We Just Had Terri Vaughn On...check the archive

Good morning family,

Its the weekend again. I don't normally use my blog for radio show promotion, but I wanted to reach out today and say ...check us out at www.blogtalkradio.com/djdannak . We just had a magnificent show with actress Terri J. Vaughn and her baby son who can be heard in the background.

Terri has a documentary of note called "Angels Can't Help But Laugh" . The documentary chronicles not only the paucity of work for African American actersses, but even for those working the challenges on their journey. It is a COURAGEOUS and bold work that should be should not be missed. Start with www.angelscanthelpbutlaugh.com .

Today she talked with us about her journey to acting to Hollywood and the present. We had an awesome chat room. We were also blessed to have Samaria Graham from the Facebook Family join us in the chat room and on the air. Samaria joining us is totally a result of the network that we have built along the Facebook faultline. We are shaking things up thanks to not only Facebook, but our own tenacities and belief in the higher calling and purpose.

I am as those on the ground know, headed to DC this weekend ...tonight actually. We arrive in the morning and its been a journey to get there. I will not consider the journey over until Thursday when return home and of course have lived to see and tell about it.

I am honored that God has birthed me and allowed me to be alive to see a time such as this. I am thankful to the mother/father/creator for the breath of life and for this opportunity.

Anyone reading or who gets to listen to my show ....know that I take you with me to DC

Blessings
Danna and Ali

Wine and Grilled Cheese

Hey Family,

The awesome thing about blogging is that you can blog about everything and nothing. The terrible thing about blogging is that you can blog about nothing and everything.

I write this today hoping that it will mean something.

I have never blogged on the weekend. I thought I would try it out. Ali and I spent the night with a good friend and her toddler, we woke up on the slow train and eventually made it home by 11:00am. The decision to not go to church in light of my blessings (a new car) might have been too easy.

I just know that I run from my own home because it is not the tidiest and it is a constant reminder of everything that feels wrong. There are all these projects from sewing to reading to my writing that I want to get done. Piles of fabric, books and papers are everywhere. While the reminders are mostly in the car; there is also the nag of the lesson plans and other preparations for work that are either half done or not done.

I typically walk in the apartment and peruse for what is in need of the most urgent attention. Today (like most) it is the laundry. After my decision I went on to the kitchen to prepare Ali some lunch and realized that I have a lower oven that may work. I made this discovery in a calm still moment. This is I am sure mundane for you but sadly critical for me.

The gas stove/oven was given to me around Ali's 5th Birthday (April 2007) shortly after I moved in. It was January of 2008 before I stoppped up everything long enough to purchase and have installed the proper piping to actually operate it. Ali's Godmother who gave it to us never recovered the stove top burners, but we now had a conventional oven or ovens I should say. For what its worth we had been using a toaster oven, microwave and griddle to prepare our meals.

I have for a year baked cookies, chicken and pizza in the top oven for which you can only "bake" (heat comes from the bottom). I have unsuccessfully, but persistently prepared cheese toast/grilled cheese without the benefit of a top heat element to broil these items. I recently began preparing pig/turkey-in-a-blanket where it became most evident that something was going to have to give. Most items I'd been preparing the last year of course cook from the bottom though at an accelerated rate. Cookies and thin crust pizza do just fine. Croissants wrapped around turkey dogs however come out baked sometimes burnt on bottom and mildly gooey (virtually uncooked) on top.

On Saturday this was our fate. I awkwardly flipped them over and baked the other side which made them Gobble Gobble's in a rectangular blanket. Well today in a calm still moment as I stood in the kitchen for longer than my obligiatory 10 minutes I stared at the stove/oven thing and realized that instead of using the lower oven to store other pots that maybe I should turn it on. Ali's lunch menu was soup and sandwich and grilled cheese sandwiches would go nicely with the soup I was also heating up.

I turned on the temparature knob to 400 degrees and turned the "selector" to broil. I put the cheese toast in, waited and scored. I served the soup and sandwich delicacy to my son with pride.

I settled myself in a lot of humility and yes some shame. I ate my own soup, prepared my own cheese toast and poured myself a glass of wine. Another quiet still moment emerged (Shiraz does that). Though not 4 star, my son was satisfied and for once so was I.

