ghettonqueen

It's the most wonderful time!

2009-10-31T19:31:02Z

Balloons hung on houses handing out candy- check
Candy given to folks out of work or on fixed incomes so they can hand it out - check
Kids costumes made - check
Kids reminded about parade- check
Screen hung on house for movies - check
Check of movies and sound - check

Now... we have two hours to wait and see if it all pays off.

Cross your fingers for the litte hood that could.

such a lovely

2009-10-17T07:53:41Z

birthday party for my love.

nice folks, nice food, nice movie.

Being a little drunk at a movie theater and having the fat guy behind me get up and walk out in a huff made it perfect. He told me that if I had anything else important to say that maybe I should something. I looked up in all seriousness and said, Oh, Ok Mister.

It was a screening of the original planet of the apes. at 9:10. on a friday...at the local art house theater...during a film festival...on the 2nd to last row in a theater...did he expect us to be prim and proper instead of yelling out Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius, oh oh Dr.Zaius! when he came on screen :)

At the end of the night my old drinking buddy came over and we sat for the next four hours shooting the shit and sobering up. Good times.

my hood rocks

2009-10-15T19:10:43Z

For Halloween we will be doing the following
Pumpkin carving
Costume making
Trick or treating
Watching a movie on the side of an abandoned house.

secured the projector this afternoon.Going to do stuff for the kids that they will remember for years!

Ok sure...so i'm organizing it all with the help of some other cool neighbors. However we will go from a hood that is too dangerous for kids to trick or treat in to amazing this year.

agendas

2009-09-26T07:11:05Z

DollarBill and I were talking about the hood tonight. He still hustles for a living, in addition to having a regular hourly job now (GO BILL!) and in these hustles he gets the supreme privilege of interacting with a crazy bunch of clowns. Folks with money but no morals.

One of my favorites right now is a local house flipper. She bought a house for 10k, spent MAYBE 30k on a crew from craigslist (ie no insurance, social security wages, unemployment tax, etc) and materials (paint, sandpaper, wood) and sold a house for 125k. Cool. She's in business and made a profit. Turned around and did the same thing to the next house, sold it for 140k. This year this woman has sold real estate amounting to 265k with a total investment of maximum, 80k. American dream at work.

Now, I have no problem with someone making money. Hell, her flipping houses in such a way means that my little house where we made our home for seven years is more valuable. What I do have a problem with is her expectation that folks from the neighborhood fawn over her. She's in business and made money. End of story for me. In her mind she is doing some huge good generous deed for us poor folks and should be thanked over and over. Bow down and worship the great lady who saved two houses. She seemed to ignore all of the community building that has taken place in the past three years in the hood. Everything good was due to her working on two houses. It's all her. She's so special, important, and generous.

No. I refuse to do that. It's a small hood and things get back to me pretty quickly from different people. She was upset that I was not more grateful for her work in the hood. I made it pretty clear to her that I don't have an issue with her by sending her a buyer for her second house, but that she was making money. Don't expect me to congratulate you on performing your occupation well. I'm not your momma and my opinion shouldn't matter that much to you. I think that it's over and whatever attention and approval seeking she had going on was through.

I was wrong.

My next door neighbor got hoodwinked into replacing her original 100yr old windows with cheap vinyl ones through a city lead abatement program. They did nothing to abate the lead (which was covered btw) just ripped out her old windows. Now, in a historic district this is a big no no as it leads to instant loss of value in your home. I called the house flipper and asked if she knew of someone who worked to restore old windows. We talk for about 10 minutes and she takes it that I want to hire her crew to work on my neighbors house.

Uh...no.

I want to know if you have a contact of a professional window contact. I also was performing a test.

See, if she wanted to give back to the hood that she just made some killer profit on, here would be her chance. Get her illegal crew to work two or three days fixing the windows of this retired and out of work homeowner who had just been conned. By doing this, she would earn my respect and praise. I could say, look, she flipped those houses, but when push came to shove, she contributed back to the hood by helping one of our older homeowners out for free. She's not profiting off of us, she's profiting with us.

But, she says she can reinstall each window for $200-$400 each + materials depending on how badly the frames are damaged. Ok, I can respect that she is still making a living. Some other stuff comes up and out about the window job and I don't follow up with her.

