Did I say Apocalypse? Obviously I mis-typed. What the title of this post should have read was: Signs That I’ll Be Taking an Apocalyptic Style Nap Due to The Yawn-Worthy Gossip That Drake and Breezy engaged in fisticuffs.
Apparently said melee transpired after Drake allegedly minced no words (via a note…yep, real gangsta) about his status with Brown’s ex, Rihanna. Now, I have no plans to sully this blog any further with a bunch of hearsay and blather so feel free to get the supposed details about this boy brawl here, here and here.
I will however close by asking if I’m the only one who saw this coming??? As far as striving for inspiration as an entertainer, I say mix creative juices with whomever you want, but c’mon. Drake’s cameos in RiRi’s videos, their innuendo induced performances and then her recent Birthday Cake collabo with Chris all made for a very intricately volatile situation…A situation where it seems that people have caught feelings and/or never lost feelings; so much so that now folks are nicknaming Drake the Evelyn Lozada of Hip-Pop and Pretty Boy Brown is having glass cleaned out of an open wound.
I know, I know. This is a tragic and upsetting time for all the #TeamDrake and #TeamBreezy shrieking tweens out there, but understand that this is not BREAKING NEWS as Russ Parr or TMZ have lead you to believe. Somebody wake me up when news breaks that one of these overexposed celebrities donates half their fortune to something newsworthy like the Clean Water Project or the End Auto-Tune Initiative. Until then, *yawn*.
Most nights when I climb into bed at the end of the day, I ask God for three things:
The addition of 4 more hours to a 24-hour day
Forgiveness for the gleeful mental images of pure ruin and nastiness I’ve envisioned for the people who’ve crossed me throughout my day
The strength and wisdom to raise my kids in a way that does not jack them up into adulthood.
Now while I’m not very optimistic about the first request and I struggle with the second, I am pretty sure that I have been bestowed with an almost heavenly serenity and awareness when it comes to The Pack Kids because…well, they are still with us, ladies and gentlemen.
I say all that to say that raising children is HARD. It is not for the faint of heart or for those looking for the latest melanin-enriched rosy cheeked, curly-haired accessory of the week (shots fired, I know). It requires determination, resilience, patience, discipline (on both parts) and some basic common sense. There are no “instructions or owner’s manual”, but the basic understanding that for your efforts, there will be occasions when you will be loved and adored and other times (sometimes more frequently) when you will be loathed and have mustaches and horns drawn on your Mother’s Day portraits (that’s just me? Oh…oh, okay then). Still, as a parent who only wants the best for your child, you have to take the bad with the good and be unafraid of being the proverbial bad guy every now and again because you know that your resistance to negotiate with your kids’ terroristic demands or to acquiesce to their will is for their own good.
Having now stepped down from my soap box, I cannot imagine embodying these ideals for child rearing while being a celebrity. I mean, as a public figure, people are already critiquing your every move and misstep; to couple that with a public assessment of the way that you interact with your children (God forbid if you believe in spankings and get caught not “sparing the rod” in public) and just like that, you and your family are media fodder and you have regular appointments with Child Protective Services for the next 6 months.
I can’t speak for him personally, but I imagine that is sort of what Dr. Creflo Dollar is going through right about now, especially given his religious celebrity status here in the U.S. As reported by the NY Daily News:
Megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar took to the pulpit in front of a packed house on Sunday to deny punching and choking his 15-year-old daughter, calling the accusations “an exaggeration and sensationalism.”
Dollar was arrested on Friday after the teen told police that he roughed her up and beat her with a shoe during an argument over whether she was allowed to go to a party, police said.
The Atlanta-based preacher’s other daughter, Alexandria, 19, backed her sister’s story, and cops noted the teen had red marks on her neck, signs of an apparent dust-up.
Dollar was charged with battery and cruelty to children.
He struck down the charges during a sermon at his World Changers Church International, his suburban Atlanta-based church that boasts 30,000 members and a host of satellite ministries across the U.S., according to The Associated Press.
“I will say this emphatically: I should have never been arrested,” he said, after receiving an exuberant welcome from the faithful at his 8,500-seat sanctuary, known as the World Dome.
“I want you all to hear personally from me that all is well in the Dollar household.”
