The Truest Commentaries

LadyTee and I have this ritual, one that we have carried out since 1980:

Calling each other on the phone and doing a little joint commentary.

"What do you mean by that, Ladylee?" you may ask.

Hard to explain, but the following may ring true, even with you and some of your friends:


“Lee, turn to channel 2, Solid Gold on.”

“Alright, let me get up and turn the station.”


“Lee, put your tv on channel 46, Sold Train on.”



“Alright, hold on, Tee.”

You know how it is. We do this with the Grammys, the Oscars, American Idol, any awards show… any show where they are competing, dancing or singing… We've been known to do it with the evening news, too.

Either LadyTee or myself will be dialing phone numbers looking for the one another when we see ANYTHING interesting.

So we can sit there on the phone, watch said show together, and jone or praise people.

There are no real rules when calling each other under these circumstances. One just needs to see a really good performance, something that pisses one off, or something real stupid.

Oh, and although we are two educated women, all good English goes straight out the window and we get over into some bootleg broken and busted up ebonics at times….

Well, the other night, LadyTee called me...

“Lee, put your channel on PBS.”

“Dang girl, I ain’t lookin’ at no doggone PBS.”

“Girl, shut up and put your tv on PBS!!!”

I scramble around.

“Lee, hurry up!”

“Man, I gotta find the remote.”

LadyTee sucks her teeth. “Gurl, I swear! You always losing that remote!”

I find the remote and turn to the channel. It is an informercial for a huge collection of 70’s Soul music hosted by Isaac Hayes and some random chick. I am sure you’ve seen such informercials late in the midnight hour, you know, with the titles of the songs scrolling up the screen, and little snippets of each song sung by the artist.

You get my drift.

This show stayed on for a whole hour. And we sat there and commentated down.

A sampling of a few observations we made...



LadyTee: Damn, Barry White sho do have a nappy ass perm!
LadyLee: Oh, but it was the bomb back then!











[speaking of Al Green]

LadyLee: He got some sort of a perm, don’t he?
LadyTee: I don’t know, girl. I think that’s a blowout.
LadyLee: Well he sho need some Afro Sheen or something!



[Speaking of Patti Labelle and the crew]


(LadyTee getting all excited)

LadyTee: Look at Patti, Lee! LOOK! She stepping hard, Lee.. She highsteppin’ hard.!
LadyLee: Yeah she gettin’ it, ain’t she?! And they in them shiny space suits. They use to scare me with that get-up.
*LadyTee and LadyLee butchering "Lady Marmarlade" something terrible*

LadyTee: Girl, you KNOW I'm down for some Sister Sledge!!!!
LadyLee: Yeah, you did always like them girls.
*LadyTee and LadyLee singing "We are Family" waaaay out of tune and off key*




[Speaking of all the male groups]
LadyLee: Tee, look at them tight ass britches they got on!
LadyTee: You got that right!
LadyLee: How the hell do you dance in a tight ass three piece suit?
LadyTee: I don’t know, but they use to be gettin’ it, girl!


LadyTee: That Natalie Cole! Boy, that girl know she be sangin’ some songs when she was on them drugs, man!
LadyLee: I know that’s right! She was doin the darn thang back then!
LadyTee: Sho was!!

This goes on for the entire hour...

Way back in the early eighties, when music videos first came on the scene, we'd been known to commentate hard for 8 hours straight.

Don't laugh. Even in our late thirties, we are still the best commentators on the scene.

I know you and your best friend were too!

Character Round-up Part II: BIN LADEN

One thing I know.

I cannot stand Bin Laden!!!



Oh, I don’t mean that menace of a dude hiding off in a cave over in the Middle East somewhere. Well, I don’t like him either. (Yo Bush, you know where he is! Nuke those mountains and let’s blow that joint. Time for them soldiers to come home!)

No I mean a crackhead vagrant in my hood that goes by the name of “Bin Laden”.

They call him Bin Laden because he looks like Bin Laden: tall, thin, same facial shape, a thick beard, minus the Arabic head wrap and gear.

I knew I was in trouble when one day, my neighbor and coworker, the Infamous Hen-Dog announced:

“LadyLee got a boyfriend.”

“Who??” the general audience asked.

“Bin Laden!”

*LadyLee kicking the HARD eyeroll*



I remember the day I first met Bin Laden. It was a cool autumn afternoon. I was cleaning out my garage, and pondering raking my leaves. I’d talked to the Mayor of my Hood, Snake, about coming over and helping me with these chores. He was washing cars at his bootleg car wash a couple of houses down the street from my house, and had promised to help me. But I think after he made his car wash money, he disappeared into thin air… He went to get a hit, I suppose.

Oh well.

I was dumping trash into my herbie curbie, when I spotted this tall lanky darkskinned dude walking up the street.

“Miss Lady!” he yelled.

I ignored him.

“Miss Lady!”

I gave him a head nod. Didn’t think it was a great idea to speak to him.

“I bet you think I’m a criminal, don’t you?”

