Why strike?

Why strike?

50 years ago, strikes were important
there 470 strikes in 1952

just last year there were only 50 strikes of more than 1000 employees

there is a better way to assist in change for us and for the union. i believe the media is our best form of leverage in changing what we want at our jobs.

we all know what is going wrong at ATT . why not blow the whistle on them?

now is the time to use what you find against a company.

there is so much that the public is unaware of. things that they might want to know.


say the 5000 jobs that were brought back to America. ATT created jobs in new call centers and then PURCHASED the contract call centers in India!

think about it. they now own the centers in India and can do what they want.
instead of the customers getting Prahad and Bhagavad for DSL support questions they now get Dick and Susie from Wisconsin. The downside to this is now the internal customer, read: employees can now spend countless non-productive ours at work attempting to garner assistance for their computer and technical issues.

for example, i have had a phone down at my desk since about the 14th of March. we no longer have a number to call first to expedite assistance with work related technical issues, we have to go online and create a ticket number.

that ticket is funneled through Georgia and most likely ends up in Madhapur India where mine did. I post no ill will to the workers in India. they need jobs too, but training is very important when dealing with company infrastructure.

I have a soft phone or what most people would call VOIP at my desk. one down side to it is that it is not VOIP but instead a soft phone that uses an ISDN circuit. this leads to many problems. instead of all of the system being virtual, most of it is.

technical assistance is only offered for the virtual phone. I knew after changing out equipment, doing downloads, updating, installing and uninstalling etc, that it was a physical problem that needed a telephone technician to repair.

I would figure that i know this because i know a little about phones as i work for the phone company. meh!

still i prescribed to the company idea that that trouble ticket i opened would eventually be turned into a work order and a tech would come out.

i got an email message on Wednesday from a 'tech' saying he would be at my desk.
it was the company computer guy. he did an un-install, install, update yada yada yada. i think you get the picture. before he even sat down, he knew that he was not going to be able to help. obviously, he had been here done this' before.

he still took his 25 minutes assigned to prove out the program issue.

1 down... how many more to go?

he closed my ticket.
there would be no other person coming out.
i now had to create another ticket.
i got to Georgia this time. that is Georgia in the US and not Georgia in the Ukraine :)
i sat at my desk and had them access my computer remotely to download a new push into the equipment that i had already changed out and tested at another station and had proved out that it wasn't the equipment.
she did her best. i thanked her proficiently, she said she would watch the ticket closely and the then she referred it back to the company computer guy.

he got a message from me that said "don't bother to come out. enjoy your lunch"

it was at this time that i tried to take a familiar path.
i called REPAIR!!!!!
me and the rep on the line had a good laugh. she knew she couldn't help me and i knew too, but i just had to vent to someone who actually understood the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

i told her that all i wanted was a warm body with a tool belt to come on down and fix my phone. the guy with the clipboard was wasting his time.

she laughed, i laughed . it was all good.

by now, Georgia had closed my ticket.
Hello again to limbo.
so my boss overhears me making the warm body and a tool belt comment and decides that it is time for him to step and an be more professional. hahahahaha
it was time to allow my manager to feel my pain.
i could not get an answer from him in the beginning, but somehow he felt that he could get things moving for me now.

i have never enjoyed a watching a man squirm as much as i did this day. hahahahaha!
i followed him to his office and watched him go through all the motions. he was not nice for long. i was sitting there waiting for his bells palsy to come back he was so stressed!
after he asked for a manager a couple of times and got his nose bit a couple of times, he tells me that he has a tech coming out on Monday.

stay tuned. ..






strike?
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Strike vs Lockout information from Wikepedia

A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.

A lockout may happen for several reasons. When only part of a trade union votes to strike, the purpose of a lockout is to put pressure on a union by reducing the number of members who are able to work. For example, if a group of the workers strike so that the work of the rest of the workers becomes impossible or less productive, the employer may declare a lockout until the workers end the strike.

Another case in which an employer may impose a lockout is to avoid slowdowns or intermittent work-stoppages. Occupation of factories has been the traditional method of response to lock-outs by the workers' movement.

