Sexism in the Checkout line...

  There he was, a precocious 6 year old, who was excitedly planning his 7th Birthday Party. There you were, his mother, the source of the beginnings of the Man he will be. You... You disappointed me today. I know, it really shouldn't be any of my business, but you did disappoint me today. You had tools and tool belts. Hammers, nails, rulers, things to build that fort/tree house/lair with. He chatters away with his Dad about the games he wants to play, the cake, ice cream. How he is going to be just like Bob the Builder, and his friends too. He sees the tool belts and asks what they are for. You tell him they are for the hammer & and nails, so the boys can carry them around. Thats when you said it, that is when you disappointed me. "The girls can decorate the tools bags," you turn and look down at him and say with assurance, "Because girls aren't as strong as you boys. They can't dig in the dirt as well as the boys can." He replies, "Then I don't want girls at my party anymore."

  You told him women aren't as strong as men. I wanted to tell him we are. But I didn't say anything, I couldn't, I had been holding my breath this whole time. I turned and walked away, gasping for breath. Is this how we do it? Is this one of the ways we teach sexism to our children? "Don't cry, are you a girl? Be a man, stop crying!" "Girls can't do the same things you can. Girls aren't as strong as boys."

  For a girl who grew up with 4 brothers and a father who had a construction business I knew your words were false. I dug in the dirt, I could hammer nails, and did. I would be right there beside my brothers and Dad when we collected fire wood and tossed the logs into the truck. I helped put a new roof on the garage. I helped put an addition on someone trailer. I went golfing and to archery shoots, and hung out at hunting camp. I have peed standing up, awkward, but it can be done if the need arises. I watched action movies, and I'll still go see an action movie over a romance one any day. I've gotten hit with rocks, golf clubs, soft balls, baseballs. Broken my nose two different times, and busted my middle finger and tail bone. I've played water balloon fights with my much larger brothers. I've played slug bug with them, and delivered some pretty gnarly blows and bruises, to their forearms as they did mine. I've played catch with my Dad. Soccer (world football) with the Brazilian foreign exchange student that stayed with us. I've had darts in my shins by way of a stupid game of "How close can we throw the darts near each other's feet without getting stabbed?"

  I still wear dresses, I still wear red lipstick, my favorite color is pink. I'm not one of the guys, I'm the Sister. I love my brothers. They were there when I had nightmares, when I almost drowned, and they saved my life. They taught me that tough men do cry. That strong arms are gentle and safe when a hug is needed. That a hammer hitting them in the thumb hurts just as much as one hitting mine. They taught me to break limits, and to know my own, and that mine are not based on the fact that I am female. I am thankful that my nieces and nephews are being raised by these same men that I grew up with.  Because I know, that they have learned as much from me as I have from them. I have tough nieces that ride four wheelers and mini bikes, and just tear up the yard. I have sensitive nephews that pray for others to be safe when they hear a siren for a fire truck or ambulance. They are good kids, and I am proud to be their Aunt.

  Children are sponges, give them the right things to soak up and they can turn out to be the best sorts of people...

                                                                                                         Auntie Anne

Going Grey...White... Going to my Natural Hair...

   I'm 29 and I've embraced my hair... I swore around my 29th birthday that I would have my natural hair by the time I was 30. Well, I've made it, I'll be 30 next month and I do have my natural hair. It has been a long hair journey for me to embrace and love my hair the way it is. I used to hate my curls and I dreamed of long sleek straight hair that flowed and did everything I wanted it to do. Now I love my curls, my slight frizz. I never have to really worry about my hair falling flat, or not having body or texture. I've had my hair so many different colors, pink, red, orange, bleached blonde, purple. Some if not all of those at the same time. I once went to jury duty with my hair looking like it was ringlets of flames.

   Not only did I have to grow my hair out from years of a dye/bleach jobs this year, I also had to grow my hair out from a very damaging perm on top of those. I fried my hair like crazy.

  So I'm finally me, and I'm pretty darn happy with who I am... 

"Drip! Drip!" Goes the clouds of my nose...

  Well it is that wonderful time of year again when everything goes completely nuts. The time has changed, so if I sleep in and don't get up till noon, I've only got maybe four hours of sunlight. Which is a total downer. But I only sleep in if I stay up really late, or if I can't sleep at all. But it always seems like it is night and it really throws off my morning persona. It is light too early, too early for stores to open for me to run errands. I hate sitting in a parking lot waiting for a store to open, makes me feel like a vulture waiting for something to finally die before I pick its bones. 

