The Advent Season

Time stops for no one.

Life will always go on...

Even though I know these clichéd truths I feel as I write this post that the close of this year brings a season finale in my life. You remember what it was like to watch your favorite show all year. To get to know the characters and their storylines for months for it all to be concluded in an extra special hour long presentation episode? In this episode things were resolved, folks where happy and in the last few moments a cliffhanger storyline began. As the viewer I just couldn’t wait to watch what the new season would have in store come fall. And it is with similar expectancy that I wonder what is going to happen next…

Before this year began I said that I would be getting mine in oh-nine! I proclaimed this mantra half believing it, but mostly from the frustration about where I was in life. And without ecking out the details or borderline getting my brag on I will state that I feel like this mantra set the stage for me to truly get mine this year. My life is in a total different place now than when everyone was running around worried about Y2K. (Ha ha ha! Computers are like cockroaches!) And I know that we all have been through some thangs, made it over, were tested and tried since 1999 ended-but aren’t we better, stronger, wiser, freer and growner for it? I am just going to speak for ya’ll right here and say Yes we is! Yes we is!

I feel like I have moved beyond several of the challenges that I was faced with in 2000, 2001, 2002, oh heck every year had its share of challenges! But I wonder about the Amaretto I would have become if I didn’t have to move 9 times, didn’t work as a part time teller, didn’t get the diagnosis, never had crippling debt, never had my heart ache or break, never screamed out Fcuk the world don’t ask me for…

But I thank God from the depths of my soul for his infinite wisdom and constant provision. I couldn’t have made it otherwise. I wouldn’t have learned any other way. I couldn’t be able to cope with this thing called life with out knowing, praying and expecting change. And not that Obama kind of change-the real deal! And I will take off my saved and sanctified hat to confess that there were many “Why me, Lord and not them?” moments. If Amaretto Jenkins was allowed to run things I would have chosen an easier breezier course with lots of money and no pain…but I’d probably be a horrible jerky biznat of a person with no friends to keep it real and check me when necessary! I wouldn’t be the woman I am today or the woman I am destined to be in the next decade, and I am not trying to miss out on that!

So during this season of advent I eagerly and not fearfully await what will happen next.

Until next season…Merry Christmas Ya’ll!

See You in the New Year!

Feeling Sad?

It seems to be going around like the piggy flu these days. Now that it gets darker earlier more of the folks I know are complaining about being tired and blue. Well like in all things the folks that be have given this feeling a name. They came up with SAD. I know I know, did it really take a team of scientists and some Freudian disciples to develop this term? “Road Rage” and “Sexting” have greater rings to them don’t they? But alas, Seasonal Affective Disorder is running rampant at my good ole government job. People are oversleeping, have a lack of energy and concentration. People tend to over eat when they are SAD. True story-today at Chipotle the woman in front of me order three meat tacos and a meat topped salad. So what, right? Well she got it for “Here” and she ate alone. Now I’m not scientist-but I think that lady was SAD or at least the situation was. As a big girl who enjoys her food-when I feeling the greedies I tend to take my stuff to go. Binging should be done in the privacy of one’s home, in front of the tv with optional or comfortable clothing. *Ahem* But I digress.

So why am I talking about being SAD? Because there is a cure-and I got nothing else this week. How can I say that when Elgin-er Tiger Woods still hasn’t told us if his wife beat him up with his golf clubs?! So the cure for Sadness apparently it is light! My coworker was telling me today that she was hitting up Amazon.com in search of a light therapy lamp for her desk. So I was like “What you talking about co-worker?” To which she enlightened me. She’s been feeling tired and sad a lot lately and she believe that this whole light therapy treatment will be her cure. I wondered if this was really and truly possible. Not some hubbub thrown together by a mystic or one of those hippy people trying to get their insurance company to pay for a trip to Jamaica for medical reasons! So when I got back to my desk I went to go to Google University for a quick lesson. It was like a whole new world ya’ll. I felt like Columbus in 1492, discovering something that had already been found. You would think that this was only big business in Alaska, or maybe part of the lore on par with the Loch Ness monster. But SAD and it’s therapy are real! And adults in places other than California, Florida and the southwest are suffering.

So if you suddenly find yourself feeling sad don’t blame it on the alcohol or the fact that another year is just around the corner and you haven’t accomplished all that you aspired to. I am here to tell you that science, medicine and maybe even the light bulb industry have named your ailment. You are just SAD. Don’t you feel better now that you know what you got? Once the days get longer, or you buy a lamp this feeling will soon pass. Oh wouldn’t it be nice if doctors could prescribe all expense paid trips to Caribbean? Do you think Obama could sneak that into the healtcare plan?

I know I’m an idealist!

See You In Seven

new happy new year

apologies for the late post but hopefully everyone had a safe and happy new year's eve and day.

last week's post got me to thinking about new beginnings and new traditions. my usual new year's eve consists of collard greens, hoppin' john and praising the Lord at 12:01.

but as I pondered what to do for new year's eve this year, folks kept asking me where I was going to party and whether I had my cabbage and black eyed peas ready.

so I started a new tradition this NYE by praising the Lord a little earlier in the evening and watching the fireworks from my balcony with some new friends. I'm keeping my collards though cause somethin' just aint right about cabbage on NYE. But what a way to start a new year!