The 50-year-old televangelist denied choking his daughter, saying the scratches on the girl’s neck were caused by the skin condition eczema, which she’s had for 10 years.
“The truth is, she was not choked, she was not punched,” he said. “Anything else is exaggeration and sensationalism.”
After the incident, Dollar told police that the fight started when he told the teen she couldn’t go to a party on Saturday night because her grades were poor.
On Sunday, he told the church, “The truth is that a family conversation with our youngest daughter got emotional. And emotions got involved and things escalated from there.”
“I would never approach one of my children to intentionally inflict bodily harm. I love her with all my heart,” he said.
The father of five has built a multimillion dollar religious empire since starting the church in an elementary school in his hometown of College Park, Ga., in 1986.
He runs a weekly radio broadcast and has published more than 30 books preaching the “prosperity theology” message, which says God rewards the faithful with vast wealth.
His ministry has drawn criticism from detractors who have raised questions about his lavish lifestyle, including multimillion dollar homes in Atlanta and Manhattan, a private jet, two Rolls Royces other deluxe creature comforts.
On Sunday, he suggested that the media attention following his arrest was part of a plan to undercut his message, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
“The devil knows that in order to discredit the message, you have to first of all discredit the messenger,” Dollar toldhis congregation.
To be clear, this post is in no way a means by which to discredit or detract from Creflo Dollar. With the exception of his gangster lean in Jermaine Dupri’s Welcome to Atlanta video, I have nothing against the man. I do not know what went on in his home to lead up to these allegations, so you won’t hear me judging him or his family. Further, I find the online comments that I’ve read following the various articles about Dollar both supporting his alleged actions as well as condemning them to be irresponsible and premature, especially since it is not yet clear what actually transpired at his home last Friday.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t care what a person’s socioeconomic and/or celebrity status is, if punching or choking a child registers as acceptable behavior in their mind, then they deserve to be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The problem however, is proving this depravity in thinking and behavior.
For me personally, My Honey and I had to deal with an incident years ago where a parent of a teammate of my son basically accused my husband of abuse because said parent saw my kid get popped in the mouth for spitting on another child (the parent told other parents that he was concerned that my son was being abused). Of course, when the rumor mill had finally made its way full-circle, it turned out that the “accuser” had not actually seen any of the exchange between My Honey and son, only my son crying inconsolably and his father threatening to give him something to cry about if he did not hush, but by then the damage was already done (and while My Honey relished the notion that these group of parents believed that he whooped his kids, I took issue with the whole Angry Black Man label that they tried to affix on him…but I digress).
If nothing else, from this story, it is apparent that wealth and status do not a stable familial relationship necessarily make. This matter should also serve as a reminder to us as parents (and those of us who one day plan to be parents) of the serious commitment and mental fortitude that needs to be exercised in not only raising children, but ensuring that their core values and expectations in life are realistic and reflective of our own.
For those of you who’ve been missing my musings and social commentary over the past few months (or who have just been robbed of the opportunity as of late to tell me what an opinionated jerk that I am), let me just say firstly, that I am truly sorry for turning this mini-hiatus from the blog into an indefinite sabbatical.
The truth is that with my recent promotion at work, much of what I do on my 9 to 5 (who, am I kidding; it’s more like my 8 to 7) overlaps into my “me” time, my home life and what little time I had originally carved out for daily blogging activities in the first place. But if I am honest, I really have been missing the decompressing, creativity and general medium by which to express myself when I am not blogging, and if nothing else, what this time away has revealed to me is that writing combats the crazy!
So with that, while I cannot yet promise to pick up a daily writing regime at this time, I am committing to knocking down the cobwebs and making a concerted effort to compose a few posts each week. This should serve to not only satisfy you, my loyal readers, but to also stave off the need for both my regular Calgon appointment and the looming white jacket.
Please believe me when I tell you that by now, I had planned to have a plethora of different topics, interests and general opinions penned to The Pack for 2012, but you know what they say about our plans and God’s funny bone (oh you don’t? Well basically, When WE make plans, GOD laughs…and likely calls over Jesus, St. Paul, Mother Teresa and MLK, Jr. to watch our sitcom-ic lives unfold over a bucket over heavenly popped corn).
