The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

There were no words today at 8:30am CST when we collectively joined with Newtown, Connecticut in a moment in silence. Our collective selves were shattered with the news of what happened there a week ago. How do we go on, the question we have all asked.  How. I was sitting in my bedroom, listening to my children get ready for the last day of school, today, and chattering away about the parties they will have, the gifts they will give their teachers, the fun they will have during winter break.  And I prayed. The other mothers will not have that.  Their babies will not go to temple or church again, will not spin the dreidel, light the menorah, put the star on the tree, go to midnight mass, or recite the Nguzo Saba.  They will not have that. Ever. We will go on, we always do.  We sit and talk about what happened and how it can make us different, and we go on.  We hope it never happens where we live.  But where is that?  Newtown was just as s...

I honestly could not sleep last night. My gigantic, solid wood, California King bed, was too vast for the emotions that kept me tossing and turning through the wee hours of silence and supposed rest. Sandy Hook Elementary School,  Newtown, Connecticut is embedded in my heart, stitched in the sinews are the faces of the tiny ones who stared into the eyes of horror as their minuscule bodies were riddled with firepower too destructive for comprehension. I only have one friend who grew up in Connecticut.  I really do not know much about the state, I've never visited.  But it is now in my life and can never be erased. Babies, these were babies, the women were in a profession I deeply honor, for what? The whys of what happened swirl around as the first of the young victims was laid to res t on Monday, in his Jewish tradition, three days after his death.  There was public mourning and a visibly shaken President who reached into his soul for the comfort of his ow...

I was sipping my morning coffee and thinking about the events of Connecticut and what happened to our country in the last decade.  Why? The unanswered questions behind why Michigan has worked overtime in a lame duck session to not only bust up unions but to also invade women's bodies, destroy civil rights, and condemn millions of their population to poverty. Guns, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation - all weapons of fear used to control the population, either those in rural areas who are undereducated and tied to religious dogma or those in cities who are struggling to live full lives where employers (now considered "alive") work overtime to leave them penniless. Is it just greed?  Is it just power?  Is it just control? Why? I remember a time when one could work and care for their family and not worry about having to work 60 hours a week just to make ends meet - and this on a full-time job. When I graduated from the University of Iowa with my MBA, th...

I am not in Connecticut.  I am not in Chicago.  I am not in Colorado. The places of unspeakable violence, horror, murder, destruction, and unspeakable numbness. Yesterday, I, like the rest of the country, stared with disbelief, shock, and anger that someone would don military-like gear, storm an elementary school, and deliberately cut off the lives of 5 and 6 year olds because he is angry at his mother, who he already destroyed with firearms that are beyond the Second Amendment rights.   How could this happen?  Why?  These were babies in a community very much the same size as mine.  A community that takes pride in the children and providing opportunities for them to have a full life.  A community where a lot of the kids' friends and activities are centered around their elementary school, their safe place to learn and grow.   This is not the case anymore.   Was it ever for some children in places like Chicago who may not...

History is a complicated thing. It is complicated because history is simply the lives of people lived out.   What makes it complicated is when we peel back the onion, as my Princeton history teacher calls it, we find that it is a delicate balance of whose story gets told and through what lens that story is filtered. Such is the case with Palestine. We were recently discussing (MOOC-style, coursera.org , History of the World Since 1300) WWII and all the events that led up to it, the things that happened during it, and the nation states that resulted.   One can not talk about WWII without mention of the Nazi's regime building in Europe which resulted in the eradication of the Jews from Hungary, Germany, Poland, and all points surrounding the empire to the gypsies, disabled, and anyone else not Aryan.   The lens since 1946 has been one of sympathy for the Jewish people who suffered during the Holocaust and the survivors who lived with the nightmares and the desce...

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/print/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/

This morning, Sunday, December 9, 2012, hundreds of couples are donning tuxedos and gowns, nervously getting their final preparations in place to step into an institution of public declaration - marriage. I've been there - more than once - being uncertain, unsure and excited, certain, sure. Hands shaking as I pulled on the lacy undergarments and was helped into my wedding gown, checking the mirror one more time to make sure my hair and makeup was straight.  I was make a decision, a commitment, a hopefully lasting moment truly until death-do-us-part.  Marriage. In Washington State, there are men and women preparing to stand before their family and friends, before a licensed and/or ordained official to declare legal the license they picked up on Friday .  They will recite vows - traditional with a twist or those they wrote themselves - and will seal the commitment with a public expression of affection.  They will keep names or change names and will walk ...

The holiday season is upon us.  If we followed the big box stores and their calendar, it actually started on Thanksgiving day, but we don't follow them!  Yet, today being Hanukkah  the season has officially began. My husband told the girls that they will each have a whopping $50 to spend for gifts.  They smiled and then wondered once they started ticking off the list of who they wanted to bless.  "and no dollar store" my husband reminded them and "no, you won't have anything left for yourself, if you do, you didn't do what you were supposed to do." We told the girls to pool their resources and their eyes lit up! They realized they could actually do a lot more if they planned out what gift would be most meaningful to each person and how they could find those gifts in a way that would stretch their money. Listening to them made me think about us, the collective us. If I have rice and you have tomatoes and our friend has beans and her friend has a...

Shared sacrifice is supposed to mean that everyone is involved, everyone gives a little, everyone gives up a little, all for the collective good. It doesn’t always work. Perhaps it is designed that it doesn’t always work. Often, shared sacrifice means those with the least, the least power, the least resources, the least voice are often the ones left to make the largest sacrifice.  It is true for corporations (look at Hostess that simply closed down all the manufacturing plants and blamed the union workers who simply wanted a fair and living wage, only to turn around in bankruptcy court and give the CEO and upper management unprecedented wages); it is true for politics (President Obama won the election decidedly, yet the GOP is trying to strangle the necks of all the elderly, poor, working class, and people of color by willingly, again, allowing the nation to be destroyed financially so they can score political points with the 2% who refuse to pay their fair share); an...

Jada Pinkett-Smith: “The War on Men Through the Degradation of Woman” - "How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplet e woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only. The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes. I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection. There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witnes...

My youngest child just turned nine.  Nine years old.  My oldest child would be thirty years old.  Thirty. I have put in my time of cleaning up after other people.  Picking up toys, picking up clothes, picking up picking up.  I have scrubbed, folded, washed, dried, and vacuumed enough. The maid quit and the housekeeper is on strike! My older son told the youngest daughter that she was spoiled.  He is right, the girls have it very easy compared to the boys.  For one, I've structured my professional life around the girls' schedules so that they really do not know about getting up at 5am to catch a 6am bus to make the 6:30am train out to the babysitters so mom can catch the 7:30am train (after walking 3 blocks each way) to the Loop for work by 8:30am.  They know nothing about that, my almost 26 year old and my 24 year old do. The boys were cleaning toilets at 4 (actually, they started because the older boy was teaching the middle boy how to go...

http://blog.blacknews.com/2012/12/yolanda-spivey-unemployed-black-woman-pretends--white-monster-job-offers101.html