Other times, particularly in the United States, a lockout occurs when union membership rejects the company's last and final offer at negotiations and offers to return to work under the same conditions of employment as existed under the now expired contract. In such a case, the lockout is designed to pressure the workers into accepting the terms of the company's last offer.

The term lockin refers to the practice of physically preventing workers from leaving a workplace. In most jurisdictions this is illegal but is occasionally reported, especially in some developing countries.

In the United States, under Federal labor law, an employer may only hire temporary replacements during a lockout. In a strike, unless it is an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike, an employer may legally hire permanent replacements. Also, in many U.S. states, employees who are locked-out are eligible to receive unemployment benefits, but are not eligible for such benefits during a strike.^{[citation needed]}

For the above reasons, many American employers have historically been reluctant to impose lockouts, instead attempting to provoke a strike. However, as American unions have increasingly begun to resort to slowdowns rather than strikes, lockouts have come "back in fashion" for many employers, and even as incident of strikes are on the decline, incidents of lockouts are on the rise in the U.S.^{[citation needed]}

Recent notable lockout incidents have been reported in professional sports, notably involving the National Basketball Association in the 1998–99 season the National Hockey League in the 1994–95 and 2004–05 seasons.

The NLRB National Labor Relations Board has the authority to investigate and remedy unfair labor practices, which are defined in Section 8 of the Act. In broad terms, the NLRA National Labor Relations Act makes it unlawful for an employer to:

• interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights to engage in protected concerted activity or union activities or refrain from them (concerted activity is any activity where two or more employees act in concert to protect rights provided for in the Act, whether or not a union exists),
• to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of a labor organization
• to discriminate against employees for engaging in concerted or union activities or refraining from them,
• to discriminate against an employee for filing charges with the NLRB or taking part in any NLRB proceedings
• to refuse to bargain with the union that is the lawful representative of its employees.

The Act similarly bars unions from:

• restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of their rights or an employer in the choice of its bargaining representative
• causing an employer to discriminate against an employee,
• refusing to bargain with the employer of the employees it represents
• engaging in certain types of secondary boycotts
• requiring excessive dues
• engaging in featherbedding
• picketing for recognition for more than thirty days without petitioning for an election,
• entering into "hot cargo" agreements
• striking or picketing a health care establishment without giving the required notice.

Applying this general language to the real world requires, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, "distinctions more nice than obvious". The substantive law applied by the NLRB is described elsewhere under specific headings devoted to particular topics.

Not every unfair act amounts to an unfair labor practice; as an example, failing to pay an individual worker overtime pay for hours worked in excess of forty hours in a week might be a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, but it is unlikely to amount to an unfair labor practice as well. Similarly, a violation of a collective bargaining agreement, standing alone, may not constitute an unfair labor practice unless the employer has not only violated the contract but repudiated all or part of it.

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how can they get away with this?

is it going to be possible for us to report ways that corporations are shuffling their structure around to appear to be helping the american public.

i work for ATT and they promised to bring back 5000 american jobs from overseas. what they did was switch the customer facing foreign workers with the internal workers. Now the employees calling internally are getting all of the representatives from overseas. for example, my desk phone has been broken for over 5 days. i could only send an email to report trouble. i had to wait a number of days for a response and my response came from a internal repair rep in madhupar india!!! he could not help me and i am still waiting for a message to be passed to the technician who walks the halls of the building i work in. i have found that it is next to impossible to ask for change from a company that does not want to change. the change should be expected and demanded by our goverment. more regulatioin for how employees are managed. we have full departments that are laden in red tape and beuracracy to manage the consumers protection, but somewhere employees have been left out. unions are not doing what they can because they have no support and big business is almost impossible to fight without that help.
thank you for your time.





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Where is the line with you...

OMG! I think there must be a fantastic new driving school for not-so-brights, the inbred and crackheads!

At least once a week this car parks in front of my house and leaves it's ass partially blocking my driveway.

I am not sure what imaginary garbage can might be sitting out there 4 days early for pickup, but I wish they would just imagine they are bumping it and pull up a little further. Maybe they are parking in front of my house because of all the imaginary cars in front of the one across the street.

Granted, they only parked there for 15 or so minutes but Damn! I was trying to leave my house!!!

I need smarter neighbors. Anyone know where I can buy a few freeze dried - like Sea Monkeys? Add water and "POP"...