Last night, DollarBill comes to tell me that she is mad that I called her. Wanted to know what my agenda was with the windows? Wanted to know why I call her to try to hire her? Wanted to know why I think we are cool? Wanted to know why I would talk to her? Wanted to know why the sky is blue?

She's looking for some angle. There must be an angle. The way she operates there is always an angle, always someone trying to cheat or steal something from you. I just wanted to give her the opportunity to give back to the hood that just helped her get 160k+ in her pocket. She didn't and that's fine, but I'm not mad at her about it. I don't respect her at all, but again, I ain't your momma, shouldn't matter what I think.

I thought perhaps in the past I had judged her too harshly. Thought you know, perhaps I should give her another chance to demonstrate what a quality stand up person she is. And she once again demonstrated that she is greedy and suspicious and just not that smart. or good.

(This is the same woman who was upset we did not work with her on our big house after she messed up the sizing of our new windows. We were replacing the half size vinyl broken windows with wooden original style and size windows. She measured wrong. Some were off by an inch width, some were right on. Some were off by a foot or more length, one was right on. Also somehow her cost to us of ordering the windows, when we were paying up front, was going to be more per window than if we ordered them ourselves. From the same dealer. By $50+ each window.)

La-dee-da lady. Go somewhere else please or just stop expecting us (neighbors) or me (GhettoQueen) to suck your figurative cock.

ghettonqueen @ 2009-09-25T21:13:00

2009-09-26T01:13:32Z

this cold needs to die a horrible death instead of lingering around in my sinuses for another week.

ghettonqueen @ 2009-08-11T15:03:00

2009-08-11T19:03:37Z

I have these tiny red marks across the tops of my breasts. In days past I would chuckle mischieviously to myself about them and recent fun.

Now I realize that I need to clip baby nails.

:sigh:

i am lame

2009-07-27T02:56:15Z

I was wrong. Oh so wrong and feel so silly about it.

I started writing hood stories and saved them on my laptop. I didn't ever post them all, so when I went looking for the hood stories I wrote back in 2002 (like meeting Mr. Arthur for the first time) I did not find them...because I never posted them anywhere.

Sigh.

I apologize for my uninformed freak out.

five years?

2009-07-20T02:20:51Z

I had no idea that LJ deletes things after 5 years.
Really? Seriously???
I feel so sad. I naively thought that my little snide comments about men and the hood and atlanta and durham would always be there for me to look back on.

why I love my hood

2009-07-07T02:20:33Z

We threw a party on the 4th of July. We promised and provided basic booze, food, and beer. Around 10:30 we were down to six budweisers and I got the call to go get more beer. My love gave me a $20 and I had my credit card. I picked up a friend on the way to the car and we headed off to the murder mart.

We grab three six-packs. Bud, corona, and miller high life come up to a total of $42. I hand him my visa card.

"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't take credit or debit cards"

Quizzical looks on our face and a "huh?" There are debit pin machines and visa logos.

"Uhm, we only have $33 between us, I guess take the corona off?"

"Oh, it's ok, just bring me the $9 later."

Dude does not take Visa cards, but will give a complete stranger who is buying beer on a holiday a IOU so they can get more beer.

mid afternoon treat

2009-06-29T17:27:25Z

baby is sleeping in arms as I sit on couch waiting to pass her off to dad. Munch has the sickness & is going to the dr. to be cleared to return to daycare.

if they are open tomorrow. One of the babies has scabies.

scary day

2009-05-26T23:40:14Z

today i've been a head case. Couldn't focus at work and really just wanted to lay in bed and stare at my baby.

A neighbor's granddaughter died in her sleep on Friday night. 8 weeks old.

A friend who was expecting in June delivered her baby 6 weeks early. I think I found out by accident because I had subscribed to her photo stream months ago. She posted pictures of her little baby with feeding tubes and heart monitors and oh goodness. Just so sad.

I found out about 4:30 from her sister that everything is ok. The baby is home now (was born almost two weeks ago) and doing really well. I've offered assistance and milk for baby, going to take food over next week.

Just so rough. On top of this our little munch was startled awake by a knock on the door last midnight She lost her shit and required a solid hour and a half of walking the floors with her poppa to settle down.

Edit:Obviously the munch waking up is not like baby dying. Was trying to say I've been trying to process all of this on very little sleep.

decadent

2009-05-03T02:33:37Z

the munch was fussy all day. We took turns with her, one of us walking or driving her around while the other worked on the house.

