Jacks, Part II

My post a couple of days ago about the game of jacks garnered a lot of attention at work.

So much attention that one of my bootleg manuscript editors Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia brought in a set of jacks that her daughter had gotten as a party favor at a birthday party...

That sure was nice of Ol' Mean Ass Cynthia...

As you can imagine, this caused a slight frenzy amongst the female chemists...

Can you imagine grown women clearing out a space on the floor and playing jacks?

I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself...

I even got a few pictures of my other bootleg manuscript editor, Sunshine, working it out...





Damn Sunshine... you're on the floor in your lab coat... I'm so glad management didn't walk by. We would've scattered like cockroaches and left your butt sitting there...

Looking like a dang fool...

But like I said, you were working out, oldgirl!

She did the darn thing! Picking up six big jacks at a time!

I tried to play, but sorry, I need the old time jacks, those little metal ones. These jacks were twice the size of the jacks from the 70's and 80's. And I swear, the ball here was twice the size of a normal ball...

And it amazed me that a couple of ladies didn't even know about the game of Jacks. Groove, up in Nova Scotia, didn't know about jacks. She said in my comment section that she'd seen them on TV, but never played. (Yikes... the horror!) Maybe it was just an USA game, I don't know.

But I talked to one of my manuscript critiquers and coworkers, Melissa. She had never heard of jacks. And she's from Alabama...

Damn. I went off on her... Wasn't her fault... I just got pissed, that's all...

Then another co-worker, Yo-Yo, said she use to use rocks instead of jacks in her games.

Damn. Ain't nobody that poor. That sound like some old craziness left over from slavery...

But anyway... we are on a quest for some REAL jacks... the little metal ones...

Not that ol' plastic ish... You've got to be kidding me!

And we're gonna sit around and teach Melissa how to play...

Groove, wish you were here, 'cause we'd hook you up too, homegirl!!!

Really though...

Rest in Peace, Jeremy Girard Dorsey a.k.a. "Jay" a.k.a. "Jason" a.k.a. "Lil' Head".. September 1996- November 29, 2005

I fell asleep on the sofa last night. I'd been working on Chapter 24 of my manuscript (after being threatened by one of my bootleg editors), watching Monday night football, and listening to the sounds of Miki Howard and Cherelle playing softly on my laptop computer...

I don't even remember going to sleep.

I woke up around 5:13 a.m., and felt like I had to go to the bathroom...

I tried to go in the bathroom from the hallway door but couldn't open it. I forgot that Jeremy, my 9-year-old orange tomcat, had taken to laying in the middle of the bathroom floor for the past couple of days.

"Jeremy, would you move?" I said with a sigh.

He usually growls loudly as a protest, but he usually gets up and moves out of the way.

This time, he didn't move.

I walked into my master bedroom to enter my bathroom through the spacesaver door that leads from the bedroom to the bathroom...

I turned on the light, but I didn't go in. Jeremy was laid out on the floor. He's about 2 and 1/2 feet long, so he was completely stretched out, mouth open with a yellow liquid coming out.

"Jeremy?" I called. I leaned down and looked at him.

No response. He wasn't moving.

"Jeremy, get up!" I yelled. "Please get up, boy!"

He didn't move.

I realized that he had died.

I looked at him and all around me for a few minutes not realizing what to do.

I went upstairs to my sister Kay's bedroom and lightly knocked on her door.

"Kay, Jeremy died sometime last night," I said quietly.

And then came the tears. "At least he's not suffering anymore, Lisa," she consoled.

It hurt so bad. She hugged me and told me that it was going to be alright.

"Do me a favor," I said. "Call Auntie for me." My Auntie has roughly nine cats, and has had to bury some over the years. (She'd just buried a brown tabby, Tigee, on Saturday-- Sorry for your loss, Auntie). I have never had to clean up a deceased animal, and I knew she would know what to do.

I walked back downstairs while Kay called Auntie. Kay gave me her cell phone. Auntie told me to find a box, line it with a towel, and put him in there. Then tape up the box and bury it in the backyard. I nodded and said "okay" through my tears, and gave the phone back to Kay.