Happy Ramblings

Goddess
L. Gracie Phillips

Times, they are a changin'

The inauguration is jsut 2 days away. I am almost sick to my stomach. I so wish that I was there, but I will be there in pirit.
I do feel like will be one of a few minorities actually at work on Tuesday.

It is nice to be without words for something as grand and spectacular as the inaguration of the first Black president of the United States of America.






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lightening my baggage load a little

Life is beginning to look up.

I really got down to the meat and potatoes of my baggage concerns.

A huge chunk of my dating woes fall into the category of the fact that I cannot date Black men.

It turns out that I CAN but I choose NOT to. That is a problem now isn't it?


I cannot sit and complain about how little I date when I have effectively cut my dating pool in half at least by limiting this group of men.

I am now going to have to work on how I feel about dating Black men because there is nothing wrong with them. I am looking at them and blocking them into an entire race of people that I don't know.
I have not met every last Black person on the planet so I really cannot say that I am not attracted to Black men. I cannot say that all black mean are going to treat me bad. I am not saying that all Black men are uneducated.

What I have done is take all of the Black people that I have met who I did not have a good mix with since elementary school and lumped them all into the same category.

I am guilty of using the reference of "those people". I have found that when you fear something, you want to do your best to distance yourself from it. I do not fear Black men.

What I fear the most is opening up myself to life and risking getting hurt again. I don't want to have to learn any more lessons right now. I would like to think that I have learned all tat I can, but I am not really old enough to say that I have learned anything.

not necessarily shame on me. but use your brain more is certainly an admonishment I am willing to put in my "in" box.



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i can't believe my life is like this

It has become apparent in the past few weeks, that i have 'baggage'.

i didn't realize what baggage was until i tried to let down my walls and defenses and actually attempt to date someone.
i have come to the realization that i am unfit for love. i am not willing to have a person love me. it is interesting that i have a person in my life that i really enjoy spending time with, and i can't even get close enough to them to allow them to see the real me. instead, they just see me spread thin and ready to collapse.

i don't like it when a person calls me sugar or honey or sweetie and i cringe.
what the fuck is that all about?

i feel really guilty pushing a person away like that. i know that if they knew how i felt, they would be able to make a sane decision on how to proceed with their time with me.

i never in my life thought it could be this tough.

i talked to my friend Robert (who, perhaps, i should be dating) and he says that i need to get into recovery. not for alcoholics, but for anyone who is trying to get over some shit.

i cannot continue to push all of this important work that needs to be done by the wayside.
i have to hop on and ride this bull into the mud.

it angers me that i allow my ex to have so much power over me. i know that he is manipulative and that i need to battle him with the right weapons. those would be the weapons of non-action. i need to just focus on me and be clear what i want and not give too much of a rat's ass about what he wants.

*sigh*

wish me luck all.
i will keep you posted.







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Please read entire post before you are offended

the post that i had in december about the woman on the french game show obviously offended some people. i showed the video to make a point.

i have removed the video, but i have not removed the link. if you are adult enough to watch the video then click the link in the post below, otherwise...






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I so needed a laugh today. then...

Check out this video: Really Hot French Game Show Contestant






Then i got to thinking. i read some of the comments made on this video and people were mentioning that if she didn't want to show them, she should cover them up. what they failed to see was that she was adjusting her top because she felt she had to.
granted, she has breasts. granted, the host is a male.

that right there explains the entire clip.

do not damn a woman who wants to look sexy and beautiful. yes, they are two completely separate definitions of how a woman can look. i think for the most part, she did her best. the host did the best he could as well. is there any way we can have American television in this manner. i laughed. i laughed. i laughed.

what do they say is the best medicine?

roger that!


then i got

Mrs. Bhutto and Mr. Blitzer

imagine how Mr. Blitzer feels...

What would you do if someone sent you an email stating to share with the public only in the event of death?

Would you have accepted the email without reading or at least finding out what was in it?

Mr. Blitzer did. he did what he was trusted to do. i don't think many people would have honored her wishes.
if Paris Hilton had sent an email stating that her grandfather was a selfish son of a bitch for having left her family with only 63 mil in an inheritance in his will.

