The Hot Dame Summer Edition

Oct21

So we are one month into fall and the leaves are steadily changing, I forgot that I planned to recap my Hot Girl* Summer (*more like grown woman with a 401K. So what is that? A Dame?). So I entered the summer, not in the best of moods. In fact, I truly wasn’t feeling anything. But I thought the best way to shake the blues was to actually overschedule myself. Did it work? Maybe.

First, I kicked off the summer – since most consider Memorial Day as the unofficial start – at Linganore for the Reggae Wine Festival. My husband had never been and I thought it would be an easy outing. It truly was and he had fun. We then attended Capital Jazz Festival, which had perfect weather. I repeat. Perfect weather. What did we do to earn such amazing weather – warm, breezy, adequately sunny? Well, the acts were ho hum. No one was really excited for any of the acts, even the headliners for the stages: Brian McKnight and Gregory Porter didn’t elicit any great fanfare. BTW, I adore Gregory Porter, so I don’t count.

For some reason I couldn’t find my Cap Jazz photos

Hobbies

Another decision I made was to return to golf. I joined another league. They didn’t meet as much as I would have liked but they were way more pleasant than my previous group. I didn’t achieve my goal to improve my handicap, but I realized how much I liked playing, despite the fact I am nowhere near good. This is a revelation for me that I can have a hobby where I don’t excel and it’s okay.

I returned to my paint and sip classes, which soothe me so. I came up with the brilliant idea to create a gallery wall and strategically planned my color schemes to coordinate. I am really proud of the result.

My gallery wall. Isn’t it great?

Concerts

I booked a bunch of concerts at City Winery. I can say I see steady improvement. Initially the service was slow and easily confused. I once received three glasses of the same wine from three different servers who didn’t notice they all gave me the same thing but were cognizant enough to charge me for all three. Who did I see? Yahzarah (fun). Christian Scott (late and too chatty). Tortured Soul (so cool). Van Hunt. Omar. In addition, we made it to see Lizzo for only $25. That was the bargain of the year. We traveled up to Baltimore to attend the Nas| MJB concert celebrating the 25^th anniversary of their classic albums. We were so overdressed for the evening that we looked like we should be on stage too. Such a true culture clash.

My hubby turned 40 and I was kind enough to throw him a party. Hold your applause. Plus he wanted a birthday trip (see in a bit). He tapped me out. Luckily the DC / Baltimore area is great for something free to do. We wore these out in August and September. First we journeyed to Afram with the main headliner as Rick Rozay or Rick Ross (did he pay for this name yet?). Plus all of Puffy’s kids performed a bunch of mediocre songs. The Fort Dupont Summer Concert season was great this year. We went to see Deborah Bond and Raheem DeVaughan. We also saw Stokely and someone else I am not googling. Both shows were amazing and free.99. I hope they keep the same booking agent next year. We saw the really cool REACH festival at the new venue at the Kennedy Center. While I didn’t make it in to see Robert Glasper, I did spend a great day at the Hip Hop day which ended with a free performance by DeLaSoul. I also was treated to a Don’t Mute DC concert with Backyard Band at my favorite place in DC: National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Lizzo for $25

Randomness

I also did some typical and out of the box activities. We visited the highly popular but oh so nice new Top Golf. My hubby is terrible at golf. He would not like me to point this out. I went to an HBCU kickball tournament. Sure. It’s a thing. A really silly, fun thing. I made a pilgrimage to a winery out in VA. You have to do at least one winery day a summer. I went to northern Virginia more this summer than I have since I stopped working there in 2014. We attended so many of these planned activities that have become the norm over the years: A rose festival. An all you can eat Oyster festival (umm…turns out I do have a limit). The Beer, Wine and Crab festival. There is an entire industry now cultivating events for people who want to leave the house with predefined fun. This doesn’t feel like it was a thing 10 years ago. I attend a game of the WNBA champion Mystics. I always forget how much fun their games are and think: I should go more, then do not. I will fix this next year. Finally, we went to a 70’s themed birthday party. Without irony, I found my costume with ease at a major retailer selling the jumpsuit as an actual outfit they thought people should wear.

70’s costumes

Chicago

As I mentioned earlier, my hubby wanted to visit Chicago for his birthday. I have been in more than 10 years and he hadn’t been since high school. What a great city to visit. We ate so much. Visited the largest rooftop bar in the world. Took a river cruise. Threw axes. Went to a beach party.

Chicago Architecture River Tour

Conclusion

And by 23 September, summer concludes and it’s all over. It wasn’t bad. Thanks Megan. To quote my hubby, “it is time to sit your butt down.”

The 2018 Recap Edition

Feb20

It dawned on me that my 2018 recap which had been roaming around in my head for a month was never put to paper. So how would I sum up 2018, in the immortal words of Dave Chappelle – I’m broke, [word I don’t say]. I’m broke! Wow the hits kept coming.