The simple truth is that while announcement meetings and org charts have not been official rolled out, I’ve been working tireless within the last couple of months with my management team to embody a more executive role at work. And as exciting as this potential opportunity appears to be, I can say that I miss the notion of coming home (when there is still daylight) and decompressing with you all through my blog posts.
But hey, until this whole “writing gig” takes off and affords me the independently wealthy status to be able to work for myself (and own a bell wearing, tights donning Elizabethan court minstrel…I’ve always wanted a minstrel), then the majority of my no-longer-free-time won’t be spent perfecting my subject-verb agreement but will instead be about me being the chick that is honing her skills in and out of the boardroom!
Call me frugal. Call me a sponge. But as thirsty as I am for free knowledge, ever since I discovered the internet and packed away my Encyclopedia Britannica set, Wikipedia has been my go-to source for a quick reference on just about EVERYTHING!
Now, as sucky as it is that Jimmy Wales has blacked out the internet encyclopedia site for 24-hours today in protest of the proposed congressional legislation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (aka SOPA), I do “get it”.
I mean really, if today was to give us all a taste of what could happen if big government were to decide that it would be responsible for regulating the way that the free and open internet was managed…well, “suck” again comes to mind.
So, if you feel like me OR you just want to ensure that your congressional representative is actually doing his or her job in representing your interests, then click here and you too can rage with Wiki.
You ever feel like you are doing SO much, yet actually getting nothing done at all?
Oh. I’m the only one then?
Well, that is absolutely what I have been going through over these past few weeks. It doesn’t matter how many bake sale cookies I produce, overtime hours I work, wrestling matches or AAU tourneys I attend; I just can’t mark everything off my everlasting “to do” list. And if you know me, then you already know that I am awaiting God’s answer to my petition for 4 more hours of sunlight, as there are certainly not enough hours in the day!
Even late last week, I forgot to send my kid to school with the supplies she needed to begin a project that must be completed by tomorrow; I had to adjust my schedule to include a business dinner that I didn’t add to my calendar a month ago when I accepted the invitation and after two month of rescheduling his appointments, I had to ask my mother to take The Baby Child to his doctor’s appointment, where he ended up needing four shots!
Talk about Jesus being a fence! And an anti-anxiety agent. And a 32 oz. Calgon container.
With December almost half-over, I’ve been quite apprehensive to even log onto The Pack to check the daily readership stats, especially since I’ve not posted anything of substance since late November. Still, thanks to those of you who have at least “peeked” in to see if I’ve had an opportunity to either, vent, complain or enlighten.
This time of year has proven to be uber-busy for me (what, with counting down until Holiday Vacation, remembering sizes, scratching gifts off the lists, taking Christmas Photos and mailing holiday cards) but I promise that I will try to do and be better.
You guys are going to have to forgive my short post tonight. Sitting out at another of the Big Boy’s football practices, the Big Girl pleaded with me that she be allowed to tag along so that I could help her with her math homework. Figuring that I could kill two birds with one stone, I acquiesed but reminded her to bring her classwork along so we could use what she learned in school today as a point of reference.
Well folks, for all the honors I graduated with, and as smart as I believed myself to be, I promise you I had to have a CTJ (Come to Jesus) moment or two when working with this child on her homework. Graphical inputs and outputs? Metric conversion without a reference table? Factor Puzzles? C’mon man (Keyshawn Johnson voice)! What happened to products and quotients; fractions and equations?
Now don’t get me wrong, my nephew is tackling High School Geometry right now, so compared to his “new math” this is a cake walk…but still. It’s like in this day and age, the school system is determined to school not only the child, but the parent as well.
You guys, I’m revisiting primary school all over again, sheesh!
It’s amazing to me that with a national unemployment rate teetering at just over 9% that anyone would be averse to having some immediate discourse about the economy and ways in which all the President’s horses and all the President’s men can get America back on the right track again.
But unfortunately, whether it be the Speaker of the House dissing him in favor of the radically absurd pow-pow disguised as a Republican Presidential Candidates Debate or the 8:30 p.m. kick-off time for the National Football League’s season opener, this week President Obama has pretty much had to get in where he’s been able to fit in to share his ideas on the economy with the American people.
