b/c the cup is back in chicago (and there was much rejoicing)

this week has been nothing short of batshit crazy, news-wise. i'm not ready to delve into some of those topics yet, aside from a heartfelt "wtf?" at most of it. maybe i'll scribble something about paula deen or wendy davis or the supreme court or nelson mandela or something else i'm forgetting at the moment when i'm back from milwaukee.

oh, yeah...i'm going to milwaukee this weekend. ll cool j isn't coming to chicago so i will go to milwaukee to see him. yes, my stannery/fangirldom is that real and that serious. i am looking forward to hanging with my friend christina (a fellow fangirl/stan) and acting a complete and utter fool. it's gonna be great.

but that's not what this post is about. this post is about the blackhawks successfully going #pawsup (i still can't believe that was an actual thing) and bringing the stanley cup back to chicago. woo!

remember when the blackhawks won the stanley cup in 2010? i do. i remember it vividly b/c that was also the same night that troy & i tearfully agreed to break up. when it became obvious that the blackhawks could and would make a run for the cup this season, i wanted in. i wanted a championship that i could cry happy tears over.

since the 2010 cup, i've gotten divorced, had to move out of my apartment b/c i was about to be evicted, crashed on various couches and in various guest rooms, spent a year and some change in the burbs, and finally got back to chicago in april of this year, albeit not on the terms i wanted. so, yeah. i definitely wanted something to celebrate.

i've been at my part-time gig for a year. i'm in chicago. it's summer. i was ready to celebrate.

i'd done my part during the stanley cup final, too. i watched game 1 at a bar and drank way too much whiskey b/c triple-overtime. game 2 i watched at home and earned a migraine along with the loss. game 3? at home. we lost. this is when i theorized that i had to watch the rest of the series at a bar b/c clearly that was impacting the outcome. and it was. and i did.

i was at a bar for game 6. actually, i was at two different bars, but i left bar a after the 1st period b/c it was full of scenesters and i was ready to punch all of them and flip tables, so i left. bar b? much better. full of fans who were focused on hockey and alcohol and didn't care about being seen or socializing aside from talking about the game or about their drinks. i was happy. i was happier when the blackhawks scored. i remember saying that another goal would be awesome, and a few seconds later, i got my wish. i started crying the aforementioned happy tears b/c the cup was coming back to chicago. my life was going to continue the upswing i'm trying to establish.

i know there's no real correlation b/t the events of the past three years and the blackhawks welcoming lord stanley's cup back to chicago. i get it. i understand it on a cerebral level. but sometimes, i need a little something extra to hold on to, to keep me going when i'm ready to go into "fuck everything" mode and give up.

this month's something extra? the blackhawks. thanks for not letting me down, guys. thank you for invoking all of the happy tears. a replay of game 6 is on even as i type this and i'm ready to scream with joy all over again. thanks for reminding me that i love chicago and there's nowhere else i'd rather be, even with all of its faults.

will the upswing i'm hoping for in my personal life be forthcoming? i don't know. i can only hope. until then, i'm gonna keep doing the work and making sure i'm as ready as i can be for whatever's next.

things i do at 5am on a monday (a partial list)

• stretch out in bed (or, in this morning's case, on the couch) and figure out how/why i'm wide awake at 4:45am on my day off
• go to the bathroom
• realize that i'm neither unsober nor sick and therefore there's no real reason to be awake at that insane hour
• do some quick praying/meditation to see if there's a particular lesson god/the universe needs to impart
• swear at god/the universe for feeling the need to teach me a lesson at 5am
• jump on twitter to vent
• decide to attempt to go the fuck back to sleep b/c it's now 5:15 and there's no way i plan on being productive that early
• make up a song

yes, ladies and gentlemen. i found myself making up a song in my cranky and sleep-deprived state. i call it "look at all the fucks i give." i'm actually kinda amazed that i remembered the words, seeing as how the lyrics (such as they are) came to me as i was drifting back to the land of slumber.