I got a new car. I worked so hard to keep my beloved Smokey alive at great expense. In the end, my car had this annoying oil leak that three dealerships and several mechanics couldn’t identify. The accelerator pump died which meant I went from 0 to 8 after any complete and total stop for about 30 seconds until it decided to sorta go 50. But I couldn’t let go. But once it got the shimmy shakes when idling I had to let it go at 200,8XX miles. Love live Pearlie Sue.
Black Panther. As an apathetic Hampton grad, the highlight of my first quarter was meeting Ruth Carter – a fellow alum whose career I have been following for 20 years. Being from Hampton really feels like a cult sometimes though. I will see folks I went to school with and the first question I get asked is when is the last time I was on campus. Ummm..what about important issues like is this woman and children next to you your family or what? However, Black Panther had the entire community hype. I still have a Lesotho blanket in my Amazon cart but broke. Wakanda Forever. Peep my General Okoye painting.
Despite my lack of funds, I did a lot of long weekend and day trips.
1. Went to Dover Downs for my birthday. I really only like to do one thing for my birthday – watch March Madness and eat chicken wings. We discovered that though Dover allows sports betting on football, which is not true for basketball. So watching and no gambling for us.
2. We traveled to Ocean City for the first time since the first year I moved here. We stayed in a brand new hotel at a discount but truly why does it cost $300 a night to visit there?
3. We went to New York for Pinknic. Wow was it hot. So really, really hot. I already own cute pink clothes, so I was good to go. It was ridiculously expensive. $70 for a bottle of rose or $12 for a frose. And it was all house music (Yay for me. Boo for other people who wrongly don’t love house music).
4. I went to Detroit for Labor Day for the Jazz Festival. I made it to tv apparently since we were sitting right by the camera. Thank goodness I love Esperanza and could easily look entertained.
5. Finally we went Austin for Austin City Limits. I had a bit of an incident the first day of the vacay with an evil scooter. Austin is such a drink and walk around town. We completely wasted money on that city tour as we saw nothing we didn’t see just walking around normally. ACL was great though they swapped Childish Gambino for Travis Scott and I am old and he makes songs I don’t know. Camilla C. (I ain’t googling the spelling) was so cute but her catalog is short. We really were there for Janelle.
I recall counselling my baby cousin (waves if she is reading) that you can go out regularly with ever even thinking of a club or bar. That was certainly true for me. Summer of 2018 was marked by continuous rain, so many of my typical summer activities didn’t happen.
1. Attended a movie screening. You have to see the movie to understand the earrings.
2. Painted and sipped. Thank goodness I found a spot that outlines the work because you don’t want to see my previous experience attempting to draw a pumpkin.
3. I went to fun cooking classes, learning how to make pasta and fry chicken. Honest to heaven, the very first time I made fried chicken, it was absolutely perfect – well seasoned, crispy and juicy. I peaked. I never made chicken that amazing again. But hoping I can try again with confidence.
4. I took a graffiti and DJ class. Don’t worry all my DJ friends are safe.
5. I took a poker class and won nothing. Someone gave me a trinket though as she won twice, and I happily took it.
Without trying, I visited three Black-owned hotels. First, I went to Salamander Resort. Smaller than I thought it would be. So ages ago I stayed at the Biltmore in Coral Gables, same problem. It appears to be this sprawling resort and it is amazing, but not truly as huge as I thought. We spent the weekend at Akwaaba Inn in D.C. It’s been there for 14 years and yet never made it there. Plus I have never been to a bed and breakfast in my life. This was so cool. I definitely plan to go to more. Finally, I have been obsessed with the Ivy Hotel in Baltimore since I saw it in a magazine. Happily I found a spa deal and had a lovely spa day and tour of this highly exclusive hotel. I may never afford to stay there, but I can get a massage.
I went to Spain.
I became a boss. It’s much harder than it appears on television. I am no Michael Scott, but I definitely had some odd, exhausting days that felt like weeks that would make it a very funny episode on my version of The Government Office. And good bosses get no glory. It’s all about developing people to be their best or some such nonsense. I did sit down with a really useful executive coach who provided practical advice to ease some interactions.
I started and didn’t finish a lot of television. I started so much and yet finished so little. I don’t even know what I was doing with my nights. Maybe I was overwhelmed. There is so much television. I literally finished a bunch of started television over the Christmas holidays. And am still nowhere near finished. And my book reading suffered. I only read 7 books this year and the only thing that got me that far was some long plane rides.
Did I have a favorite movie this year (Black Panther withstanding)? I cannot say. I didn’t see a lot of the popular and critical darlings. I loved Widows but some people did not (I guess).
Music was good, yet social media makes it so difficult to like certain artists. There were lots of soft, crooning female singers to like this year – Ari Lennox, H.E.R., Ella Mai. I’m old and current hip hop mostly annoys me. I continued my consistent concert tradition independent of those I mentioned earlier with, reverse order:
1. Anita Baker
2. Bilal
3. Zo!
4. Big Freedia / Tank and the Bangas (saw them twice)
5. Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)
6. Raphael Saadiq
7. Hamilton (second time is the charm!)
8. Capital Jazz Festival (In the rain as always. But a tent this time)
9. Shabazz Palaces (this was obviously free)
10. Black Alley
Went to some out there parties.
1. Attended the Fresh Ball courtesy of a friend and got dress up and listen to good hip hop There is a difference.
2. NMAAHC held the most fun Derby Day party. We learned about the history of Black jockeys, wore amazing hats and nibbled traditional treats from each of the races. Which meant crabcakes for Preakness; hot browns for Kentucky Derby; pretzels for Belmont.
3. Went to the worst mud ball of Preakness ever. Some attendees slipped, fell and were covered head to toe in mud. I’m taking a year off.
4. Diner en Blanc was at Nats stadium, which was extremely unpopular due to the length of time to process in through security, sitting in the rafters and not being able to step onto the field. Dah well. Great parties can’t last forever.
5. The National Portrait Gallery threw an anniversary party. Sadly the full space wasn’t open to partygoers. So the Michelle Obama portrait continues to elude me. But Amy Sherald was there.
6. I threw axes at a Christmas Party.
My tribe and I recreated my amazing bridal shower by hiring a driver to visit wineries along the Frederick Wine Trail. These elevated excursions we plan for ourselves are the best.
Let me tell you. This diet from the wedding completely fell off. First of all, weddings are exhausting enterprises so you naturally lose weight with nervous energy and not eating. But that drinking green smoothies and popping mints as snack replacements couldn’t last long. I tried my best with exercise but I went to lamb festivals, and high end steakhouses and cooking classes. It was all so delicious. But at this age, I really need to concentrate all my efforts on dry salad.
I continued my fitness outings. I danced to Afrobeat, Soca, Bellydance and Zumba. So many classes are devoted to dancing. Dancing isn’t the best workout for me because I spend too much time concentrating on if I got the moves right and forget the exercise part. I pounded. This was my favorite. Such a release of aggression. I took a kettlebell class. I didn’t do badly due to my semi-commitment to boot camp. However, this boot camp is ruining me for my preferred exercise – yoga. I truly love yoga, everything else I do is make sure my cute clothes fit. There I was in aerial yoga doing a backflip when my right shoulder gave out and I tumbled right onto my head. My muscles are so tired and achy that my practice is regressing.
I barely golfed this year. I think I let those bitter bitties convince me into not coming back. But the end of the season once the rained cleared, I truly regretted my decision. I am not the best golfer by any stretch of the imagination, but I really liked the challenge it gave me. It took consistent effort and concentration, which isn’t my strong suit and a growth area for me.
I realized that my hobbies weren’t strong. It’s important to have hobbies as I realized after having a pre-adolescent pen pal who constantly asked me what I liked to do. “I am a grown-up, kid! I don’t do anything but start television I don’t finish!” Anyhoo, I attempted to write and stuck to it an entire two months. Someday soon I need to start reciting these story ideas to myself (before my husband thinks I am crazy) and write them down. What is my blockage?
So I mentioned that I was broke. Well, being a landlord sucks on ice. I went two months without a tenant after finally ridding myself of the tenant from hell in late 2017. Plus we had an unfortunate incident with a pipe bursting and damaging the basement. So we got all new pipes and walls. I didn’t want all new pipes and walls. But here we are.
For 2018, I didn’t set resolutions. I didn’t even make a vision board. So there was nothing to judge against by the end of the year. I truly was in a grumpy funk at the beginning of the year, because I felt under water with finances. I made strong ones this year. (Hope I don’t fail).

