Fido’s Forever Family

I was scrolling through WordPress looking for adoption/infertility blogs written by black folks….surely I can’t be the ONLY one.  Anyway, what really bothered me was that I kept coming up on all these pet blogs that were tagged adoption.  I even found posts proclaiming that a dog has found their “forever family.” This was kind of disturbing to me.  Seems like there should be a a completely different terminology for adoption of pets.  Am I the only one weirded out by that?

So what if…you need to use donor eggs or donor sperm

As we maneuver through our (in)fertility journey we have to be prepared for all options.  That means that we need to consider using donor eggs or sperm depending on how viable our embryos are. I’ve read so much about adoption but hardly anything about donor eggs or sperm.  I don’t know anyone that openly discusses using donors.  So we are completely in the dark about this one.

Do you have any reservations about using sperm or eggs from a donor?  Would you tell your child? Do you know of any resources for heterosexual couples that  choose to use donors to help conceive their families?

Paying Off My Tithes

Does your church allow the members to pay their tithes using a credit card? Does that contradict the verse Proverbs 22:7 – “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender?” What do you think about it?

So what if…a coworker makes a snide remark

You and the person next door to your office are on the same team. You are often in each other’s office. Sometimes the conversation is personal, but majority of the time you are bouncing ideas off each other.

Another coworker sees you two together and says, “We are running out of office space. Since you two are together all the time, maybe we can put you in an office together.” She’s joking, but she’s serious, you dig?

How would you take this remark? By the way, both you and your coworker are black women. Does that change the way the remark should be considered?

So what if…you don’t finish your drink

You and your friend are out at a bar. A mixed group of people are at the table next to you and somehow they include you in the conversation. They ask you both if you want a drink. You both accept and are enjoying the company. Your ride comes to get you to leave. You say goodbye and leave the remainder of the drinks on the table.

It just so happens that you don’t leave immediately. You meet some other people you know and engage in another conversation. The person that bought the drink seeks you out and chastises you for not finishing the drink.

Is this how they do in Houston? What is the rule on finishing the drink that someone else bought?

Breaking Up is Easy to Do

Have you ever broke up with a friend? I mean, either told them directly, or just got ghost. I have. Many times. Most of the times it was because they had too much crazy in their lives and I didn’t feel we were at the level of friendship where I wanted to be involved. Other times, the weren’t bringing any positivity to my life.

Have you ever had to break up with a friend? If so, what was the reason?

Here are some my friend break-up stories:

The Moochy Muslimah: Back in the day I used to know this chick, Moochy Muslimah or MM for short. As you can tell, she was a Muslim and as the only black woman in the mosque, it was kind of natural that we would be drawn to each other. But this chick had problem for days. She told me her whole life story upon meeting me, like the fact that her and husband got married after only knowing each other for 3 weeks, her family was out of control, her husband was crazy and controlling. So I kept my distance cause I could already see the crazy. Well, sure enough, she started calling me to ask for things, pick her up to take her to the story, money for her son’s shoes. Then there was some incident that involved her son, the hospital, me taking time off work to drive her around. After that, plus some other incidents involving her husband, I started to back off. Not returning calls, not being available to hang out. After a while, we just stopped speaking all together.

Crazy Renee: There was a guy, D, that came to work at my company a year after I started. D and I were never friends, but somehow I came to know his wife Renee. Renee’s kids were so cute. I liked to hang out with them. But Renee and Z had problems because they used to hit on each other. One time ended up with me driving out to her house and picking her up at 3:00 in the morning after one particularly extreme fight where police were involved. They stayed with me for two days and after that I started the slow fade out with her. I don’t do crazy with folks that I’m not that cool with. Both her and MM had their drama rearing up within the first couple of months of friendship. We don’t have that much money in the friendship bank, by my calculation.

Ghetto Mama: There was this lady in my dance class that I was always intrigued by. She was probably hitting or past 40 but she would come to class dressed in Baby Phat from head to toe. She always wore makeup that matched her clothes and she was one of those women that had visible lip liner. Red lip liner with gold lipstick. Black lip liner with blue lipstick. She even wore white lipstick too. But anyway, somehow we started hanging out. I think because I saw how badly the other chicks were treating her. And she was generally cool. We went out to dinner a couple of times. She thought I dressed too old so she took me to the ghetto shopping mall – basically like a indoor swap meet. I had never seen a place like this. Stores that sold fake gold, or fake purses. You know when you see women at church with those extra-type shoes one with gold straps around the heels and fake snakeskin, those were there. All the Baby Phat, House of Dereon and Rockawear that you could possibly want.

After a while, I started noticing things. She was a fairly possessive friend. If I didn’t call her for a day or two, she would complain. The stories that she would tell me were so gold-diggerish. She would always talk about asking these guys that she would date for new boots or bill money. I was interested and turned off at the same time. You mean, all I have to do is ask? But after a while, it just got to be too much. I felt like she was harrassing me. She wanted me to hang out all the time. She wanted me to tell her all of my business. She was so negative about the other women at the dance studio – which was partly understandable because of the way they acted. But at the same time, I started to see how she would bring the drama onto herself. She got mad at me when I refused drive to LA or to share a room with her and another lady at a dance convention. And then when we were at a dance convention, she got mad and left the chick that was staying with her. After that, I was ghost. No phone calls, no convo, no nothing. Too much drama. And I don’t need friends like that.