    I finally sort of have my car back from the shop. Mine is out and NM's goes in, and I still and without. Though, happy thought, I can drive my car when he is sleeping, unlike his car which is a stick, and there is no way in hell I'd ever get that down packed. My hand eye coordination sucks, you should see me attempt to play darts. No... Wait... Scratch that, you may get injured during the game. 

  Oh, the heck! I just had a pot of gizzards and hearts boil over on the stove. The lid I have on the pot does not go with it, and there was this whole weird bubble boil over effect. The burned smell of garlic, parsley, and chicken on the burner is not a pleasant smell permeating in the house. First you boil the bits to soften them, then you cook them again with what ever seasoning or sauce you want. I have seen you're to dice them up, but that isn't me, I'm no dicer. I will not be eating the hearts thank you, those are for NM. Gizzards, hearts, and french fries for dinner. It is called, This is what is left in the freezer so lets use it up for dinner, meal. 

  I know I haven't been on here to write in a bit, I've been ill with the sniffles. Sinus pressure, and the weather going up and down. It was warm the other day, then it snowed last night, and now it is raining right now. On top of that my sugar has been weird, I had a too high of sugar attack the other day. Dizzy, nauseated, warm like right before you vomit feeling. It was cause I hadn't eaten breakfast. It is my bodies way of saying, "Feed me stupid!" 

  Well, this is my post for the day, I know it isn't much, but I need something to write about, no one wants to sit and read Jack Diddley of my ramblings if there is no substance.

Anne

  

Growing up Me with People...

   I was born Feb, 1985. I am the only girl out of five. At the time I was the only girl out of four due to the fact that my little brother wasn’t born yet. I was a happy baby, who took to things pretty fast. I hated being wet so I used to scream until some one would change me, soon after I learned to crawl to the potty chair. The potty chair for some reason in my baby pictures was always in the broom closet.  I was told that the reason I was always laughing in the pictures of me on this plastic waste collector, was because my parents would make me laugh to help me giggle the urine out of me. I never ever wet the bed in my entire life due to the fact that I hated being wet…

  I was a very wide smiling child with curly hair and big eyes. My eyes are still big and so is my smile, and hair is just as curly. My little brother was born a year and a half after me, he was born two months early, and had to stay in the hospital for a while. His lungs weren’t developed and he needed to mature in the hospital. When my parents brought him home, I found I was no longer the baby. I went to put one of his pacifiers in my mouth, and my Mum told me that was the babies pacifier, and that I was not a baby. So I went around and collected every pacifier in the house and gave them to my Mum. I was a big girl now…

   
  My parents moved a lot before I was 5. Well it seemed like a lot for a little kid. Between Michigan and Florida there where several towns, houses and trailers. We finally moved into the house that my parents bought from my Dad’s Dad when I was about 4, I had my 5th birthday in that house…

  
  My Mom went to several different churches while we were growing up, they were all pretty much names of Christian Saints, Saint Peters, Saint Frances, Saint Paul’s, and so on.  Then there were the different denominations. In all of these churches the women weren’t nice to my mum or to us kids, and neither were the women’s children nice to us. Finally My mum went to this one church, The SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) Church. She was amazed that they were preaching right out of the bible and not yelling loudly or rolling in the isles yelling in “tongues” scaring us half to death. The women and children were still mean but not all, and mum finally had some friends, so we stayed…

  I was attending elementary School around this time.  The class room smelled of urine and bleach and the floor some times had poo stains on it, well not really stains, just poo. I hated nap time the sleeping mats smelled of those lovely odors, and the teacher was mean. One day a girl hit this boy and he blamed it on me, and the teacher said I was a “Liar” when I said I didn’t do it. She made me sit on a tiny stool with my knees pushed up into my chest because it was so short, and I had to balance from falling off of it it was too small to sit on. I sat on it the entire day, the only time I got to get up from it was for lunch. When we came back from lunch she asked me if I was going to tell the “Truth.” I again said I didn’t do it, so she put me back on the stool. I hated that school, kids would point and laugh at me when I would pray during lunch time. I remember Mum dressing me in tights or in pretty out fits, except they were hard to get undone  when one wanted to go to the bathroom. So I would be in the bathroom for a little too long, so the teacher would line the students up outside the bathroom door and knock on the door and ask me if I was done yet.  My Father went to the school one day and saw me get pushed down and a teacher not do anything about it, so he took me home that day and never took me back. The teacher told my parents that I didn’t know my Alphabet people, and my mum was like, “What is an Alphabet Person?”  (Mum is pretty smart, I’d of asked too)The teacher told her that they were made up people to help children learn their Alphabet. Mum was like, “She knows her Alphabet, she has been saying it since she was a baby!”, and the teacher told her I didn’t and that I need to be held back, she thinks I’m slow…

