Join LadyG as she shares off-key singing, storytelling and a few of her favorite soul/R&B jams from 1972.
*FAIR USE**
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
Listen to me contemplate all of the things that I’d like to learn while sheltering in place.
Duration: Less than 15 minutes
I am the curve and he is the line.
My brother and I are different, but there is more than enough room in this world for him, me and YOU!
-LadyG
Here is part two of the interview with my brother Tack.
In this video, we discuss lessons from our Daddy, humor and what it was like for him to grow up with LadyG as an older sister.
Enjoy…
We met in starry Winter.
Spring-Summer
Had a ball!
The chime rings twelve,
Her time had come to
Leave me in the Fall.
-Lady G For Mama💞 RIP
I really wish you guys could have ‘met’ my Mom!
She was truly something else!
By the way, down South, we often describe certain people as being “something else” when we can’t quite find the best words to describe them.
Mind you, this could be either good or bad 🙂
In Mama’s case it was a good thing!
And so…
Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, we celebrate the first day of fall!
It’s my favorite time of year!
Last year, I decided to greet the Autumnal Equinox with this popular post!
Feel free to check it out!
Meanwhile, I will leave you to celebrate our dear season with the following musical goodies!
The first song was one of Mama’s favorites by Marvin Gaye. We’d sing it together while dancing and having a ball!
The second song is….What can I say? Apropos!
Love and light to you all!
LadyG 😘💋💋
My Son: “Mom…please…please…please…you gotta stop…you’re embarrassing us!”
Me: “I don’t care what these people think about me…I gotta get my happy however I can!”
I can’t tell you how many times my son and daughter have decidedly hidden from me in the midst of grocery shopping.
They simply CANNOT with me and my impromptu performances!
That said, I must come clean and confess that I am that lady who dances and sings up and down every aisle at Publix…and sometimes Kroger.
Supermarket sound systems…I love ’em!
Yep! That was me you saw twirling past the tomatoes and rocking by the waffles.
And you know what?
I DON’T give a hoot!
I’m gonna sing and dance until I die!
Why?
You see, it all started long ago…
I always wanted to be a ballerina or perform modern dance.
Alas…there were no funds for such!
To put it bluntly, Mama and Daddy didn’t have the money for lessons.
Further, they lacked any appreciation for that realm of the arts.
And so…
I made believe and danced my little dance…
And I did it everywhere…
All the time!
Dancing and singing all the way through life.
Even into motherhood…much to the chagrin of my children!
Oh, but not to worry, they’ve grown accustomed.
They’ve learned to let me be.
Because if they try to shut me up I’ll only sing louder and dance harder!
And there…right there in the produce section… I find happiness with two of my favorite people!
🙂 🙂 🙂
I danced with both of my babies at home and all over the stores to this song!
Still dancing to this one!
I play this whenever I’m about to take a flight! Go Rod!
For my son! I wish him a safe flight into the sunset— headed to Seattle and Portland!
I love you man! Have a blast! See ya when you get back home 💋
Love and light to you all!
Enjoy your week!
LadyG
😘💋
Random Woman: Hey Brenda!
Brenda: Hey girl, how are you? I haven’t seen you in some years!
Random Woman: I know! It’s been a long time.
Brenda: Yes it has, by the way, let me introduce you to my friend, Eva.
Random Woman: (Very dry, cold and nonchalant) Hey Eva.
Random Woman: (Directly addressing Brenda) Ooh Brenda, your little girl is so pretty, how old is she?
Eva: (PISSED) That’s MY child!
Random Woman: (Slightly Embarrassed but still chilly) Oh, I’m sorry, she just looks more like Brenda to me.
Eva walks off with child (ME) in tow.
Yes friends, my mother, Queen Diva Lady Eva, was tee’d off!
Why, you ask?
Because ‘Ms. Random Woman’ assumed that I was Brenda’s daughter based solely on the fact that we shared the same skin complexion.