That was my 2018. Here’s to 2019 (two months in)! Check the gallery.

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The Spanish Edition

Nov19

Happy 6 year and one month anniversary blog! I started this blog mainly because I was in a process-oriented gig and my creative spirit started to atrophy. But now I am so tired from all the thinking that I need to to I can only spend a few minutes a day writing. I bought myself the cute writing prompt book which has helped inspire some creativity from somewhere. I realized that my blog anniversary (October 19) is one day away from my wedding anniversary (October 20). So I really should attempt to write something, anything. This was made easier by the fact that my house is a total cluster and I am currently monitoring (as much as you can) contractors repairing things as a result of a leaky pipe. And the fact that my hubby and I had a great vacation to celebrate our first anniversary. Something to recap! Truthfully I have plenty to recap as there were some really fun events this year, but lazy.

So we went to Spain! This was an inside joke between my husband and I for years and we finally traveled there. We booked this trip through Costco of all places. It was an amazing deal save for the fact that you don’t get a seating assignment on your flights. For one leg we weren’t seated together and had to withstand this annoying Veruca Salt’s little meltdown to sit together for another leg. On a bonus item of note, I plan to always travel on Saturday nights as the plane to Spain was truly empty. Notsomuch on the way back.

Spain is lovely. After going to South Africa last year, we definitely needed to remember the fact that the Euro is stronger than the dollar. We spent money left and right and had to slow down. We arrived at Barcelona first and stayed in an area that was originally run down but became Olympic village in 1992. It is now mixed use with hotels, apartments and nightclubs on the beach. It’s truly a city beach so don’t expect clear blue water and alabaster sand. We (okay I was) were very tired yet our room wasn’t ready yet. We ate on the beach and walked around our neighborhood which was very close to the cruise shipyard. I am usually an extreme planner but truly conducted minimal research for this trip (brain dead). Therefore most of the week in Barcelona and Madrid was spent strolling around the city while on the hop on and hop off tourist bus. Hubby is not a fan of museums, botanical gardens and historic sites and those excursions were quickly nixed. I should have pushed for one though in hindsight.

Life Lessons

I learned a few things. Never take Uber. Taxi drivers take their jobs very seriously there.

Experts project soon that Spain will have the longest life expectancy in the world and the lifestyle is really nowhere near ours in America. They usually pop up around 9 and head out around 10 a.m. They have late lunches, possibly a siesta, eat dinner at 9 p.m. and often stay out to 2a.m., even on weekdays. We weren’t ready! I think our failures was the lack of siestas as we would be exhausted by midnight and that is when nightlife starts. Our taxi driver joked as we ventured out midday that most people were napping and people in Spain don’t stress themselves out much. He continued: people work from 10 – 6 and then don’t work really all that hard during those hours.

Almost everyone in Barcelona speaks multiple languages and we got lazy with our Spanish. Hubby said that he remembered a little bit of Spanish, which actually meant none and we really struggled in Madrid where English wasn’t as popular. I had an unproductive argument with a server as she kept giving me the wrong menu item for lunch with my google translate Spanish and then charged me for every incorrect item that even sat on the table. That day for lunch I ended up with a bowl of garlic shrimp. Nothing else. Just garlic shrimp. Television has nothing in English except for late night American movies, so chilling in your hotel room is not an option.

