I suppose it's best when love and action go hand in hand.

So for him to say that, well... I just told him how I felt about all that, and that was that.

What was particularly funny was that he was insisting that I write his number down. I had to repeatedly tell him that when he called, his number showed up on my cell, and I could save it later. I still had to hear "I'll wait while you get a pen, girl!"

LOL!

One thing I recognized in 10 minutes time, which I found totally BIZARRE is that we have the same sense of humor. I mean, he would say stuff that I myself would say... that is all very very strange to me.

So I am due for a visit. My best friend LadyTee and I had a long talk about it all, and she yelled "I wanna go with you."

Just her way of saying "Girl, you can't handle this. I am going with you."

So, once work has calmed down (Ya'll who know me know the national crises bullish I'm currently working with), I will go over there. Definitely some time this month.

I have absolutely no expectations. I am grown now. All the lies (which he conincidently talked about) are pretty much out of my head (I suppose). Just want to see him, since he is a part of my DNA.

I just want to sit down and visit with him. I may or may not come back around, according to how that goes.

We will see.