Friday Freestyles... The Underground Edition

Friday!

And it's a 3 day weekend coming up.

Man listen... if it was a payday, this would be a perfect holiday. Perfect.

Yet it is not. And I'm thankful for a Friday.

We get to leave an hour early today. Um... seems like some folk have a liberal interpretation of leave an hour early, where one hour is more like one hour and 53 minutes.

I myself am busting up out of here early anyway. I made sure of that, as I have an haircut appointment at 5:00 pm.

Yes I do! So peace out to this place.

I initially thought of just heading out with the throngs of people who got out of dodge early, as it is like a herd of cattle heading for the hills. I would have just been one more cattle in the herd. That would have been easy enough. And my boss has been out since Wednesday. That gives me freedom to get all caught up in all amounts of tomfoolery.

Now, I never put down the full amount of hours worked. That way, if I need to leave early or just leave and run a few errands in the middle of the day, I can do that. This seems to happen once every couple of months. And that's all good.

Any, enough ponderings and freestyles about leaving the workplace...

Have you watched the series Underground?

Oh my goodness. I will say right now that this series is HANDS DOWN the BEST thing I have EVER seen on TV. Ever.

Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

It is the story, a fictional recounting of course, of the forming and the meaning of the Underground railroad. Specifically, it's about abolitionists, slave trappers, masters and their issues...

And Slaves trying to get the HELL on. Period.

"We tryna raise up outta here right NOW!!"

This drama series had me on the edge of my seat. Literally. It had me crying, screaming, cheering. I do believe I experienced every emotion, some that I didn't even know of.

Now, I'd heard about The Underground Railroad all while I was in school. Most notably, I heard about Harriet Tubman. And honestly, I wasn't going to even watch it, as I didn't care to see the Harriet Tubman story (yes, this is wrong of me, I know). But one of my favorite radio talk show hosts, Karen Hunter, was going on and on and on about it, so I went looking for it. It was on an obscure station that I don't get. So I bought the series off of Amazon Prime. Best $15 I have ever spent hands down.

I watched one episode while eating dinner one night after work. I figured I would just check it out.

I was up until 2:00 am watching the other episodes (knowing good and well I had to go to work the next day. Sigh). It was only 6 or 7 episodes in at the time, so I watched ALL of it.

It is NOT the Harriet Tubman story, but it made it easy to see how all of that jumped off. Really.

What I like about this story is what I usually like about my favorite stories: there are a ton of characters with a ton of storylines. All of them were nicely woven together. The Underground Railroad issues were woven well together with everyone's personal issues.

I think these two promotional posters do a good job of expressing the emotional tones of the characters.

I think there were twice as many characters as shown above. And I either hated them, wondered about them, or cared about them all in some way or another. It really yanked at my emotions.

With all the characters, it was fast paced and much to keep up with. That was the only drawback. This was a 10 episode series, but it could have EASILY been the standard 22 episode series. But they covered much ground and set the show up nicely for the second season.

Hooray!

I won't go on and on. Just trust me, this was GREAT. I know some don't like anything to do with slavery. I don't care much either. But this was on some other level.

My coworker loves the Color Purple. I told her to watch this because it was Color Purple on speed.

She is caucasian, and she said she could see why a lot of black folk don't like white folk.

Yes, watching that make you go O_o.

And some of that hate was going on in  the movie. Even when the abolitionists were trying to help slaves, there was some conflict involved in that from the slaves point of view. 

I know black folk who get all shook up when they drive pass a cotton field. I understand why now. (Plus I have read a lot about behavioral epigenetics. Someone in your background has picked a lot of cotton, and this is imprinted somewhere in your genetic material, and it effects you emotionally. I thought much about that while watching this. I understand that now.)

Anyway, this was GREAT. I have watched it 3 times. Gonna watch it again.

Oh... Here is the trailer...



Yeah... the music was interesting. Done by Kanye. Very hip-hoppish. Threw me off for a minute, but it added to the urgency of the show.

Underground was produced by John Legend. Great job, sir. Superb!!

It comes out on Netflix next month. I have netflix on my smartphone. This is good, because I can watch it on my phone... 

Yes, I will be watching it again. Maybe this holiday weekend? I don't know. We will see.

But I know one thing.

I will have a great weekend on purpose.

You do the same! 

Quote of the Week

I tell you something I don't quite understand.

What is the uproar over which bathroom the transgender use all about?

I don't know if I've ever been in the bathroom with a transgender person. Why don't I know? Because I really was concentrating on getting into a stall and peeing. Point blank.

So I don't understand what the hoopla is all about...

I mean, is it THAT much of a problem.

I know we have a transgender person near my workplace. Several, really. What is interesting about this particular one is that she is a dead ringer for Gabrielle Union. Dead ringer.

With that said, how do we know who is a man or who is a woman? Are they sending people to check? What kind of chaos will that cause?

Just questions about something that I think is much ado about nothing...

I really don't care. Just get out of my way, because I just gotta pee, man.  

Free Stuff (Blessing)

I get free stuff from time to time.

The Cowgirl Cre has become quite the Coupon Queen lately. She called me yesterday wanting to know if I liked Zatarins rice.

I said yes, but only the Dirty rice. Haven't tried the others.

"They don't have that one. They have the jambalaya and red beans and rice." She went on to name other types.