"look at all the fucks i give" (set to the tune of "camptown races")

look at all the fucks i give
doo-dah, doo-dah
what an awesome way to live
oh de doo-dah day

i'm all out of fucks
you're shit out of luck
look at all the fucks i give
oh de doo-dah day

(repeat as needed/desired)

happy monday. :-)

on: current wave of emo/nostalgia

i feel like i've been all over the place emotionally this week. it really hit me last night when i realized i'd gone to 3 different grocery stores for things (and still managed to forget something i wanted for tomorrow's dinner, smh) and how i really am my father's child, b/c he used to drive from store to store in search of the best deals. and then this morning, i was making breakfast and had another moment of channeling my father. to say i miss him would be an understatement, obviously. but then it all kinda clicked while i was watching melissa harris-perry and having my breakfast and looking at my twitter feed.

i got a haircut the other day (stay with me, folks, b/c i promise this is relevant) and it's been weirding me out for a couple of reasons. one, my hair hasn't been this short in a while and i'm dying to see how short it'll look when it's in its curly state. two, my timing for this haircut was damn near perfect b/c #summertimechi is upon us and one of the last things i want to deal with is my hair on my neck. it's hard enough being a fat girl in the summer - no need to add to the sweat.

and then the proverbial light bulb came on. the last time i can remember having my hair this short is the summer of 1998. i got it cut especially for graduation. somewhere i have a picture of me and james standing outside after i'd walked across the stage and my hair was about as short as it is now.

y'all. northwestern's commencement weekend is happening even as i type. it's been 15 years since graduation. i had an impromptu hangout with a fellow alum (and former football player) earlier this week and someone asked how long we'd known each other. we both started laughing as we said "19 years" and then realized, holy shit, we're old. i also thought that if we partied that hard on a tuesday night, there's no way my liver is going to survive homecoming. i'll have fun trying, though.

my father has been dead for 16 years. one of my regrets, and i admit it's a pointless regret to have b/c there's jack shit i could've done about it, is that daddy didn't get to see me walk across the stage and receive my northwestern degree. we both worked hard for it. after he died, james and i continued working hard so i could actually stay at northwestern b/c it was looking kinda impossible for a second there, but we did it. daddy and james and i did it and to this day, i hate that daddy wasn't there in person to see it. i also hate that i can't call james and tease him about being old, but that's a different story.

i'm looking forward to homecoming this fall for a lot of reasons. i just wish the two family members who helped me get through northwestern in the 1st place were around to indulge in this nostalgia with me.

(some of) the reasons why i fucks with sjb

omg you guys. today is softjunebreeze's birthday. she just happens to share a birthday with prince. i'm kinda hoping the faux prince account on twitter will wish her a happy birthday, b/c that would be awesome. it'd also be awesome if any of the real and/or fake joe biden accounts wished her a happy birthday. you'd think i'd have more pull with crazy uncle joe by now, given my ongoing desire for him to come to chicago so we can have all of the liquor and party hard andrew w.k. style, but no.

so, instead, i am writing a post in honor of sjb's birthday while i'm slightly unsober. b/c sjb would be like "fuck yeah!" b/c she's one of my key partners in shenanigans and fuckery and other decisions that may or may not be considered bad/poor in hindsight, but sound like "winnar!" at the time.

b/c sjb's one of the people who offered me their futon when i was couch-surfing (and not in the fun "vacation all i ever wanted" kind of way) back in 2011. b/c when i got ready to leave sjb's place and head over to my bff's house for the next portion of my couch-surfing, sjb was all "dude, take this cash so you can cab it from here to the metra station w/o having to worry about lugging that big-ass suitcase on the cta." i'm sure i thanked her at the time, but i'm not sure she knows how much that meant in real life. it meant a lot.

and did i ever tell y'all about the time sjb broke my brain when she said that mj's "billie jean" and cee-lo's "bright lights bigger city" were sorta kinda the same damn song? seriously. check it out for yourselves:

"billie jean"


"bright lights bigger city"


mind you, i may or may not have been unsober when she first told me about this, kinda like how i may or may not be unsober while i'm writing this post, but still.

oh, and if you've ever seen/heard me reference #leyomitwirl, it's b/c of sjb. she's the one who first showed me this classic:


i'm sure there's all kinds of youtube/other internet-based goodness that sjb put me on to that i'm forgetting, but, y'know, unsober. besides, i don't wanna totally embarass her. that would be rude.

