of course people are still racist

not all. but enough for it still to be a pain in the a$$ if you let their nosiness get to you. and enough to make it ridiculous that people are even considering whether or not we live in a post-racism society. we don't, it's just not in fashion anymore, so it's more discreet. and really, as a mother of a irish, italian, arab, german, native american, finish, black girl, i have a lot of experience on race relations. anyhow. on to the story about racist pains in the a$$.

i'll make it brief because i get bored with endless race discussions. and i'm glad we're enough post-racism that i have this luxury...anyhoo

so i delivered my baby, at UCSF, the planned hospital. the hospital with all of my pregnancy records. so i was no stranger to them.

so, given that my fiance and i are not actually married, technically, i'm a single black mother from oakland who looks about 21. way to be another statistic.

so, given my young, single, black and living in the hood status, UCSF decided my baby was definitley at risk and sent a social worker into my room to talk to me badger me about what i was going to do with the baby when i took her home. Where would we live. Who would we live with. What do i do for a living.

had i not been so giddy from finally getting to meet mya, i wouldn't have answered her questions, and would have told her to get her nosy a$$ out of the overpriced room my private insurance, not the state, is paying top dollar for. well paying for some of it. the copays were crazy high, but that's a rant for another day.

so anyhow, they looked at me and assumed i was a mess and that my baby needed help to have a shot in life. and i get this ALL OF THE TIME. despite the serious rock, people look at me when i'm out with my baby and think, so sad, young black mother having a baby too soon and on her own. not all people. and not just white people. all races (black included) are racist towards black people. ya i said it. black people you know it's true. but anyhow back to the tale...it's actually amazing how comfortable people feel SHARING their helpful suggestions racist thoughts with me.

the road to my personal hell really is paved with the good intentions of busybodies. can you see my eyes rolling.

in the words of the fresh prince....mind yo' bidness.

text driving

it seems like congress is going to do the smart thing and force states to ban texting while driving. which even though i hate police and government involvement in things in general, is a good idea. it's dangerous. but i do it daily. yes every freakin day. i text, i eat, i make calls, i curse AT&T for having crappy service, i drink mochas, i check facebook, i tweet, i dig in my purse. i do it all because i commute about 2.5 HOURS every day. i have things to do during that time.

but i fully agree that texting while driving is dangerous. it's probably the most dangerous thing i've done while driving...even more so than the togo cups. what's that you say? if you don't know, don't worry about it..

so anyhow onto my sage advice about how to text while driving.

Step 1: Fall back. give the car in front of you PLENTY of space so that you have lots of time to notice when they brake.

Step 2: Make sure it's not a windy section of the freeway so that you don't really need to steer.

Step 3: Make sure there are no cars right next to you because you're going to swerve a little bit and look a little drunk.

Step 4: Don't be drunk. You will look drunk, and might get pulled over, so don't ask for a DUI.

Step 5: 4get gud splng. you don't have time for that.

Step 6: text a letter, look up, text a letter, look up. don't type a whole word before you look. that's how you end up slamming into the back of a car at 70mph.

and most importantly

Step 7: Keep an eye out for CHP. The state is broke and want's more of your money. Don't let them get it for texting!

that is all.

drive safely.

for the ultra frugal

it's rare that i read an article on ways to save money that has a tip that i hadn't heard before, but it's happened.

so this article on Shine says you can save money like so:

Cancel garbage pickup. Instead, drive your trash and recycling to the dump. Take turns with a neighbor, so one of you goes every few days. Savings: $300–$450 per year

wow. now that's a new one. take turns rotating who gets to put the neighborhood stinkbags in their car. 1.2.3..NOT IT!

i didn't know canceling trash pickup was even an option. given how lazy people can get, i actually hope that legally it's not.

but anyhow, it's something to keep in the back of your head if times ever get that tough... if it were still the boom days of 2006, you can bet mortgage brokers would tell you this is a way to save money and get you into a bigger loan.

none of my business...

how kate treated her husband is none of my business, but since i'm at home, watching the baby with nothing else to do, i'll comment on it anyhow.

okay, she nagged her man, and looked totally annoyed that she had to do so. it came off as being condescending. so what. i totally understand how she got that way. she has EIGHT kids that she needs help with, and a husband that didn't seem to be proactive about raising them. i only have one kid and i feel like rolling my eyes when i have to ask for help with routine ish that he should just know needs to be done. that's why i ask over text. you can't see eye rolling on text. my girlfriends with husbands or kids all assure me that this is normal male behavior and i need to just make a list for him. groan, so not sexy. going from girlfriend to mom is a rough transition. anyhow, back to the point.