"I like the Dirty rice, man," I said, a hint of disappointment clouding my voice.

Honestly, I would've taken any type of rice she offered.

After all, you know how I feel about free stuff.

*"Blessing," Ladylee whispers softly to self.*

She looked around behind other boxes of rice and found some dirty rice.

"I'll bring it to you tomorrow," she said.

And when I arrived at work, there was a bag on my desk. I looked inside. She left not one box of rice, but three boxes of rice.

Glory!!!

I  whispered to myself as I held up a box  of  rice...

"Blessing."

A blessing indeed.  Free blessing.

"This will last me the rest of the year," I told her later.

Her eyebrows raised high at my words.

LOL. I use a box in the summer, one in the fall, and one for Christmas. 

Stretch it out, man! Stretch the blessing out!!!  

Friday Freestyles...The Hot Sauce Edition

It is FRIDAY!

And it is PAY DAY.

And lo and behold, I haven't gotten much done today. This big project I have been working on is pretty much over. I have been doing a load of paperwork for the past month sparsely sprinkled with church jogs back into the lab to redo experiments that didn't come out right. Glad it is all over. I think it's suppose to crank back up again. I will lay quietly in a corner, balled up tightly in a fetal position hoping that no one will assign me to the project.

Enough of that! Today is Friday!

And UberEats has been giving away free hot sauce for our bags all week long.

It was a take-off on a line from Beyonce's "Formation" song.

"I got hot sauce in my bag swag..."

The advertisement gives that away...

The thing is that I didn't pay much attention to this, as hot sauce is one of the cheapest condiments you can buy. BUT today I looked it up and this hot sauce is $8 a bottle.

If I would've known that, I would've ordered it all week long.

"Peri-Peri" is a type of west african seasoning. It's a mix of over 8 seasonings, and I tend to buy the $20-a-pound powdered version at my local natural foods store. I only buy a tablespoons worth,  which comes out to about 40 cents or so.

So you know I had to get up for this free hot sauce!

And it's good stuff too. I tasted a drop of it. Still feeling it an hour later. But  it is a great feeling.

Anyway, this has been a decent week. I attended an off-site instrument seminar yesterday, and they let us go pretty much after half a day. They even provided us a free lunch.

Now I just have to get up the nerve to ask my boss if I have to use my leave hours because we were let out of the seminar early.

Ain't my fault that we were let out early. Humph.

But this has been a great week... Hot sauce and all.

Song of the Week. So I like to listen to music when I'm cleaning up the house. I had my 80s playlist going, and this song came on. "Special Kind of Fool".



Bet you haven't heard that one in a long time.

Oldie but goodie... indeed.

That's it for me!

Have a great weekend... on purpose!

Tales of the Market

One of my favorite places as of late has been my local Municipal Market.

It's not really a farmer's market, per se. Well I don't consider it such. But maybe it is. I can get fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and seafood, and such there. And they have some great restaurants, including an afro-Caribbean and soul food restaurant. I believe they even have a place serving Venezuelan street food.

Now, I go because there's a great juice place there called Rawesome Juicery. I would get one of their juices through Uber Eats and I was thinking that this place is down in the Sweet Aurburn avenue district and it's the halfway point between my house and my job (I live 4.5 miles from work).  Ain't nothing to just stop by and get some juice and save the delivery charges.

And I am particularly interested in some of their cut-up vegetables.

I've had some of the cut-up greens and they were great.  There's a place that sells fresh cut fruits and that's always convenient.

But what's interesting is that this place was called "The Curb Market" when I was a child. It's the Municipal Market now. But I did find a sign showing it as "The Curb Market".

Anyway, I have some funny memories of this place. It was my Great-grandmother's favorite place.

You read that right. Great-grandmother. So this goes back some 40 years at least.

I remember her saying many a summer morning, "Lisa, get up and get your bath, because we are going down to the curb market today."

My 4-year-old little self did not care for this. It meant getting out and walking a mile to the bus stop and catching TWO Marta buses downtown to the market. And once we got there,  I was a bit horrified by the sight of whole pigs hanging upside down from clothesline.

It was a bustling place with people hurrying to and fro. And at times, there were flies everywhere. This was overwhelming to my little 4-year-old self. There was nothing worse than seeing a dead pig covered in flies.

I don't remember what we bought. I was just ready to go. I just didn't like the long bus rides and the walking to the bus stop. I think about it every time I see the railroad over near my grandmother's house.

We use to take the path and walk way up the street and down a hill and wait for our bus. The bus was only 15 cents back then, and I remember gripping my nickel dime tight in my hand so I wouldn't lose it.

But I just couldn't stand the place. I remember wanting to just be back in house near the house fan. I would rather be playing with my dolls and not on the long journey to and from the farmers market.

I promised myself that when I grew up I would NEVER go back to this place. EVER.

And some 42 years later, I changed my mind. I decided  to go, and I am glad I did.

It's a nice place. No pigs hanging on clothesline. Not a fly in sight. Thank goodness for that.

I am so happy that it is near my house, some 2 miles away. They even have a small vintage book store. I take a bagful of books whenever I go for donation.

So that's my tale of the market. It took me 42 years to get back there. I guess it's okay for us to change our minds, even so many decades later.