A Senior Moment

Last night I had one of those Am I old? moments. And while I can't say that these moments happen all the time, but there was a time in my recent memory when they didn't happen at all. The first time I pondered this was a few years ago when my cousin and I were on our way back from New Jersey. We were chatting, laughing and singing along to the radio when the DJ played Snoop Doggy Dog's Gin and Juice as the old school jam of the day. Saaaaaaaaaay What? Old school jams belonged to Grand Master Flash and Run DMC. NOT Snoop Dogg-the artist whose Doggystyle album had everyone saying "bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay"! I mean we are talking about Snoop-you don't love me you just love my doggy style-Dogg is suddenly old school?

So last night, I'm wandering around Wally World when I overhear the following conversation between two young ladies.
Youngin' Number 1: I got the Legally Blonde DVD. I love that movie!
Youngin' Number 2: Oh yeah! I like it too. It's funny.
YN1: You know what movie I watched for the first time the other night? Cruel Intentions.
YN2: What? Cruel Intentions? I've never heard of it.
YN1: Yeah, it's this old movie with Reese Witherspoon in it...
Amaretto: (Nearly faints at YN1 usage of the world old for a movie that came out in the late 90's. Has to concentrate on not hitting wide bodied mothers and their brood of children while lost in her shock. Cruel Intentions is now old and should be on the Turner Classic Movie Channel like Casablanca or something!)
YN1:...it was good though. You should watch it sometime.
YN2: Cool.

After the shock of it all wears off of me, these type of moments become funny. No one tells us how to respond to aging. Or what we should do when we realize we are no longer the youngest person in a room. Within my circle of friends we often talk of our aching muscles, first strand of gray hair and all the things we just can't do no mo! I know my mom was amused as I lamented that I could now round my age up to 30 after I passed the 25 year old mark a few years ago. She had to calmly but repeatedly tell me that you don't round up ages. So while age ain't nothing but a number, I shouldn't round it up. Okay, I'm trying to remember that. And I shouldn't freak out that I'm now lumped into the same demographic box as 35 year olds.

But as another year approaches, and everyone I know is getting older, I know more of these Am I old? moments are sure to occur. And while I know that I am still young and fly, I have to remind myself that my childhood isn't as recent as I tend to remember it. I can group some of my friendships in decades now, which is amazing to me! But it's all good, and it's all a blessing, though sometimes its disguised and I have to look for it. Yet, as 2008 closes, I can truly say that I'm excited about what's going to happen next in the life and times of Amaretto Jenkins!

I hope you all have a save and Happy New Year! And just know, that somewhere tomorrow, I'm going to be partying like it's 1999...again!


See You In Seven

So Fresh and So Clean

Corks have been popped, prayers have been lifted and lovers have kissed to the start of a new year! Aren’t you excited? Today is the first day of the rest of your life…a chance to resolve to make O-eight great!

Do you have your resolutions listed? Have you shared your catchy new year’s motto with your friends? For my parents it was be “Debt Free in ’93.” It was a motto that they were excited about. And similar to the start of years before, my mom walked around putting pennies in all the windows of the house. We ate our black-eyed pea potluck, which also included collard greens, sweet potatoes and some type of pork. All food lovingly prepared to bring us Southerners some form of health, luck or prosperity. We were hopeful, like always, that this year was going to be different. But by July I always stood wondering why there was a penny in my window. And when 1994 rolled around my parents still had debt, but they resolved to keep trying to be debt free, minus a cute little motto.

Me, myself, personally have never been one to make resolute promises that I start on January 1st. I don’t like to make pledges that I won’t surely keep. And I’ve always been of the thinking that when a decision is made it shouldn’t be delayed until…nor do I feel like taking a complete assessment of my life on the first day of a new year. Right now, I’m sleepily watching Jerry Springer try to understand the tangled webs of his lesbian guests who are now fighting over a man. I don’t know why I have this on, I’m so confused; but the fact is I’m not here thinking of ways to do more of this or less of that in the upcoming months. I’m remembering how everyone watched Springer once…ooh and before that Rickie Lake. Remember that? Times sure have changed!

And really changing times is the only thing we can count on in the new year. I never feel older right after a birthday, usually it is a few months later when something happens that I realize my new maturity. I feel like experiencing a new year is the same type of process.

Oh how I wish some of 2007 problems would just disappear! That the work on my desk, that I have been neglecting, wouldn’t be there tomorrow. The bills for services rendered in ’07 would be paid and forgiven by someone else. That it would be wonderful not to carry my past in industrial size bags (cue Erykah) into this new year. I think about how it really would be nice to start fresh and clean. To be born yesterday, if you will but without all the naiveté.

Newness can be realized in ways other than chronologically. When we allow ourselves to think about “this time last year I was…” “Back in the day I use to…” “I can’t believe that I would go to…” That’s when those wow moments occur and we can see the start of something different in us. Now that I think about it, I do have a few resolutions. I want my attitude towards some folks to be different, my heart to be more open and my view from here to be clearer.

Truly there is no greater waste of life than to start something new and not be changed by the process.

Happy New Year Ya’ll!

See You in Seven