y'know what's not rude, though? closing this post with this song that borrows from prince's "let's go crazy." i mean, it is also prince's birthday, so i might as well give him a shoutout, right? right.

so long, smash, the show we loved to hate

i know someone who auditioned for a minor role on smash back when it was "hey spielberg's about to do this tv show about broadway!" unfortunately, the timing didn't work out and this someone had to miss out on two seasons of compellingly crazy television.

that's really the best way to describe smash, i think. compellingly crazy. my friend kdc has written about the rise and fall and our (somewhat) good-natured hatred of smash in a more articulate way than i'm able to at the moment.

i remember talking to the aforementioned someone during the 1st season after the ridiculous church scene (not to be confused with the ridiculous bollywood scene, because oh yeah that shit fucking happened) and telling them that i was glad the universe had decided that they couldn't be a part of this clusterfuck b/c omg what a clusterfuck.

i watched the series finale earlier this afternoon, which was obviously filmed as a season finale before the show's cancellation. so entertainingly awful.

and speaking of entertainingly awful - this rendition of "under pressure" from the finale has kept me laughing for, i don't know, at least 2 hours.

inspirational cough drops; or why halls needs to stfu and let me be sick

i'm (hopefully) in the last stages of the plague a cough/cold that's been tormenting me. as part of my recovery, i've been using halls cough drops.

did you know that halls has started printing little slogans on the wrappers of their cough drops? the tag line is "a pep talk in every drop." that's actually the first thing i have an issue with. i don't want a pep talk when i'm taking a cough drop. i want all of the honey-lemon flavored mentholated goodness to soothe my throat and put an end, albeit temporary, to my coughing fit(s). that's it. i don't think i'm asking for too much here.

but no. halls wants to cheer my cold/cough on with witticisms such as these (and yes i saved a few wrappers so i could have some semblance of variety on this list):

• "don't give up on yourself." (ok, well, i suppose that's solid advice regardless of health status.)
• "tough is your middle name." (no, it's not. especially not when i'm sick. fuck you, halls.)
• "dust off and get up." (again, solid advice when i'm not sick, but right now? fuck you, halls.)
• "get through it." (well, i'm trying, hence the unwrapping and consumption of the cough drop.)
• "buckle down and push forth!" (fuck you, halls.)
• "push on!" (no, really, fuck you, halls.)
• "the show must go on. or work." (i am definitely guilty of donning my superwoman cape even when i'm not feeling 100%, but really, halls? fuck you.)
• "don't try harder. do harder!" (first of all, giggity. second of all, fuck you, halls.)

and, my all-time favorite most despised "pep talk" from halls:

• "let's hear your battle cry!"

dear halls: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS WITH THIS ONE? if i was capable of emitting a battle cry that didn't sound something like "omg everything hurts i can haz couch nao kthxbai," i wouldn't need the damn cough drop in the first place! i'd be able to wrest myself from couch or bed and punch you in the face for making such an asinine suggestion. fuck you, halls.

y'know what, though? i'm gonna keep taking halls b/c i still have another unopened bag and on some level, these pep talks are amusing to me. i still like the messages on my dove promises wrappers more, though. mmm...inspirational chocolate...

something something end of an era something something

i'm sure some, if not most, of y'all have heard about the school closings in chicago. what you don't know is that the 2 cps elementary schools i attended way back in the day are on that list. i knew that one of my alma maters (can an elementary school be referred to as an alma mater? it seems a bit weird, but whatever) was on the list, but i wasn't aware of the 2nd one until this afternoon when i revisited the full list.

so, farewell, dumas and pershing. dumas is where, if the administration had gotten its way, i would've skipped from kindergarten to 2nd grade. my mother won that battle, such as it was, and instead i skipped kindergarten and went to 1st grade. dumas is also where i drove teachers crazy with my "cursive" writing (read: adding tails to all of my letters). in first grade, we would sing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" every morning. i still can't spell it, but i think i still remember most of the lyrics. i have no idea why our teacher thought singing a song from "mary poppins" was a vital part of our education, but that's neither here nor there.