These "wrong" things (all around me) will never be "right" if I don't pause long enough to see the solutions that have been staring me down all along.

Blessings from and on a Sunday
danna

The 7th Day of Kwanzaa Imani - Faith

This is the last day of the Holiday season and Kwanzaa. The rest are just days off work.

It is January 1st and I have agonized about not breaking bread with you since the 10th or something like that. I also got into a quagmire trying to get a radio show up after an awesomely awesome time with Drs Melissa Harris Lacewell and Yolanda Pierce, the ladies of The Kitchen Table on December 20th whose blog you can find at www.princetonprofs.blogspot.com . I have agonized more.

Time keeps on slipping into the future and with each day so much to do preparing for the holidays, being on holiday and returning home from holiday.

Over the break I have contemplated the meaning of life or if I was just having a nervous breakdown and no one told me. I know I love imparting math knowledge to young peole, the "practice" known as "teaching" is however daunting. I like most single mothers are in need of relief. I am personally looking for a caped hero who is never coming.

My two favorite things in the world to do: writing and talking, I didn't get at during this "break". Now its summarily over. I sit here writing listening to Stevie Wonder thinking of my friend Judy with whom I spent time with in Atlanta as our sons born two weeks apart became reaquainted. We talked non stop about Love, Life, Pain and music, the music, the music, the music all things Stevie Wonder, The Roots, Incognito and my new boyfriend, Q Tip. I even got to watch the Donny Hathaway Unsung....I was blown away.

My Christmas Holiday was also spent crossing county and state lines through Atlanta, GA; Selma AL; Montgomery, AL; Coffeville, AL; Birmingham, AL and finally Huntsville, AL (the place of my birth). I updated Facebook and Twitter all along the backroads and highways we drove.

I constantly contemplated where we were going as we drove, as well as, where I was going mentally and spiritually particularly on a journey for which my 6 year old son, Ali is my constant companion. We however travelled with Faith as our constant companion each time we set out.

We never doubted that whether late or early we'd always arrive at the desired destination. Even if we got lost or became concerned about a route choice, we would consult the human GPS at the local gas station or just a nice Black woman in a convenient store to get back on track.

We were visiting relatives and friends...old friends and some new. Upon our arrival in Coffeville, AL to the Kiel Settlement we were greeted by my cousin Nikki whom I had not seen in 15 years. When we last laid eyes upon another she was 19, pregnant and pouring her heart out into 6 feet of dirt where her mother was being laid to rest a few feet from where my own mother was already resting.

Nikki and I spent time on Christmas Day running to the local Walgreens which was approximately 40 minutes away in a town called Thomasville, AL and while there we bought Poinsettias for the grave sites of our mothers.

As well, while in Coffeville for the annual Family Reunion, I met my cousin's new girlfriend Dina of whom I was initially suscpcious, she looked white and all I could think was that after a year of campaigning for Barack Obama my high road talk of race was still mired in some challenges. She turned out to be Egyptian, which made it all okay somehow.

After time spent with her and the sensitivity she showed toward my son Ali I realized that an unwilling faith to be sweet to her made me a recipient of her sweetness. She was authentic. She was genuine. I got a New Year's text (of the many :-) from her 15 minutes after I thought ..."I should text Dina ...I miss her".

I find often that if it appears to be honest and true then I have to go with it. "Going with it" is Faith. I believe that it could be the most important of the 7 Principles that Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba . As a believer in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is in the Christian Tradition a huge concept to wrap my head around and live by.

The thing that gets tricky is how to comfortably walk in the confidence of that faith. I work to discern which came first the Chicken called "Faith" or the Egg named "Confidence"...or is it the Chicken named "Confidence" or the the Egg named "Faith".

I just know that Faith without works or action is in fact dead. If I believe it and the rest is honest and true...I will have to "go with it" in action, deed and spirit. The next time I think I should text a new friend...I will stop and do it.

In 2009 I am therefore going to "go with it" and always take Ali with me....

See you at Inauguration (because I went "with it" back in January 2008) and give us a listen this Saturday, January 3rd at www.blogtalkradio.com/djdannak

oh yeah....

Keep the Faith ....in Barack... in ourselves.... and others