Food

Being honest, Jose Andres sets too high of an expectation. I thought that food would be in goo goo gobs abundance. Nope. Many of the bodegas (their word for quaint little restaurants) have small, similar menus so it can get repetitive. On the first night, we went to one restaurant in the center of Barcelona with gorgeous rooftop views and TGI Friday’s level food quality. As a result, Hubby swore off of paella forever. Like ever. Do you know how hard it is to eat in Spain if you don’t eat paella? I’ll admit after the debacle in Madrid with the lost in translation server, I ate Five Guys that night. I am ashamed.

We discover two cool things. First food tours. While pricey, they gave us an opportunity to discover food off the beaten path. You walk with a guide. Hear some history. Sample wine and native cuisine at a few stops (though two of them gave us the same dish). It’s all very relaxed and charming. Our other favorite thing became food halls. Spain loves a food hall and theirs are so elevated. Plus, you just sit and they bring the food from different stalls to you. Yay! Also, they provide entertainment. At La Platea in Madrid, we heard a jazz combo AND saw an aerialist. I highly recommend.

Oh and our hotel gave us this amazing anniversary gift of Cava and chocolate covered strawberries. Yum.

Nightlife

We did the traditional thing and saw a flamenco show. There are so many so we just went to the one recommended by the hotel. We tried clubbing, which is very popular in Barcelona, but we are old and tapped out by midnight just as everyone was arriving. I did get to ride in one of those pedicabs along the beach, nice. Madrid likes live music so we headed to two dive bars on different nights. Black American music is so extremely popular in Spain that you would think you’d see more Black people. In Barcelona a taxi driver spent our entire ride crooning to Al Green and Sam Cooke yet couldn’t speak a lick of English. In Madrid, we saw an R&B cover band who relied heavily on New Orleans-style jazz and Motown. I did spot a Colombian-American from Houston there who told me I was a bad bitch for obvious reasons. The other night we saw weird avant garde band that really reminded me of the band from Yes Man (if you have seen that movie).

Summary

To answer the question everyone poses- which city to you prefer? It depends. Barcelona is much prettier, hipper and easier to navigate with better shopping, Spanish food and wine. Madrid is more metropolitan, has better social activities (especially for more seasoned people), trendier bars, good international food, and happier, chatty people.

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The 2015 Recap Edition

Jan9

147

This is my 2015 recap. I wouldn’t say that 2015 was a banner year. But I don’t have those. I think not having many major life milestones is a contributing factor. No wedding, engagement, babies or new businesses. So it was just like any other year. Two items of note:

I barely blogged this year. I ended up in a very toxic, soul sucking work environment and all I want to do when I get home is collapse on the couch and work on lump status. Ironically, my last project at my previous job was conducting employee focus groups. I was so amazed at how miserable employees were. People would be near tears when we asked the simple question of “how do you get along with your boss?” Now I get it. Bad workplaces sap every ounce of energy you have.
Being miserable at work caused me to reevaluate my life. I became very Shalina-focused. I decided to not spend much energy chasing behind other people. I realized that I put forth much of the effort in many of my relationships and that ceased. I didn’t call first, extend many invites or deal with much selfishness. I just didn’t have the energy. This also affected my Top Ten Life. Not as many outings to discuss.

So without much further ado, here are my Top 15 moments of 2015. This is no particular order as I am trying to be more freewheeling and doesn’t include events already discussed on the site.