Tonight, she took a nap.

Oh my god. I made dinner, my love got the floor of the mudroom coated with a 2nd coat of poly. He came home and showered and we ate dinner together on the couch. Even had dessert. She slept through the whole thing. They are now laying in bed together blissfully asleep. I am watching a Law and Order episode by myself on the couch.

It is so utterly amazing and nice and cool.

I love my munch, I love my lover, but right now... this is good like Oban and a massage.

things a going

2009-05-01T21:14:54Z

I've been telecommuting for work 2 days a week. This means that really, I've been breastfeeding non-stop two days a week with breaks for the web surfing.

This makes me feel incredibly guilty. However, in two weeks it will end and the little munch will be in full time care away from us. I put the deposit down today. Good thing, because the flaky five star facility almost gave her spot away. The assistant director counted the number of names on the door before taking my check.
Oh good we have 1 more spot.

yes.indeed that is good.

The house is almost done. we're painting more this weekend and have hired two people to prime wood. We should be moving in soon. Will not jinx things by naming a date.

Painting q

2009-04-13T01:08:15Z

Der Krackenhaus continues on its merry way of becoming less crack house (yes, it really was a rooming house where one of the residents sold and smoked dope...not just a fun name for a bustedy old house)

Much cheers to the painters of the day!
Many cheers to the brunchers!

Munch and lovey are passed out on the bed. I am scurrying around as fast as possible doing laundry and washing dishes. Lovey got up at 5am this morning to prep things. I love the man so much. When he gets tired he is...we don't do tired well. I told him very nicely (seriously, it wont sound like it, but it was) that he needed to pull his shit together so we could clean up after the painting party. He did and it was much appreciated. He held the munch and walked with her while I packed up food and cleaned rollers, then as she nursed he loaded up the car with the stuff. They are now asleep, I am sipping my beer and washing dishes and trying to not be mad that he is asleep. Caring for Munch and being her pillow is very important work. If I was as tired as he is he would be in there washing dishes. Hopefully he will sleep until 7:30 tomorrow morning and wake up refreshed!

my little nursling

2009-04-11T03:15:42Z

Boy we've had a day. Munch got her first vaccines today it was quite the stressful process. Baby daddy and I agreed in December to a modified vaccine regimen. For example we are not giving her the hep vaccine until later in life as she is not in any risk group for hep & the reason they give it to infants is based on public health ease, not an actual need for infants to develop immunity.

So we get there at 8:45 and start asking the dr questions when she gets there at 9:30 about the shots like, how long does it take for a child to build up an immune response for one of them. Is it days, weeks, or years?

Hrm. I don't know, but you can't start it post 12 weeks.

okaaaaaaaaay.

Baby Daddy forgot that he was on Munch and GhettoNQueen team and started advocating for the dr. We ask some more questions and they disappear to return 45 minutes later (during which time baby daddy & I had a nice argument about his insulting to me comment and how he needs to better research things instead of playing devil's advocate or blindly acquiescing) with shots we specifically said we were not giving (see hep above). So we get the nurse to take it off telling them for the 4th time that we are not giving that to our daughter today.

Here's my thing, I'm not scared of vaccines, but I am a little skeeved out by the pharma companies and don't really want to give them more money than I have to.

She took her shot like a champ around 11am, squealed then forgot about it for about 4 hours when she promptly lost her shit and was inconsolable for about an hour and started running a fever. She calmed down for a little while, then lost her shit again this evening. We don't know which shot she got though because they were out of one and marked that she got both. Maybe it was Polio, maybe it was pnuemaccoal something or other. Great right?

The drs also has some sort of magical power where she can tell that both me and munch are deficient in Vitamin D without running any sort of test and tells us we should give her a multi-vitamin because she just eats the breast milk. So...no...my baby and I are both fair skinned and spend 15 minutes in the sunshine each day- we get and create enough vitamin D. If you want to tell me that my breast milk is inadequate I require a blood test on me or some sort of indication in the Munch. As is she has gained 4.5 lbs in 9 weeks and is almost 2ft tall/long. She will not be getting a supplemental multi-vitamin anytime soon.

I'm tired. Normally we have a content and happy little munch. Today we had an inconsolable Munch for about 4 hours total and I just don't know how people whose babies act like this all the time do it.

