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At Link, we have this Friday feature in the Eat section of the paper where we do taste tests of new products. I know, I know. That’s how brave we are. Every week we put ourselves out there trying all those yummy and not so appetizing things companies put out there in the grocery store so you don’t have to waste your money on the bad stuff. We’re just that dedicated to our readers. 
Well, this little experiment we do has gotten me rather addicted to several new products on the shelf. Because of Link, I am now a big fan of Del Monte Fruit Chillers, Town House Flipsides, and Hershey’s Cookies.
And then a few weeks ago, we tried Orville Redenbacher’s Lime & Salt popcorn. At first, when Ashley, one of our trusty designers and manager of all things Eat, brought out the box, I didn’t think these little kernels would amount to anything good. Lime and salt? Maybe in a mojito or margarita. But with popcorn?
Boy was I wrong. This popcorn has quickly become my absolute favorite. It’s addicting. It’s so good! It smells out-of-this-world when it’s popping, and the subtle hint of lime lingers and strengthens as the popcorn sits.
The only problem is it’s not easy to find.
When one of my friends came to visit a few weeks ago, I told him that he had to try this popcorn. And so, we went out to the grocery store, with my little list in hand, in search of the popcorn. We couldn’t find it at the Super Kmart. Next we tried Kroger, Farm Fresh, Harris Teeter. No lime and salt popcorn to be found.
He started doubting that such a popcorn exists. Even after I called Ashley to confirm that we at Link had indeed eaten such popcorn, he said he didn’t believe me. Yet, I have been determined to prove it is out there. Spending one weekend in Atlanta with another one of my dear friends, I continued to search the shelves as she stocked up on water and baby formula (for my god-daughter, the most adorable baby there is). Still, no popcorn.
So, finally after shopping at the Super Wal-Mart this week, I found it and, of course, I stocked up.
Doesn’t everyone play the Google game? You know, you Google yourself to see how noteworthy you are in this World Wide Web. Well, I did it tonight curious to see just how far I’ve come.
Well, to my surprise, I’ve made it up to 5-7 pages (it seemed to fluctuate as I searched). I was quite impressed and pleased with myself, until I got to the final pages of nonsense. Squeezed between some Facebook friend lists were random sites that led to nothing when you clicked on them and a couple of sites in foreign languages I’ve never spoken. So, how did my name get associated with these? Then as I got to the end of my search, I came across a few listings of random words all meld together with variations of my name and other words that simply made me blush and fear what I’d encounter if I were to click on the link.
Yet, I was curious. How did I become associated with such sites I’d never been on before? Have I slipped through the cracks of other searches and sites and stuck to the unseemly and strange? Am I like the tags I attach to my very own blogs, guiding and sometimes misguiding people through what they seek and what they didn’t need to see?
Or have I been hacked? My name is even associated with some site labeled as “hacked” something or other. I know my Myspace and Hotmail accounts have been compromised several times and I’ve had to frequently change my passwords and such. Could this all be a result of that? I wonder.
And then I wonder what others would think. I know I’d wonder what someone had been up to if I found his or her name on such sketchy sites.
The only thing that seems to be missing is attaching my name to some terrorist group’s site. Or maybe it already is and I’m just unaware of it. Seriously, I joke, but think how scary that would be. As if I wasn’t a bit scared and unsettled about the whole ordeal right now.
Seriously, one of the sites, as freaky as the description of it seemed (it lists all kinds of things from the state of Virginia to cardiology to the unmentionable), seems a bit legitimate with an .org url, but when I click on it, the intro looks like something from a cult or something and I was just too afraid to enter the site.
Does anyone have any answers?
This past week away from work has truly been amazing for me.
It started out smoothly on the way to Atlanta. I admit, I was extremely apprehensive driving out about 45 minutes to Newport News to catch my flight. Planes these days seem to make me nervous, and my sleepy dash to the airport didn’t seem to ease that at all.
But I was able to meander through traffic effortlessly, until I missed my exit.
What was I to do? Suddenly, it started raining and cars began to pile up in front of me and time continued to march on. And just getting off at the next exit turned into a long, time consuming task. (Who knew the next exit wasn’t going to be for a couple of miles down the road?) Once I got off, however, I was surprised at how easy it was to backtrack my way to the airport.
And as I found my way to a cheap parking lot, things just seemed to come into place. The minute I pulled my bag out of the truck and questioned how wet I’d get sloshing my way to checkin, a free shuttle pulled up right next to me. And as I boarded the plan, my anxiety about not paying the extra $6 to pick out my own seat each way disappeared as I found myself seated in an aisle seat (my favorite choice), not too far back in the plane. And the ride to Atlanta was surprisingly smooth—my first turbulence-free flight in years.
Once I got off of the plane and made my way toward baggage claim, all of my worries melted away as I encountered two big chunks of my heart materialize in human form in front of me: Taryn, one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world, and her daughter, my new god-daughter, Sydney Ali, the new apple of my eye.
My time in Atlanta celebrating Taryn’s marriage, meeting her husband, meeting all of her girlfriends, seeing her mom and sister, getting to see how big her niece has gotten, taking care of Syndey and catching up on lost time was exhausting, yet energizing. It was exactly what I’d needed.
While I’ve embraced Virginia Beach as an adventure for me, it has been an extremely lonely one. But it has been one that has made me so much more appreciate all of the people in my life that truly love me and provide those touchstones and sounding boards in my life.