I was so artsy. – Crafts are a good release. I made Kente cloth, painted pottery, created jewelry, adult colored.
I binge watched. – I am not a tv person despite being raised by an absolute tvaholic. I like leaving the house (hence this blog). However, as mentioned by the two items of note, I didn’t cajole people to hang out and didn’t want to be bothered, so thank you to: Jessica Jones, Orange is the New Black, Broad City, Master of None, etc. for keeping me occupied. I saw some good ones and bad ones – I won’t mention Younger. So much shame.
I did lots of road trips (on my Vision Board).- New York, three times! I went to Harlem (visited many places that I later saw reality shows either good or bad) and Brooklyn. I went to Hampton’s Homecoming for the first time in 10 plus years. I am now a big fan of all the suite parties! I went to Michigan twice. To quote Murtaugh, “I am getting too old for this.” That trip is getting harder and harder to do. I went to a Delmarva beach for the first time for an extended time (4 days, not a day trip) in the 20 years I have been here. While Dewey is nice, turns out honey doesn’t like sitting in the hot sun because he works outside all day.
Afro Punk.- Grace Jones topless hula hooping. Lenny Kravitz jumping into the crowd. Enough said.
D’Angelo returned to form. – However, he had the ridiculous idea that his 35+ year old fan base should attend a four plus hour standing show on a work day. Unfortunately, we needed to leave early as my honey’s feet were killing him one hour into his performance (four hours into the night). Apparently he performed for two hours. Standing shows need rules! Thou shall not have opening acts. Thou shall start promptly after doors open. Thou shall only book acts whose audience is 25 years old.
Prince bestowed us with his presence. – Prince came to Baltimore and all was right. Actually not really because of the reason he was there after “riots” resulting from Freddie Gray’s death. I could talk about that issue for hours but will move on. So many funny things happened at the show just in the audience! One thing, Royal Farms Arena needs screens. I never knew who any of the “special guests” were and had to rely on sneak looks at my phone (phones were banned which caused some of the audience hilarity).
I was considerate. – I did stuff that I really didn’t want to because I am a good person. I gave up Trevor Noah tickets (taping his Comedy Central special!) to go to my honey’s club event. I wanted to go to a wine festival but instead went to the movies with friends. There should be prizes given out for this behavior.
Carefree outings. – I joined meetups. They are such an easy way to hang out. You don’t have to call people. You don’t have to endure being stood up. If you don’t have plans, you pick a pre-arranged event and show up! Honey thinks things are weird, but I came to love them. I golfed regularly. I zip lined. I sang karaoke. I grooved at Motown the Musical. Easy peasy.
Childhood dream. – I hate to admit this but I’ve never seen a full New Edition show. As equally as Jill was moody, New Edition was fun. Damn they can still dance except Johnny who is turning into Eddie LeVert. Yay guys! I saw BBD on Valentine’s Day and they can work their 6 songs hard! Then I saw the full shebang at the Holiday Jam. So happy for me.
Food and libations. You know what is fun? The Bourbon and Brew Classic! Bourbon tastings combined with horse racing. What a great idea. I ate the most divine Lobster Rolls (I wrote it down) at the Baltimore Seafood Festival. I drank so much wine at the Vintage Virginia Festival while dancing to Trouble Funk. I went to a violently okay wine festival at the Navy Yard though so they aren’t all silver and gold. I like these things a little too much.
So fancy. – I was invited to not one but two tea parties. I am very elegant and this is the reason why.
I got some cool deals this year. – Enjoyed the Black and Brown Comedy Get Down based on a random discount code. Took honey to a cool brunch. Found an okay hotel in Brooklyn. I still want my playlist, dammit! Vegas was a great hotel special.
Celebrated Detroit. – Went to D.C. Loves Dilla for the first time with special appearance by Common who did one song though Dilla produced entire albums. But I digress. Though it’s weird seeing only two people in Slum Village. I was reminded of my dark dusty days at St. Andrews in the late 90’s. Remember this, rap battles are terrible. No, they weren’t good. They are terrible.
One down, two to go. – So I finally went to Preakness. I just have Belmont and the Kentucky Derby to go. Plus, I need to start on the rest of my sports bucket list: U.S. Open, the Masters, and the World Series. The sky’s the limit. Hopefully, they will have less drunk people. Preakness has so many drunk people. But I had a great hat. That’s what is most important.
Diner en Blanc. Last and my favorite. I worked hard on this. After seeing that the waiting list was in the five digits I decided to be creative. While I may not be the most social being (which is the key to getting invited) but I’m Cleva (shout out to Erykah). I created a fabulous infographic as to why I should be invited and voila, I was in. On paper it seems ludicrous but in practice, awesome.Honey was dubious. My friend bailed. But what a fun time for a tremendous amount of work. Plus as a treat, honey booked a room at the Marriott Marquis which isn’t as luxurious as it could be though it has the spa water with fruit in the lobby.

The Aries are Awesome Edition

Apr4

So every other year, I like to treat myself to a birthday trip. This year I wanted to return to Vegas, which I did several years back to combine my three favorite things: Vegas, my birthday and March Madness. I make a big deal of my birthday for one simple reason, my mom never threw me birthday parties. I had two birthday parties (8 and 16) growing up and both were primarily spearheaded by my aunt. We have this theory—my mom is a downright recluse with a summer birthday sired by two extreme extroverts. They used the only child of theirs with a summer birthday in Michigan as an excuse to have huge parties. So my mom sees birthdays as an annoying constant celebration. Meanwhile, her winter birthday-having siblings possess simmering resentments of these feted occasions. So she thinks birthdays are overblown.

I quickly realized that having an outstanding birthday will be the result of my own efforts. This proved to be challenging over the years as I am an introvert with extroverted tendencies who tends to attract homebodies as friends. That means I have never had a successful adult party, you know the kind full of raucous people making poor decisions. I decided around age 28 to focus my birthday efforts on travel and not relieving House Party 15: The Adult Edition.

This was my first stay in Mandalay Bay. Can I say my favorite thing about this hotel/casino? It smells amazing. Always. I just love it. The hardest part of Mandalay is it is the tip of the Strip. Which means walking, so much walking. In hindsight I made one major mistake with this trip. I wore new, unproved shoes. Naturalizer is my go-to shoe for almost fashionable comfy shoes but they failed me. I feel like our entire experience was limited because my feet hurt and for example, I didn’t want to walk to Bellagio to show my honey the water show. We confined many activities to the south strip.

I usually gamble once and party often during my Vegas trips. I checked the websites and didn’t see many events I had to attend and deferred to my honey’s love of gambling. I am still mad though that the Ice Cube / Lil Jon show at Wynn was advertised nowhere and I only saw that it occurred the day after. That mashup is something I wanted to see!

I only gamble cheaply as I like my money and set strict limits for myself. I introduced my honey to the only table game I play—roulette—after losing $80 in Blackjack in 20 minutes after being dealt several consecutive hands of 15. The worst number in Blackjack. Roulette is a game that you can play forever with $40, especially on $5 tables. It was good to us the first two days. Honey won $300 and I won $80. Betting on college basketball turned out not to be anywhere near successful because none of the teams played correctly.

Eating in Vegas is always an adventure. I loved Aria’s brunch and their unlimited drink add-on was scrumptious. Planet Hollywood’s brunch was in the basement and I really wanted to see some sunlight. Otherwise, pretty good. We ate at this terrible restaurant in Caesars because I was too hungry to think straight. I paid $20 for cheese eggs, toast (no jelly available) and hash browns. I don’t eat pork so they had no meat for me to choose. In comparison, the brunch buffet at Aria is $22 and $21 at PH. Turns out they are closing the restaurant and laying off the staff for a new concept in two weeks which is why the service was so awful. I am a firm believer for breakfast/brunch, go to a buffet. It’s cheap <$25 and you can create whatever meal you want. We ate at this beautiful fancy seafood restaurant in Encore, which was just okay for my birthday. The place we wanted to go was full with a long wait. This is exactly how we ended up at Caesars. The last day we went to Fremont Street which is so much awesome and fun fact—had the world’s oldest Tupac imposter. Seriously dude was in his late 40’s and Tupac died at 25. We ate so cheaply there that it renewed my anger at Caesar’s all over again.