She never thought for a moment that I could belong to my mother–who was a shade or two darker.
It simply didn’t occur to her to ask.
Sadly, this type of attitude was nothing new to Mama. As a child, she had received whippings from a lighter skinned uncle for being “too black.”
noun
Puerto Rican?
Cuban?
Arab?
West Indian?
East Indian?
Native American?
And everything in between….
Oh, and then there were the really stupid questions like:
How did your Mom get a handsome man like your Dad?
Ok, that’s when I got rowdy!
All bets were off!
Seriously? What do you mean?
Do you not realize that you’re talking about MY MOTHER?
You better back the hell up!
I’m sorry guys but that mess really got under my skin!
Oh and if you think things got better as years passed…
Think again!
My Mama often recalled a time when an associate of my Dad’s came by to borrow a drill.
Apparently, he peeked past my Mom, who had answered the door, in order to get a better glance at me and whispered, “That must be Jim’s daughter.”
Mama said, “Yes, and she’s my daughter and we have a son too!”
What an idiotic thing to say!
“That must be Jim’s daughter.”
It rolled right off his ignorant ass tongue without a bit of thought attached to it.
The fact that he knew that my parents had been married for 100 years added insult to injury!
Ah…but here’s an even more egregious example.
One day, back in 2012, I had been sitting in the hospital room with Mama for most of the morning.
Well, this black nurse, who had been in and out, and who had seem me sitting there the whole time, asked, “Has any of her family come by yet?”
What the hell do I look like?
Chopped liver?
Of course I didn’t say THAT but I did say, “Well I’m her daugther.”
Naturally, the nurse apologized.
I thought to myself….Here we go again…after all this time.
Still dealing with issues of color.
Mama caught hell for being too dark and Daddy caught hell for being too racially ambiguous.
Good grief!
Inspiration for this post came from comments between myself and these great bloggers:
My 22 year-old son and I are very close.
We always have been.
From the moment he was born, he and I were inseparable.
I can remember turning down plenty of opportunities to go hang out with friends; opting instead to stay home with my baby boy.
People would say, “I know the perfect babysitter.”
To which I would respond with something along the lines of, “Well, I don’t know that person and neither does my son…so there’s that.”
Sounds harsh doesn’t it?
Oh well!
Anyway, suffice it to say, whenever my son (or my daughter) would ask to do things that were borderline ‘iffy,’ I’d think long and hard before deciding whether or not I would allow them to partake.
And, whenever I decided NOT to allow them to do something, I would explain, sometimes ad nauseum, why I came to the conclusion that I did.
Then I would punctuate that explanation with the following statement, “Baby, you are extremely valuable and you cannot be replaced.”
That said, Mama watched them babies like the proverbial HAWK!
But then…
My son graduated high school and went away to college.
At that point, all bets were off!
He was his own man and I had no control over his choices.
My only saving grace was the fact that I still had influence.
Luckily, my son and I had always been able to talk about ANYTHING…and I mean anything.
He valued my opinion and often sought and listened to my advice.
YAAASSS!
He sought and listened to my advice…
Until he didn’t.
And that’s when I had to come to terms with the fact that this dude was now an adult who was more than capable of making his own decisions.
In short, I needed to fall back!
So nowadays, when he tells me that he’s leaving to go on a tour of the Moon and Mars, I just have to say a quiet prayer, be still, and know that God is watching over him wherever he goes.
Now…
Having said all of that, I recently told my son, “Listen to Mama…but just not too much.”
Friends, I said that because I want him to benefit from my wisdom and experience but not be paralyzed by my fears.
He got my point.
I hope you do too.
But just in case you didn’t…
Remember, whether you are seeking advice from Mama, Daddy, or whomever, use your own discernment.
Take what’s useful and kindly leave what’s not!
***Said the woman who has been white-knuckling her way through motherhood!
LOL!!!
Love and light to you!
LadyG 😘💋
PS: This is dedicated to my children, R and J, and for ALL of my “babies” in the blogosphere!