In a little less than ten minutes, Mr. Obama plans to address a joint session of Congress (who ironically, are all are gainfully employed) as well as the citizens of this nation to present his speech on job creation. In it, the POTUS is expected to discuss a package roll out, that if passes the house will cut unemployment by at least a point, boost the GDP and cost half of what the dogged 2009 stimulus plan did.
But like many Americans who are out of work, have depleted their savings and are worried about the long term, my question to Mr. Obama is “how” does he plan to make this all work, and is it too late for him to even try?
Although late in coming, tonight there are a few key points that I am looking for the POTUS to address:
Like, what specifically has lead to the fundamentals of our economy being so feeble, especially in light of the fact that we are “technically” two years out of the recession. And what sectors will see the greatest benefit of this “don’t-call-it-a-stimulus-plan?” Also, what sort of infrastructure jobs can we be looking to see created? Or, what does this plan do to the Federal Deficit? Lastly, when can Americans plan to see this package implemented?
Sure, there are a whole host of other questions I’d love to see answered (how can America afford a several billion dollar job package when we just had to raise our debt ceiling to pay our bills, what’s the likelihood that this plan will have bipartisanship backing, what will happen to the current payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits in light of this new package…), but I figure if the President at least attempts to address these key inquiries, in my mind, I’ll feel like this national conversation on jobs and the economy is more than just lip service or an attempt to pacify me until 2012.
In all of last week’s excitement (you know, the shaking, quaking and wet & wild weather), I didn’t get the opportunity to mention the reason for my recent state of mourning.
Of all of the Georgia peaches who televise their lives, relationships and business endeavors for the sake of free publicity and a steady income stream, I never thought in a million years that I’d be talking about the split of The Hartwells. But alas, a few weekends ago, Lisa Wu Hartwell took to Twitter (publicist smublicist) to announce the saddening news in shorthand:
“Sadly. We r separated but wld NEVER b over money. That is so far frm the truth. Wish ppl cld respect ppl’s privacy during times like these.”
But for as fond of Lisa as I am out of all the original RHOA cast, when I read that social media release, I wanted to thump her right in between the eyes! Two things here: firstly, not to discount the effectiveness of social media for instantaneous updates and fast circulation of news (think #ArabSpring, #OsamaBinLadenDeath, #BeyoncesBabyAlreadyHasABetterCreditScoreThanYours) but how does one complain about the lack of privacy during the difficult time surrounding one’s separation, yet announces such an event on Twitter? Secondly, as cost effective as sharing the news would be sans a publicist’s statement, treating the stalling and uncertainty of a marriage as a 140-character exposé seems more than a bit indelicate to me. In her defense though, it seemed that effective reasoning eventually struck, because Lisa did delete the Twitter posting the following Monday.
Seriously though, with the shock of Eric Snow stepping out on Deshawn, the hot mess that was first Kim & Big Papa, then the hasty shift to her NFL Baller baby daddy, NeNe and Greg’s explosive martial fallout, the death of Kandi’s fiancé AJ, Sheree’s continuous battle for acceptable spousal and child support and Phaedra and Apollo’s legal-slash-white collar collaboration, Lisa Wu Hartwell and her former NFLer hubby Ed Hartwell seemed to be the most stable and quite honestly, the most endearing couple in Atlanta at 10pm on Sunday nights.
During the two seasons that the show gave us all a sneak peek at the charming couple living the fabulous life back in 2008 and 2009 though, the Hartwells were working through some financial hardships, as they filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Protection just one year prior in 2007. They would later lose their home to foreclosure in 2009 (what Lisa described on the show as “downsizing”). But although she dismissed financial matters as reason for the separation, I’m sure that many of her fans and skeptics alike are wondering if there could be any truth behind the speculations.
Personally, I am hoping for the best for Lisa and Ed, and wishing for a reconciliation between the two. And not only because I enjoyed their on-air chemistry (selfish, I know). In reality, a big part of my reasoning (their happiness notwithstanding) is because I’d hate for Bravo to look at yet another pair of reality stars tanking at marriage and end up producing the new Franchise, “Real Alimony Recipients of [insert city here]”.
