Good Monday Morning...

Alas...

It is Monday morning.

I tell you, my days are all meshing together. I have worked 2 Saturday's straight, so I am not getting much of a weekend buffer. And I am bone tired. This is not good.

But I am just trying to keep up. And I don't really plan on working next weekend. No sir. Not if I can help it.

I am looking forward to thanksgiving because it is simply a day off for me. I am waaaay thankful for that. Heck man, I might just fast that day. That would be... interesting.

My goal this weekend was to make sure I went out and did some things I enjoy. So on Friday night I attended my Women of Color Writing workshop. I loathe the whole Friday evening thing, especially since I am tired and have to rush, but once we get settled down and started, I am pretty content. I always get some decent material, and I love to hear the other ladies share their work. We all have such different voices and it is a wonderful thing hearing our takes on the same writing prompts.

We wrote a bit of haiku, and I wrote 2 stories that I will probably post pretty soon.

I also got up with the chickens on Sunday Morning and went to church. This is O_o because I rarely attend church on Sunday. I catch the internet stream. When I go to church, i like the Friday morning or evening bible study. I like to support the smaller gatherings, as my church is a mega with a gazillion locations. So that was good and gave me much to think about.

And afterwards I went to the movies. I saw the second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy.

Catching Fiya!

That was a good movie.  Especially since my favorite actor Jeffrey Wright was in it.

I almost shouted "GLORY!!!" when he appeared on the screen. Such a delightful surprise. I was grinning with MUCH glee.

Like I said, it was a good film. It ended with one heckuva cliffhanger.

Not good when you're in the 'hood. Yes, I went to see it at a black theater. Folks were HOT about the cliffhanger. The movie was already two and a half hours long.

I wanted to turn around and holler "Did ya'll jokers read the second book? It's suppose to end with a cliffhanger. Now SHUT UP!"

I thought better of it. I didn't want to get into a fist fight over a movie. Humph.

The final book will be split into two movies, coming out in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

The problem is that the final book was the most depressing book I have ever written. I am not sure how they will pull off the film adaptations, but my goodness, I know they will lighten it up. Please lighten it up. If they don't, I'm not sure I will be seeing it. Yes, it was that depressing. And understandably so.

After the movie, I ran by the job for all of 15 minutes. I had to make sure that the things I set up on Saturday had finished up. Nothing worse than coming in on Monday Morning and nothing worked right. Luckily it did. I would love to get to work at or around 6:30 am. I have a dental appointment with the lovely Dr. Watson at 4. I need to get 8 hours of work in tomorrow. I have to leave at 3 to get across town on time. We will see how that goes.

I hope this week is slower.  Just a little slower. Please, please, please.

It has given me pause. I am thinking a little at least about looking for other employment. It is interesting that that comes to mind. I am just terribly bored right now, and uh, I ain't got the energy to be working 50 hours a week. No ma'am.

But it is just a thought.

And we can't overlook thoughts.

Because thoughts are... seeds.

And if you have read over here for any length of time, you know how I feel about seeds and trees and fruit and roots and all that...

Hmm...

I stopped by Whole Foods after leaving work. Something really nice happened. In the checkout line, my little clam shell of blueberries flipped open and I lost about 1/3rd of my blueberries on the conveyor belt. Of course I wasn't going to keep those. I scooped up the bad ones and handed them to the cashier so he could throw them in the trash.

A white lady two customers back said "You want me to go get you another thing of blueberries?"

"Uh, no, that's alright," I mumbled, a little taken aback by the question.

"I can run get another. I'm just standing in line."

"Uh, okay," I replied reluctantly

She left her hand held grocery basket there and ran and got me some more blueberries. I thought that was nice of her.

I say that because all we hear in the news is how awful black folks are and how much white people hate us and all this foolishness. It seems as if we are inundated with it all, constantly. And here is someone who saw that I had a issue, however minor, and she was happy to help me.

That meant much to me. It reminded me of the most amazing 15 minute conversation I had when I test drove Lucy Junior. One of the things the seller, Lady M, a nice white chick, said "I always take people at face value and treat them equally. Only 1 or 2% of any race has 'problems'."

I forgot what caused us to get in that discussion. But if you think about it, that's very simple and a very good way to look at things. I think she is right. However, it flies in the face of what the media is saying. And for some reason it has stuck with me.

I remember going home that night after test driving Lucy Junior just very thankful for a 15 minute conversation that solved many of my issues at the time.  I remember thinking that I was probably not going to get the car. Maybe the whole point was to have that conversation.

My prayers that evening were peppered with thoughts of that. "I don't even have to buy the car," I said. "I just feel a whole lot better about everything after that converstion that healed my ratchet emotions about this car thing."

I was very thankful for that. For it would have been highly incredulous to stumble across the exact same car that I had just totaled.

The conversation was the cake. The car purchase was the icing on the cake.

Man... If I ever write out all of my thought on Lucy Junior. Hmm... Goodness.

So glad I now have some thoughts about blueberries to remind me of it all.

Song of the Week.  "Sixteen" by Rick Ross and Andre 3000. (Warning: got a couple of cuss words in it).



One of our workplace maintenance men likes this song a lot. Big Z raps and DJ's on the side, and I was lamenting that there was not much good rap music out there like back in our day some 25 years ago. Sigh. So he recommended the latest Rick Ross album, and he likes this song in particular. ("It's 'Grown Men' music", he hollered with the hard head nods.)

I don't like Rick Ross. Dude, rap about more than Maybachs and Ciroc and running women and "bricks" (drugs).

But I love Andre 3000. We're both College Park/East Purnt!

Rick Ross became a footnote on his own song. He should've just sat in a corner and given Andre 3000 the whole song.

And I like this production team, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. league. They make great beats.  Can I PLEASE get a CD of all their instrumentals. WOW!

That's it for me.

I'm going to try to not get all burnt out this week at work. My goal is to NOT work on Saturday. Nope. Can't do it. I am too old for all this. Man.

This is just one more week for me. I have no plans for Thanksgiving. Haven't much thought about it. I have to work all week since I didn't put in for vacation time. But that is okay. Like I said, my goal is to not get all burnt out. I am bone tired and I sprained my back a couple of days ago. I should be laying my tail down somewhere.

I am thankful every single day. That is my goal for the week. For the year, really.

You have a very good Thanksgiving week! On purpose.