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I have a friend who I will refer to for this blog post as Dee.  Dee and I have worked together at the University for several years.  Dee is going back to Phoenix to be closer to her family.  Yesterday was her last day.  She and I and another co-worker decided to go out to lunch and since we were close to my new house I offered to give her a tour before she moves away forever.

I have to provide a piece of information about Dee.  She is a black woman.  This is not who she is for me but rather a simple fact.  

Upon entering my house, Chloe freaked out and barked at her.  Because that’s what Chloe does with anyone that is not Rick, Keith or I.  She’s very territorial and overly protective of me. 

We walked around the house and she said a few kind things.  She then stated, “This is great for you and Rick but for my family of 5 we could never afford a house in St Petersburg.”  This is not true.  I have a friend who has 4 kids and a family of 6 who owns a home in St Petersburg and is in the same economic stratus as Dee.  (why do people convince themselves they cannot do something simply because they have not ever achieved it as of yet?)

Then when we left the house and went back to the car where another co-worker K was, (he’s Puerto Rican and decided not to come into my house, gave no excuse), Dee stated, “Kristy needs to bring more black people to her house because her dog is racist and doesn’t like me or else she needs to let that dog look into the mirror so she can see that she’s black too!”

When she said this I laughed and stated the obvious (at least to me) “Chloe doesn’t like anyone who isn’t Rick, me or Keith”.  As it sunk in….I didn’t find this exchange to be funny.  I have been analyzing this and over analyzing this exchange and the course of events ever since.  Was she simply trying to be funny? 

I don’t consider myself racist at all.  I do not judge people for ethnic, cultural or other reasons.  And yet this exchange seemed like the reverse of racism. Is this some odd technique or something whereby a black person says something derogatory to point out that I am not one of them?  I’m just not feeling it or understanding it.

The other co-worker who remained in the car has a black g.f. He didn’t say anything to her commentary.    He didn’t laugh.  He didn’t comment.  I could not see his face because he was in the back of my car.  He had no response however.

Upon returning to the workplace after going to a nice Thai restaurant and having lunch together, she stated to all within hearing “Kristy’s dog is racist!” Because we were at work I simply walked away.

The notion that a dog is racist is ridicules.  The notion that this comment is funny is too.

I have to ask myself…did this woman see what I have achieved in the form of my new home and attribute it to my being white?

I cannot speak for her…I can only say that I will never understand using any attribute about yourself as an excuse for why you are not successful. I don’t even know if that’s what this is about for her.  I can only speculate.  I know many people of other ethnicity’s that are far more successful than I.  Indian doctors, Chinese dentist….perhaps my being white means I can’t practice medicine now?  

I know someone will tell me I do not understand the plight of the black man….and I don’t.  I just can’t quite think that this girl’s comments yesterday were funny or appropriate.  Is this the part whereby if you’re black it’s ok to call each other the n word or make reference to race relations to white people and yet if you are white you are supposed to simply stand by and show tolerance?

I wanted to say something but also wanted to be respectful.  I was honestly at a loss as to how to properly say it without turning the entire thing into a racial line in the sand.  I’m not racist….and neither is my dog for crying out loud.

I commented about this to Rick and he simply stated, “That’s crap…you’d never go to her house and point out that she had a white dog…because you would never even think on those terms.”

This begs the question…do black people make everything a color issue because they deal with racism so much that they actually end up making it more of an issue?

Trust that I’m simply trying to understand….something that I don’t. 
 

I hate mommy blogs whereby the mother complains about being a stay at home mom, complains about her whiney bratty children and utterly has no gratitude for anything in her life.  Hate them. I could provide a list, but I’m sure everyone’s read one or two or three thousand of these ranting bitches blog’s. Yes, attack me, I don’t care.  I’m sick of them.

My mother used to listen to “My Sharona” by the Knack full blast on the radio when it came on.  Meaning this was before cassette tapes and CD’s even.  She had an 8-track player in her car when I was a young child.  This is the only song that reminds me of my mother and wouldn’t you know it, I hear the damn thing all the time.  I never speak about how much the chosen absence of my mother (her choice) affects me.  Mostly because I have learned to move through the world without a mother, but it doesn’t mean it is easy.  It can be lonely and heart wrenching.  She turned 60 this year.  It’s been 17 years.  In two more years I will have lived as much of my life without a mother as I did with one.

Rick’s brother Randy wants to quit his job. Ok I don’t think he wants to but his gf wants him too so he can stay home and watch Matthew all day.  She has to do some sort of nursing training and they have never put Matthew with a daycare or a babysitter and low and behold that would cost money so Randy is considering quitting his job. I have one thing to say….MISTAKE.  His gf is STILL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD married to someone else.  Therefore she can’t put Randy on her health insurance, etc.  And if she ever decides to up and leave him like she left the last one, he’s f’d.

My son came to me about 9 months ago and told me he thinks he is bisexual.  I think its highly possible that he’s simply just gay. I also could care less what he decides his sexual preference is.  My ex-husband is a Jesus Convenient and refuses to believe this is possible, because his lame ass considers homosexuality a sin.  Fool.  Have I mentioned lately how much I hate him?