I shrugged. I’ve been trained (brainwashed) by Hen-Dog to be nice to everybody. It cuts down on the chance that I would be properly "welcomed to the neighborhood", i.e., get my house targeted and robbed.

Then Bin Laden started walking towards me. I remember thinking to myself “Dude, my angels will tare you up if you bother me.”

I continued doing what I was doing.

“Ma’am, I just want a little work, that’s all. I see you got a lot of leaves…

“Yeah.”

“Can I rake your leaves?”

Now the “can I rake your leaves” request brought back crazy memories of Charles, and the look on my face told the whole story. I was not pleased.

He pointed at the leaves. “Ma’am, just need a little work, that’s all. I can have these leaves raked in no time.”

Well, I looked down the street for Snake. He was nowhere in site.

“Alright,” I finally said.

He went ahead on and raked the leaves and bagged them up in refuse bags. In the midst of these chores, Snake came strolling up the street. He stopped and looked at me like I had just snatched his crack pipe.

“LadyLee, I can’t believe you are lettin' Bin Laden rake the leaves! I was 'spose to do that!”

“Dude, you disappeared,” was my simple answer. “Besides, you can still help me with the garage."

Snake and I cleaned out my garage, stacked a few books, and laid down some spare linoleum and carpet to catch the oil that drips from my car.

Bin Laden raked the leaves and bagged them up, but didn’t take them out to the street corner. He just left the bags to lean against the house.

That was alright. That just meant that he would not be raking my leaves ever again. You can’t do a complete job, you’re out for the future. You just lost a customer, man.

After this, some craziness began happening.

Bin Laden started knocking on my door at ten and eleven o’clock at night. When I would ask who it was, he would say, “It’s Snake!”

I never believed this, because Snake rarely knocked on my door, unless we had an appointment for some yard work or a car wash. (Okay, I know that sounds funny, but Mayor Snake prides himself on being of high character and integrity. Read this post to see what I mean).

This happened several times.

I finally found Snake and went off about this ordeal. Something to the effect of…

“Snake! You better talk to your boy Bin Laden and tell him to stop knocking on my door all late at night, or I’m gonna call Zone 3 [the police] and tell them that he stole something.”

Snake yelled back...

“That’s what you get for letting that n**** rake your leaves, LadyLee!”

Well Snake talked to him.

Bin Laden decided to knock on my door anyway at an earlier time.

Now, I have a rectangular window above my front door. Kay and I figured out a long time ago that if we were upstairs, we could easily look over the upstairs banister and see through that window who was standing at the door without that person noticing.

Well, that day, on a Saturday afternoon, around four o’clock, Bin Laden was at the door.
I wasn’t going to answer the door, until he did something crazy…

He had the NERVE to pull out a brush, and quickly try to brush and tidy up his beard.

“Ohhhh noooo!” I yelled.

I almost broke my freakin’ neck running down those stairs to the front door. I snatched the door open.

“What, man!!??”

“Just wanted to rake your leaves, LadyLee.”

“No! And don’t come back!”

I closed the door in his face. I REALLY was hoping dude was NOT tidying himself up for me. I get the heebie-jeebies every time I think about it!

He did this a couple of more times. I didn’t even bother to answer the door.

The last time he came back was a month ago.

“Dude, I told you not to knock on my door!” I became highly upset when I saw him lounging on the brick steps of my front porch.

“I know, I know,” he said, his hands raised in surrender. “I just wanted to pull some of the weeds around the stone steps up there by the mailbox.”

“NO!”

“Well sister, can I get a quarter?”

“NO!”

“Come on sister, please. I'm just asking for a damn quarter!”

Personally, I have no idea what anyone would do with a quarter. I had a dollar on the table. I threw it at him. “If you come back, you going to jail. I swear I will call the police.”

I haven’t seen him since.

I told the Infamous Hen-Dog about it, who urged me to just send Bin laden on down the street to his house, the blue house down the street.

Part of me was quite interested in the whooping a bunch of Que Dogs would give Bin Laden.

But that would be wrong. No need for all of us to come up on oharges for putting the stomp down on a crackhead.

But like I said, he hasn’t come back.

Maybe I should’ve threatened him earlier!

This week's homecooked meals!

This week I did something to piss off a few of my favorite blog sistas...

They all seem to eat out a lot. I told them that they need to make some homecook meals... I sent them some examples, and I will continue to send examples and pics until those broads-- and they know who they are-- get it together and do the right thing!!!!!

Now this is some random stir fry.

I am the freakin' stir fry queen of the world!! I make at least a couple of batches a month and sit it in the fridge... Add some noodles and random meat, and it's on.

Now these are my attempt at fajitas...



Serenity23, the super shoe queen blogger, LOVES Mexican food! I know she wasn't happy to see this. But she was cordial... She let me know "That looks good!"

Thanks girl!!

Now why don't you get your behind in the kitchen and make some from scratch!!!

Now a new Publix store opened on Thursday ... Downtown on Spring street, close to my job.