my mother was already sick by the time i transferred to pershing in 2nd grade. i remember for certain assignments, we had to write our school's full name at the top of our papers. do you know how hard it was to squeeze my name and "john j. pershing magnet school for the humanities," plus whatever other heading details, in that upper right-hand corner of notebook paper? it was hard.

my 2nd grade teacher (mrs. kloak, if memory serves correctly) wrote me a special note when i came back to school after my mother died. at the end of the year, she wrote notes for all of us and i think mine is still in my scrapbook. i also remember some kids talking about my mother's death and saying that she had cancer. i was adamant in defending her from that, somehow, and saying that she'd died of a heart attack, which is what i was told.

i was in high school by the time daddy told me the truth, that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. i think we were on a road trip - maybe to st. louis to visit my grandmother? who knows? all i know is that i looked at him that day like he was an alien. maybe everyone thought a 7 y.o. was too young to know about cancer? who knows? longtime readers/friends know that my family is nothing if not dysfunctional, so this was par for the course.

so, yeah. my parents are gone and the cps schools i went to are gone and something something end of an era something something.

oh, and fuck cancer, btw.

Money train: Metra stops and income levels

i was catching up on news/headlines before i call it a night and saw this interactive graphic from the folks at crain's chicago business: Money train: Metra stops and income levels

(note: you might need a log-in or some sort of workaround if you're not already registered on their site.)

i thought it was an interesting take on income patterns throughout the region. admittedly i didn't spend that much time clicking around the map b/c i'm sleepy, but i thought y'all (esp. the ones who don't follow my twitter feed where this link has also been posted) would dig it.

and on that note, g'night.

moar fun with teh interwebz, part 85 bazillion

i swear i have at least 4 blog topics waiting to be tackled, but seeing as how i just spent the morning organizing files and paying bills and prepping for a phone interview, i figured i'd just throw this up here:

that's right, folks. the star of one of my favorite tv shows retweeted me on thursday night. it's not the first time a celebrity has replied to or retweeted me. hell, it's not even the first time kerry washington has acknowledged my twitter presence. i mean, the 1st time ll cool j interacted with me on twitter, i was pretty much in the clouds for the rest of the day. this particular one is entertaining to me, though, b/c kerry was live-tweeting "scandal" right along with the show's fans. one of my friends tweeted me saying "omg kw retweeted you," or something along those lines, and i was all "omg i know! squee!"

now i just have to convince crazy uncle joe to take me up on my numerous invitations to come hang out in chicago so we can go party. :-)

this concludes your fangirl moment for the day. have a great weekend!

recipe review: baked potatoes with sausage & arugula sauce

so i was talking to k last night about the surplus of potatoes currently in the kitchen, and i might have joked about finding something to do with them that didn't involve turning all of them into mashed potatoes. not that i'm against mashed potatoes, mind you. i love mashed potatoes. mashed potatoes are proof that god loves me & wants me to be happy and fat.

but i digress just a bit. i decided to check my recipe folder on my computer for recipes that involved potatoes. don't ask me how many results came up, though. it's almost embarrassing.

this recipe, though, seemed like a winner. my usual rule of thumb is that if i like all of the ingredients in a recipe, then i will probably like the finished product. i was right with this one.

here are my changes/substitutions: i used mild italian sausage - pork, not turkey, b/c that's what was available at the meat counter when i went to the store. i used a bag of a spinach and arugula blend instead of all arugula or all spinach. regular readers know that i rarely measure garlic, and this was no exception since i was working with pre-minced garlic. let's say i used, oh, i don't know, a tablespoon or so? something like that? yeah. oh, and i bought shredded parmesan cheese instead of grated b/c i only wrote "parmesan cheese" on my shopping list and didn't realize my error until i was about to start cooking. oh, and i skipped the parsley. tomato-basil sauce and not marinara. the end.

i am SO making this again. i would put this sauce on top of some garlic bread and be a happy girl. 

i should note, though, that the 5 y.o. was not a fan of this, primarily b/c they're not a spinach fan. more for the rest of us.

also, y'know how sometimes a recipe says it serves 4 and you call bullshit afterward b/c it serves way more or way less than that in real life? this one actually yields 4 servings. period. no leftovers. still nom, though.