And after I returned back to Virginia and had a day of much needed sleep, I began to miss my Syndey and Taryn so much!! But then it was time for the Wave Church Conference…
These past few days spent at church have been amazing! And to think, I actually thought about not showing up. Seriously, I’d paid for it all, but I thought about just sitting at home throughout the session and kind of just thinking about the money spent toward my registration as just a donation to the church.
But each day, I have been so inspired by such speakers as Judah Smith, Mark Crow, Joel Houston, Bayless Conley, Carl Lentz, and Chris Hill. If you want to know all about it and all about how the whole week has been such a blessing, I’ll tell you in detail, as I have told my mom and friend Arturo. But I can’t begin to write all about it here.
What I can say is that it was exactly what I needed at this point in my life and all of the messages pointed to one word that felt like it was just for me. God had a purpose for me being here this week.
But no sooner than hearing about how much God has in store for us and how much He wants to do in our lives and how the enemy tries to regularly attack our thoughts, my mind was almost immediately under attack.
Just as I finished telling my mom about how amazing the week had been and how excited I was about going home to celebrate my 30th birthday and be surrounded my friends and people that truly love me, I searched to travel Web sites to find that I can no longer afford to come home.
For a little more than a month, I have been waiting for my editor to decide who gets off for Thanksgiving and who has to stay and work. But after she still has yet to get back to us all, I decided that I would just chose to fly out of Virginia the day after Thanksgiving instead. Only now, I can no longer find plane tickets that I can afford.
While I know that this is not the end of the world, it this moment, it feels like it. Yet, I recognize that this is an enemy attack on my thoughts. How can I put into action the lessons I learned this week? How will I not shrivel in defeat at the first sign of adversity? What’s a girl to do?
I’m super sensitive. It’s true, I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve (that’s just where it wears best, I suppose). And I cry at a drop of a hat at just about everything.
So, it’s only fitting that I cried tonight while watching an episode of “Army Wives.” It was actually a commercial during the show about “Army Wives Gives Back.” It’s this program where the show does special things for real life Army wives.
It wasn’t necessarily the most moving thing that was done this week—a honeymoon was given to a couple who had to cancel their big wedding plans when the woman’s husband was deployed. Yet, I teared up and cried because it was still touching in that a difference was made in an ordinary, everyday person’s life. Such things always inspire me. It’s just like watching “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition;” I’ve always thought it would be the greatest job to have. How cool is it to have a job that makes a difference in this world?
That’s what I’ve always wanted to do.
That’s why I got into journalism.
I remember one day during my senior year in college watching an elderly man riding his motorized wheelchair down the street in front of my apartment complex. I remember thinking how fascinating his story must be. And I remember how awesome my major in school was in that I would one day be able to tell such fascinating stories from ordinary folks.
And I’ve met so many interesting people in my line of work in the past.
Just last week, I had the chance to interview this amazing black single mother raising two biracial children. What fascinated me so much was that while raising them, she’s also decided to go back to school to get her masters. Plus, she tries to expose her children to many cultural events, teaching them that while we should celebrate our differences, we all have commonalities.
But tonight as I sat watching television, I realized that I need to do more. I miss being out in the trenches, meeting the real people. I miss making a difference.
Honestly, I have yet to read this book. Years ago, my dear friend Jeff told me it was one of his favorite books. Yet the title only compelled me to stay away from it. And when my former co-worker’s book club was reading it, I quietly began to pass judgment on them. Who’d be drawn to read a book with such a name this day in age?
Yet over and over, I’ve heard of how good this book is. I even read awhile back about how a movie was supposed to be made with Kate Hudson and Mos Def in it. And I’d go see just about anything with Mos Def in it. But such a movie has yet to exist.
I think I just can’t get past the title. Anything eluding to the Confederacy always evokes such emotion.
And without knowing the whole story behind this novel and therefore not wanting to comment too much about it, it’s the first thing that popped in my head the other day as I was driving to work.
Stuck on the expressway behind a slow pickup, I was subjected to stare at the faded images of confederate flags stuck to its bumper. I didn’t want to immediately feel offended and maddened by the strangers packed into this vehicle, but I could help but think of one of my previous posts about these flags and what they represent. Regardless of the intent, such flags are offensive to a group of people, and anyone donning them is indifferent, unsympathetic or just plain racist, I suppose.
And what a world of dunces we live in, I thought to myself, who are just plain ignorant to see such things.
I could help but be baffled when my mother told me yesterday that she saw some woman on the news simply say that she was going to vote for John McCain because she didn’t want to vote for that “black boy.” Seriously? This day in age people can seriously think that way and feel OK about letting the world know that’s exactly how they feel?
I just no longer have any patience for such intolerance and ignorance.
I know some people just don’t think about such things. Like how I had to explain to one of my co-workers one day how uncool it was to run a picture of random men laying cable and put a headline below them about how many of these workers are illegal immigrants without making it clear that these men in the photo were not necessarily one of them. And how, in the same article, I had to point out that not all illegal immigrants are Hispanic and not all Hispanics hail from Mexico, as the graphic that ran with the story eluded.
But I’ve already gotten weary from pointing such things out. Somedays I feel like I’m fight this battle solo. I just want to escape such ignorance.
I was blessed to grow up with friends of many different cultures, backgrounds, and belief systems. I miss being in such an environment.