As for the shows…We saw Cirque du Soleil One based on the music of Michael Jackson. It was phenomenal. I did expect more acrobatics as it focused more on dancing, but it was glorious. Plus I got to sing along. Amazingly, it primarily focused on songs from HIStory, Bad and Thriller. I mean what would be a more perfect Cirque du Soleil song than Off the Wall. I feel like that was a missed opportunity for some daredevil theatrics. We also saw the Jabbawockeez. I had never heard of them, nor do I watch America’s Best Dance Crew but I truly enjoyed the show, especially the audience participation parts.

Yay birthdays!

The Love Edition

Feb17

Hello long dormant blog. I decided to use the long holiday weekend to try to shake off some of my writers’ block that having a blog was supposed to avoid. I started this blog as an excuse to write weekly but have been plagued by an inability to write a basic summary paragraph.

So I didn’t write about the astounding Songs in the Key of Life concert event of a lifetime in November. I missed the opportunity to write about the Mint Condition anniversary surprise, also in November. And, I didn’t capture my chance to see Five Guys Named Moe through a Living Social Deal in December. So I will attempt to reignite my fabulous blog, I swear.

So this past weekend was Valentine’s Day. Amazingly one of my most memorable Valentine’s Days was actually a Galentine’s Day. It was another time when Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday, which turns quickly into Single Awareness Day. The host planned a series of activities starting with brunch and ending with dinner to visit unique museums away from the typical Smithsonian ones. So for my honey’s Valentine’s Day surprise, I decided to create an alcohol adventure with different stops along the way.

First, we stopped at Signature Blue Events grand opening party. I will admit I had no clue what Signature Blue Events is and what they are opening and still don’t since the tour they provided wasn’t actually informative. However, it was free and suggested to me by Eventbrite, so why not. The event sported a wine tasting (alcohol adventure #1), a band, a weird barbecue buffet and spa treatments. The wine tasting was fun because the ladies pouring the tastings were a hoot.

Second, we stopped at New Columbia Distilling for a gin tasting. We were running behind, so we couldn’t take the full tour. One thing I realized is that I never drink gin and gin is really strong. Because I usually drink mixed cocktails, I realized that I am not a person who knows what many liquors actually taste like.

Next, we scurried off to One Eight Distilling for a tour and tasting before it closed. There I learned the difference between making gin, whiskey and vodka. Then I wondered if I could run a distillery because I need me a business, lol. Of course, we were treated to three full sized shot tastings and I wondered why they are so generous with the free alcohol… Since they were so nice and maybe because I was liquored up, we bought a bottle.

We were supposed to go to Atlas Brew Works, but stopped at Union Market because I wanted this chocolate hazelnut spread that was sold out *sad face*. Then we went to get something to eat because three all the tasting were catching up to me and I needed food.

Finally, we went to Jack Rose for the Capital Standard party which offered a new brand of Whiskey tastings for $15. In lieu of that, my honey and I opted for craft whiskey cocktails by the master mixologist. We left just in time for a mini ice storm.

On Sunday, my Valentine’s Day surprise was tickets to see the Old School New Jack Swing concert. This event continues my rant that we really need a medium sized concert venue in the D.C. area—smaller than Verizon Center but larger than Constitution Hall. And Showplace Arena is not it unless they invest serious money into a better sound system. The concert was okay. After 7 were great. SWV sang well but without a band, which is one of my pet peeves. Toni Tone was okay, but hilariously I think a lot of people were confused by the lack of Raphael Saadiq as if he didn’t leave the band 15 plus years ago. BBD can work the hell out of a 5 song show. Damn are they great showmen. If only they had the catalog to support a full show. Finally HollisterStreet came on. Unfortunately, they cannot be called BlackStreet without Chauncey, but they put on a decent show.

Whew. That was so hard. Writing is so hard, but I have to do it. Hopefully, I can restore this blog to some kind of consistency.

The New Job Edition

Sep19

So this month, I embark on my next career journey and begin a new job. I am extremely excited and can honestly say that my last gig wasn’t a good fit. I am sickly, they insist you make up leave. I am a control freak and management directs your assignments. I prefer to speak plainly and bluntly and any semblance of possible back talk is not allowed. I hate commuting and this job was far. When I was finally allowed to tell people I was leaving—this didn’t happen soon for a variety of reasons—we joked that there are key indicators that it is time to leave a job.

You go to mediation! There you are at your job hating life in general when you are forced to sit next to some annoying individual who irks every ounce of your spirit. This person can be smelly, listen to terrible music loudly, always ask for help with work, or have a smart mouth. Anyway, one day after enduring just too much, you snap. A loud argument ensues and your boss has the perfect solution: mediation. You don’t want to go to mediation. You barely want to come to work. Mediation isn’t going to make this person your best friend and the issue is actually greater than loud music. Once this happens, there’s nothing left to do but depart the office.