I'd recently moved, so we had a few boxes out in the garage. I got one, line it with a big plastic bag, and then Kay and I picked Jeremy up and put him in the box. We wrapped him in the towels, and placed the box in a plastic bag. I put the box in the garage.

I think I will try to bury him before the weekend.

Jeremy had been sick for awhile. I took him to the vet back in September. Blood tests and X-rays showed that, although he was overweight (Jeremy weighed a hefty 21 pounds), he was pretty healthy (no diabetes, etc.). They kept in a hospital for a few days. Since they couldn't find anything wrong with him, I decided to bring him home so if he did die, he would die at home.

Once we moved, he seem alright for the month of October and part of November. He was running around the house, playing and fighting as usual with my other cat, Oscar Tyrone. I figured since he could run up and down the steps with ease, he must've been alright.

But he wasn't...

Approximately two to three weeks ago, he became lethargic and stopped eating. He would only sleep, and began vomiting a little. Then he stopped grooming himself, and began to smell a little. So I would dilute a little alcohol with water every few days and rub him down to freshen him up.

I didn't think Jeremy would be around much longer. He wasn't his usual grumpy self. He was just very very quiet.

On Sunday, he started acting real strange... Doing weird stuff like laying on the floor in the middle of the bathroom, or just sitting in a corner with his face to the wall. I knew he hadn't eaten much all week, but for some reason he would eat a little chopped up Thanksgiving turkey or macaroni and cheese. But he wouldn't eat anything on Monday morning. As a matter of fact, I hadn't seen him since then.

I didn't see him again until this morning... laid out on the bathroom floor.

So this post is a farewell to my beloved Jeremy Girard Dorsey, a.k.a. "Jay", a.k.a., "Jason", a.k.a. "Lil' Head"...

I had him for 9 years, every since I was in graduate school, living in Grant Park. I got him from my lil' brother Da'Kari, who was nine years old at the time. He thought that Jeremy could help with a mice problem I was having. Jeremy has lived all over Atlanta with me, and has even lived with me in New Orleans for a couple of years...

Jeremy is even the reason I stopped smoking weed. (Thank goodness for that!)

I've always looked at Jeremy and said "Damn boy... if you could talk, you would have a WHOLE lot of stories to tell about Oldgirl Ladylee :)"

So rest in peace "Lil' Head"! I will always remember you!

Ladylee

Remembering Days of Old... Jacks!!!!

How ya'll like the new "photo" that I added to my blog profile a couple of days ago???

I saw this little girl the Friday after Thanksgiving... Cowgirl Cre, The Infamous Hen-Dog, and I were sitting around at work watching SchoolHouse Rock (all 46 snippets) on my laptop computer. (Yeah, I know, we should have been working... I got a little work done, but I was a lazy ass, too; But it was all worth it to see the Infamous Hen-Dog doing the running man, the Omega Psi Phi stomp, or whatever that little jig was he was working on, to "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get your Adverbs Here!" LMAO...HILARIOUS)...

But anyway...This little black girl was a part of the "I Got Six" SchoolHouse Rock snippet...


Cowgirl Cre and I, who had been swaying HARD from side to side, and sanging real HARD to the other snippets didn't recognize the "I Got Six" snippet... (Imagine us sitting there, all quiet, squinting real hard at the laptop...)



Well, we saw this little girl... she was smiling hard counting eggs and placing them in cartoons. Then the eggs hatched, and she started counting little chicks...

Then later on, she started playing jacks!

Cowgirl Cre and I screamed at the same time...

JACKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I use to be DOWN for some jacks when I was little. You oldgirls (and some of you oldboys) who are between the ages of thirty and forty-something know EXACTLY what I'm talkin' about. Talk about hours of fun...

And if you had the colorful jacks and the colorful ball??


Oh Lawd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that was a real game. Bump this playstation sh*t..... Jacks was the bomb back in the day...



My friends and I would get into HEATED arguments if any one of us picked up them jacks the wrong way... And you were Baaadddd if you could pick up over 15 jacks and then catch that ball after one bounce...