  So Mum and Dad enrolled me in the SDA private school. We had a lovely teacher, unfortunately a drunk driver hit and killed her one day, all of us children of the one room school 1st through 8th grade cried. Soon her substitute took over, and she was a young woman who was a bad teacher. She once told My Grandmother I was “Cute but dumb“. My Grandmother told me once, “That girl was a twit.” I never learned anything from her, I don’t even remember school work at all, I just sat at school and colored pictures that I had drawn. I remember the children not liking me, I was small and the only first grader…

  Soon the teacher invited all of the lower grade girls over to her house for a sleep over. Her house was right near the school/church. So there were five of us, CR, KS, CW, the teacher and I. Well all went over to her house and she brushed our hair and put a movie in and we soon all fell asleep on a big mattress that she had made up on the floor. I awoke the next day in the bathroom, in the bathtub, wrapped up in urine soaked sheets. It stank so bad, I wondered how I had gotten there and who had wet the bed. My whole left side was soaked in pee. I  knew who it was then, the person on my left, I thought “She is too old to be wetting the bed.” So I got out of the tub and went to the toilet and went pee, because I really had to go.  Then I walked out of  the bathroom and found all of the girls sitting at the counter eating breakfast, their hair was wet and they smelled fresh of bathing. I wondered if I was going to get to have a bath. I needed  the smelly sheets taken out of it first. Then the teacher turned and looked at me and said, "Look who woke up, the baby bed wetter," and the girls laughed, they thought I had wet the bed, I looked at the girl who I knew had wet the bed, she grinned at me and laughed. I was shocked, I had never wet the bed in my life, I hated being wet. This was terrible, my side was itching from the urine soaked through my pajamas. She gave the girls their lunches and told me to hurry and get dressed, that they didn’t want to be late for school because of me. So I got dressed, and went to school. I didn’t have anything to eat that day. I itched all day and was very hungry and the girls told everyone that I had wet the bed. I know my older brother who was in the school too knew that I hadn’t, but I don’t think he said anything. I don’t think it would have done any good if he had. As soon as I got home I changed and bathed, I don’t remember where my wet pajamas went, but I never wore them again…

  School continued much this way and the warmer weather turned colder, and the students went sledding. I never liked sledding, hills were too tall for my little legs, so I stayed at the top of the hill watching everyone sled. One day we were all out side and the girls were laughing and one of them came over to me and said, “Don’t touch your tongue to the metal poles out side.” I asked, “Why?” The girls laughed and went inside the school. Everyone had gone in, and I was alone, and as I was walking up the steps I decided that they were trying to trick me, so I decided I would find out, then I would know what was so funny. So I stuck out my tongue to the hand rail, it was so cold, so I went to pull my tongue back, but it was stuck, I tried pulling but it hurt so bad. I was out side and alone in the cold stuck. I cried and I tried to yell, but no one heard me. I cried harder, and I was getting so cold, I thought “I’m going to die if I don’t get off of this.” So I put my face as close to the hand rail as possible, and I put my teeth at the end of my tongue and bit down, biting the very tip of my tongue skin. I kept doing this till I bit the tip of my tongue off. It hurt so bad and I cried harder and harder, and finally I was free.  I looked down and a piece of my skin was still on the rail, frozen and bloody. So I closed my mouth and went inside the school. The teacher looked up and demanded to know where I had been. I didn’t answer I just stood there, unable to talk, my mouth was filling with blood. She got up from her desk and stomped over to me. She said , “Oh you have red on your mouth, what have you been eating and getting into? Open your mouth!” I shook my head “No!” She got madder and told me to again…So…I…Did, and a water fall of red blood came gushing out of my mouth onto the floor. She got mad and said, “You need to clean that up!” My older brother got up and rushed over to me and said to her “Clean it yourself!!!” He then took me into the bathroom and cleaned me up, and put a paper towel on my tongue, to help stop the bleeding…

  
  A few other teachers came and went, I was out side after school one day and the older students were in the woods building tree forts. Christy R.  came out of the woods and decided to push me, I called her a Witch, she thought I had called her a "Bitch." She Got angry and grabbed me by the hair and dragged me across the parking lot by my hair on my face. All of a sudden she let go. I looked up and I saw my older brother had picked her up off the ground and was holding her in the air. He had come out of the woods as I was screaming as she was dragging me by my hair and had grabbed her up, just as her mother was pulling into the parking lot. Her mother ran out of her car screaming, “Put her down!!!”…So… He Did…. He dropped her  flat on the ground into the dirt with a loud clump sound of a person’s body hitting ground. He helped me up as her mother rushed over to her then stomped into the school to tell the teacher, who obviously didn’t hear my screams…