Pro's of this Drs office:
Close to home and H work
nurse very cool
on insurance plan

Cons:
inability to tell time
factory farming children
bad parents in waiting room
screaming children in exam rooms
Dr telling me to give Munch vitamins (without doing any sort of test)
Dr dismissing questions
Pay before you see the dr as if we'd walk out and not pay our bill.

Grief

2009-03-05T17:48:14Z

We've been talking a lot at home about my love's dad's death lately in a really positive way. I'm glad that I am with a healthy adult who can cope. Not always in the best or fastest way, but the man does have an ability to process emotions and move on. Good job sweetie.

I am reminded to be thankful of this after any encounter with his aunt. Lady has some nerve. I am shocked after each email, even months later. While I no longer get angry with her, I do wonder what exactly her problem is. She seems to think - still - that her loss of a brother is somehow more important and difficult than the loss of a father AND seeks sympathy and comfort from her nephews. As if she needs them to also tell her that her loss is more important.

It's really disgusting. The only reason we even still open or respond to emails at this point is because she is still in the process of fucking up the estate. We've given up expecting her to handle it correctly or offering advice or help. Now she just sends updates telling us how hard it is to return bills and not file in probate. It's not my fight, but when I watch my love dealing with his grief, I wish that the now remaining "adult" were helpful and positive instead of selfishly concerned with herself. We focus on the good times that were had, acknowledge the miss and regret, and feel good that he is no longer suffering. Her focus on her overwhelming sadness is not helpful. Seriously, I've seen widows grieve better.

I am also glad my little girl has only a petty aunt, two young hip aunts, and myriad cool wonderful "Aunties" to help raise her.

Speaking of, said little girl - Milkface Magee- is currently asleep next to me, allowing me to type two handed! Woots!

old things

2009-03-01T23:36:56Z

When my love's father died in August we had the most grown up task of cleaning out the house. No one else seemed to realize that we had to collectively go through the house and empty it.
Of everything.

Yes. Everything.

We took a long weekend trip in November and came back with a bag of spices. Today, being the uber proactive people that we are, we decided to go through said spices.

We have found tins with sell by dates of 1984.

These cans of spices traveled with him through at least 1 wife, four moves, and now are in another state with one of his sons. It's odd the things we keep.

What's the oldest thing you've found in the fridge/pantry lately?

well what do you know

2009-02-03T09:30:09Z

little girl child arrived last night :)

10lbs. 3 hours. no tears or horror stories.

she's curled up in her daddy's arms right now and i'm about to join them.

Week 41

2009-02-02T16:29:16Z

Such an over achiever. 3 trimesters wasn't enough for me. Nope, heading on into the 4th!
Woots.

Still no bebe. She's still all fetal and hanging out in my uterus. Perhaps the midwives can coax her out today.

Just because

2009-01-27T22:54:50Z

he is snarky and i love him. my baby's daddy has taken to changing his voicemail.

"At the sound of the tone, our daughter is ____ days late"

he sounds like the announcer from movie phone. is v cute.

week 40

2009-01-26T01:11:39Z

starts today.
or ends today?

Anywho. She's due. Time to come out little fetus.

As of Friday I'm 4cm and 50% effaced. Sex, thai food, walking, and the such say she should just decde to come on out soon.

crisis avoided

2009-01-21T22:57:44Z

We've been working on turning a 1905 ish house into our home for about 15 months now. We took a long break over the summer, got money in order, made plans, and started again.

The house was purchased by a brother and sister in 1955 who turned it into a duplex. I am guessing that the sister lived in the pink side and the brother the blue side. Yes, all of the walls were painted pink or blue. Of course we had to remove the layer of drywall that the slum lord who boughtt the house in 1983 put up to cover up the crumbling plaster. We bought the house from said slum lord who had moved on from duplex to rooming house, then simply boarded up the place and left it to rot.

We've got it back to a single family. We have appropriate size wood windows again. We have sanded floors. We have Purple Paint outside. We have solid foundation. We have almost functioning kitchen. We have repaired fireplaces. In about two weeks we will have a functioning bathroom with tile and new tub and water in the house again.

