Yo' Mama!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there! Are you having a great day? I am and it's all because of my sons. Clearly, I wouldn't be a mommy without my little boys, "O" and "T". Yesterday I had one of those moments where I realized that I really am a mom. I mean, who else but a mom hangs out at a park for hours at a time because their kid's have sporting events?

My baby "O" (on the left with the popsicle-blue lips) is on a baseball team and he had team pictures yesterday from 11-12:30 and a game at 2. Of course, after the game, the boys wanted to play on the jungle gyms so I set up shop on the grass. I was supposed to be reading my book, Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", but I ended up spending a lot of time watching my sons play and thinking about how good and sweet they are.

They were making me laugh so hard because every so often, they'd run over and say, "You know we're going to Disneyland tomorrow for Mother's Day, right?"

I think they were hoping they could break me down to the point that I'd cave in and say, "That's a great idea! Let's go see Mickey!" But nope, instead I got up this morning, ended my TV abstinence by watching Meet the Press and then did a Jillian Michaels workout DVD. The DVD is called "30 Day Shred". Apparently, if I do it every day for the next 30 days, I'm gonna look shredded! I'm inclined to believe it, especially since I'm now having a hard time even typing because I'm so sore.

Hands down, the funniest moment of the morning came right after I'd finished working out and was putting my free weights back under the couch. There was a loud knock on my front door and even though I was a hot sweaty mess, I had to answer it because my husband had stepped out for a minute to go buy some milk. So, I answer and there's this hot guy standing there with something wrapped in some brown paper.

He says, "These flowers are for you," and holds them out to me.

I'm sooo stupid that I thought this guy was giving me flowers from him!

I actually said, "Are these from you?" -- to which he confusedly replied, "No, I'm just giving them to you."

It took a second for me to realize that he worked for a florist and was merely delivering the flowers. In my defense, I had just done a workout that promised to make me shredded so I think my brain partially shut off because of the pain vibrating through my quadriceps.

While this guy is standing there holding this bunch of flowers out to my dumb self, here comes my husband bounding up the steps with yet another bouquet of flowers and a huge balloon that says, "Queen for a Day!" on it. Uh huh, going to go get a carton of milk, yeah, right. He comes and stands next to the delivery guy too and is all, "These are for you," while looking at the man like, "Who the hell are you and why are you here?'

Never in my life have I been presented with two bunches of flowers at once! Wowzer! So, I took the package from the delivery guy, unwrapped the brown paper and saw that it was a huge bunch of ranunculus! Ranunculus are my absolute favorite flower in the whole world and these ones, as you can see from the picture above, are absolutely GORGEOUS!

My husband looked a little deflated as he stood there with his bunch of yellow, purple and white daisies. "Who are those from?"

I should've replied, "From my other baby daddy," but instead I opened the card to reveal that they're from my awesome sister! Love her! And, now I'm feeling like I'm "all that" because I got two bunches of flowers in one day!

I know there are those who hate Mother's Day. They say, "It's just a commercial holiday. People should honor their mother's every day." There's no denying that is true. But still, it's nice to see my little boys shyly presenting me with the pictures and poems they made at school and I got two bunches of flowers!

Sooo, if you haven't already connected with your mother today, the clock is ticking! Even if you all don't get along and you're still in therapy from your traumatic childhood, give your mom a ring. As a friend told me, one day your mom won't be there and you'll wish you could tell her you love her just once more. Separate the behavior from the person and just reach out because hey, she did carry you for 10 months and that is no small commitment.

Anyway, my eldest just asked me, "Aren't you going to go get your nails done or something?" Yes I am, and some waxing too! See ya!

I'm Not A Racist. But...

Yesterday I looked in the mirror and saw my overgrown furry eyebrows staring back at me. I'd already been thinking of getting my nails done but I was feeling a bit lazy. Seeing the fur really sealed the deal though. It was clearly time to head over to my local Silver Lake beauty shop, the same place I've been going for the past seven years.

When I get my nails/waxing done, I don't have much to say. I just want to chill out and leave a big tip. Occasionally I'll get to talking with the ladies that work there about our kids, but really, I just want them rip the hair away and make my nails look cute.

So, I'm watching TV, my freshly painted nails are drying, I'm reminiscing about seeing Depeche Mode in Las Vegas this time last year. Life is good.

And then I overhear this very blond, very, "Where'd I set my BlackBerry?" type, chatting with the women working on her hands and feet.

"So what's your name?" she asked the lady scrubbing away her heel calluses.

The woman paused her scrubbing and said in her lightly accented English, "My name is May."

Blondie started talking very loudly and very s.l.o.w.l.y --the kind of condescending voice I've heard used before with the very deaf and elderly, the very stupid...and people whose native language isn't English.

"Oh, May. That's -- a -- nice -- name. What -- country -- do -- you -- come -- from, -- May? Cambodia?"

Now, if I was May, I'd have been trying to give Blondie a foot fungus or something. But May was nice and replied, "I'm from Vietnam."

What Blondie doesn't know is that May has been here for 15 years. She got here in 1992. She's got two teenage sons that she's putting through a private high school and her English is really good.

Blondie continued her painful chatter. "I was close! Vietnam! It's sort of like Cambodia, right? Are you sure you're not Cambodian? I mean, you all look really similar to Cambodians, don't you?"

It was said with the kind of authority that let me know that Blondie fully expected May to agree with her. And May wasn't going to call her out and say, "All Asians don't look alike and bitch, I said I'm Vietnamese." May wasn't going to ask Blondie if she meets Germans and tells them, "Are you sure you're not from France?"