  This was not the end of the mean things the student’s did to me. There was this girl who started going to my school, her name was ED, and she and her older sister DD came to my school. ED and I went to camp one week, we were in the same cabin. She and the other girls made fun of me and would leave the cabin door open and blame it on me. Years later she and I were supposedly good friends, but we went to camp together again in another cabin, she all of a sudden turned on me and started telling the girls embarrassing secrets between her and I, and also made up things. Soon the girls didn’t even talk to me. I still know them today, and I have never betrayed their trust as they have mine…

  I was baptized when I was 11 into the SDA faith, and last year I Converted to Islam and months later I married my Husband NM, who is also my best friend. I am very happy, and I know that this might not be the end of Life’s trials for me, But I know Allah had a reason for making me a little tougher when it comes to the mean actions of others…

The Racist Chicken…

(A diary post from Jan-23-2011)

  I woke up and dragged my head along with me to the bathroom…

  Not quiet a happy picture in you mind is it? Headless body dragging said decapitant behind it along the hardwood floors, passing the threshold of gray marble into a sea of 1950’s Mi Mi Pink tile…

  After leaving the bathroom, I lumbered my way down stairs to make NM breakfast before he had to go to work. Fried roots drowned in chicken fetus, smothered in tomato blood, with roasted wheat seed on the side. In other words, I made fried potatoes, scrambled egg with ketchup on top, and a slice of toast.

  We needed groceries so he went to the store and picked up more potatoes, bananas, eggs, and chicken parts, then he headed off to work. I put the food away, and then proceeded to bag the chicken. Dividing the breasts and legs into meal sized serving bags, and then placing them in the freezer. The cool lifeless meat slid into the bags with a soft wet plop.

  Memories of working at the dreaded chicken factory came back to haunt me. The cold of the factory room, the smell of bleach in the air, as well as on me, and the others I worked with. Bundled up in layers the cold still seeped through, due to the bleach water we had to splash on our aprons, arms & gloves. Passing though the hanging plastic barrier and into the giant fridge like room. Hundreds of people from the Marshallese Islands, Mexico, and South America, and just a handful of White Americans. The people lined up next to, and manned the machines, that chugged and churned out chicken parts. Steam rose from the floor as hot water was being sprayed on it, this was to remove any parts that had fallen, and knock them into the open grates. The steam wafted up smelling of warm chicken fat and bleach. My place was on a grate turning chicken legs so that the meat could be removed from the bones. Turn, "pop" turn, "pop", the sound of the bone knuckle in the machine’s knuckle as it turned. My only joy was the little old Hispanic woman who stood next to me, she would periodically poke me and say "Chica Buena, Buena Chica!" I remember one of the women I was carpooling with had told me not to apply for a job in that part of the factory, "All of the weirdos work over there!"  (I.E. Weirdos were non white people, she was very racist, tough I didn't know it at the time.) I thought, "Hmm OK", but I got that job anyways due to there were no jobs available where she was working at. Unknowingly I was actually working with the normal people. All of the weirdos, and drug addicts, like the woman whom I was carpooling with, were working in the other section. I thankfully, was not. 

  Differences might ruffle your feathers at times, but don’t sit there and pluck at other people. No one likes to be Hen pecked. Racism, often we lose our heads over it.

Anne

Tales from "The Hole."

 Episode 1. 
Oct-14-2012

  So Curt, from down the hall, let a guy in the building claiming to be from The City Of Rochester. Said he was from Gas and Electric Supply. So my neighbor told him how many people live in the building upstairs and dow, and where our apartments are. I heard this from down the hall, I called RGE so fast, letting them know some phony was in our building asking to see our bills. These people do this so they can steal our info and codes so they can switch us to “Their Companies” supplier. So I informed another tenant, Cat Lady, when she asked me about it. After I talked with her, we went upstairs to confront him. He had already talked to another tenant, Loud Music Guy, and had moved on down the hall to Baby Mama. When I told him I was on the phone with RGE right now and that we weren’t going to show him our bills for him to cheat us. He got really nasty with me and up in my face and said; “Did I knock on your door, have I asked you anything?”  I replied; “Not at the moment but you were making your rounds.” I asked to see his credentials, he would flash them but wouldn’t let me read them. Cat Lady and I informed him we wanted him out of the building, and then she said she was calling the police. Which she did. I’ve dealt with these people before at the last place we lived. Weather cools down they come out, like vampires in the night, to suck the money out of your wallet. There is a reason you can’t get into our building without a key. We don’t want freaks like him coming in and trying to steal from us. Curt has already let someone he doesn’t know into his apartment, and they robbed him a couple of weeks ago. That and Baby Mama is always letting her weird people in the building, and now some of them have keys. I am not afraid to kick someone out of my home. Trying to see my Gas bill, if he was legit, he would know to see my Gas bill, he would have to go see my Land Lord. Cause "We", the people of this Hovel, only pay for electric, gas and water are included in the rent. TUNE IN FOR THE NEXT WEIRD INSTALLMENT. SAME CRAZY-TIME, SAME CRAZY-BUILDING.