Today, we had a fire. Luckily, our electrician came up to the house to work this afternoon. No one else was scheduled to be there until I met someone at 5:15 tonigtht. She walked in, heard popping, then saw smoke coming from the kitchen. Somehow- seriously, no idea in hell how- one of the eyes on the stove that has been unplugged for as long as I can remember was turned on low and plugged in. The brand new microwave was sitting in box on top of the stove- cause we thought it was both off and unplugged. She called a neighbor who brought a bucket of water up to the house (no water remember) and put out the fire.

So freaky. So scary. So glad electric Linds was there to save the day.

the maternity store

2009-01-12T03:29:38Z

my lover actually loves me and giggles sometimes too. He's been giggling about this since December.

We went to the mall a couple of weeks back to buy some maternity tights. (oh they feel lovely, thanks for asking!) Walking into the maternity store we are greeted by the happiest person in the whole wide world who is working with pregnant ladies all day every day and loves it!

At this point, there is no question as to whether or not I am pregnant. If you were in doubt, you're probably about to hear a tale of woe about terminal tumors growing in my abdomen. Besides, I am walking/waddling into the pregnant lady clothes store. She swims up to us as we walk in and goes. "wow! are you pregnant?" I look at her and say

"Nope, I just figured this was the easiest way to carry the ham from Christmas. Where are the tights?"

kvetching to the other pregnant lady

2009-01-07T01:26:38Z

I think she is still secretly pregnant. We used to run in the same circles, but then I left the country and got sucked into the house project that is always almost done and we both sorta got lame.

So I don't have outside verification yet that she is telling people she is pregnant.

ANYWAY. I've waited on pins and needles for 9 months now. Every twinge I felt the 1st trimester I was convinced was a miscarriage waiting to happen. I spent the 2nd trimester being all butch and working on the house so that I could have pics of me all knocked up removing the remaining drywall. (Nothing says hot like pregnant belly and crow bar) Honestly I was tiring myself out though and trying to prove to my love who didn't need to be proved anything, but I needed to try to prove anyway, that I was still useful despite the lack of activity, random body fatigue and upset, and increasing size. Still though, every single day felt like a count down to summer vacation that is started Thanksgiving day.

Point is, days crawled by.

I find myself 19 days away from my due date without a car seat but with diapers. Without a day care, but having completed child birth classes. With all the baby swag packed up in the back room but without a clue as to what we have or what we will bring her home from the birth center in. With friends offering to throw baby showers that I somehow can't find the time to make happen/plan.

I had so much time to plan all of these things out but just sort of never got around to half of them. We're both also realizing that to get all of our work to stopping points and bring colleagues up to speed on projects we are both basically working late nights until she arrives. Somehow after forcing myself to go to sleep every night and to think in terms of weeks away, I now find myself with 2.5 week remaining. I'm not really freaking out per se. I just think that, unlike the house where we can continually postpone things until they are really ready for us, this little fetus aint going to wait.

Maybe her dropping and the braxton hicks getting more frequent has me realizing that this is really real. We are going to have two adults, three cats, and a baby soon. No more abstract thoughts of 'bebe'. She's going to be here soon. Maybe it's the fact that we went to a day care today and filled out an application to be on their waitlist. I found myself seriously hoping that the 4 january kids would decide to go somewhere else so that in March we could put our daughter there. I was getting nervous about daycare. A fucking daycare that costs two stormy leather corsets a month. I was trying to come up with any sort of edge or way that I could get her there simply because they have a place for nursing mothers, encouage them to come as often as they want and use cloth diapers if that is what the parents want. Seriously, I will probaly dream about this place again tonight.

leave calculations

2009-01-04T19:47:25Z

If the little fetus decides, like 10% of all them out there, to be born on her due date --> I end up returning to work on March 9 and will be responsible for the entirety of the health insurance premiums for myself and new girl for month of March. (~$800)

If little girl child is nice and thoughtful already after being grown in me for the past 37 weeks she will consider being born sometime between Jan 7-19 so that I can return to work March 2- thereby removing the need to pay for health insurance in March.

Of course, she could also decide to arrive later than her due date, in which case, I humbly submit that she be born between February 6-16th so that I can avoid paying the health insurance premiums.

Please to be considerate little fetus.

I've been at my current job for less than a year, so I don't qualify for paid maternity leave. However, because is good job at good place, I will have about 3 weeks that I get paid for by exhausting my vacation and sick leave.