I snore.  At night if it wakes Rick up, he will often wake up and act like a fool about how I am somehow doing this on purpose and that I can control my nasal passages and their behavior while I’m sleeping. This pisses me off because Rick also snores, but when his snoring bothers me, I remove myself from the bedroom and let him sleep.  I resent that I quietly do this but he doesn’t.  

I got asked out today by a cute guy.  A guy that I see often but don’t pay any mind to because I’m happily married, a guy that I only know in passing because he’s the delivery boy that brings my lunch occasionally when I order out from his place of business. I would venture to guess that he’s about 26 years old.  Considering my age, this is a nice compliment.  He had no clue, thought I was his age.  

In the last few months my ex-husband has a. had his house in foreclosure (it appears he may have restructured his loan for the time being), b. pled guilty to writing a rubber check for over 4k. (has to pay it back with fines and costs) and c. lost his drivers license (public records doesn’t say why but I think it might be because he hasn’t paid on the aforementioned restitution on time, etc.  I haven’t talked about any of it because while it concerns me, I’ve tried to move away from it as much as possible.  

A few days ago I drove down the street that I used to own a house on, the house that was foreclosed on due to the ex-husband’s lying and cheating ways.  I noticed that the next door neighbor’s house looked entirely different.  The previous next whore neighbors house that is.  And it had a for sale sign in front.  The next day I hunted down the house on realtor.com to learn that her ex-husband remodeled the entire house and now lives in a much nicer house with his new woman.  I hope he makes a killing on that remodel job because he deserves it.  And yes, maybe I’m crazy because I still always wish the best for that man. We were both equally wronged by our spouses, and the best revenge is to live a better life than theirs.

After being in college since Jan of 2005 I find it nearly impossible to write without fixing sentences etc.  It’s taken some of the blog writing and poetry writing thunder out of my storm.

I bought a house, we bought a house. (Technically I did it…but technically it’s our house) and we both still have savings.  And that my friend’s is sweet.

List of things I want to do to the house.

1. put a door in to access the outside patio without walking around the entire left side of the house
2. Paint all the rooms
3. Have a party
4. Organize
5. Hang up art, candles, pictures, etc.
6. Buy patio furniture
7. Organize 2^nd bedroom
8. find professional kitchen type shelves for kitchen (help!)

I am taking a film class after I finish Astronomy and Mythology.  Nice.  I can’t wait.  Something creative. I also got a flat screen TV for my birthday from Rick, it’s going in the bedroom.  

Well there you have it, if I have talked about any of these things before I don’t recall. 

meme via smoochdog

4 Jobs I have held:

1. ice cream stand employee

2. HSN order operator

3. Utility Bill Processor

4. Credity Analyst

4 movies I can watch over and over again:

1. The Outsiders

2. An Officer and a Gentlemen

3. Sleeping with the Enemy (love the house’s in that film)

4. Pretty Woman

4 places I have lived

1. Johnstown, PA

2. Irving, TX

3. Dallas, TX

4. Clearwater, FL

4 categories of TV Programming I enjoy

1. Cooking shows

2. Home Improvement Shows

3. Discovery Channel’s animal features

4. Ongoing Drama series (Sisters, Thirty-Something, Desperate Housewives, etc.)

4 Places I have been on Holiday

1. Buffalo, NY (not a great place…skip it)

2. Niagra Falls, Canada (lovely)

3. Kentucky

4. Ohio

4 of my favorite dishes

1. polenta

2. sushi

3. cake (any cake….any flavor…anytime!)

4. soup (any kind…love me some soup)

4 websites I visit daily

1. www.kristyk.org

2. www.flickr.com

3. www.amazon.com

4. my online banking website

4 places I would rather be right now:

1. Cancun, Mexico

2. Hawaii

3. at home with Rick

4. anywhere with my kid

Now I get to choose 4 other blogger buddies to do this meme:

1. www.kristyk.org

2. http://freshperspective.com/

3. http://thingsicarry.wordpress.com/

4. anyone who reads and wants to…just let me know where to find you.  

I do not watch a lot of TV as I work during primetime television hours.  I can honestly say that I do not miss any primetime shows.  I should perhaps, but I don’t.  I hate having my life dictated by television.  I’ve even considered not getting cable when we move into the new house, however…and this is a BIG HOWEVER, I think we’d go berserk without cable because we’re not big “go-outers”.  We are both homebodies and we both prefer to hang out in our crib doing nothing much of anything.  I also prefer to watch HGTV and FoodTV over pretty much everything else on TV.  Going without cable would mean going without watching cooking shows and real estate shows.  Blah…that would suck.
 

This weekend for the first time ever I caught a Nigella Lawson show on FoodTV.  It drove me nuts because she was making homemade pasta and yet her measurements are in metric and therefore the entire time I’m feeling like I’m watching her speak in another language.  I could not follow along without any thought for the measurements.  It drove me nuts.  She made pasta and I was totally about that as my grandmother makes her own pasta.  It looked like Nigella made her’s quite similar if not the same.  Perhaps the measurements were different but the process was the same.  I have no idea about the measurements though because again..they were in metric.

I just found the recipes on foodtv.com and they’re not in metric.  whew….