Monthly Archives: February 2010

This just isn’t right.

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So there I was……

Wheeling my grocery cart out of the produce section of Food Lion where I’d just bagged some fresh ginger (for fresh ginger and mint tea -Hairaqcuban style)  and traipsing leisurely past the packs of  pork and poultry (that’s called Alliteration children)  I stopped to peer into the free-standing refrigerated section in the middle of the aisle to look for  the frozen shrimp which FL has on sale like literally every other week. This week the Jumbo Raw shrimp was on a BOGO.  Mehhh.  I want the medium, guess I”ll have to wait until next week to get that on BOGO.  I toss around a couple of the bags just because, when this catches my eye.

Seriously? This just isn't right.

Lobster in a Box.

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  Yes I do…its just not right! Sure it’s convenient and offers those who just don’t have the time to run up to Maine between work and home the ability to serve their loved ones a certified Maine Lobster from Nantucket. But look at the experiences you trade in!  You forfeit the joy of getting gussied up and going out to a not- so-inexpensive dinner at a fancy nautically themed seafood joint and indulging in the hot, sweet, buttery goodness of Lobster which you don’t often have; let alone served to you with lemon wedges.  OR you stay in the comfort of your own kitchen and earn your Lobster Homicide Girl Scout badge by joining the ranks of those who are brave enough to look the rosey crustaceans in their nasty beady eyes and tell them everything is going to be okay as you send them to their watery crockpot grave. Lies! Both of these, however, are acceptable methods for having Lobster for dinner…NOT tearing open a cardboard box and dropping it into the same pot, the very same pot! , you make the kids mac and cheese in. How could you?! Heaven forbid if it should have directions for preparing it in the microwave!  It’s an abomination I tell you.  You can put shrimp in bags, fish in bags, scallops in bags and even King crab legs in bags but the line has to be drawn somewhere! And here is that line. Surely knowing their destiny we owe all of Lobster-kind the dignity of being served as a special meal.  What self respecting Lobster wants to find himself shipped in a cardboard casket to a suburban food chain?  That’s not going to make his  family proud. Boxing Lobster’s takes away  it’s specialness. Soon folks will be recklessly using Lobster all willy nilly like  putting Lobster meat in their hamburger helper (for special guests) and having Lobster sausages with their cheesy scrambied eggs and jelly toast in the morning (yes I meant to say scrambied). Kids need a snack? Shove a couple of Lobsters in the microwave and serve it with red flavored kool-aid…it’s perfect for after school!

This madness must be stopped.

Ee Mma! The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

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Dumela Mma! I have a new obsession.  The #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  I love this show! In fact, I’ve been obsessed with it for the last two weeks in which I’ve watched it’s 7 episodes multiple times.

The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

  I wouldn’t have even known about it had a woman not stopped me on the street sometime last summer (?) and told me that I reminded her of that “singer who plays the detective on HBO”.  I knew it was Jill Scott she was referring to as people often see fit to stop me and tell me that I remind them of her, but I was not familiar with the show.  “She plays a detective in Africa. She talks with their accent and everything.  Yeah, you look like her. Just like her!” Now because I stalk Barnes and Nobles on the regular and “molest” quite a few books when I’m there (and by molest I mean pick up, look at cover art, read jacket blurbs, flip through pages, etc.) I begin to recall a series of books written by a man named Somebody Mc-something or another on one of my B&N excursions. Could these be the same books?  I picked one of those books up months ago; the “african-ness” of the cover art originally caught my attention and I recall turning it over and reading something about a woman detective in Botswana. Interesting I thought. I looked at the picture of the author on the back cover, a white man from Scotland (or somewhere), Hmm, even more interesting.  I made a note to check these books out more thoroughly the next time I came book-stalking as I already had at least 2 books  in my hand and was on my way to the register.  I had several more “next times” where I passed by the books making a mental note to look up information on these books or buy one and read it but never did.  And then, I remembered seeing another printing of this book with a “Now an HBO television series” banner splashed across the front next to a drawing of a large black woman sporting an afro and an umbrella. I sucked my teeth and thought “Uhh! I HATE when they do that! Now I”m supposed to buy it JUST because it’s a television series?!” I do hate when they do that.  And while we’re on the subject, I especially hate the big Oprah seal-the big yellow “O” with “Oprah’s book club selection” inside of it. I will go out of my way to find an earlier printing of the book just to avoid the “O”.  (I still need an O-less copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God) Hey, I was an avid reader waaayyy before Oprah made reading “popular” again. Why should she dictate my reading habits? She doesn’t. So why should I allow the scrutinizing eyes of the bookstore workers and passersby and THE MAN think so.  But I digress…

