It's not really about being fat.

So I'm sure we've all looked at people who were obese and thought things about them. Thinking they are so unhealthy ecetera. However, what if all the tests say everything is okay? No diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholestrol.

Then there is me. Always trying to get B to be more active because his size signals to me he might be unhealthy. Then I go to the doctor to find out I have high blood pressure. I'm the one who exercises all the time and tries not to eat processed foods. I'm the one trying desperately to get fit and stay fit. I'm doing all the things I should and none of it seems to matter.

So now I have to give up more than ever before. I now understand why father appears to eat a tasteless diet. He probably had this same moment I'm having. No more pickles and olives. No more bacon, not even turkey bacon. No more bloody Mary's. No more lunch meat. Who really wants to eat low salt peanut butter?

Get Money

So I keep wondering should I buy a condo to live in until I walk down the aisle because I'm not one for shacking up. However, it seems silly because I probably wouldn't live in all that long but I guess there is rental income potential.

I also have a friend who wants to buy something in my neighborhood. So she asked me to help her figure out the market. You can look up the tax assessment values of a property but they are usually a little lower than what the market rates are.

So I just google my address and up pops a document of area revilization. In this document it talks about the revilization on my neighborhood. So I know for sure my landlord was able to get the place I am renting through one of those first time buyes low income specials. Let me remind you that low income in DC is like 62K. So in the document it says the place was sold for 150K. She I know she is renting it illegally because she told us that she had to wait three years to rent it but her daughter needed her to live with her fo the next couple of years and then she would move back in. So in essence she's pimping the system hard. We are paying more than three times her mortgage to rent this place. She got the place well below market rates and is renting for market rate. I can't begrudge anyone getting money but damn.

The lady below us treats us like renters. It pisses me off even more because now I know what her mortgage payment is roughly. So she always has a roomate which means they are probably paying her mortgage for her. So she needs to get off her high horse because we I could pay her mortgage and then some. She treats us like we are some poor stupid renters.

For the better part of three days I've been stuck at home hacking and coughing. I thought I would clean up or read but I managed not to do anything. But I don't want to talk about being sick I hate it. The good news is that I finally found a doctor. I'm so excited to go in at the end of the month. Time to finally face the facts about some of my health problems.

But I really want to talk about mommy syndrome. I know that little kids love me because of my hair. I think it excites them when I really think I should scare them. Part of me wants to know what excites them so. Generally I expect children to point and stare and say "Mommy look at the funny lady." But on at least two occasions children have tried to get out of their high chairs at restaurants to come to my table. In one case the mom got sick of the kid and just pushed him over to eat at my table. He sat there played with the pancakes and was cool when he was with me. The same thing happens at grocery stores, kids trying to get out of their shopping carts. Then there are the random kids who run up and squeeze my legs saying "mommy". I stand there dumbfounded like "umm who's kid is this?"

It really bothers me because I try to pretend like I hate kids. But I guess it's not true. But I have not idea why children find me that interesting, ready to abandon their mothers and run of into the world with me. A stranger. Ninety percent of the time they are white children. Do I remind them of their Black nannies? Or am I around white children 90% of the time?

I've been told I have motherly instincts but I say it's all hogwash. However, my bestfriend is pregnant and I had the answer to every question that husbands asks. How much is a car seat? Do we need to get a bigger car? What about diaper services. I seem to have all the answers. I guess that's what happens when you've been an Aunt since 5. So I've said all this so say...ha ha...to say *shrug*

Oh also let me plug my new favorite blog: postbourgie.com

One post a month? Wow this is really piss poor.

So in today's news...

I sat in a meeting for 6 hours with wet pants. I had to drive to a meeting and I spilled a bottle of water on my crotch. Oh joy.

Can I say I'm going to have more bike clothing than regular clothing very soon? It's no fun being sweaty in regular clothing. It makes it so uncomfortable.

I also lost 8lbs in February. I need to make sure I keep it up for March.