Episode 2. 
Oct-18-2012

So I was sleeping peacefully… As peacefully as you can when fire sirens are going off a couple of blocks away. You know, the usual city sounds at 7am. When I hear a loud knock on my apartment door. I get up and go to the door, fighting to get the fan out of the way, I say; “Just a minute.” Curt, from down the hall replies, “OK!” I unlock the door locks and say hello and ask what he needs. He replies, “I keep hearing this peeking sound and I don’t smell any smoke.” I not very awake at the moment, and plus it is hard to understand what he says sometimes with his poor enunciation. I asked him to repeat himself in the only way a half awake person can, “I’m sorry What?” “I hear a peeking sound in my apartment but I don’t smell any smoke.” He said again. I, believing he is referring to the the sirens going off a couple of blocks down, tell him, "The fire is a ways away don't worry about it." He thanks me and goes back in his apartment. I go and lay back down. Then I hear it… His “Peeking” sound…I know exactly what it is, perfect description of the sound it makes on his part. It does sound like "Peek… Peek… Peek…" So, I get up out of bed, get dressed, put my shoes on, and go down the hall to his apartment. Knock, he answers, and I inform him, “Curt, your fire alarm batteries are dead, so the alarm is making that Peeking sound to let you know to change the batteries.” He again thanks me, and I go back to my apartment, grab my purse and headed out to the gym… Might as well. I was wide awake and not going back to sleep… 

T.T.F.N.

Anne

His Citizenship Day

  Well, I don't know who was more excited the day of his Citizenship, NM or I. We got up and I rushed around trying to find exactly what I wanted to wear. (I had spent a couple of days on this, but as we all know, we have nothing to wear until the last moments.) I wore a black Abaya with leopard print trimming and a sienna brown colored Hijab. It was cold and snowy out, so I had some flesh toned leopard print leggings on underneath my Abaya, that I wore with a pair of brown boots. He wore a nice dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes. We got all the paperwork around and headed uptown.

  We drove around and around in the city near the courthouse trying to find a parking space. He was going to be late so he parked, hopped out, and I jumped in the driver's seat. People were honking and just freaking the heck out. He ran off to find the building and I turned the corner and drove trying to find a parking place. I found an open meter space on a bridge 2 city blocks away. The downside, I didn't have any change to go in it. The meter had the option for using a credit card, so I put mine in, hoping I had enough on there. I went back to the car and made sure it was all locked up, as I was locking it up, I noticed he had left his wallet. (I totally started to panic like a crazy woman about him not being allowed in and missing his ceremony.) There was no way they were going to let him in the building with no ID. So I grab his wallet and start running down the snowy bridge. I ran about a block before I had to turn the corner, to go up two blocks, to the courthouse. I turn the corner sliding along, I was probably a sight. A Muslim woman in flowing black garb, Abaya hiked up around my leopard print clad thighs, and my boots slip sliding in the snow. I got over half way and I saw a guard to the building and asked him where I needed to go. All I panted out was, "Citizen... pant pant pant... Citizenship... pant pant... ceremony... pant pant... where... pant... to go? pant pant..." He directed me and I hiked up my abaya and started running again. I'm sure the man was fairly amused by my wild lack of composure and decorum. My lungs were on fire, I felt like I had eaten saw dust, my throat and mouth were raw and tasted a bit blood-ish.

  I finally get to the front of the building and find NM waiting in line to get in. I stand there panting, and coughing, holding out his wallet like some kind of prized life saving device. His dress pants bottoms have mud all over them, he too had had a bit of a searching jaunt around the buildings, and had traversed through a puddle or four before finding said destination. He calmly thanked me, seeming to not notice my disheveled appearance. I straighten my attire in a window reflection. So much for worrying about what I was going to wear...

  We went through metal detectors and were also wanded before we were sent on up to the courtroom for the ceremony. A couple of people from NM's work had come to see him become a citizen. It was great of them to come along. So the four of us sat and enjoyed the ceremony together. NM got to register to vote, placed his hand over his heart and was sworn in, he walked up and got his certificate. There was a singing quartet that was quite nice, all in all it was a good day.

T.T.F.N.

Anne