b/c i think we could all use a little levity right about now

and yes, this is another one of my "o hai here's a video b/c i can't manage to produce actual content right now" posts. i will hopefully catch up on writing within the next week or so, assuming that the world stops being fucking insane. until then, though, i give you crazy uncle joe earning my undying love and affection all over again, with the proverbial tip of the hat to sjb for the link:

yet another update on frank and ethel

yes, frank and ethel, the couple i talked about in my most recent post. i saw ethel at work today and that was pretty much the highlight of my day. i had to laugh b/c not even 30 minutes before ethel came in, i was talking to my co-worker about how i still hadn't seen frank & ethel recently. my guess was that they skipped their usual friday visit b/c we opened late due to a staff development meeting.

this afternoon, i'd gone in the back to work on something and as i was coming back to the desk, i saw ethel in line. my co-worker was about to call her over until she realized i was back and thankfully decided to let me catch up with ethel. both frank and ethel are fine. ethel was taking advantage of the relatively nice weather today and said that she'd be back on friday and was hoping she wouldn't see me b/c i need to play hooky and not be there every week (seriously, from her lips to god's ears). i said that i'd been hoping that we could close the library early today so everyone could take their books and go outside and read, but until then, i was stuck at work.

so, yeah. i got to spend a few minutes chatting with one of my favorite patrons and therefore today did not suck. and in case you missed it, i'm back in chicago as of yesterday, so really, this weekend was pretty spectacular. here's hoping the week maintains this current level of "yay."

a quick update on frank and ethel

y'all remember frank and ethel, right? the couple i told y'all about earlier this month? well, at least one of them came to the library yesterday. i missed seeing them, sadly, b/c i was working in the back and the one co-worker who knows about my attachment to frank & ethel wasn't around to alert me to their presence. i'm just glad that they're well enough to come check out books. hopefully i'll see them next week and i can stop worrying (as much) about them.

recipe review: white bean soup with sausage and collards

funny thing about tonight's dinner. when i was flipping through recipes and making my grocery list last night for something to do with the italian sausage i had in the freezer, i initially decided on this one. once i started reading through it in detail, though, i noticed that the recipe had its origins in another recipe. upon further review, i decided to go with the latter recipe b/c there was nothing about it that i didn't like, and updated my grocery list accordingly.

no frozen collard greens at the store, so i used a 16oz bag of frozen cut leaf spinach instead. i added about a teaspoon of minced garlic and used seasoned salt (i eyeballed it, so i can't give you a measurement on that one) instead of regular salt/pepper. i skipped the red wine vinegar b/c i didn't have any on hand. oh, and i used chicken stock instead of water.

this soup never really reached the "slightly thickened" stage for me. still nom, mind you, but i was looking for a thicker consistency and it just didn't happen. maybe i should've (s)mashed more of the beans? i dunno. there's enough leftovers for my lunch tomorrow and at least 1-2 more meals after that, so maybe it'll set up more while in the fridge and it won't be as, well, soupy. :P

recipe review: smothered green beans with new potatoes

i was making my grocery list for the week and noticed that green beans were on sale, so i searched my files and found this recipe. i decided to make it tonight to go with some chicken thighs i'd planned on baking.

of course i had to make a few substitutions. i used matilda beer bacon b/c that's what i had in the fridge. (note: if you're in chicago, you can buy a pack at provenance - i got mine at the lincoln square location, but i'm sure their logan square shop also carries it.)

back to the substitutions/additions, though - the aforementioned beer bacon, 1 large onion instead of 2 medium ones, a 1.5 pound bag of baby red potatoes that i diced up, and i added about a teaspoon of minced garlic b/c y'all should know by now that i like to add garlic to things.

verdict? there was still quite a bit of liquid left at the end of the cooking process, even after i adjusted the heat from medium to medium high to just shy of high b/c i didn't want anything to burn. in terms of taste and texture, though, it almost reminded me of my childhood. green beans and potatoes weren't as big a staple as, say, collard greens, but they were definitely present. i don't remember bacon being involved, though; i think daddy used ham hocks or maybe smoked turkey in a nod to "healthier" cooking. in short: nom. and i'll have leftovers for at least the next day or two, which was all part of my plan.