i feel kate's pain. i'm surprised she was able to contain her contempt when he's getting fatter, balding and leaving her to manage the tribe and figure out how to hustle up enough money to raise them. bravo for getting a TV show to pay for it all.

anyhow, i feel her pain, even though it's none of my business, but since it's on TV i do have an opinion.

and REPEAT

you know how your friends will tell you the same five stories over and over as if they are new each time. and you know they love reliving the memory so you listen politely.

well, i think i've been doing that on my blog. but i'm not sure. i'm too lazy to go back and read the old posts. but something about my just hit me on facebook post seems oddly familiar...

rights vs. free services

so, as the country continues to be strained financially and debate of cutting services vs. raising taxes rages on... i'd like to take one second to clarify the difference between a right and a service.

First, let us all take a moment to pause and read the bill of rights.

okay, now that we've had our highschool civics refresher, i'll continue.

So, according the the 13th amendment (assuming i can read roman numerals), involuntary servitude is prohibited. So you can't force someone to do work without pay. oh good. glad we've evolved to that point. But, that also means you cannot call something that requires someone else to do work, without you paying for it, a right. So a free service, is therefore, not a right. And if you tax someone else to pay for your services, that person paying has the choice to stop working, and therefore stop paying for your services. Which is what happens when tax rates get too high.

So as we carry on with the debate about what citizens want taxes to pay for and government to (mis)manage, let us be clear that services are not rights, and are also not free. Because of the 13th ammendment, someone must be paying for them, and eventually, the money will run out.

I want to see the doctor

Okay, nurses, prepare your hate mail.

So I'm reading this article where it says you should never say to a nurse "i want to see a doctor".

there are few things that will make me raise my voice. those that know me, know that when i'm mad, i will say something once or twice, after that, i phase you out. i've been told that i've blindsided people with this...but i told you there was a problem. it's not my fault you only respond to a shrill tone.

so, okay the stage is set. you're clear on the fact that i don't yell. but being asked by my doctors office if i was okay with seeing the nurse made me yell. not the first time. but it should have.

So, here's what happened. i was preggers with twins. wait...twin pregnancy, but only one baby in the photo. okay, we're all up to speed. and good old fashioned identical twins, despite the glamor in US Weekly, are very high risk. so i was seeing a very hard to see specialist. so one week, against my better judgement i let them schedule me with the nurse, because she's "very nice". so i went into the nice nurse and told her about my not so nice sympotoms. nurse, the baby is kicking me in the ribs, how is she doing that at 15 weeks! And, nurse, one baby pushes out all the time, i can see the lump on one side, the other baby doesn't.

nurse: oh, that's normal.

no, it was not. long story short, those are symptoms of the condition my baby died from. let me pause while i calm down. i'm still livid over the incompetence of that nurse. how dare you work in a high risk doctors office and not know the symptoms for the likely complications of the patients your doctor sees. i might be understanding if this was not a high risk specialist's office.

also, side note. i do not complain about pain. i went in to the ER twice during my pregnancy for contractions. the first time, they kept me overnite because i was in fact, having contractions at 5 months. the second time, i was already 3 cm dilated. if i tell you i feel something, it's not a flutter.

so anyhow, back to why i will always tell a nurse i want to see a doctor if i do...so, because i didn't believe the nurse, who's strongest credential is being nice, as if being nice compares to a haaaavard pedigree, i sat on the phone for five hours with four different ultrasound places, pleading my case until i got an appointment for the next day. At first they all said a month, at the earliest but after much pleading and niceties, the great front office staff at SF Perinatal got me in.

so on to the important thing. So that pressure i was feeling was not a kick, because really, what 15 week old baby can kick? it was fluid. and was the external symptoms for the condition that my baby died from. Had i not forced the issue and gotten an appointment for an ultrasound on my own, I would be filing suit for malpractice. Which anyone that knows me is not only not my style, is against my principles. But I TOLD her the symptoms. And the doctor would have recognized them.

So anyhow, the point is, after finding out how incompetent this nurse was with diagnosis, every time they asked me if i wanted to see the nurse, I told them clearly that i did not and in fact make sure i don't even see her in the office because i'm pregnant and carrying a dead baby so who knows what i might do in that state. not only did she miss the diagnosis, she didn't even write down the symptoms i told her for the doctor to review.

okay, that is all. i will see a nurse for the flu. i will not see the nurse for anything that requires a specialist. the nerve of you to even suggest you have the same diagnostic ability as a harvard trained doctor with 20 years of experience. the absolute nerve.

paying for college

so, i was reading this post on shine, where a mother of 5 was justifying her decision to not pay for her kids college education.