This year there are so many weddings happening. I can't wait to help everyone celebrate their love.

Getting Things Done

On a general weekend I get nothing done. I say I'm gonna take care of this or that but it never happpens. Well today I accomplished the following things.

1. Dropped off Dry Cleaning
2. Dropped off donations to Goodwill
3. Replaced my license and renewed my registration (2 damn hours)
4. Handled some over due personal gromming
5. Picked up my prescription and that much needed pack of toilet paper
6. Picked up the dry cleaning I dropped off this morning

I know it doesn't seem like a lot to some people but on a general weekend I might do one of the 6. Tomorrow I hope to accomplish about 2 big task around the house and pick up a couple of things from the mall but I doubt I'll do it all. But I'm about to play hard tonight. I'm going to attempt to go out with my girl tonight after a dinner.

Bad News

I'm not registered to vote. I'm pretty pissed. Last February I filled out the application at the DMV when I got my license. So I realized that I didn't know my polling place so I went online to check. Well it says they don't have a record for me. So I can't vote for *********** on Tuesday. I'm pretty disappointed. Ironically I'm going to the DMV tomorrow because I lost my license. Well I won't be filling my voter registration application again because apparently they don't submit them. Really I should have checked earlier but when you apply you just assume you are registered. Yeah I'm pissed.

Close Encounters of the Racial Kind

Now for the 2nd installment. Again I have a Vietnamese nail technician asking me "Is that all your real hair?" I guess the weave queens are the pevailing image in their minds. So I got intot he waxing room and now she's up close up and personal. She comes over to examine my brows and has to move my from out of the way so it doesn't get waxed. I've seen hair like yours before but I've never touched it. Well you can't really go off on the person about to put hot wax near your eye.

In other good news I lost 5lbs this week. I worked hard and my efforts paid off. It was actually a lot more weight that I thought I would lose. I stll managed to eat out and drink alcohol in the process. So whil I did change somethings there was no serious restricting I had to do. I'll share the plan with you at some later date.

It is 49 degrees in DC at 5:30am. Instead I'm in Akron, OH and weather.com say it is 15 but feels like -6. Yeah really this sucks. I'm going to freeze my ass off.

In other news I took a Confident City Cycling class Saturday. It really sucked. Dude just sat there and read to us. We didn't get on our bikes. He did show us how to change a tire. I really couldn't do it myself if I had to based on his demonstration. So me and my girl get on our bikes to ride home. In the process of speeding down 18th Street in Adams Morgan we had an encounter with a bus. We followed dudes directions and we nearly were taken out. Then something popped off my girl's bike and flew across the busy street. I was able to stop and cross the street. There was a dude about to illegally parking. I get over there and he gets nervous and inquires "Are you parking enforcement?" Well that solidified my dork on bike status. I apparently I'm the adult version of a hall monitor. There I am trying to get her bike parts from under a parked car in the middle of 18th street. Well after all that we made it home safely but didn't feel any more confident that before we went to the class.

Today is a day when I would have taken a ride to work but instead I'm in Akron, OH. On my way to the airport I had a how not to holla moment. Well this person didn't holla but I was offended by his remarks:

"Where did you get your cuteness from? I mean I'm know you are black but what else are you? I can tell you aren't just black."

So today I was reminded that if you are cute surely you just can't be Black.

Go Wizards

I really hadn't realized that basketball season started. Seriously I really didn't realize that it was January and well the season starts in October. Wait that's a lie, I was trying to get Wizards tickets back in October. Well basketball just hasn't been on my radar.

Well yesterday after a moment of crisis I ended up in Ben's Chili Bowl for dinner. They have the Wizards vs. Celtics game on. I knew they were at the Garden which meas that they would have their road jerseys on but I still squinted because I didn't recognize the uniforms. Well these new uniforms are just awful. I hope they are some sort of temporary uniforms or something.

So there is yet another thing I need to add to my social calender. I try to go to at least 3 games a year. Hopefully I can end up in a luxury box again this year.