You pack up your stuff! This was courtesy of a colleague, who told me that she hated one job so much that she packed up her stuff from her office over the weekend and took it home. She didn’t have another job but she didn’t want to have her stuff in a place she hated. I had a teammate, who also did this. He packed all of his belongings in a box to be ready at any time to get away quickly. This was after a lazy, midde-aged person filed an ageism complaint against him. When you are concerned with the speed of which you can leave your office, it’s time to go.

You hide from your boss/coworkers! At my last job I was swamped and I worked on a team full of extroverted analyzers. They could discuss an issue for 90 minutes and still not develop a reasonable solution. Turns out, I didn’t have time for this. I would watch the clock tick away in a meeting as my To-Do List languished. This is a great practice for college, think tanks, book clubs, but not for the deadline-driven life of an event planner. So I came up with a brilliant solution. I would book a conference room and literally hide from my coworkers in another part of the building. I couldn’t get sucked into some philosophical discussion on what is customer service. Once you actively decide to deceive your coworkers, you should move on.

You create a crazy personal life! You could have a boring home life consisting of feeding your maltese if you are a Black woman or developing nanobrews in the garage, but no one can know that. Otherwise, bosses will try to make you work weekends, go on exhausting business trips to Sioux Falls, or cancel vacation because of a so-called emergency. So you create a demanding husband, an old cat with a bad bladder and an allergy to cat pee, or feminine problems. No one ever asks about feminine problems as men don’t understand it and women don’t want to catch it. When you need to have index cards to remember your lies, look for new opportunities.

You announce you’re leaving! My favorite moment in the history of my crappy jobs during college is this one. I worked at an outbound call center, which is one of the most demoralizing jobs in history. People hate you and through the joy of anonymity they tell you. It didn’t matter that we worked for a national charity. No one wants to be called at home. These places are often lead by a really chipper recent college grad who hugs homeless people and dances in the moonlight. Anyway, the boss came to visit an employee because her numbers were low. She wished to offer some creative strategies to get hostile folks to donate money. The employee mentioned that the job was difficult and she was doing the best she could. But Chippy Mc Chipper wanted to run through some exercises and role play. So after some back and forth, the employee announced she was leaving several times to be ignored by our boss. Finally, she proceeded to gather her belongings and walk out while the boss was still talking. Chippy and the entire floor were dumbfounded. So if you announce you are leaving, well you will leave.

The Hard Work Edition

Mar15

Courtesy of Library of Congress

So I meant to write last week but my Office was giving me the blues. I will bypass discussion of the American Cool exhibit to recount my latest musical adventure and an adventure it was. I need to start writing things down. I saw the announcement about the Gregory Porter concert at the Library of Congress and plum forgot to get tickets. By the time I remembered it was sold out. As a result, we decided to try for tickets as they make some available at 6p on the day of shows or so I thought.

I was really proud of myself. First I got there early. I had no food in my stomach but I was there. Luckily I arrived at the same time as half of the quartet so instead of being confused as to where to go I followed them. So imagine my little amazement when I got inside to wait for tickets and it was packed. I just figured a handful of people or so would give it a shot. I didn’t know how many tickets they hand out so I spend 30 minutes trying to figure out how to best position myself for success and wondering where my buddy who decided to accompany me was. I realized first that you don’t get tickets, you get something called rush tickets. These tickets enable you to be the waiting list if the event isn’t filled. Since the show is free, a lot of people order tickets online and don’t show up.

The wait quickly become contentious as the line wrapped around the hallway and the old folks who must have arrived promptly at noon were turned up. They wanted to know exactly how the tickets will be distributed and how the staff planned to ensure there was no cutting. I cannot wait until I get old! Anyway I hate conflict and started to just move on but then my Gregory Porter guardian angel swooped in and saved the day. He told me that I can get in front of him. I ended up with tickets 74 and 75 of 100. Without his benevolence, I never would have made it. The staff told us that we needed to come back at 7:30 to see if we will make it in.

I will say that this method of giving tickets requires a lot of effort on the part of the attendees. You wait in line prior to 6p and come back in 90 minutes to do it again? Anyway we were back. We sat in the overflow room which looks likes the lounge of a Vermont bed and breakfast and queue back up (well in chairs) and proceed to wait. It was hilarious. Folks were antsy. The staff would call numbers and people wouldn’t show up and folks cheered. One lady claimed to be holding tickets for friends who were en route and she was promptly booed. Amazingly my guardian angel did not return. Maybe the arguing at 6p got to him or he realized this is the stupidest method ever to get into a sold out event. Why couldn’t we just queue up at 7:30p and they just let the first 100 people in? Folks had jokes. Joy spread as we burned through the first 50 numbers. However everything slowed down after that and sadness ensued. People started plotting. I convinced a couple to double up if it got down to the wire. Then…yes! Our number was called.

We entered and the usher guided us to an entirely empty row save for two people on the end. Unfortunately the lady at the end refused to stand up and she wasn’t the kind of person you could squeeze by. A note: if you are heavy and have mobility issues, please do not sit at the end of an aisle. I watched without being able to hear my friend argue with the lady and then dart off. I followed quickly behind to discover that she saw better seats. We found great seats about 7 rows up from the stage, next to a man who didn’t even know who Gregory Porter was.

Thank goodness the concert was awesome or I just wasted 2 hours stressing for no reason. I swear after his amazing rendition of Work Song I wanted to throw my panties or give him some kind of reward. The audience was obviously filled with fanatics who screamed song requests. Umm…that’s not how concerts work. Everyone demanded an encore and sat down like the little brats we were when we got one. It was 90 minutes of excellence as an award for 2 plus hours of work. A really good deal.

