Blkirish’s Weblog

Check out this 3-part series with my WifeBFF (still my Favorite Writer) chopping it up with the stepmother of my stepdaughters (think about it) about what it means to be a stepmama.

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…

Check out my favorite writer’s latest post at The Faster Times!

Ode to this weekend…

Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?

~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Please give to provide relief and hope to the people of Haiti:

Doctors Without Borders
Oxfam America
Yéle Haiti

…the debut of Co-Parenting Matters,
a live, weekly talk show on BlogTalk Radio!

Debut show: Sunday, October 25, 2009

Co-Parenting Matters
because kids thrive when parents partner.

Join us every Sunday evening @ 9:30 PM EST for a lively discussion of a variety of co-parenting related issues: communication, single parenting, divorce, finances, custody, dating, wellness, stepfamilies, and much more.

Hosted by the founders of WeParent.com (Talibah Mbonisi) and CoParenting101.org (Deesha Philyaw and Michael Thomas), along with guest experts: attorneys, counselors, and fellow co-parents! [And you can count on me (Blkirish) to make an appearance or two. Deesha is my fiancee...and my favorite writer.]

For our inaugural show, we will focus on Co-Parenting Myths. What misconceptions hinder your co-parenting relationship? Share your experiences and pose your questions by calling in to (646) 378-0580 during the show on October 25th.

What issues and questions would you like to hear discussed on Co-Parenting Matters? We are planning upcoming shows and welcome YOUR input! Send us an email (info AT coparenting101 DOT org), or call in during the show.

Can’t join us on Sunday nights? Listen to CoParenting Matters podcasts at BlogTalk Radio your leisure.

We invite you to tune in!

– this is a cut -n-paste from my favorite writer …

(fyi .. I’m TechBoo)

As usual, I didn’t get enough sleep throughout the week, so on Friday when TechBoo and I rolled into his older sister’s 40-something bday party at about 10:45 pm, I was already pooped. But this was DC and there was go-go music in the club(Hi, Elizabeth!), a VIP section featuring a round bed, and free-flowing drinkies… so you know how that goes…we didn’t get home until about 3:30 am.

But a fun time was had by all. The birthday girl was channeling Marilyn Monroe a la the dress over the sewer grate. TechBoo’s other older sister was the life of the party as usual; her younger boyfriend (yeah, she’s a cougar) did an admirable job of keeping up with her on the dance floor.

Some people had too much fun, though. The bday girl’s best friend–we’ll call her Lisa–has always seemed to have an Issue with me ever since we met last spring. Nothing too obvious and nothing I could ever put my finger on; I just knew I wasn’t one of her favorite people and, well, I didn’t care. But then at TechBoo’s other sister’s bday party at TechBoo’s house last fall, some of us were talking about children’s books like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, at the end of the night (long story), and Lisa just went off, on me in particular, yelling: “I didn’t buy my kids books! I talked to my kids! I talked to my kids about life!” As if you can’t do both…but, whatever. I just stared at her like she was crazy. Which she apparently is…

So we’re at the party Friday night, and I’m wearing my cute boots and dancing up a storm, so you know what happens next: my dogs start barking, as we say in the vernacular. So Tech Boo and I sit on this bench in the VIP bday party area, so that I can talk off my boots, and he can rub my feet. Well, Lisa stumbles (literally) upon us. She’s had way too much to drink. She starts yelling at us about how we aren’t supposed to do that in Da Club…”Y’all ain’t 50! Why y’all acting so old! Y’all younger than me! I’m a single mom too!”

HUH??

So Tech Boo and I just laugh at her like you’re supposed to laugh at drunk people who are acting stupid…and he continues to rub my feet.

Well, this enrages Lisa. She starts yelling at me, “How old are you? How old are you? I’m a single mother too! How old are you?”

Me: “I’m 50.”

What followed consisted of her calling me an effin’ bee…oh, about 3 or 4 times, interspersed with the question about my age, the declaration that I’m “bourgie”…and oh, yeah, she’s a single mom too.

TechBoo and I are incredulous. We both are doing the “okay-she’s-really-nuts-is-this-going-to-get-physical” nervous laughter thing.

She keeps asking my age; I keep saying I’m 50; TechBoo keeps rubbing my feet; she keeps calling me an effin’ bee.

And then she slapped TechBoo.

I wish I were making this up.

Now mind you, Lisa weighs about 80 lbs in a snowsuit.

TechBoo yelled her name to try to snap her back to sobriety, but she’s still ranting. We’re stunned. Then she starts talking about how now we’re going to kick her out of the family (she’s been friends with TechBoo’s sis since high school). We just stare at her until she walks away.

TechBoo is a very strong man. He could have snapped her in two and picked his teeth with her…but he’s not That Guy.

I’m nobody’s fighter, and I’ve learned that ignoring people can be a maddeningly effective defense; I think that’s what engraged Lisa most: she called me old, bourgie, and an effin’ bee–and I never blinked.

Still…I’ve never been called an effin’ bee in my life. Or even a regular old bee! Not fun…

Anyhoo…so that was a late night.

Enjoy …

February 11, 2009 10:36 AM

ABC News’ Yunji de Nies and Sunlen Miller report:

First lady Michelle Obama is on the cover of next month’s Vogue magazine, making her the second first lady to don the fashion magazine’s cover.

Photographed for Vogue’s March issue by famed photographer Annie Leibowitz and interviewed by Andre Leon Talley, Mrs. Obama is shown in a magenta dress seated on a sofa in the Hay Adams Hotel in Washington, DC. The dress is by Jason Wu, the man who designed her white floor-length inaugural ball gown. In addition, inside the magazine are portraits of Mrs. Obama in a J. Crew cardigan, and a Narcisco Rodriguez dress.

Mrs. Obama in an interview with the magazine tells Vogue of her own style, “I love clothes…First and foremost, I wear what I love. That’s what women have to focus on: what makes them feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.”

On her new role as First Lady Mrs. Obama talked about her own upbringing, “We learned in our household that there was nothing you couldn’t talk about and that you found humor in even the toughest of times. I want to bring that spirit of warmth, openness, and stability to my task,” she said in the interview.

While Mrs. Obama has been on the covers of many magazines in the past – “Ebony” and “Essence” among others — this is her first as First Lady.

Aides in the First Lady’s office expect Mrs. Obama to sit for other such covers– they say it’s part of introducing her and the family to the American people. Mrs. Obama has said that she has a desire to give her daughters and other young African American women the opportunity to see people who look like them on the cover of magazines.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the only former First Lady to make the cover of Vogue in 1998. During the presidential race last February Mrs. Clinton was set to appear on the cover, but backed out – apparently concerns were raised that in the heat of the campaign against then Senator Obama, that she would appear “too feminine.”:

In her editor’s letter that month, Anna Wintour wrote, “The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.”

–Yunji de Nies and Sunlen Miller