September Weekend

  

Just like the picture above of the Bird Soldiers almost standing at perfect attention, this was almost a perfect weekend. Actually, any weekend where there's great experiences, memorable moments, cool conversations and as my good friend Jody would say, "rainbows passing by" you know it's been a good one. Perfection might be if I were to catch one of those rainbows and spend good quality time. Jody always tells me to catch one but none of the moments were right for me to do that. Rainbows represent the ladies for those that might not catch what I'm saying.. *smile*

Anyway, this weekend was cool and it was slightly sad... I got stood up by my "ex." Ha! Actually, that falls under the cool category because despite it being her idea to hook up and hangout, I knew she wouldn't follow through-- like always. Life goes on and so it did in a more special way. Spent time visiting my grandmother who is in a rest home right now. She looked strong. She looked good though it's a tough one getting used to her being there rather than being active at home like she used to be.

As I was visiting my grandmother, there were also two other women in the room with her. Each room has three beds separated by curtains. My grandmother is in the middle bed. To the left of her is a white woman, very frail and sleeps all the time. Every once in a while she mumbles something. As I stood there, my mother who was also visiting and my grandmother sort of brushed off what the white woman was saying. "She does that all the time; it's nothing," my mother said as my grandmother agreed. Thing about it, to me when an elderly person who is pretty much at the end of her life mumbles something, it's never "nothing." I listened to her and could sense that somewhere in her mind, this white woman's life was passing before her. She was saying words that sounded as if she were having a conversation with a loved one; possibly her husband. This lady actually looked like she was once a very beautiful woman perhaps when she was young but now she was curled up and so frail.

To the right of my grandmother was another very frail woman with salt and pepper hair and a tube in her nose. She was also asleep the whole time. She was a black woman with a beautiful face despite her elderly appearance. They said she had just been brought into the rest home. She was also lying in bed curled up. She reminded me of my grandmother on my father's side. As I stood there, moments later a stunning young woman walked into the room. She placed her hand on the frail black woman's shoulder to see if she'd wake up but she didn't. I could tell that this young woman was probably the grand daughter. She looked at me, smiled and said hello. And then I witnessed something that I so badly wanted to capture with my camera but all I could think was that I'd only be intruding on a very precious moment. The young woman leaned over and placed her face against her grandmother's and closed her eyes. It was like she was connecting with her through spirit. It was really a touching moment and then I turned away. After a couple minutes I looked again and noticed the young woman had left.

After some good time spent with my grandmother I hit the streets and had a blast. Took some pictures, met up with some friends and even met someone new; a young lady named Nadia. That's where the cool conversation of the weekend comes in. Nadia was funny, very cheerful, sexy, very touchy/feely, and a beautiful happy spirit. She's originally from Long Island and hasn't been in LA very long; maybe a month or two. She seems like she has a lot to learn and I pray she gains wisdom fast. I loved her accent and the way she kept putting the word "mad" practically before every word... *smile* Maybe not every word but she said it a lot! mad-this...mad that....yo! I was lovin it. She scooted up close and gave me a hug. She kept touching my hands and forgetting that she asked me some of the same questions already. "Uh-oh, we got mad chemistry, yo.." she said to me as I gripped her hand. "I like you. I hope I'm not talkin too much. Am I messin up your flow?" she said as she looked around thinking I might be looking at other women. "Nah..." I said. we parted ways after she gave me her phone number and kept repeating as her voice faded away "you gonna call me, right? Yo...come on..call me...okay?" She was mad cool.. *smile*

It was hot in the valley where I live so I chilled for a while in Venice near the beach. I walked along the canals. Yeah, there's a neighborhood with canals for streets and everybody got little boats if they wanna cruise around. Ducks are all over the place quacking like crazy but sounding like they're laughing. Everybody seems happy to live in this neighborhood so pretty much everyone says hello in passing. You usually find that out here in neighborhoods where people love to come home.I got a dose of some latin christian hip hop music on Venice Beach that was pretty good. It was a group called Sons Of God performing near the boardwalk. They basically sounded like Tupac with religious words. And every step of my weekend journey was filled with visions of those rainbows.. It ended with a nice semi-bigtime moment as a young lady said to me "oh my God, I know you! I'm like halfway finished with reading your book! It's very good! That book about that girl named Leesha? You wrote that, right?" I was like, whoa... my little minute of fame... Now its time to get back to reality and look forward to next weekend..