I'm typing this to you with tight arms. I went on a 10 mile bike ride yesterday. The only thing that hurts right now are my arms. It feels good but I'm surprised my legs don't hurt. I really think my arm hurt from putting my bike on the bike rack on the car. I have women's style bike but that makes it hard to put it on the rack.

After the bike ride I rushed home to cook some chicken and to take it to Girls Night Out. I was invited by a friend to night of women just hanging out and building with one another. You know they say women are catty but this night just proved everyone wrong. We had a nice time.

A part of this included a male stripper. This dude was well known. All the girls had seen him before. I guess I'm missing an adventure here in DC. They all go to male strip clubs. I've only seen them at house parties and really I don't like them. Something about them makes me timid. I'm so not timid. But dude was just okay. I didn't like his look and that's half of the fantasy. But I enjoyed his show.

I'm typing this to you with tight arms. I went on a 10 mile bike ride yesterday. The only thing that hurts right now are my arms. It feels good but I'm surprised my legs don't hurt. I really think my arm hurt from putting my bike on the bike rack on the car. I have women's style bike but that makes it hard to put it on the rack.

After the bike ride I rushed home to cook some chicken and to take it to Girls Night Out. I was invited by a friend to night of women just hanging out and building with one another. You know they say women are catty but this night just proved everyone wrong. We had a nice time.

A part of this included a male stripper. This dude was well known. All the girls had seen him before. I guess I'm missing an adventure here in DC. They all go to male strip clubs. I've only seen them at house parties and really I don't like them. Something about them makes me timid. I'm so not timid. But dude was just okay. I didn't like his look and that's half of the fantasy. But I enjoyed his show.

Well I've changed the name of this blog again to more correctly reflect my life. I'm hardly having adventures these days. Right now I spend more time with my bike than anyone else. There was also this strange incident where a random group of strangers called me Bicycle Girl. I resisted the name but now I'm stuck with it. It also allows me to refer to myself in the third person quite easily.

What has Bicycle Girl been up to?

She had a fabulous time in California.

Since my mother passed going home has been rather stressful. I am not able to go to the childhood home I grew up in and I don't feel like I'm going home anymore. Most of my family has moved to other parts of the city so their homes don't feel like home anymore. These aren't the homes that they lived in for the 17 years I grew up in Los Angeles. My dad's house kind of feels like home only because he hasn't really changed my grandmother's house since she passed nearly 15 years ago.

Sometimes I feel disconnected from my family because my path is totally different from those close in age to me. These are my 2nd cousins. I try not to look down at folks I just want them to do better. I don't want them to have kids and then depend on a welfare check to take care of them. When I hear folks saying things like "I think I should have another baby so that I don't have to work." That shit is not cute. I get disgusted and doesn't make me proud to be a Dones family member.

I want them to provide more for their kids than they had. Instead they are content on providing less for their kids than what they had themselves. I want them to get up everyday and go to work. I know no one wants to do that especially at a low paying minimum wage job but I know that children need to see their parents work. Your parents retired from jobs after work there for 20 to 30 years and you've never held a job for more than six months. For shame. I want them to choose good male role models for their children. Not just find a man they can hustle into paying their bills and buying them coach bags.

It also bothers me that my older family members who enable my cousins not to do better. I know they don't want their grandchildren to suffer but they are also making so that their children don't have to do better. I can see getting your children out a rough spot but paying others rent and mortgages has got to stop. I know parents can competely control their kids but don't make it easy for them not to be productive people. If you want to contribute, pay your daughters childcare so they can go to work. I could rock with that.

Can you see why I think welfare reform wasn't such a bad idea?

See but I don't want to look down on folks right? I don't want to be Bill Cosby with mine but it boogles my mind that my family is hustling backwards. I don't really want to agree with Juan Williams. But I am close enough to this to know this is about the choice to struggle. I'm not sure why they are in love with the struggle.

But Bicycle Girl what about your sister?