You should have seen a crew of us up in there. They had a bunch of free samples and stuff... We were soooo ghetto... We destroyed those freebies!! We just didn't care at all! (Yo ATLien Nikki, get down there NOW girl, they got some amazing deals until the 17th!!!)

Snow Crab legs were on sale for $5.99/lb. You know I had to do the darn thing!! I even threw some potatoes up in there. Let's just say I am ready for the weekend, babes!!



Now if you know anything about high post Publix, those Crab legs are going to be $9.99/lb next week. I may just go down there and buy all the crabs they got and stick them in my deep freezer in the garage, mayne!!

So there you have it...

And do Ladylee a favor ya'll... Stop rolling up on all that fast food... make it from scratch!!!!

Character Round-Up Part I: CHARLES...The Leaf Raker

There are a few minor characters running around my hood that I would like to tell you about. Of course none are more interesting than the mayor of my hood, Snake, who, regretfully, is still locked up…

But they are interesting folks, nevertheless…

Now when I first moved over to my hood in the downtown ATL, this tall brother who looked like Bryce Wilson use to knock on my door. Note that I said he LOOKS like Bryce Wilson.

More like a broke down, poor man’s Bryce Wilson. He had the super curly hair, same eyes, same complexion, exact same face, but he didn’t have the high post designer clothes. He wasn’t all shiny, no bling-bling, you know what I mean?

A broke man’s Bryce Wilson.. In a dirty oversized white t-shirt and a pair of baggy pants.

He was very polite and well spoken, though.

“Hi my name is Charles? Can I rake your leaves?”

Now I’d been trained by Snake not to let anyone do my yardwork except for him (Snake).

So I kept telling the dude…

“No thank you,” or “Come back when I’ve had time to think about it.”

Well, he kept coming back, again… and again… and again…

He would be there when I got home from work, before I could even get my keys out to open the front door…

“Can I rake your leaves?”

I finally approached Mayor Snake about this.

“Snake, there’s a dude who keeps coming over to my house, asking to rake my leaves.”

Snake jumped back like I’d just pulled a gun on him.

“What, LadyLee??” he yelled. “Describe this young man.”

“He’s about six feet tall, dark skinned, skinny. His hair is real curly, like he got a kit in it or something.”

“Oh,” he said with snort and a wave of his hand. “That’s just Charles.”

Like that was suppose to mean something to me.

“So what’s up with him?”

“First of all Ladylee, I’m the only one that’s suppose to cut your grass, wash your car, or rake your leaves for a small fee. You are a valued customer.”

“Negro, I know that! Who is this joker that keep knocking on my door?.”

“Like I said, that’s Charles. He likes to try to run the women of this neighborhood, you see.”

I laughed hard. “Are you serious!?”

Snake nodded. “Yeah, he gets a check every month. So he can do that, you know.”

I was really tripping behind that revelation. The notion that getting a check every month gives one license to run women. Oh my!

But um, that depends on how big of a check it is.

I grabbed Snake by the arm, and spoke real low.

“Dude, how much of a check we talkin’ bout?”

“Oh, I believe seven or eight-hundred dollars a month.”

I almost fell on the ground laughing after he said that.

“What’s so funny, LadyLee? That’s a lot of money!”

“Yeah, to you it is, since you smoke that rock, man. I can’t do NOTHING with that.”

Snake peered at me curiously. “So, girl, how much would it take for you to let him rake your leaves?”

“Oh, Snake, that check has to be at least six to seven thousand dollars a month! At least that much. I can work with that. Dude might be able to rake a few leaves for that amount.”

Snake looked at me liked I’d just whipped out a blade on him. “Oh Lawd!!!"

Anyway, I told Snake to kindly inform Charles that he should never, ever, ever step foot in my yard, ever again, and not to even think about knocking on my door asking to rake my leaves!

It is not going down, boo.

I’ve seen him occasionally, but not much lately. He gives me a smile and a wave. I give him a head nod. But he hasn’t knocked on my door since my talk with the mayor.

I guess he has figured out one thing:

He won’t be raking Ladylee’s leaves.

No way, no how. That’s for sure.

No Milk and Cookies... A Soul Food Meal.

I am taking over my big sister's blog, so that I can send a message out to two beautiful young ladies.

Serenity23 and The Ladybug.

I want you both to know. That I am not Milk and Cookies.



I am a soul food meal. Yes, not a mere snack... but a soul food meal.

I am a good man.

I am grown and sexy, as you can see in my pictures.



I have a job. I just bought a new car. I have money in the bank.

I am in the Army Reserves. This mean I am military.

And ladies, you know what that means.

BENEFITS.

That's right. I have BENEFITS.

Now, I have been trying to holla at you, especially you, Serenity, for a few months. You will not listen. This is my last try. Either you or Ladybug will do.

Feel free to get my cell phone number from my big sister, Ladylee.

Send me a text. Or give me a call.

I am available anytime, anywhere.

I am giving my big sister back her blog, now.

Have a nice evening.