The Singular Edition

Feb23

Courtesy of Asico Photo Blog

Almost two weeks ago, I treated myself to the Sharon Jones and Dap Kings concert. For some reason in the past year, I have taken myself out of the habit of going places alone. This is a thing that I have never shied away from. This behavior has not been a really successful practice: *cough* Stevie Wonder *cough*. Starting in college if there was something I really wanted to do and no one else was interested, I went anyway. I think it comes from two things: 1) I was raised as an only child and so I am completely comfortable spending vast amounts of time alone and 2) I grew up pretty broke and sheltered, so I always felt like I missed out on a lot and needed to catch up.

I still remember a friendship ended in college on my first adventure alone. I wanted to go to the ballet. Oh, hilariously I have been me for a very long time, and none of the crew wanted to go. The group had voted to spend a girls night in and I wasn’t having it. The rule was the majority decides on weekend activities. So I snuck out to the performance and my “friend” caught me. She was so incredulous that I attempted to hide and go to something as “stupid” as the ballet that the friendship never recovered.

However, this bold act started me on a path to some really great experiences. One of my favorite New Year Eves was the result of my going out alone when everyone else was afraid of a little snow. I accidentally crashed a private party that included party favors, a DJ, a buffet and open bar. Score! The one drawback of going out alone when crazy stuff happens, you have no one to corroborate your story. My terrible experience at the Essence Festival can be co-signed by one of my best friends. So sadly, no one can acknowledge the ridiculousness I witnessed at this concert. Basically I watched a White middle-aged, upper middle class, farmer’s market attending type threesome form right before my eyes. I watched a nice Volvo driving (okay I cannot confirm this but I know it’s true) couple join a good lady friend. I watched the couple make out uncomfortably (well, for me) all while the lady covertly stroked the lady friend’s hair. I saw the man go get snacks while the two middle aged middle school teachers make out (also uncomfortable for me). I observed that by the end of the night with encouragement from the double agent, the man cozy up, kissing and fondling, both women. All of this occurred with only one eyewitness, a random man sitting next to me who I will never see again.

This distraction withstanding, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. I still don’t like the open seating of the Lincoln Theater. It means I need to get to the venue 30 – 45 minutes early for complete boredom just to get a great seat. Once my overwhelming boredom ended, the show started with Valerie June. I have her CD after hearing her interviewed on NPR’s Tell Me More. I cannot figure out if I like it or not. There are three songs that I absolutely love and her voice is a true wonder. This was true of the concert as well, which was pretty true to the CD. I have never been a huge fan of bluegrass and the album has clear bluegrass, gospel and folk influences. I notice the stronger the individual influence determines my like for the song. The gospel and folk tinged songs. I love. The bluegrass, not so much. I also noticed that the songs I liked the most weren’t crowd favorites. So I was my own little island there. I still want me a sugar daddy to take me away from work, so the rousing rendition of Workin Woman Blues gave me all my life.

Finally after more boredom, where I got to watch the threesome come together and my right-hand neighbor order a t-shirt online, the Dap Kings arrived. The lull between acts at concerts are the worst thing about attending concerts alone. You have no one to chat with and are really concerned with conserving battery power. The Dap Kings started with spotlighting the backup singers before Sharon Jones, bald, defiant and energetic, graced the stage. She has been battling cancer for the last year and this was her second time on stage since treatment. She was a bit smaller, in size and presence, than usual but I happily danced along to all my favorite songs and the new stuff. At the end she led the crowd through a series of dances from the 60’s and 70’s, which was so much fun. Her commitment to her fans which was rewarded by roses from the crowd, made going out alone a great idea.

The Questioning Edition

Feb16

Last weekend I attended the Corcoran Gallery’s exhibit called Question Bridge: Black Males. I will admit as woman I don’t always understand the male point of view. The interesting thing about the exhibit was that I learned that men often don’t understand each other’s points of view either. The exhibit is more of a documentary where Black men and a few boys ask questions that are answered by other Black men. Some of the responses were heartfelt, such as Andrew Young’s response of how he knew that he met the love of his life. Some responses were heartbreaking, such as when a gentleman shared that his brother died of cancer because he refused to see a doctor. Some were puzzling, as with the man who stated that he believes the n-word will change for the better just as Samaritan did. All were fascinating.

They interviewed men from every age group, socio-economic status, geographic region and education level. They interviewed men in prison, doctors, teenagers, rappers, actors. A very huge cross section. I couldn’t tell how long the interviews lasted. It could have been hours. We sat transfixed for two hours, losing track of time, listening and processing. I think the key to the interviews is that we are not a monolith. Black men are not a homogenous group that is easy to pinpoint and stereotype, despite what others may think. I could see the simple things that divides the group: if you grew in the suburbs vs. the projects, if you grew up pre-civil rights era or during the crack-infested 80’s, if you attended an ivy league college or the school of hard knocks.

I do believe I learned something. It is not something easily identifiable such as I learned that Montpelier is the capital of Vermont. I learned how men articulate themselves, what gets under their skins, what they say and what they are afraid to say. I realized that each of the men interviewed had something to say even if what they said isn’t something I completely understood or agreed with. I don’t “get” prison culture but neither did some of the subjects. I don’t comprehend the respectability politics that is laid at single mothers’ feet when it takes two to make children. And again neither did the other subjects. Lately, mainly because of some really vocal members of “Black Twitter” I had grown weary of hearing any opinions on any subject. The vitriol and rancor spewed on topics as simple as Valentine’s Day especially from Black men exhausted me. But through this exhibit, I remembered that we, “the Blacks” are not a singular community and for every Negative Neal there’s a Positive Paul and that’s a good lesson.

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