Dayum!! And I use to cheese just as hard as this little girl if I won a game...


So that picture takes me back to a time when I would sit on the floor in the middle of the kitchen or on the floor at school (shoot, any smooth level surface would do...) and play jacks...

For hours at a time...

Today's girls don't know what they're missing.

And the sad thing is that I don't even know where to buy jacks...

Hey, maybe they got it for Xbox 360 or Playstation 2!!

(Yeah Right...)

**GRADUATION DAY**

"The ceremony will begin in approximately one minute."

That's when I began to tear up. I was so happy that I would soon see my little brother Da'Kari!

It's been five months since I last saw him. I spent a couple of hours with him before he had to ship out from Fort Gilliem in Forest Park, GA back on June 29. I cried even then on my way to see him ship out. I cried when he got on the bus. And I cried all the way back to work.

I've been a crying fool! He was my main running buddy, so I've been missing him something awful...

He's been in basic training down at Fort Benning in Columbus Georgia since June 29. It's one and a half hours from my home. The drive was horrendous, since it stormed something terrible during most of my drive.

I cried a little more when he marched out. He doesn't even look the same. Not an ounce of baby fat. No facial hair (save for his thick eyebrows!). He's grown a couple of inches. I almost didn't recognize him!

It was such a good feeling to get a big hug from him, and just to see that he was alright. He should have graduated way back in mid-September, but was sidelined with a knee injury. So he had to repeat basic training.



He was part of a demonstration where he came out dressed in full camouflage gear and carrying a grenade launcher. I found that to be a bit scary! LOL!

But overall, he was so happy, and he had some crazy basic training stories to tell... He's so freakin' polite now. Everything is "Yes ma'am" or "Yes Sir". It took him a while, but he eventually started calling me "Shawty!" again!


I was so proud of him! I can honestly say that I am so glad that we went ahead and did what he wanted to do: join the army.





He is in Baltimore, Maryland for 3 months on his regular training.

So congratulations lil' boy!!! And continued success up in B-More, Maryland...

I'll get up with you on your Christmas break!

I Miss My Saturday Morning Cartoons, Part VI

Scooby-Dooby Doo...
Where are you?... We've got some work to do now!...

Hey Scooby!!!!...

You know what? I wasn't the biggest fan of this show. It was one of those cartoons where I would look at it, but only because I was waiting for something more interesting to come on. And then, there came a time where the re-runs of Scooby-Doo were nonstop...

It got to the point that if I had to hear Shaggy yell "Zoinks" one more time, I was going to throw the T.V. through the wall...

Scooby Doo was basically about a crew of friends (Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and the Great Dane (whatever he was) Scooby-Doo running around solving mysteries concerning some crazy ghost or monster wreaking havoc on a dark, scary, goofy looking island.... The premise was always the same: There was never any monster, but always some greedy dude or female trying to scare people away from some shady mess...

But like I said earlier, I wasn't fond of the show. I would look at it, but it was mostly chewing gum for the brain for me. Several things use to bother me:

1. First of all, how did these teens get involved in crime solving? Especially with scary ass Shaggy tagging along. I think I would have liked the show a lot if they would have ditched his butt.

2. And why did they always have to split up and go search for clues?(I bet you know where I'm going with this). When they did split up, Fred and Daphne went one way and Velma was left with Shaggy and Scooby... Hmmm....



3. What was up with those 6 foot tall sandwiches?

4. And my biggest pet peeve... Something that really unsettled me....


Why the hell was Shaggy always jumping so hard for a damn Scooby Snack? Aren't those Dog biscuits?

I did like one thing about the show... The Mystery Machine. I was going to buy one when I grew up....

I haven't gotten around to that yet...

And maybe I'm imagining things, but it seems like '90's track star Michael Johnson completely jacked Velma's running style...

The ending to every show was the same... The villian would say, after his or her plan had been foiled..."And I would've done it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids and that pesky dog!!"

Scooby-Doo and the gang aren't my favorites, but I'd rather look at them on a Saturday morning instead of three hours of Atlanta news...