What a flippin’ fantastic day!  After only a month of chaotic, hurried planning (for those of you who don’t know about planning events, people usually spend 6 to 8 months planning a block party), we managed to pull it off.  “Knowledge is Power” was to commemorate those who have been killed violently in Pawtucket and CF and bring the neighborhood together in a nonviolent, positive setting. 

There were about 500 people and miraculously enough food to feed them all!  The Cape Verdean ladies ran a kick-ass kitchen and I am still in awe of them.  Spoken word, hip hop music, two dance groups (CV Dream Team and Victorious from Brockton), a frickin’ adorable seven-year-old musician with dreads, and a candlelight vigil for those who are gone.

I am blown away by how peaceful, happy, and helpful everyone was.  No fights, no beef, nothing.  Clean-up was a dream, and I was amazed to see all our kids pitching in.  The same guys who sit in the park, sell drugs, and mouth off to the cops were the ones with trash bags picking up plates and water bottles and moving tables inside. 

Three of the cutest booty-shakers ever

Food line

The Grill Master (400 burgers and 400 hotdogs)

Hanging Out

Dakarai Dancing

Victorious from Brockton

Alvaro, Paris, Melissa, and Jenny

In Memory (Hell Boi Throwing Signs)

Trying to look hard with a juice box

Dancing with the lil' one

Candlelight Vigil

Five years ago, Mr. Puppers came to us when we lived right over a paint store on Avenida Palenque in Cancun.  The parents of a student brought him to me where I worked when he was about two months old.  And he was a skinny little thing that I could carry in my arms.

I took him home in a taxi for the first time and when we got out, the owner of the paint store called me over and told me that he hoped that this wasn’t a permanent addition to my apartment.  I assured him that it wasn’t, and that I was just dog-sitting for someone. 

The owner of the paint store bitched and moaned for the next year about Mr. Puppers’ barking.  No big deal, I just ignored him the best I could.

I haven’t thought about this man in years.  Last night, as I brought up one of my favorite topics of conversation (whether Mr. Puppers prefers America or Mexico), Homeboy reminded me of how much the paint-store guy hated Mr. Puppers.  Apparently when I wasn’t home, he’d come bang on our apartment door and Homeboy wouldn’t answer.  Then Homeboy and Mr. Puppers would go out to play in the park and paint-store guy would glare at them. 

Not a terribly interesting conversation, of course.  But later that night, I was in bed reading and Homeboy was watching Atlante play soccer in Cancun.  He comes into the bedroom screaming, “Paint-store guy! Remember paint store guy?”  Um, yes, we just talked at length about paint-store guy.

“Well, I just saw paint-store guy on TV at the game!  He had an Atlante shirt on and was cheering!”

How random.

This is what I do all day. 

And practice posting photos.

Our "front porch"

Melissa and Melissa (aka Gabacha)

My Three Constant Sidekicks

Intense Case Management Just Happened Here (with Your Highness)

While I May Think This is My Desk, It's Actually Not

Busted ‘fro, oh my!                                                                    

Nappy-headed Bucket kid.

Where are your straightbacks?

I may very well be one of the last of my generation to get a digital camera.  At first, I took the moral high road.  I claimed I wasn’t going to give in to technology and that my 35mm worked just fine, thank you very much.  But then I realized that I had amassed only about 45 pictures since 2002.  I envied my friends, who had close ups of wild flowers on their blogs and kooky self portraits sprucing up their Facebook pages.  And I had been deeply remiss in documenting my dog’s antics and quiet moments on the couch.  There was only that one picture of him wearing a pink tank top that I had put on a disc and a couple from one of those disposable cardboard things back during his puppyhood. 

The turning point was when I silenced a group of about 20 co-workers and management folks at a conference table when I said, “I don’t know how to use a digital camera.”  The whole room went dead quiet, and every single head turned my way.  My boss, who was at the other end of the table started giggling nervously.  I said, “No, really.  I don’t.”  He briefly looked startled, then just looked down at his hands. 

But objects with lots of shiny buttons and multiple cords tend to intimidate me.  I finally said “fuck it” and dragged my husband to Best Buy and randomly picked ths sporty, slate blue number based on some vague details I remembered about pixels and modes. 