I happen to agree with her. Strongly.

I actually think that by paying for your kids education, you are taking on a responsibility that really, is theirs. So here is my list of benefits that you get by making your kids pay for their own education.

1) They have to take college seriously. Or else end up $50K in debt for partying. i'm not anti partying. I partied every weekend...but after my studying was done.

2) They are able to place a dollar value on their degree and will ask themselves, is a general studies degree worth $50K of my own money. hopefully not.

3) They'll have more motivation to get a summer internship in their field. which is probably the best reason of all...because it will make them so much more employable upon graduation.

4) It'll help them grow up. At some point you have to cut the cord. Try to do it before your kid is 30.

and yes, i'm a mother, and yes i paid for undergrad and grad school myself. okay, no i didn't. i saw the bills for ONE year, said F- that, buckled down, hit the books hard, and got a full ride for the rest of the time. If my parents/grandparents would have paid my tuition, i might have had less motivation to work hard. probably not, but maybe.

it's 2009 - just hit me on facebook

so, there's all this criticism about people not being able to communicate in person because of email/text/twitter/facebook etc...but we all know that that's just hype. people that like to chat in person, or on the phone, still will. people that are borderline aspergers or have efficiency OCD (ike a lot software devs), will appreciate not having to talk face to face or on the phone for things that are best done asynchronously. (if you don't know what that means, then the phone is probably for you).

however, mild aspergers aside, what i love about FB, is that i can reconnect with people that i miss to some extent and would love to know how they're doing, but who it would also be slightly to very awkward to call. just like that sentence was slightly to very awkward to read. sidenote - my inability to write using the king's english or capitalize things is not the fault of texting. it's because engineers can satisfy their english reqs in college by taking AP english in highschool. <3

anyhow, back to the point. how's this for an unofficial FB slogan: it's 2009...we don't need to have awkward phone calls anymore, just hit me on FB.

watching the tweets go by....

so i created this flash app that gets the top trends from twitter and then shows you the latest tweets for that trend in a ticker.

it's pretty addicting to watch. it's amazing how uncensored and personal some of the tweets are.

see it here

now if only they would listen

Amazon,

re: the kindle.

i want one, in color, and for less than $200 - because i got burnt by the original iphone so i know that as soon as i buy a kindle, you will release a newer, faster, sexier one that is all mashed up with facebookclubs and tweetreviews. because hardware makers hate their most enthusiastic supporters, the early adopters.

eagerly awaiting the inevitable price reduction,
adub

p.s. @ $300 i will choose to instead buy a purse and a paperback. or a flight to vegas and a magazine. Sorry.

coffee standardization

okay, this will be a short post, but like the rest, very important.

why is it that if i go to Peet's and order a grande mocha, they correct me and say, "you mean medium?" it's like before they can prepare my $4 dose of liquid crack, they MUST break me of my starbucks ways and force me to say ~meeeediummmmmm~. boo. you know what i mean.

so then they get me all in the habit of saying medium, and what do i do...i defect and go over to starbucks, and now order my medium mocha. And Peet's haters that they are, they say, oh you mean ~Grrrrande~.

No, i mean, i'm going home and making it myself using my nespresso, which incidentally never talks back.

that is all.

the no plan, plan

In this article, Fortune magazine says "don't plan your career". And as backwards as it sounds, I have to agree with that to a certain extent. In the article, that advice is tempered with Colin Powell's statement about doing your best:

"I’ve always tried to do my best today, think about tomorrow, and maybe dream a bit about the future. But doing your best in the present has to be the rule."

And this I think is key. Well, I hope that it's the key because it's what I've been doing. Life doesn't always go as planned, so rather than focus on opportunities lost, make the most of where you're at, right here, right now.

Be Great.

Would your legacy inspire?