here's a little story that needed to be told

this is a story about frank and ethel. i should note at the outset that frank and ethel are not their real names, but that's how i'm going to refer to them here.

frank and ethel are a couple of regulars at the library. i usually see them at least once a week, almost always on fridays. it might sound weird to refer to someone as a "regular" at a library, as opposed to, say, at a bar like in the book i finished reading earlier tonight, but we get them.

but back to frank and ethel. they usually show up together. ethel & i pretend to give frank grief for having a higher fine on his card, even when it's ethel's fault. they both pretend to butcher my name and blame it on the fact that they're old and senile. they're not that old, really - i'd put them at early 70s at the most.

when i start my friday shifts, my co-workers have become accustomed to me asking if frank and ethel have been in yet. if frank & ethel are in line and i'm helping someone, they'll wait until i'm available so we can have our few minutes of banter. they're adorable, really, in that way that folks who know each other well and are totally comfortable with each other can be. when you compare them to some of our other regulars, you get why frank and ethel are a couple of my favorites.

i mentioned that they're in almost every friday, right? i can count on one hand the number of times ethel's shown up by herself, the most recent of which was earlier this year when it seemed like everyone in the greater chicago area had the plague. frank was sick, ethel said, so she made the trip solo. i jokingly demanded frank's presence the following week so i could see for myself that he was ok...and next week, they were both there. i smiled.

a couple of weeks ago, i was at work on a friday and realized that the afternoon had gone by w/o a visit from frank & ethel. i shrugged it off - it was cold and maybe they decided to skip that week. i even asked around to see if they'd come in while i was on break, but they hadn't. (i did mention that frank & ethel are a couple of my favorite regulars, right?)

this past friday, i was talking with a co-worker about another regular of ours, and realized that frank & ethel hadn't come in again. it wasn't like them to miss 2 weeks in a row. vacation, i rationalized. or maybe the weather. i was concerned, and by the end of the night, my co-worker decided that it wasn't weird at all for me to be concerned about a couple i barely know. regulars. they do that to you.

this morning, i was at work and took a call from someone who'd found a book of ours and was wondering if we could get in touch with the patron and let them know about it. a quick search and guess what? the book was checked out to frank! where was this good samaritan calling from? the hospital. apparently frank had been admitted (and released, thankfully) and left the book behind.

i was sad and relieved at the same time. sad b/c frank had been ill, relieved b/c he was both out of the hospital and b/c now i knew (or at least could speculate with some basis in reality) why he and ethel had been missing from the library.

when i got a free moment, i called frank & ethel to let them know about the book. i wound up leaving a message for them, and at the end, i wished them both well and let them know that i missed seeing them. b/c i did. i do. b/c this is what happens when you have regulars. when you make a connection, however tenuous, with a couple of strangers that you see on a regular basis. you miss them when they're not around. you get worried when you don't see them.

and then you feel weird for being slightly more concerned about a couple of strangers than some folks you've known forever. and you try to get over it with all kinds of explanations that, if you're going to be honest with yourself, ring kinda hollow.

and then you find yourself missing some other regulars in your life for various reasons, and you try not to admit to missing them and worrying about them b/c, really, wtf is that going to prove anyway?

but this isn't about you (ok, me). this is a story about frank and ethel, and how i'm hoping they'll come into work on friday and i can pretend to lecture them about staying away w/o giving me a heads-up, and how i'm hoping they'll tell me that it was nothing serious, and we'll joke about frank's fines and promise to see each other the following week. b/c that's how frank and ethel would want it, and who am i to interrupt the flow of regulars?

80

my father would've been 80 years old today. the last time i saw him alive was on february 18, 1997. he'd been in the hospital for weeks, one of his legs had been amputated, and during our damn near daily calls at that point, i'd gotten the feeling that he was hanging on by the proverbial thread and i wanted to say my goodbyes in person.

i recruited my then-bff to trek from northwestern down to trinity hospital with me. here's something you might not know about me - hospitals make me claustrophobic. if i'm in a hospital for longer than, say, 90 minutes, my skin starts tingling and it becomes more difficult for me to breathe normally. i'm sure any therapist worth their degrees would tell you that it's due to the fact that my mom was hospitalized when i was young and she never came home, but i'd made my peace with it and therefore knew i needed to operate on the buddy system.