You guys know who you are 🙂
This is also for every parent and child, no matter where you are in the process 🙂
2016 marks the 5th Christmas without Mama.
So, as you might imagine, this can be a very difficult time of year for me, my brother, and my kids-not to mention my Dad who misses her terribly.
Of course, the first Christmas without her was extremely difficult as she had not been long gone.
Oh yes loves, please believe, that first Christmas, Lady G was a hot mess!
You see, Mama loved Christmas and she adored Christmas Carols!
And because those freaking Christmas Carols were being played EVER-Y-WHERE, a hot mess got even hot messier!
Let me affirm that it was not unusual, that year, for Lady G to find herself running out of Publix with snot and tears flowing North, South, East and West!
Maybe ‘mess’ is NOT the best word to describe the resulting mayhem!
Anyway…
No matter where I went, I was forced to listen to all of her favorites, including:
“Merry Christmas Baby” by Otis Redding
“Please come home for Christmas” by Charles Brown
“The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole
“Everyday will be like a Holiday” by William Bell
“Christmas just ain’t Christmas” by the O’Jays
“Santa Claus is comin’ to town” by The Jackson Five
“Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” by The Temptations
And of course, the ‘Tempting Tempts’ version of “Silent Night.”
Baby, every time I heard one of these little ditties, I melted in tears like Frosty!
And so…
One day, after the 78th Christmas carol meltdown, I went shopping for some holiday decorations when…lo and behold…there appeared Mama in the form of a beautiful Black Christmas Angel!
Y’all, I think I trampled some folks in my haste to grab that Mama-esque heavenly body!!!!!
Best believe I grabbed her, purchased her, took her home, place her atop my Christmas tree and proclaimed:
“Look at Mama on the tree!”
And from that Christmas to this one, Mama sits proudly on the tree watching over us all!
Christmas has been pretty good ever since!
Merry Christmas to you all!
With Love,
Lady G 😘💋
P.S. I still have to wear headphones at the store in order to keep my composure!
Alternate title: Intuition–Get into it!
“Mama Told Me Not To Come” by Three Dog Night (Released 1970)
Sonically strange but catchy as hell!
That’s all that comes to mind whenever I think of this jam.
Best believe, it effectively evokes states of hazy, crazy, confusion and discombobulation.
The end results of not listening to Mama.
Now, I’ll give you the fact that Mama can’t go everywhere with you–Hell, my own Mama is happily skip-dancin’ in magical heavenly realms.
Therefore, it is so important that we all learn to cultivate our own inner knowing- our own “inner Mama.”
Intuition–Get into it!
YAAASSS 🙂
And so…
Today’s Affirmation: I trust and follow my intuition.
Intuition is your direct connection with The Divine.
A gift from God.
Take heed!
Your inner “Mama” ain’t never gon’ stir you wrong 😉
Tell ’em ’bout it boys:
Video Credit: fritz51300
Have you ever followed or NOT followed your intuition and obtained an interesting or shocking result?
I’d love to hear about it!
Hit me up in comments 🙂
Always,
Lady G 😘💋
YAAASSS!
Lady G threw down today!
Uh huh!
😉
So if you’ve been following me then you already know that I love to cook and eat all sorts of food.
Name a continent and I can guarantee you that I have cooked and eaten a dish from that locale.
I love ’em ALL!
But…
Around here, if it’s Sunday, it’s all about soul food BABY!
You better get into it!
Seriously, I learned to cook by watching Mama.
Mama NEVER used recipes; the ingredients and directions were all in her head.
Everything was by heart.
Or, better yet, soul!
And now, here I am, many years later, cooking the same meals that I remember–straight from Mama’s kitchen.
Come on over y’all!
I got a plate waiting just for YOU!
So tell me, do you love to cook?
If so, who taught you?
What are some of your favorites?
Let’s discuss in comments 🙂
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and have a great week 🙂