Who would spill?
Who would keep their mouths shut?

i for one am very sad and distressed that she felt that the only way to make a statement about the security provided to her by the opposing government was inadequate. i know why she did it this way. like so many people who feel that their voice has not been heard. who feel that their opinion was not trusted. who feel that what matters is a posthumous stab at those she KNOWS are responsible for her death. i don't thin Benazir Bhutto was paranoid. i know she must have been very afraid, but very conscious of the necessity of change.

i am so very saddened..
g

i'm still here...

I remember when i was far younger and still on the web when we had to put tags like that in the subject line lest our post might drive someone to do the unthinkable.
I have had a great many challenges in my life and i have surmounted all issues and come through all with flying colors (if you want to call flaming neon green poo flying colors). I have reached an empasse...
I no longer wish to awaken in the morning in my present state. I awaken to the feeling of not being rested. Not only am i not feeling refreshed, but my eyes are showing it. My suffering is great, but i know my job.
I am mother, daughter, friend, sister and so much more. All that i am is important to me, however, the medical professionals that i entrust with my well being have left me in a state of barely uncontrolled FURY. I cannot make an appointment right now because my anger lashes out. It is an animal that i am no longer able to poo-poo into solution.
People keep asking me if i am under a great amount of stress. No more than usual, i say, and getting better all the time. I really should not be driving, but how do you get to the appointments?
I went to the dentist yesterday, at the behest of my neurologist, who i was referred to by psychiatry because they, who i was referred to by my primary doctor, because she had no idea either, to check out somehting so far fetched that even my dentist had a huge smile on his face. My primary had even sent me to rheumatologist because she had lost her footing with me not once, but twice.

So, without bitching about my symptoms goings-on, i will leave it at that.

My statement:
I do not want to die, yet i feel as if each day is my last. I have so much to live for. I am worth so much to myself and the people around me that it is unfair for someone who has so much to live for to be in this situation.
I know that when i explain the above statement to the powers that be, they feel no option but to consider me 51/50 and send the paddy wagon to keep themselves out of potential future litigation, by showing that they "did all that they could do".
What is untrue about their statement is that they have not done all that they can do.
I will continue to demand that they help me so thay we can work together to give me a reason to get out of bed and face the world and life that i love and miss so much.
On to the ombudsman tomorrow.

G

Sexaii!

what i find sexy....

- glasses on a man (especially the horn rimmed type)

- intelligence

-tanned construction workers

-gold jewelry and belly chains

-Erotic Fiction written by women for women

-irish men ALL irish men (except my ex husband)

-having the wind blow through my hair

-PDA's

-any person not offensively skinny (and you know what i mean) men and women

-a hand on my knee

- still Polo after all these years

-pet names

- clean shaven faces for sure.

- The way i can make a man stop and stair if i wanted to (still funny when i do)

-cleavage.... LOTS of cleavage (that's what stops the men :))

- dark eyeliner

-long lashes

- tattoos that only i know exist and an appreciation by the man i am with when he does find them ;)

- sophistication in a man's voice
- a man with more to do than he has to say hahahahahah!

- Certain songs with certain rhythms that make you imagine certain things!! Rhythm is key after all ;-) i am just going to steal this one. just not porn music. hee hee

What do you find sexy???

9/11

9/11... the documentary just aired on CBS tonight

just saw the documentary 9/11 on tv.
it was a documentary done by two french brothers who wanted to do a documentary showing a rookie's probationary period on the new york city fire department.

now i know where all of that uncanny footage came from. it is amazing to see some of the shots they got. they were there just to watch a "probie" earn his stripes and wound up recording history. amazing.
the entire fire house that they were filming at went in first and all got out alive. they guys really have not been the same since. most of them are scarred and get teared up just thinking about it. they all lost brother's from the fire force that day. many of them retired or went on to different houses and whatnot, but they all seem to have had the same question fired at them.

