Alas...

The movie has been watched, the book has been read and I am having major Harry Potter withdrawals. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss my feelings on the book yet as my husband had to wait for me to finish before he could begin and I refuse to spoil anything for him. So, zipped lips and keyboard keys until he's finished. Lucky for us, he reads stupid-fast so we won't have to wait long. I won't discuss the film yet either except to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And now I will remove the annoying Harry Potter countdowns at the top of this blog. So sad.

I'm down, I've got the 411...

"...and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don't care how dope his ride is. My momma didn't raise no foo'!"

10 points if you guess the movie.

Before you begin, please place the fleshy, movable, muscular organ, attached in most vertebrates to the floor of the mouth, otherwise known as the tongue, into the buccal aspect of the gum, otherwise known as the cheek.

And, begin!

So, you know you live in the hood when you go to your monthly neighborhood association meeting and are handed a copy of "Da Slang Thang", a dictionary of sorts translating local slang words so us non-ghettofied (is that pc?) folks can understand conversations we might overhear on the street. So that you can all be enlightened, I have chosen some of my favorites...

1) Big Pimpin' - a male who claims to have access to a lot of money and/or prostitutes

2) Celly - a cellular phone

3) Rollin' on Dubs - a car with chrome rims, specifically 20" or larger.

4) Floss - to show off and/or tease with material possessions, especially cars or jewelry. I'm actually really glad to know this one because I couldn't figure out why Fergie keeps singing "flossy, flossy"....NOW I get it. Thanks "Da Slang Thang"!

5) Murk - to kill someone; (2) to run or in the act of running away

6) Sizzurp - an alcoholic drink composed of vodka, a fruit drink high in glucose and cough syrup, preferably containing codeine

7) Wangsta - a wanna-be thug, imitation hustler or psuedo-gangster; (2) somebody who has been doing illegal activities for a long time but does not have any material possessions to show for it (cami question....what if you've been doing LEGAL activities for a long time, like work, and still have no material possessions to show for it? Does that make me a "worksta"?). Originated by Jungle who is Nas' brother; made popular by 50 (pronounced "Fiddy") Cent and is now understood nationally.

8) Hooptie/Squata - a vehicle, more often than not an older model vehicle that does not run very well. "Hooptie" is generally known nationally while "squata" is primarily used in the Northeast. Also formerly known as a hoodoo in South Texas.

I think this post is a great lead-in for an experience I had several weeks ago but never got around to posting about. And now, enjoy what I like to call "A Night on Lannon Avenue..." a.k.a. "Reason #947 Not to Smoke Crack":

5/9/07:
5:00am
Awaken by the soothing sounds of a crack lady-of-the-evening (would "whore" be considered more offensive than prostitute? Is there some ho-hierarchy that I'm not aware of?) screaming into our neighbors house that they need to go in the garage and have sex with her because she needed some change. She was specifically yelling at "Gerald" (names have been changed to protect the identity of our cracked-out neighbor) who apparently did have sex with her recently for $5 and whom, according to screaming ho, smelled like piss when they did it. The one-way(ish) conversation went something like this:

Ho: Gerald. Gerald, give me some change.
Ho: Gerald. Hey Gerald. GERALD!!!! Gerald, come "f" me in the garage so I can get some change.
Ho: Gerald, I'm gonna steal your bike if you don't come out here.
Ho: G-E-R-A-L-D!!!!!!
Gerald: "B"! Go home!
Ho: Come on Gerald.
Gerald: I don't want you. Go home!
Ho: Gerald, you owe me $5.
Gerald: "B"! Go home!
Ho: Gerald, if you call the cops I'll kill you.

And so on and so on...There was much screaming, demanding of cigarettes, life threats, etc. for about an hour when somehow she made her way into the house where she proceeded to lay down on the kitchen floor and refuse to leave. I finally made it back to sleep as they were still yelling at each other and I'm pretty sure "Gerald" was either physically pulling her or kicking her out of the house. All went silent around 6:30.

We're not in Snellville anymore folks.

Ohhhhhhh SNAP

Jeremy Enigk has a new album releasing August 21 called "The Missing Link". I've barely recovered from World Waits! Let's hope there is a tour. Let's hope that tour gets dirty and comes to Atlanta. Let's hope I'm freakin' in town this time. Eeek!

In the meantime, can we talk about the fact that I am about to explode with Harry Potter excitement? Movie! Book! And how could I have totally forgotten that Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix for the wii came out today...what?!?!? I'm going to swish-and-flick my butt all over our living room and blast Wizard Rock as loud as I can...oh, good times are about to be had.

Happy 4th to all...I will be joining 50,000 of my closest friends shuffling down Peachtree Street tomorrow. Then BBQ's, slip 'n slides, beers, pools, friends to follow.

Be safe.

R.I.P. Granddaddy

My grandfather passed away at the end of March and a couple weekends ago, the family headed down to Panama City to spread his ashes in the Gulf of Mexico, minutes from the condo where he and my grandmother have lived the last twenty-something years. I have never experienced an "ash-spreading" before so I wasn't sure what to expect. One of my grandmother's friends was gracious enough to take the entire family out on his boat (I don't know at what point you stop saying "boat" and start saying "yacht" but this thing was brand new and massive...two bedrooms!) so we could share the moment together and make an outing out of it. I thought we were going to go a couple miles out in the ocean but as soon as we left the marina and the bay heading into the gulf, we rounded the jetty's at St. Andrews state park into the most beautiful clear, aqua-blue water I have seen in PC in quite awhile. At once everyone on the boat decided we were at the perfect spot...I was glad we stayed so close in, close to his home, close to the places he's gone fishing, close to where his kids and grandkids played in the ocean. It was perfect. Words were spoken, tears fell then my uncle poured the ashes in the water and we all threw flowers. The water was so clear, you could see them float for a bit then sink into the water, the flowers following the cloud as it moved with the current. It was truly beautiful. You can actually see the shadow of the ashes on the bottom of the ocean if you look closely at the picture above...that was how clear the water was. Beautiful! So beautiful, in fact, we couldn't help but jump in and go for a swim. I would like to think Granddaddy was right there with us playing in the water and enjoying one last swim with his family. Perfect ending....

I won't go into the fact that the minutes after we jumped in the water, the ladder dropped off the boat because we drifted in too shallow and had to do a massive family ocean rescue just as a huge thunderstorm was blowing into the gulf...pandemonium! Just know we are all safe and I bet my granddad was laughing his ass off!