The Botanical Novice

You may have asketh...

Hark...

What has the Original Oldgirl been up to?

I've been doing a lot of reading... a little writing...

and planting flowers...

Last weekend, I planted some flowers...

Na'll let me stop lying...

It was more like coming home from Church, waking up my brother, "Milk and Cookies", and watching him sweat profusely while he shoveled red Georgia clay and concrete (thanks to my builders... those bustas!), from around the walkway leading to my brick steps...

I did hand him the flowers from the flower pots, and I did hold the bags while he shoveled dirt and sod into them. And I did drive out to Peachtree City, 30 miles south of downtown ATL, and bought the darn flowers (You gotta go knee deep into the white neighborhood sometimes to find what you need, you know)...

So technically, I planted flowers last weekend.

Don't they look lovely??



Let's back up a little so you can see all of MY hard work... Lovely, hunh?



Before you say, "Gee Ladylee, those are quite nice", have a look at my neighbor's flowers...



Humph...

I can hear my lil' sista super shoe queen blogger Serenity 23 laughing and stomping so hard that she breaks one of her clear heels... Calm down gal... I know you gonna dog me, so go ahead on and dog me, Shorty...

I have to come home and look at their yard and see something out of the freakin pages of Home and Garden...



And look at the small tropical jungle on the side of their porch...



Now take a look at my flowers again...



Shut up, now... I ain't no hater. It's just that when I see my neighbor's Paul and Stan's flowers, I think "these are flowers"...

When I see my flowers, I think "these are flowers on crack!"

Well, while Milk and Cookies and I were out on the walkway slaving away, planting the flowers, Stan walked out on his porch and looked at us like we were crazy or had gone mad...

"What are ya'll doing over there?" he yelled.

Both my brotha and I looked up. "Planting flowers," I yelled back.

"Please don't let him come over here," I murmured to a smiling Milk and Cookies. No sooner than I whispered that hope, Stan was marching across his driveway heading straight for us.

"You know you gotta water those everyday, right. Just a little water, every day, and they will be just fine."

"Um... yeah, Stan... will do."

He went away as quickly as he came over.

Now, I know why he was stressing the "every day" watering. It was because I had planted a peach Snapdragon, the color of my house, in April. The Snapdragon flowers started turning red, and I lost interest... I didn't water that thing, and for a good two months, a collection of dried sticks and stems sat where there was once a beautiful red snapdragon...

And I know that pissed off Paul and Stan, especially when they had to see that monstrosity while cutting my grass! LOL!

So, Stan felt it was his duty to warn me, the Botanical Novice Ladylee, to water the flowers everyday...

I've been heeding his advice, and since we are under a watering restriction, I have even been sneaking out there at night with a couple of gallons of water making sure they are getting watered on my city imposed non-watering days. (Don't trip, word is they arresting people these days, and I ain't trying to be locked down over some doggone flower watering!)

Will my flowers grow? Hmm... I will let you know! Stay tuned for a pic later this month!

The Librarian Mix Tapes

I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, actually doing some work for a change, when I heard the voice of Regina, my friendly workplace librarian, happily greeting co-workers as she walked down the hall...

"Hey everybody!"

"How's everybody doing?"

"Hey ya'll!"

I froze at my desk, closed my eyes tight... she was getting closer and closer.

"I just came up here to see Ladylee," she yelled to someone.

I wanted to wiggle my nose like that Samantha chick on Bewitched, and disappear. It was too late to crawl under my cluttered desk. There was no easy escape from my cubicle.

Then she appears...

"Hey girl, what's going on?"

I pretend to be checking my emails. "Nothing."

"I need a favor," she chimes, as she is rummaging through the close to empty candy bucket on my desk. She sits down at my cubicle mate Cowgirl Cre's desk.

"What, man?!"

"I'm traveling this holiday weekend and I need some music. Burn me a few good CDs."

"Dang, man!" I proceed to have a straight up conniption fit. She ignores my rants, as usual.

There's something about my friendly librarian. She is a big wig on every doggone charity committee in the building, and is able to get me to do various things, everything from donating money, attending programs...

Even making salmon for the African American month celebration every year (see post).



This time she wanted some music.