i can't remember if i told anyone that i was coming to see daddy on his birthday. i probably didn't tell daddy b/c i wanted to surprise him, daddy's girl that i was, and still am, grown-ass woman status be damned. maybe i told james? i honestly don't remember. i'm sure someone was there when then-bff and i arrived.

i don't remember if daddy and i had a conversation. it's possible i just sat there with him. it's more than likely that i cried a little. i do know that during that visit, i realized that it would be the last time i'd see him alive, b/c it was just too painful for me to see him in that much agony. so i said goodbye. not out loud, and not in a way that would freak any of my family members out. but silently. softly. almost prayer-like. i do remember telling god that if it was indeed daddy's time to go, that i'd be ok with it as long as he didn't have to suffer anymore.

and i left, not only b/c my goodbyes were done but b/c i was starting to shake and itch and my breathing was getting a little on the shallow side and then-bff knew enough to get me the hell out of there so i could get some fresh air and not pass out.

when daddy died about a week later, i wasn't shocked. i was sad, of course, and probably a little pissed off despite the previous talk i'd had with god about it, but not shocked.

it's 16 years later, and if you had told me then all of the ways that i would take after my father now, i would've laughed in your face. you would've been accurate, though. there are some days when i surprise myself with how alike we were/are. maybe it's a function of getting old(er). maybe some of those traits were there all along and they're just becoming more pronounced. i don't know and i'm not really sure if i care. when memories and mannerisms are all you have to cling to, the particulars aren't really important...which is probably a good thing in daddy's case b/c the man, god bless him, had his flaws and faults.

i'm not going to write about those flaws and faults right now, though. it's hard enough getting through this time of year (daddy's birthday, the anniversary of daddy's death, the anniversary of my mom's death, the anniversary of james' death, and my mom's birthday - all w/in a month's span) without coming up with more reasons to cry and/or drive myself over the edge.

instead, i'll just say happy birthday to my father. may he continue to rest in peace. amen.

recipe review: broccoli and rice pilaf

i was catching up on dvr'd foodpr0n last night and saw this side dish, and since i had everything on hand except an onion, i decided to try it out tonight. i usually try not to make anything too complicated on sundays b/c by the time i get home from work, i'm exhausted and barely have energy to nuke anything for dinner, let alone make something from scratch.

this recipe, though? not too shabby. i added about a teaspoon of minced garlic (b/c y'all know that's how i roll) and a bit of black pepper b/c i realized there was no seasoning whatsoever in the original recipe, and i was pleased with the results. i'd make it again with the same substitutions.

it's not black music month, but it's close enough, i suppose

yeah, i know...february is black history month and black music month isn't until june, but since i've decided to open my 'home' up to y'all for the grammys on sunday, let's just try to make it work, shall we?

sunday, february 10. show up here anytime after, say, 6:15pm. the grammys start at 7. yes, ll cool j is hosting again. yes, i will be acting like a total fangirl complete with squealing and screaming with excitement b/c if you know nothing else about me, you know i love ll cool j almost as much as i love chocolate, reading, and quiet time to myself. :-)

and if you're a fan of old-school "soul train" episodes and wanna hang out with me and sjb while we start making our way through the damn near 30 episodes i have saved on the dvr, you're welcome to join us on saturday, february 9.

if you're interested in stopping by on saturday and/or sunday, please let me know asap. thanks. :-)

recipe review: autumn pierogies and apples

(non-food related content coming. i'm just too lazy right now to write the screed i've been pondering re: healthcare, but it's gonna happen. i promise.)

so, yeah. these sweet potato pierogies were on clearance at the store a while back, so i bought a box and stuck it in the freezer. i was flipping through my recipe folder and came across this one that i'd ripped out of a magazine, and i decided to try it out the other night.

for the first time in a long while, i didn't make any substitutions...and i was happy. i used 2 red delicious apples and 1 sweet yellow onion. i thought the cinnamon sour cream would be weird, but it was actually pretty nomtastic. i might make the cinnamon sour cream again just to put on bagels or toast or to dip apples in. i'll probably make the pierogies again, maybe with a different type of apple just for kicks.