"why did you all survive?"
that is, i think, the equivalent of asking someone "why didn't you die?"

i think many of them are suffering from survivor's guilt.
those poor men
those poor women
those poor families
out poor country
i don't know why we don't have the monument built.
i caught a news story about on built overseas that is being visited because we can't get our shit together to give our families somewhere to go. there is a monument at the fire station that sits across from where the towers used to be. amazing.

i hope tomorrow can be a day of mourning. a day of remembrance, and most of all, a day never to forget.

g

Santa Who?

i'm busted!

my son has been bugging me over the past week about Santa...
he keeps coming at me with "what is Santa really?"

i danced around it long enough.

i explained to him that Santa is an idea. a fantastic idea that some parents use to convince their children to behave through the year. it seems easier to please a person who is larger than life than to please your parents sometimes. i told him that Santa is just like the imaginary friends that he has. while he is playing with them, they are real to him.
i told him that he can still believe in Santa. he just has to understand that the gifts do come from mom and dad mostly. i had to explain to him that it is the spirit of chirstmas that keeps the idea and concept of Santa alive.
i didn't bring up the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairie, or the Sandman or anyone else in the land of make believe. he took my answer. i did express to him that it was very important not to share the information because it would break the hearts of the other
kids who truly believe that santa is real. i told him that Christmas will not change. gifts will still be addressed from Santa. that is how we celebrate christmas with Santa.
i also asked my son what the real reason why celebrate christmas is. he knew it was about Mary and Joseph and Jesus. i explained to him that Jesus was a very important person in our lives because he gave the ultimate sacrifice to save us all. i let him know that God was very upset with us because we were not following the rules and behaving like sensible people should. and that God gave us 2 more chances. he would send his Son to remind us how we were supposed to act. when we didn't listen to his Son, God decided that he had to sacrifice his only son to help us understand just how precious life is and how important it is to listen to and learn about the right way to behave and live.
i said that Jesus was a very important guy and that what better way to celebrate his birthday than to share the concept of the gift that he gave to us by giving gifts to other in remembrance of what he did.
somehow, i see this all coming back to hit me in the face, but i couldn't keep dodging the subject. he really wanted to know and he was okay with my explanation.

life goes on

November 24....

he passed away 4 years ago

the very strange thing about it, it that i really don't miss him. i just wish he was still here. does that qualify as missing a person. i know he was okay with going. my dad was always one of those people who "kept his shit straight". there was no reason for him to ever be afraid of dying. you get what you get and you go when you go. his outlook on life that started off so poorly and continued in such a way until his 30s always seemed to be allright in his head. he was okay and i guess that is why i am okay with it too. though it is true that it is a different experience for everyone, i am glad to have known him and to have been blessed with such a dad. the poem on his program says it all and i try to follow it to this day.....

Miss Me, But Let Me Go!

When I come to the end of the road,

And the sun has set for me,

I want no rites in a gloom filled room,

Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little, but not too long,

And not with your head bowed low;

Remember the love we once shared,

Miss Me, But Let Me Go!

For this is a journey we all must take,

And each must go alone,

It's all a part of the Master's plan,

A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart,

Go to friends we know;

Bury your sorrows in doing good deeds,
Miss Me, But Let Me Go!

poetry

looking up...you better not pout
you better not lie
you better not call me
names or you'll die

Ex-Wife Claus is coming to town!

she's making a list
she checking it twice
ex husbands will be
dead and on ice

Ex-Wife Claus is coming to town!

she sees you when you pick up
she sees you when you drop.
she sees you in the restaurant
with a 12 year old she calling the cops?

oh you better not shout
you better not curse
you better stay cool
she's got a gun in her purse

Ex-Wife Claus is coming to town!

thank the lord i still have a sense of humor. it is what gets me through the hard times. right now, i think it is the hard time. i know it will get better. i feel it coming down the pipe. i have faith that things will improve.
milo will have his Christmas taken care of. i will find a way to get his tuition paid. i will get my bank statements back sooner than later so that i can get on with the court deal. i will do things in my life that make me happy. that will cause things to fall into place sooner than later.

in the meantime, i will still keep smiling, laughing, and enjoying every last minute of my life.

love you all,

me

p.s.
i WILL keep my day job

Christmas 2006.....what it really means to me.