I bitched badly about her bringing me some blank CDs. She was acting like she didn't know what I was talking about when I made such a simple request. I have about 75 hours worth of music in my laptop and we went through the arduous task of looking through some of it.

"Girl, I want some of that old stuff... you know, like that Clarence Carter, or some of that Johnny Taylor! You got any of that?!"

I looked at her like she had been smoking crack. She is in her late 40's, so I expected her to say some craziness like that. "Hell nawl, I don't listen to any of that!"

Well how about some of that Mary J. Blige, you know, the one about "What's the 411?"

*crickets*

I was completely taken aback by that... How did she jump from talking about some old juke joint Clarence Carter to some hip-hoppy old school Mary J. Blige?

"Um... no Regina, I ain't got old Mary. I got her new stuff, but her old CDs are still packed up somewhere," was my simple answer.

"Oh that's fine," she said, as she proceeded to rummage through papers on my desk. (She is a nosy gal!)

I scrolled through some of the music, playing some of the songs. Others had gathered around by this time. Sometimes we just happen to play music and break out singing, hoping shady management don't come strolling around the corner....

That day, my friendly librarian was having flashbacks of her times some 20 or 30 years ago back in some old hole-in-the-wall juke joint, because she started doing some crazy dances, high stepping, arms flailing, eyes closed tight, lips poked out, face all frowned up...

... you know, them dances...

Like the ones your drunk Auntie with the lopsided wig use to do at family get togethers. Sort of like them dances your crazy uncle, the one with the tight shorts, nylon socks, and dress shoes, use to do at family reunions.

Those dances.

We all made sure to back up a foot or two from her to keep from getting injured.

Well anyway, I made her CDs.

*LadyLee sitting at her desk, quietly burning CDs on her personal laptop, periodically gazing over shoulder, watching out for shady management.*

I even took the time to list out her songs for her. She was quite pleased.

Anyway, here they are...

I think she will have a nice drive with these:

Regina’s Fast 80’s Mix Tape

Juicy Fruit (Extended Version) – Mtume
Been Around the World – Lisa Stansfield
No One’s Gonna Love You – SOS band
Save the Overtime - Gladys Knight and the Pips
Diamonds – Herb Alpert w/Janet Jackson
Hangin’ on a String – Loose Ends
Ghetto Heaven (Hidden Track) – Family Stand
Just the Way You Like It – SOS band
The Glamorous Life – Sheila E.
The Men All Pause – Klymaxx
Saturday Love – Cherelle and Alexander O’Neal
The Finest – SOS Band
Don’t Look Any Further – Dennis Edwards
Sugar Free – Juicy
Slow Down- Loose Ends.


>Regina Oldschool Mix 1

Would You Mind – Earth, Wind, and Fire
I Want to be Free – Ohio Players
Backstabbers – The O’Jays
Love’s Train – ConFunkshun
When Love Calls – Atlantic Starr
Wildflower – New Birth
Flowers – Emotions
Hurry up this way Again – Stylistics
Lady Marmalade – LaBelle
Give Me Your Love – Curtis Mayfield
Inside Out – Odyssey
Annie Mae – Natalie Cole
Eddie you should know better- Curtis Mayfield
Boogie Oogie Oogie – Taste of Honey
Don’t Call My Neighbor – Emotions
Our Love – Natalie Cole


Regina’s Slow Mix

Free – Denise Williams
Making Love in the Rain – Herb Alpert/Janet Jackson/ Lisa Keith
You Can’t Stop the Rain – Loose Ends
Giving my All to you – Johnny Gill
I Wanna Get next to You – Rolls Royce
Ooh La La La – Teena Marie
Tell Me If you still Care – SOS band
Everything I miss at Home – Cherelle
The Morning After – Alexander O’Neal
Go Outside in the Rain – Milara
Nite and Day – Al B. Sure
Whatever you want – Tony, Toni, Tone
Been Such a long Time – New Birth
Whatever It takes – Anita Baker
I Want to Be Free – Ohio Players.

Ja... King of UNO!

The Day... Saturday.

The time? Nine o'clock in the evening.