Well Bicycle Girl's sister fits in here to. The only difference is that I to my knowledge my mother didn't enable her. She did take care of her first child but soley because the child had special needs and wasn't going to live past age 5. The child is 23 now. It's one thing to have a wayward child. It's another thing to enable your child to be wayward. In fact I think my sister had an untreated mental illness. But that's another story altogether.

But Bicycle Girl aren't there any positives in your family?

Well of course. I'm hopeful for the kids under 10. They have really taken a liking to me. Everyone was surprised when Cousin Bougie joined the line dancing during the Christmas festivies. Well actually it was odd because we have never danced during the festivies. We used to sit around and talk and after aunt passed who used to hold the party people started playing games. We played family trivia and sang Christmas Carol's. This year they tried to get children to sing. We laughed as lil DeMaya told us that on the 8th Day of Christmas we get 2 cameras. I agree with her, maybe the song needs a little updating. After that someone got the genius idea to play some of the classic line dances that black people loved to do. There was shock when I go up there and joined in. They were even more shocked when I didn't need anyone to show me how to do them. What Cousin Bougie knows how to do the booty call? Yes I right foot stomped my way back into the family. Soon all the kids were just dancing away and Jada danced her heart out. She's needs to get into dance classes. She's destined to be the new little girl in the Missy Elliot videos. I'll put up the video of her dancing in another entry. Then there is Imani. Imani already has a job, she does commericials. At 6 she came up to me to tell me that she's was too nervous to dance. She was so sincere. They all made me smile a lot.

But Bicycle Girl this isn't what you set out to write is it?

No really I wanted to talk about how badly I want a Nintendo Wii. Nintendo is pretty smart. They make something a low price point, easy to use and fun. So I really want one and I can't have one because they are sold out. Gamestop and Walmart are running a hustle where you have to buy a bundle to get one. Umm no I'm not spending $600 just to get something that cost $250. But when I get one everyone is welcome to come over and play. I will whip your ass in boxing and I'm not too bad in Tennis either. I spanked my nephew's ass right before heading to the airport and well he really wasn't sad that I was leaving anymore. He was just like "Bye Auntie. Have safe Flight."

Little Tortilla goes Vegan

Well that's not true at all. But she is trying to limit her amount of dairy. So this weekend I made a vegan fruit smoothie (fruit,tofu,soymilk,sugar) and vegan mac and cheese. Well the smoothie is delicious and the mac and cheese was much like velvetta shells and cheese. So it was all great edible alternatives but of course it wouldn't be my first choice. . But my stomach hurts right now, just like it would if I had lactose. So what gives? This so defeats the purpose of leaving out the dairy. Am I alergic to soy? *pouts*

Hide and Seek

Well my roomie and boyfriend are planning something for my birthday. I swear they are terrible at trying to keep a secret.

My cellphone acts crazy all the time and never rings. On Thursday I sat waiting for his call since we were going out that night. So he calls the home phone and she answers it. We don't have caller id but he's the only one who ever calls it. So she starts talking to the person on the other end which I know is him. Then she hands me the phone. I talk to him for a bit. When I was finished, I asked her what he wanted. She says "He wanted to hook me up with one of his single friends." Well that was a blatant lie. So I knew then they were planning something. Great, because I didn't plan a party this year.

On Saturday I was at his house and I went to log into Gmail. Well when I pull up the website it goes right into a mailbox. I see there was an email from my roomate but the title says "Aisha's Present". Then I remembered that this was his computer so thus it's his email. I sit for a second and debate on opening the email but I decide to not ruin their surprise what ever it is. But they are doing a sucky job at hiding whatever it is from me.

Citibank can kiss my ass

So I have all my bills set to be paid automatically. I check my statement and I realize my bill is late...this can't be so since I have it set to pay auotmatically. I look and the last payment was processed a day early. Therefore when the next bill was due it wasn't paid because on time because the payment I made was reflected in an earlier billing cycle.