Fast Forward. I netflixed the three series which comes in three discs and fell in love with it immediately! I must read these books! I must buy this series on dvd.  Jill Scott plays Precious Ramotswe; a clever Botswanan woman of “traditional build” who with the cattle that was left to her when her father passed opened the only detective agency in Gabarone, Botswana. *Mma Ramotswe  is joined by Mma Makutsi, played by Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls and Disney’s The Princess and the Frog) in their adventures. (Mma is pronounced like “ma” and addresses a woman. Kind of like Mrs.). This is a show the whole family can watch; and as much as we see negative things in the media about Africa (genocide, civil wars, poverty) this represents the positive everyday life in Botswana. Jill and Anika’s accents are impressive.  Guest stars include Idris Elba and CCH Pounder as well as many important Botswanan figures (according to the special features section) as the series was filmed entirely in Botswana. Go rent it, Go buy it, Go watch it!  Season 2 should be out soon and there are aboyut 11 books in the series if you can’t wait that long…like me. ( I braved the icy cold rain early this morning just so I could  get the 2nd book).

Haiti is the New Iraq

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Your Geography teacher Mrs. Schmidtbaum had it wrong.  Haiti is not located in the Caribbean basin in the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s by Iraq.  Or so says a co-worker of a friend of mine who is Haitian. The co-worker’s daughter also is a schoolmate with my friend’s daugher and as a favor she often watches her as the co-worker sometimes stays at work late. Even though as a result of this arrangement a greater level of familiarity and friendliness has occured, the co-worker, who we have facetiously started referring to as my friend’s BFF, has unknowingly elevated my friend (we’ll call her Emma ;-) ) to “token” status.  Based on her ridiculous questions and statements, she clearly has had very little interaction with black people, let alone a black person with a heritage that includes a location outside of the United States.   She’s been amusing us with her blatant and somewhat condescending ignorance for the past few weeks.

Example #1.  BFF asks Emma what she knows about Coach bags because she has several black students who come to class in their pajamas and could be living out of their car but they have coach purses. Because they have Coach purses, she feels she needs to have one as well.  BFF tells Emma that she told her mother that she was going to get a new Coach bag because all her students had one.  BFF’s mother’s response: You’re going to buy a Coach bag?  Isn’t that something black people do?

Example#2:  A day or two after the first earthquake hit Haiti, BFF asks Emma if she still has family there and if she’s heard from them.  Then she asks “So….where is Haiti. Are they in a different timezone ?”  BFF says, “they’re in the same timezone. Haiti is only 2 hours from Florida.”  BFF-”Oh, but I mean isn’t Haiti over there by Iraq?”  Emma-”BFF……Haiti is 2 hours from Florida in the Caribbean. They are in the same time zone!”. BFF-”Oh. I never was good at *Geology.”*(Just in case you overlooked that, Geology is the study of rocks).  Also, just for fun, we now refer to Emma as Haitian-Iraqian. Or as her husband put it, a Hai-raqian.

Example#3:  Last week at work BFF insists on taking Emma to lunch (in my opinion with the intention of asking more stupid questions to her new black bff) when she asked if Emma and her family were immigrants.  Emma, holding back the urge to curse her out, told her that she and her family are American citizens.  BFF-”Oh.  When I was stationed in Cuba back in 1994 there was a big thing about some Haitians escaping from Haiti who were caught and sent to Cuba.  Was your family on any of those rafts?”  Emma-”What?!” *Emma is now Haitian-Iraqi-Cuban, or Hai-raq-cuban and Fidell Castro is her uncle.