The house was quiet as a mouse, save for the low hum of my laptop and the soft whir of the bedroom ceiling fan. Everybody else in the house was knocked out sleep... My brother, "Milk and Cookies", my sister "Kentucky".... even my cat Oscar Tyrone was stretched out at the foot of my bed, lost in la-la land...

All of a sudden my phone rings, startling me something crazy. Even Oscar-Tyrone sat up straight, his ears in perking up, eyes wide, ready to attack... or run and hide.

I looked at the caller ID. It was the my neighbor and coworker, the Infamous Hen-Dog (who lives a few houses down the street from me)...



"Yeah, man," I answered.

"Lee, what chu doin'?"

"Looking at blogs, playing on my laptop. Why?"

Now anytime Hen calls that late on a weekend night, he is on his way over. It's always "So-n-so wanna see your house" or "I need to burn some CDs on your laptop" or "What you cook tonight, gal?". Some craziness like that.

"Ja wanna come over and play some UNO," he said.

"Dude," I said quickly. "Dude, give me about 30 minutes to get up and put on some clothes, just hold on. Come on, dude."

I had to tell him that because his convos are usually ended with "I'm about to ring your doorbell right now."

Well, I mentioned Ja. Ja is in town for the summer. Ja is Hen's thirteen-year-old son...

This has to be the happiest kid in the world. Always smiling, always polite... skipping along like a doggone smurf...

So I laughed real hard when lil Hen-Dog, Jr. strutted through my door shuffling a well worn deck of UNO cards.



Now I hadn't played UNO in years. It was the card game of choice for me and my crew back in the 80's, but Ja came through the door with his cards (which were red instead of black. When did that happen??) pretty confident about his UNO expertise.

I immediately went upstairs and woke up a snoring "Milk and Cookies". He'd had army reserve drills all that day and was pretty much exhausted. I drug his dazed behind out of bed and shoved him into the bathroom. I told him to take a leak and come on downstairs. (Okay, I still treat him like he's 3.)

I needed some help beating Mr. Ja at UNO, you see.

First of all, there were some bootleg rules. Some craziness like if you have 2 or more Draw Fours in your hand, then you can throw them all down, thereby having to draw Eight to sixteen cards. If you have a bunch of any cards in your hand, you can throw them all down at the same time.



Like I said, completely bootleg.

I agreed to these stupid rules...

I went and got my laptop computer and loaded up some old school jams. Ja knew every doggone song, and sang his lil' heart out. I thought the music would be enough to distract Ja, but it only served to get him going.

Ja started winning games, which completely unnerved me.

And whenever he was on a winning streak, or if he would win a game (which he did consistently), he would jump up and dance for a few minutes.



We played for three hours straight... Let's just say Ja got his dance on quite often.



Now, I wanted to yell, "Hey Shorty! Why don't you spin around in the middle of that dance move and close that kitchen cabinet for me" or "Hey lil' man, why don't you moonwalk over there to the counter, pick up the thing of carpet freshner and Febreze spray and throw them under the sink for me!"

That would've given me a chance to slide my brother Milk and Cookies some Draw Fours, some Draw twos... something to get that lil' joker with, but as you can see, Milk and Cookies was concentrating hard, like he was taking a test or something...



I finally surrendered at one in the morning... Poor Milk and Cookies had to get up at five in the morning to get ready for his military drills. I had to go ahead on and admit that Ja was the man... I had to give him his props...

He was indeed the UNO king of the world!



But that's alright, though. I'm gonna get my practice on...

And I'm going to give the lil' Hen-Dog Jr. a run for his title!!

Relating to LadyTee's Relatives, Part II

I had a chance to hang out and talk with LadyTee's 25 year old "lil' cousin" Lil' Corey. Now we started calling him "Lil' Corey" a few years ago to distinguish him from "Big Corey", one of LadyTee's ex-boyfriends.

Now, when Lil' Corey (pictured here with LadyTee) was a little boy we use to pick on him, something terrible.

His mother would constantly yell, "Alright now, ya'll leave him along. He's gonna get big one day, and get back at ya'll."

We didn't care. Just continue to pick on him.

These days, Lil' Corey ain't that little anymore. He's 6'2, 280 pounds.

These days, when he yells...

"Move out of my way, Lee!"