So I call Citibank to resolve the matter. I've never paid my bill late in over 10 years so it shouldn't be a problem. I talked to the lady and we got the matter resolved fairly quickly. "I'll take the late charge off for you but don't you ever do this again." What happened to customer service? She reprimanded me like I was stupid and she was my momma. I'm like well isn't that funny. It was very early in the morning so I didn't flip out on her. I am just going to write them an email and just change my automatic payment date so I don't pay the bill too EARLY!

First Big Day as Manger: Failed!

I had a meeting out in Rockville. I've been to this place before. I know how long it takes to get there. I did metro trip planner just to be sure. I gave myself an extra 15 minutes just in case something happened. Well Metro politely ate that up and wouldn't even say what was going on. We are just waiting on the platform went from saying "Shady Grove 2" to "Shady Grove __." So I was late to my first meeting as manager. Well by the end everyone had forgot it happened. It was such a good meeting. So next time I will give myself 30 minutes grace period. I'll just sit a little longer in the lobby if need be. Being late is not a good look.

Since I wasn't born unti 1978 I had no idea about this part of her life.

From the Los Angeles Times
Maxene McGinnis, 1926 - 2007
Group home founder turned around lives of troubled girls
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 8, 2007

In the end, Maxene McGinnis did more than offer a home to girls nobody else wanted. The founder of Jacqueline Home for Girls offered the girls another way of seeing themselves, a view from a different mirror.

The girls questioned their worth; McGinnis never doubted it. They said they couldn't achieve; she said she expected no less. They hung their heads; she told them to lift them high.

With that view, McGinnis wielded a power that transformed the lives of troubled girls.

McGinnis, who helped raise 210 girls in her group homes, later operated child-care centers that served 160 families and was honored with a star at Staples Center's Star Plaza, died Nov. 27 of stomach cancer at her home in Los Angeles. She was 81.

On Tuesday, the nearly 200 mourners who packed Grace Chapel at Inglewood Park Cemetery heard of the lives McGinnis helped salvage.

"She never made me feel like I was her job," Debra Johnson, who spent some of her teen years in McGinnis' home, told the mourners. "She made me feel like I was her child."

For former group home "girls" like Johnson, Phyllis McNeal and Sharon Cameron, time spent at the home was the best experience of their childhood.

"I never saw love like that. . . . I thought it was just on TV," said Cameron, who at 15 was labeled the "worst of the worst" and sent to the home.

If McGinnis had followed conventional wisdom, the Jacqueline Home for Girls might never have come into being.

Born in 1926, she graduated from UCLA in 1948 with a degree in sociology. She was eventually hired as a social worker in the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services. The Texas-born McGinnis, who was raised by her mother with the help of a close extended family, grew up in Dallas during a time when opportunities for African Americans were few. Jobs like hers were an accomplishment to be proud of, not to leave.

But in the 1960s, McGinnis was young and ambitious and had a vision of running a home for children in need. That vision began in her youth, grew after a stint teaching Sunday school and kept growing and refining itself; it would not let her rest.

At the social services department she was placed in charge of a unit that trained the daughters of welfare recipients to find work. But she found the girls' life skills so meager that "we had to begin with proper dress, personal hygiene . . . proper grammar and the most basic manners and social skills," McGinnis wrote in her unpublished memoir.

The girls were eager to do well, but they needed to get out of their chaotic surroundings to achieve, she said. So she gathered them together and helped them find an apartment and stayed in their lives to help them. Later she learned that a change of environment would benefit youngsters who were in juvenile hall and other locked facilities simply "because there were no other places to go."

Driven by her vision, McGinnis left her job and rented a home in the Wilshire district, opening the Jacqueline Home in 1968.

The home would eventually be filled with as many as six girls from various backgrounds, all wards of the court, referred by the county Probation Department. For each girl, she received $307 to $355 a month, according to a Los Angeles Times article.

"She was a black woman in the '60s running this home for girls," said her daughter, Michelle McGinnis. In the beginning "most of the girls were very affluent. Most of them were white."