This was perhaps the best Christmas on record for me.
it was good on two ends for me.
for my son, Christmas gifts were scarce, but every last one of them held something special for Milo. he know there is not Santa Claus, but he know of the spirit of giving and of sharing. virtually every toy that i did get for him, he had longed for. he also knew this was going to be a Christmas where his mom was not going to be getting much. we got up around 10am. he came in to my room to say good morning and hear me tell him merry Christmas. we talked for a bit about how he knew i was going to yell MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! because that is just how i am. then i told him that we should check under the tree to see his gifts. i swear, my son must have thought he was going to get nothing for Christmas. the presents didn't appear until after Milo was asleep. we walked into the room and he saw the gifts and asked who they were all for... i said they were for him. he just got this huge grin on his face. i said for him to go ahead and start opening them. he asked me to share the opening of the gifts with him. he wanted me to open gifts too so he let me "help" him open his gifts. h OMG i could have just sat and cried right there if it was not for the look of joy when he opened the presents that he longed for and found them in their boxes. i know it was hard for me to watch the gifts being opened at my brother's house. everyone had so much stuff. it just made me sad to think that i could not do that for my son this year. what i did teach him though was that Christmas was for being together and for spending time with loved ones or remembering those who are so far away or have gone on to heaven. i just feel good about what i made out of a not so good situation.
secondly, for so many years, i have been trying to get my family to head out to my house for dinner or a get-together or anything. many times it has fizzled out. many times. it is just me, myself, and i.
sometimes i doubt myself so much that i commit social suicide by sabotaging the whole thing.
this year was different. there simply was no room at my grandparents house for our big ass, loud ass family.
i made a feast fit for a king (or a least a very hungry man) and served it all up for everyone to have. everyone was happy with something.

we had
catfish stew
rice
dressing
garlic mashed potatoes
gravy
baked macaroni and cheese
turkey
cornbread
and some other stuff i forgot.

i was just so happy to see many of my family at MY house and enjoying themselves. it was a great time. something i will surely not forget for a long while. i can't even describe how happy i was to see them all spill through the front door. i got to see almost everyone that i wanted to see. there were some special people missing, but they will be out next time around. probably the two people that i missed the most were my mom and dad.
my mom is very homesick. i called her today to ask her about the macaroni and cheese (i forgot the egg) and she sounded sad. she said she missed everyone. i am going to have to find a way out there more often. i don't know how i am going to do that. it is frightening that my life has turned out this way, but i am going to have to make it work for me with all the resources that i have. i will get to her. i have decided that. or i will get her to me.

i miss my dad just as much. i know i will never hear his voice spoken in open air again. but he is always with me. he will forever be with many of us. he was a nut, but he was MY nut. MY daddy. i was his baby girl. my auntie feels the same way almost. she was his baby sis. she came in the house and went looking for the pictures i keep in a frame for him. i moved him down the hall and put his biggest frame on top of my tv in the movie room. man, i miss him. my life has changed so much since he has been gone. i wish there were a way to be able to sit down, have a beer, and just shoot the breeze with him. just to be able to bullshit with him one more time. i know that won't be for a long time coming, and i can wait, but i wish i could get that wish sooner.

anywhoo. it was a rockin' christmas.
it was fantabulous!
g

Pay it forward

I have always believed strongly in the power of giving. i have always believed that if you give a little, that is all you have to do. don't expect anything in return, but be grateful if it does come back to you.

today, Milo and i went to Denny's after Mass and stopping by to say hi to Michelle's momma. he was all decked out in one of the new shirt and tie sets he got for Christmas. we got to the building and you know how you stand at the counter waiting for someone to ask you "how many?" well we stood there for a minute when two men walked in. they looked like business men with their logos on shirts look and trench jackets. well the girl looked up and asked the men before me and milo "how many?" no question perhaps of who was here first, but she just took the two professional men over the mother and child. i won't pull the race card, she was just not using her common sense. so i started to stew about it and was about to leave. the other lady at the counter sat us after a few minutes. she could see i was pissed. *sigh* what to do.
so i went as far as telling her what happened. nothing else happened. i am so not surprised.
i tried to let it go. i had lost my appetite but i ordered anyway (milo usually polishes off what i don't eat anyway). i was thinking up ways to ask for a comp meal or something for the horrible hospitality, when a lady came up to my table and handed me a coupon for 20% off my entire tab. how very nice of her. she gave one to the table behind me as well. she said she would not be back by the time the rest of them expired so i thanked her and forgot all about the huff and puff i was about to raise.