Shoot, I move out of the way REAL fast. He has been known to grip one by the shoulders, and abruptly set one to the side, out of his path.

He has always been our local expert on what music will be hot in the next few years. He was listening to the Wu Tang Clan, Outkast, Ludicrous, and many others long before they became big, always screaming...

"Ya'll hear this group right here? In a couple of years, they gonna come up. They gonna be hot!!!"

Anyway, over the past 10 years, Lil' Corey has had a hard time. Both of his parents died. He dropped out of high school. He moved around a lot.

But over the past few years, he has come to me at times and said...

"Lee, don't tell nobody, but I've been thinking about going back to school and getting my GED."

I've always tried to be encouraging. "You do that, man. That'll be real good. Do it when you ready to do it, alright?"

I think he was upset by people constantly badgering him about going back to school. I think he knew he needed to go back, but he was just going through things, trying to figure things out.

I've always told him to go back when he is ready. That way, it will mean more to him. He would appreciate it more, because it was his decision to go back to school.

So I'm proud to say, that he has obtained his GED, and is in college now, in some type of program where he is learning how to make dentures and bridgework. I saw through a lot of this immediately. Being the ultimate hip-hop expert that he is, I think that he is ultimately going to start making them grills ya'll! But he said that he is actually interested in that area of work, in making dentures, etc.

He lives near me, and I gave him a ride home one evening from LadyTee's house. I asked him about school, and if he was going to hook me up with some teeth (you know how we ALWAYS looking for the hookup, no matter what it is). All I know, it was great to hear him describe in detail how he was learning the art of making bridges, partials, and dentures. He said that his professor thought he had a real knack for it, and he had been doing well on his tests and in his classes in general. I learned a lot from him in a mere twenty minute drive.

So all I have to say is, I am proud of Lil' Corey. He's doing something he wants to do, and is enjoying it immensely. And I will be right there, along with LadyTee, when he gets his degree.

So do your thang, Lil Corey. I am sooooo proud of you! I wish you all the success in the world!

Keep repping the Westside!!!

And don't forget to hook your girl up with a gold grill, or at least some dentures!!

**Happy Birthday, LadyBug**

Yo DJ Diva, put the record on the turntable and kick me an oldschool beat...

Serenity 23, bring out a pair of your vintage heels... (no not the clear heels, honey... Put those back in your closet)

I gots something to say to our homegirl:

I'd like to wish a Very Happy, Happy 28th Birthday to one of my blog mentors...

The LB...

The LBigga...

The LBeezy....

The LBiggity...

The Ladybug!

She's one who I call the ultimate blogger guru...

I don't have a picture of the guru, who is incognito, as she is a member of the undercover SBS of America...

But she has had a really powerful influence on me all year...

She's the one who I learned the art of carefully placing *Crickets* throughout my blog posts, you see. And those descriptions of Ladylee actions lovingly placed between two asterisks? I learned that from the Ladybug, too. She is teacher, and I am a mere grasshopper. And she has always been helpful when I run up to her on bended knees and ask technical questions.

She is a PHENOMENAL writer, even though she doesn't think so. She can intertwine wit and drama so tightly, it'll make you want to slap yo' Mama!

Why, she even took time to read my manuscript... and she actually enjoyed it!

*A lone tear drops from the LadyLee's eye*

*LadyLee bowed low to the ground at the Ladybug's feet*

I'm not worthy!
I'm not worthy!

I talk to her on the phone a couple hours a week, just shooting the breeze or dropping knowledge. I always come away from a conversations a little bit smarter, a little more wiser.

But she let us know yesterday that she is retiring from blogging... I desperately clasped for my imaginary pearls when she announced it in an email.

Someone... Please hand me a punchbowl.

*Ladylee smashing punchbowl to the floor and making tight fists*

Damn, Damn, DAMN!

(Alright, girl, I don't do that as well as Florida Evans, but psst... hey Ladybug, can you throw me your mantle, so I can do what you do?!!!)

Girl, do your thizzle... YOU do YOU...

Just stop by and visit the Oldgirl's spot from time to time, would you please...

And again, LadyBug, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope your 28th year is the best year EVER!!

And we BOTH know it will be...

Really though!