At the house, McGinnis was "mom," and she set out to raise the girls. She disciplined them to correct behavior, visited their schools to make sure they were performing, encouraged and rewarded them and listened to them.

"It's a happy house," McGinnis said in a 1969 Times article. "People always expect something dreary and sad, and they're surprised to find that it's not."

In 1969, she married Essic McGinnis, and the following year she gave birth to Michelle, now a prosecutor in the Los Angeles city attorney's office assigned to a program through which she assists youths at Markham Middle School. In addition to her daughter, McGinnis is survived by numerous cousins.

Over the years the house earned honors for its work. McGinnis expanded to three houses, but in 1977 closed them and moved into child care, in which she continued to work until retiring this year.

Long after she closed the homes, some of the women who had lived there as girls remained a part of her family. In the end, their reclaimed lives were a testament to her work.

"She gave me hope, encouragement, pride and unconditional love," said McNeal, who holds a master's degree, is a probation officer and runs a program to dissuade young people from crime. "If not for my mom, I wouldn't be working for the system. I'd be in it."

Daily Horoscope for Sunday December 9, 2007

Your life is continuing to change and today's New Moon can send you into the next phase of ongoing personal growth. Whatever opportunities are presented to you should be received as a message directly from the cosmos. It may take time to understand the significance of the next few days. In the meantime, be gracious as you accept what arrives on your doorstep.

.....

Well today is my first day as Project Manager. I've never been as excited to go to work as I was last night. I feel a renewed sense of commitment and I really think it's my time to shine. I haven't been that confident at work these days but this new development is just the infusion I needed in my life. It doesn't come with a raise but we were all scheduled for raises this week anyway. Wish me luck.

R.I.P

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111801496.html

The summer before I left for UNC I gained about 15lbs. I had stopped working out and I would spend all of my time at Ben's Chili Bowl. It's a DC institution and the food is expensive for what it is but I would go there mulitiple times a week. I would go because it was the place where everybody knew my name. The staff members made me feel at home. Often times I was served by Timothy Spicer because he had a crush on me. I would walk in and he was tell the other guys that i was his customer. He tried several times to get me to go on dates and he would flash his charming smile. Last night I learned that he had be killed in a car jacking. I shed some tears because he was a good kid. He went to work everyday and enjoyed what he did while trying to craft away through music and art to a better life. I'll miss you Tim.


Earlier my my dad called me to tell Ms. McGinnis past of a heare attack. Ms. McGinnis owned Bene Pre-School where myself, my niece and my 2nd cousin attended. At this school I learned all the basics. It wasn't daycare it was true learning. Ms. McGinnis was all about learning but she also employed many people that wouldn't otherwise have a chance. Besides my family, this is the person I've known the longest. I'm truly going to miss her. I don't have that many ties to the old neigborhood since my mom died. This is one less.

It's been two years since I posted on my old blog. I noticed that and decided to get out my old posts. well most of them are gone. I'm so sad. I do have some entries printed it out but that was the craziest time of life so i'm sad that my "journal" is gone.

Well today was also crazy. Somehow I managed to put my tampons into the fridge at work. I meant to put my lunch in there but I put the wrong bag in. Secondly, I was talking to some of my coworkers and one asked "what's that near your belt?" Well it turned out to be a random piece of a tampon wrapper. Whoa is me.

I've noticed that my life has been much better since I started riding my bike to work everyday. I do not have the "how not to holla experiences" anymore. I look like a dork with my helmet on and well i'm on bike so no one is going to talk me. Well sometimes other black bikers talk to me. Mostly the bike messengers messing with me because my bike is so cutesy.

I never thought I would be an outdoorsy person but I love riding my bike. It's like 30 degrees outside and I'm still riding to work. My coworker is going to bring me some cold weather biking gear. The only thing is that I just wear my regular work clothes. I haven't gone so far to wear bike gear because I'm not that hard core. So hopefully it will all pay off. But I really don't care about all that, I just love it.