so off to the counter Milo and I go to pay our tab. i was thinking that she deserved a surprise. so i paid her tab. that's right. that lady was there with three kids. i paid her tab. my tab after the coupon wasn't even 10 bucks so i paid it. me and Milo went back to thank her for the coupon and were on our way. Milo was trying to figure out what we had just done. i told him that we just shared a smile. if we could make her day by paying her tab, we were paying her back in kindness for the coupon she gave us while asking for nothing in return. i told him that if she is smiling and she passes that smile onto someone else, they would probably pass it on to someone else and milo chimed in with " and people would be smiling all over California". i added a bit more by telling him that hopefully it would be the cause of people smiling all over the world.

then we went home and i cleaned the kitchen while Milo played in his room.
there is so much that i cannot give my son materialistically, but i can give him so much more on the spiritual and emotional level. milo was dressed so smartly for church. he really has a way with people. when we get to the part where we show the sign of peace to one another, milo is the first with his hand out there saying Peace be with You. today he Hi Fived one of our Deacons. it was cute. i love my son. i love that he loves God. i love that he watches Father Joe in awe. i also love that he is not at all afraid to ask questions. even if it means that he might be setting an adult straight. like Jesus in the temple.
whatever my son becomes in life, i know that i started him off right. i am giving him what he needs to be a good Christian citizen. a child of God. a mother's son.

this job i love.

i was touched in this same way. i don't know when and i don't know by whom, but i have always had this in my heart. i am glad to see that it was not a fluke with me and that i can pass this on to my son.
please, everyone, pay it forward if you can.

pay for someone mocha at starbucks or smile at a person who may or may not need it. give a person room to make a lane change or just wave someone across the intersection even if they stopped a split second after you.
i have been blessed and i am more than grateful. don't get me wrong, i am still human, but i know things could be much worse. things could be better, but they could be worse. i know that i can give what i can and be content that i have done my part and will continue to do so.

somehow, this season has changed me. i can't describe it.

g

thinking about things

with reference to black history month and all that perhaps my brothers and sister feel they deserve and what they actually should be getting...

on the opposite yet same end of the spectrum as you (amykay) in thought. however, it is a little more bizarre for me because i am a black woman. when i say that reparations is a crock of hooey, folks look at me like my head rolled off my shoulders and hit their new Jordan's.
i know what i know and i know that i grew up in a household and a family full of adults who lived through the labeled drinking fountains and bathrooms.
my grandfather was there when the young people who wanted to register voters turned up missing and then were found dead.
i can ask many many relatives about Emmet Till and they will cry when they relate the story of that day.
i know why the caged bird sings...

however, i do not believe that the caged bird should forever bind itself to the cage. also, should the caged bird be willing to unlatch the blessed "protection" of the cage and be willing to take flight. to soar with other birds. to experience the wind currents beneath it's wings.

if i am qualified, hire me. if you choose not to hire me because you are only 35 and you grew up in a house where my people were call "niggers" on a daily basis. where it was the norm and you thought nothing of it until you went away to college and realized that we were human too.

if i want to rent from you and and clear a deal with me on the phone and suddenly the aparment is rented shortly after my personal visit, to hell with you.

i grew up in a household of acceptance of EVERYONE no matter what they did to you. i grew up in a town where i was one of only 4 black kids. i remember that is where i learned the names that they called us. it was just the norm because they never had to confront us. when we moved into town, we threw it in their faces. as depressing as that seemed for us, imagine how it much have felt to their kids who grew up and thought about their upbringing and felt it wrong?

anywho.....

equal?
yes. only in the eyes of the Lord.
equal?
yes. only in the eyes of the Law.
equal?
perhaps one day in the distant future when all the influences that change the thinking of young children have passed away

Poetry

got to thinking about L-O-V-E wrote a poem about it. . .

Bitterment before Betterment

What is this Love?
that makes my heart flutter
that makes my palms sweat
my head spin
my voice crack
my teeth clench

Where is this Love?
that eludes me
hides from me
snaps...
my...
bra...

gives me sleepless nights
gruesome frights
wanna
take...
flight ...
far...

Where the blind see nothing
and the mute speak no words
my feelings free to express
my face free to be plain
no need to explain

ME

*bows*