May pretended she didn't understand. She just smiled and nodded at Blondie.

I just wanted to come to the nail shop, get my stuff waxed, get my nails done, and try to forget that 15 years ago when May got here, the 1992 LA Riots had just gone down. But no, Blondie was saying the kind of stuff that made me think she was on that Simi Valley jury that acquitted the officers that struck Rodney King 56 times.

Blondie wasn't finished with her questions. She moved on to the woman working on her hands. "So what's your name?"

This woman told her, "My name is May."

Blondie must have never met two Brittanys or two Stephanies that work in the same place because she said, "Oh, are you all named May?"

The Lord saved me from hearing more because the girl that does my waxing came to tell me she was ready for me. I'd rather have hair ripped off my body than have to hear Blondie continue to question the ladies working on her hands and feet.

Now, Blondie isn't hitting anybody with a baton 56 times. She's not on the radio calling black women offensive things. She didn't say the n-word in a comedy club. She's just trying to make small-talk with the ladies at the nail shop while she's supporting their business, right? So what's the big deal? She's just some close-minded woman talking too loudly, right?

Well, I'm sure Blondie thinks she's not racist.

Every day, I drive through the areas of this city that were decimated by the LA Riots. They started fifteen years ago yesterday. Today when I drive around this city, I'll be driving through a part of town that was on fire fifteen years ago. Even though now there's a Starbucks on the corner of Slauson and Western, there's still not a Barnes and Noble or a Borders in all of South-Central LA. High school graduation rates are like apartheid South Africa's. Unemployment is still high. But we're shocked when folks snap and decide to burn some stuff up.

In America we all want to sit around and say, "I'm not racist." It's always someone else thinking and saying and doing the things that hurt and cause so much pain. We don't think the stuff that happens on a daily basis in our own individual interactions is a big deal. We don't think the policies that are in place have anything to do with racism. We tell ourselves that these days most of the racism that happens is some huge thing like Rodney King getting beaten or Don Imus saying what he did. As long as we can squash the egregious acts of racism with public apologies to Al Sharpton, and as long as Oprah's still a billionaire, then we act like it's business as usual.

As long as the poor people of color stay down in South-Central, than it's all good. As long as May doesn't say anything to Blondie, it's all good.

As long as nobody riots, it's all good.

Celebrating Successes of 2006

Are you just getting started on thinking of ways you want to improve yourself in 2007? Or maybe you're more advanced than I am. Maybe you're ready to go with a list of things to change and improve about yourself. Do you already have your list typed up and signed in blood? Have you laid it out in a project plan? Are you type-A? Hmm?

I'm not yet in a place where I can ponder all the things I need to improve or change in 2007. I'm still trying to celebrate the successes I have had so far this year, either things I started doing or things I stopped doing in 2006. I'm not yet at the point where I can fully reflect on things like learning to accept an apology gracefully and not going to bed angry. Give me a week or so to warm up to those deep thoughts. In the meantime, since I live in LA, I've been reflecting on and celebrating a few superficial things that really do mean so much:

I've learned it really is better to leave some things to the professionals. Once upon a time, yours truly believed she was superwoman and could do it all. I even took this arrogance so far as to believe I could give myself a bikini wax. I will spare you the gruesome details...but I'll also throw in that I'd never had a bikini wax before so I really had no damn clue. I figured if I followed the directions on the box, it'd be all good. Um...No. I desperately called a friend about five minutes into it and she laughed for a good 30 seconds (well, maybe 60 seconds) before agreeing to come over and rescue me. Even with her assistance, I thought I was going to die. Yes, it's definitely better to leave certain things up to the professionals.

Life's too short not to wear red lipstick: I wore a whole lot of red lipstick in high school -- my mother wouldn't let me out of the house but she had no problem with me wearing lots of makeup, go figure. Then I became an adult and swallowed the nude/neutral/brownish lip idea. There's not a whole lot that's super fun about going around feeling neutral every day. It's so boring. Then one day, on an impulse, I hit up the MAC counter at the downtown Macy's for a tube of red lipstick. I was able to try on several different shades in order to get one that perfectly matched my skin tone. I even let the makeup artist teach me how to put on the lip liner, the lipstick and the cherry colored gloss. He was very clear about the steps, "Nothing looks worse than a poorly applied red mouth." He's right. Yes, it's a bit of work to get red lips, but it's really fun sometimes.

Day without any black clothes. I really like black clothes. A lot. To me, life's perfect when I'm wearing a really well-fitting pair of black pants, a well-tailored black shirt and a pair of black slingback heels. I have three black leather jackets. Two black tracksuit jackets. Two other casual black jackets. Too many pairs of black pants and shoes to name. I've even acquired two more pairs of black shoes and a second pair of black jeans in the past month. Don't get me wrong, I do wear other colors sometimes, but I realized it was usually something like black pants and a pink shirt or my absolute favorite, some combination of white, black and red. This year, I decided I really had to branch out. My motivation? Well, someone I dislike a whole lot had taken to copying my style. It was really starting to annoy me. She even copied my short nails painted with black nail polish. I've since pushed myself to have days where I'm not wearing anything black, not even my shoes. I actually purchased a pair of chocolate brown pants and some brown shoes. I still can't believe it.

Sure, these three things may seem awfully superficial. It's not like I can say I beat insomnia in the past year. But, they mean something to me and I'm going to celebrate my victories and lessons learned.

What things from 2006, superficial or not, are you celebrating?