Ho Hum

I'm incredibly bored. That means I've (lightly) scoured the internet for something to pass the time without taking up too much time. I've become over bored with being deep. I know you can tell and I know it's a bit of a pity for me to hide this fantastic mind teeming with ideas and opinions but you shall suffer a bit longer. I'm in the thick of Pillars, 62% there!, and it's getting difficult for me to put it down. When you're reading a 973 book, you feel spurred on to finish it. I wanted to have it done by the time I went home in April so I could return it to my mom and now I know there's no danger of that. I should be done in no time but this is one of those books that has so many characters you will forget some of them if they're not mentioned for 100 pages.

Okay I started filling out the fill in the blank and couldn't. It was too inane. I could do the meme I was tagged with weeks ago by BKDiva AND Liz and maybe someone else but that would require me to think. Ooh! I know! I steal from Pro's encyclopedia. It's her incredibly intriguing look at her life, encyclopedia style. One letter, one word, a look inside Pro.

Organization...
Apparently Virgoans like us are very organization driven. We like things just so. The latter, yes, the former... not so much. You need to catch me on a good day. It must be that cusp thing I have going on. When I'm working, I absolutely need organization. I can't stand having a messy desk and unfiled papers.

One of my other pet peeves is cds. I cannot stand for people to have cds laying everywhere, out of their cases, in the wrong cases. It drives me insane!! And I always seem to be the rider with these types of people. I can't sit still in the car when you're trying to find cds but Jigga is in the Kanye case and Kanye is in the DK case. Where's DK? Oh there are three or 4 mixtapes and and AND!! YOU'RE DRIVING ME INSANE!! I start organizing right away and looking for the proper cds and cases which makes other people a bit crazy.

I'm very very a place for everything and everything in its place but only sometimes. You would be hard pressed to find someone to label me as a neat freak but I like control. And really, even my messes are controlled. I know where to find stuff because I have a partially photographic memory. That means I can see something and remember where I last saw it. It works for conversations, too, which is really weird. I can hear my utterz and remember exactly where I was and what I was doing, down to the curve in the road I was riding on when I said it. It's a bit odd but I can see it in my head.

Speaking of utterz... that reminds me. Diva asked me if my grandmama for Obama is The Pank or Grandma Duck. I said neither then realized I didn't know who either of those women were outside of their amazing names. I didn't even know how I was related to them. So I asked my mom. They're both related to my grandfather. The Pank (she's from Mississippi and love the color pink which she pronounced pank and wanted people to call her The Pank. It's all explained here. How gangsta is that?) was Momma Tommie, my grandfather's mother. My mom said she was a troublemaker! I couldn't stop giggling on that one! She had diabetes and neuropathy. The nerve damage meant in her later years she would sometimes scratch herself and not feel it to know it hurt and she'd cut through the skin with her nails until she looked down.

Before that though, my mom said she loved to sit in The Pank's mirror and play grown up. This was so me. If you wanted me to play with you it better be dress up and it needs to be fabulous clothes and lots of jewelery and hats. Matter of fact since I'm only 5'2 and Grandma Alberta (the grandmama for Obama) is 5'11, she towers over me and I still play dress up in her stuff. Lololol. She's a seamstress and loves hats and jewelery so she has some fabulous things. Which reminds me I need to go back to Mississippi and get in that closet...

Back to Momma Tommie aka The Pank. My grandfather was her oldest child. He served two tours in WWII, both in France and in the Army. He died when my mom was 15. For the longest time I was terrified my dad would die when I was 15 so I held my breath a lot that year especially because he flew a lot for his job. I've always closely identified with my mom though we're not very much alike. I'm much more outspoken and even at times overbearing. But I proudly followed in her footsteps to Hampton and in the sorority. Mostly because she never pressured me to be anyone but myself. Who wouldn't admire and aspire to that?

For some reason The Pank loved my mom's oldest brother, Jacob and another grandchild, Lottie Pearl. That name always cracked me up. One of my mom's other cousins, Loretta did not take to kindly to The Pank loving those two so much. My mom didn't care she just liked the nice furniture and playing grown up and the good cooking. You know that makes me hungry, right? On the troublemaker note, apparently she liked to take shots at my Uncle Roosevelt's (which she pronounced Rooos-evelt) wife whom I love! Aunt Annie Ruth is the bomb. Navy wife and the sweetest woman in the world. I don't call any of them great aunt and great uncle. I just call them what my mom does. They lived in Norfolk (home of country's largest naval base (very scary at 9/11)) so we would always go visit them when my mom came to visit me at Hampton. Uncle Roosevelt was very sick by the time I got to school and died my senior year. I had fun at the funeral with his brothers, though. They were hilarious. Uncle Charlie and Uncle Robert. I got to see my Uncle Jacob, too who I love. He's my mom's brother, the nicest man in the world, and an elder in the A.M.E. church.

Anyway, apparently The Pank would say, "Oh Rose, your children lookin so po'ly [poorly]. Is they eatin'?" TRIFE!!! (definition 2) This cracked me up!! I couldn't stop laughing!! Too funny. Stop startin' stuff Pank!! I'm gonna make my mom talk on utterz when I get home so I'll have her voice forever and maybe you can here some of her accent, too.

Grandma Duck was granddaddy's grandmother. WHOA!! This was amazing to me. I forgot that since people started families very young, it wasn't unusual to know your great-grandparents. My grandfather was the oldest so my mom remembers Grandma Duck. That's so cool! She was blind and bedridden and that's all my mom remembers. I bet my Uncle Jacob remembers more. I can't wait to pick their brains.

I never met a single great-grandparent because on my dad's side, my grandfather was the youngest of 13 and my dad was 5 of 9. I wasn't born until he was 36 and his grandparents had been dead for 20 years or more by that point. Matter of fact, he never even know his mother's father. (Rolling stone.) My great-grandparents on that side were never married. Someone will be mad at me for sharing that but it's my family history so I can do what I want. On my mom's side, my grandmother's father died 4 months before my mom was born. Her mother died in 1960. My mom was 5. I don't even know when my grandfather's parents died but they were long gone by the time I was born.

I did have an adopted great-grandmother who didn't have any children of her own and took my mom and her brothers as her grandchildren. Ma Grace lived to be 110. She called my Uncle Ferdinand 'Nana because he liked bananas and was bright yellow. Hahahahaha. Definitely the palest of my grandmother's children. Remember my grandmother's father was half white. But her mother was quite dark so grandma's children run the gamut when it comes to shades. Have I exhausted you yet? I think I've done myself in and I have some things to accomplish today so tata!