I didn’t touch it for about a week although Homeboy claimed to have mastered it after 15 minutes of fiddling around.  I always read instruction manuals, and this time was no different.  But this little document confused me.  It had simple instructions like “press menu” and “turn camera on” in three languages, stacked one on top of the other.  I’d read and understand the English instruction, then my eye would catch the Spanish.  Not realizing that I was reading two different languages (sometimes my brain doesn’t differentiate between the two), I did everything twice.  But only with the most basic mechanics of the camera.  Nowhere does it teach me about the million different flash options the camera provides nor does it tell me with any hint of specificity exactly what is so “easy” about the “easy mode.”

I could probably research these things on the Internet.  I feel confident that I too can master an object that even toddlers (well, perhaps only the most precocious) can use. 

But actually snapping the shutter and taking a photo that isn’t all blurry seems to be beyond me.  Just about 97% of my photos look like I’ve taken them while experiencing a rather fierce episode of the DTs.  What in God’s name am I doing wrong?

The other 3% of the photos that actually look like they were taken by a sober person are all of my dog.  Leo’s coat has never looked so glossy and his countenance has never looked so noble as they do in my close ups. 

I hope that one day the rest of my photos don’t look like I took them while hanging out the window of a car doing 35 mph.

Learn the difference between the Reply and Forward button on your email.  Furthermore, make sure you hit Forward rather than Reply before talking about your crush on the person in question.

One of the fine patrolmen charged with the noble mission of “serving and protecting” called me a little bitch today!

I was chatting with a kid who is doing community service with us outside work today about doing the paperwork to start his GED when a cop yelled out his window, “I thought you were doing your community service.”  We both yelled back that he is.

Later, a frequent visitor to the center who was talking to the cops told me that one said “That kid’s a scumbag and that little bitch is covering for him.”

Nice.  No wonder why everyone hates you, Pawtucket PD.

I don’t know whether getting a pool table in my office was the best thing that has happened in a while or the worst.

Gabacha: Is this pool table too shitty to have a pool tournament?

Some kid: We’re in da hood, so it really don’t matter.

Things kids have brought up with me today:

• Lil’ Wayne
• bisexuality
• drive by shootings
• smoking blunts
• smoking blunts before a GED test
• smoking blunts with bullet fragments in your lungs
• Lil’ Wayne
• getting “spanked” at pool
• getting off home confinement
• probation officers
• why Cape Verdeans rock
• the high one gets from stealing
• deadbeat dads
• why white people can’t dance
• stolen freezer pops
• Etch a Sketch masterpieces
• why you should marry someone 20 years younger than you
• You Tube videos
• why I shouldn’t be able to use the phrase “I haven’t seen you in a minute”
• a murderer’s arraignment
• whose gun it was
• someone’s new job
• if Lil’ Wayne is attractive or not
• nappy ‘fros
• metal ‘fro picks vs. plastic ones
• getting a bouncy house for free
• if going into a dunk tank constitutes community service hours
• who’s got a worse short term memory, me or Hurricane
• group homes
• why talking about your feelings is hard
• why I am beast

Yes, I do talk about and listen to Lil’ Wayne daily.

And I only worked eight hours today.

Michael showed up at work to tell me that he hadn’t registered for summer school because he was afraid to get in trouble with his parents.  The registration period was about to be over in an hour and if he didn’t register that day then he’d probably have to stay back a year.  Only problem was that he hadn’t asked his parents for the money to pay for it and I was doubtful that they’d let him register without paying.

We jumped into my car to go down to the school department office where we planned to convince them to let him register without paying. 

While in the car:

Michael: Just tell them that you’re my mom.

Gabacha: Um, Michael…you’re black.

Michael: Well, say I’m adopted.  Or I play out in the sun a lot.

Gabacha: I don’t think so.

He was able to register with no problem (shocking to me, considering the fact that the Pawtucket School Department seems to find joy in setting up roadblocks), but not before we managed to make everyone in line snicker…

Michael: So you’re gonna say you’re my mom, right?

Gabacha: Didn’t we already have this conversation? Nobody will believe you.

Michael: I’m your adopted black kid, remember?

***

The next day, Jeff is in the kitchen finishing off some ice cream and lamenting the fact that he had no milk to drink with it.

This is the conversation we had:

Gabacha: I’ve got some soy milk you can have.  It’s vanilla flavored.

Jeff: Are you racist?

Gabacha: Um, what?

Jeff: You must be racist.  Everyone knows black people don’t drink soy milk.

Gabacha: What’s wrong with soy milk?

Jeff: Nothing’s wrong with it.  It’s just a white person’s drink.

Gabacha: No shit.  I had no idea.

Jeff: Well, now you know. 

Coworker: Well, I don’t think it’s a white person thing, it’s more of a privilege thing.

***

Man, fifteen year olds are fun.