I'm not the bandwagon type. I don't cry when celebrities die, or usually even pause to think about their impact. However, with the recent passing of Micheal Jackson, his music has been in heavy rotation. Which, given the state of pop right now, is the best thing to happen to radio in a long time. Regardless of what you think about his personal life, it's hard to deny the positivity of his music. His messages were inspiring without being preachy. Which made me think, if other artists had just their music on all day - not just one song, but the bulk of their musical legacy, how would it make people feel. Would they be happy? Motivated? In the mood to fight/kill? Dreaming about selling dope and flashing money? Ready to get lit? Inspired to f- off their money chasing labels and brands?

then it made me wonder, how would anyone feel if the bulk of their life's work, or even just the things that they were most proud of were put under scrutiny. So, my question for the day is, were your life's work on display, would you be proud?

i'm not trying to preach, or tell you what to be proud of, or to push you in any direction.

it's just something to think about.

adub's workout plan

so i went back to work today, and the general consensus is that I look better now than before I had the baby. well...i don't know about that, but I did get back in shape fast. A few people asked me how much I was working out, and they assumed that it was hours a day. Not even close. Because I care, I'll share with you adub's workout plan. not to be confused with kanye's workout plan which involves eating your salad with no desert. I eat plenty of desert.

so anyhoo...on to the secret. It's not that hard to shed the baby weight, but you just gotta do something, everyday. I did about 45 mins of cardio everyday for about a month. That's it. Some days less. Some days I would do intervals on the treadmill and that would only take about half an hour. The first week was the hardest though. It was really hard actually, but my fiance was taking me to cancun in 3 weeks, so I had motivation to suck it up and get my belly bikini ready. Now that my belly is in reasonably good shape, i've also been doing 8 min abs to get the tone back.

that is all. oh, and if you think i was one of those girls that only gained a few lbs and barely looked pregnant, you are wrong. I was huge. see for yourself.

be great.

WTFashion - Baby Bling

so i ran across these today at Nordies. (click on img to see the rhinestone detail)



so wrong. is it like, enjoy my hot body while it lasts? or is it softening the blow? here's something you don't want to see, on something you want to see? but why virginal white? and most unsettling - it's in bling for the tween crowd...sigh. it's just wrong.

and definitely how i'm breaking the news next time around.

Flash Source - AS2 RSS Reader/Blogroll

I put up an AS3 RSS Reader last year, so now I've put up some AS2 source. The UI is simple, and it's fairly straight forward to customize the look and feel to match your site.

Enjoy!

Bank Robbed

I'm constantly amazed at how fervent some people's loyalty to Banks is. When I suggest that they consider banking at a credit union, for the simple fact that it is a -NOT-FOR-PROFIT- organization they balk at that. as if a non-profit-org could steward their money better than those that drove the economy to ish. Then they tell me about how convenient it is that there is a <insert big name bank here> on every corner. Last I checked, you could get cash back at every grocery store/drug store/post office/etc with no fees. woo, look at that convenience! Just get in the habit of getting cash back and you'll never need to go out of your way to go to an ATM.

What about making deposits you ask? Since the credit unions are in an alliance together, you can make a deposit at any one - nationwide. You can go inside or use the ATM. It's really that easy.

Just check it out. Marvel at the lack of fees and the trivially low minimum balances. you don't have to commit to it. But please if you do nothing else, just acknowledge that despite what the marketing messages say, banks do not care about your home or your family (nor should they) because they are FOR-PROFIT enterprises that will raise rates and fees in order to raise profits because legally they have to act in the fiduciary interests of their shareholders - not you. it's not that they are evil, they are just for profit entities.

</rant>

Nespresso Heaven

It's not often that I find something that i *like* so much that i have to blog about it...but the Nespresso Machine WITH the aerocino milk frother is it.



I've had the strait espresso shots from the Nespresso machine before, and although they are beautiful every time, I can't drink espresso, or drip coffee, without my stomach gurgling all day. So for me, the milk is essential. But my past experiences with frothing milk at home with the old school steam wands has not been good. Too much work for sub par foam. But despite my hesitations, I finally broke down and got the machine because I'm going back to work after maternity leave, and there is no way I'm getting out of bed that early w/out some coffee.

It's 2009, so by now everyone knows about the ease of pod coffee machines, but for me, what really makes this machine exceptional, other than the fact that there is nothing to clean up, is the milk frother. You pour the milk in, push the button, and you have perfect milk in less than a minute. Rinse it out in the sink and you're done. And the milk is perfect. it's velvety and it's the right temp. If you like scalding your mouth on boiling lattes this isn't for you. I don't though. I like lattes that i can drink right away...which for some strange reason is a special order at starbucks. Anyhow, long story short, I'm so glad I finally bought this machine. $300 is a small price to pay to not have to wait in line to then pay $4 for way too hot, flat lattes.

stay caffeinated my friends.