The other day I stumbled upon Amelia’s goggles & was like, I have to get a fun little photo of her in these with her afro.

So today, when she got home, I asked her if I could take her photo. To my surprise, she said, “no, I don’t feel like taking a picture Baba.” I begged & even tried to bribe her with candy, chips & cheese. Each bribery attempt fell short!

After one hour of basically one-sided negotiations, she caved in. The caveat was that I had to wait until dinner.

To make a long story longer but not really, after dinner, she came down to my makeshift studio & said OK, I’m ready now.

By the time we were done, she was like; I’m out of here & just left.

I guess, I photograph my kids too much but I know one day, they’ll appreciate it. That, or, I’ll just have some good shit to blackmail them with when they are older & successful. Emphasis on successful!

While strolling through New York’s China Town, I spotted these vivid dragon fruits being sold by market vendors all over the place.

I’ve always wanted to try them but can never find them in my area. So after searching for the best deal, I picked up 3 & spent 12 bucks (sold based on weight).

So now that I had these beauties in my grasp, I just had to get them home in one piece with no bruises.

Once I got home, I decided to challenge Olivia & Sade to a 5 buck challenge if they could name the fruit.

As soon as they got home from school, I presented the challenge, and then showed them the fruit to identify.

Out of almost nowhere, Olivia blurted out “that’s a dragon fruit.” I was like what, you know?!?!?! She was like, yes, I saw it on a show on the Disney Channel 2 years ago & thought it was interesting.

She put a big smile on my face because I just thought it was so random.

Well today, after photographing the fruit, we all gave it a try. Sadly, no one really cared for it, but I said that we had to eat the one we opened to not be wasteful.

The fruit has the consistency of a pear or cantaloupe. It doesn’t really have a smell & the taste is like no other fruit I’ve had. It was not all that sweet as I had hoped & heard about.

I have 2 more left & I’m giving 1 to a friend. I think I will let the last one ripen a bit more to see if that will make a difference.

Have you tried dragon fruit? If so what did you think? And what’s the most exotic/strangest fruit that you’ve tried?

Oh, here’s a link to a few more shots of the fruit.

My post title is inspired by N’Damdi’s song “Insecurity” from Her “A Weird Kinda Wonderful” album 2005.

“Do you know who you are?
Can you see what they see?
Didn’t you know it’s insecurity?

So beam inside with pride.
Turn it on your outside.
Let the world now.”

I think like most brown skinned girls, my baby sister Sade has self esteem issues because she is not like other girls. She has lovely brown skin, a big beautiful nose, gorgeous nappy hair & a winning personality (when she is not tripping).

No matter what, Suite Suzy & I tell her, Sade’s Black girl issues seem to persist, with somethings being more obvious that others.

Although I am raising three beautiful Black girls, I feel like I really have to work on Sade’s self esteem. We keep her hair professionally done (of course), Suzanne always makes sure the kids are freshly dipped & they are all involved in extra curricular activities.

One thing I find particularly interesting about Sade’s Black girl issues is that she is dying to have her hair pressed. Apparently, she is one of few Black girls in her school with natural hair. She knows that having a hot press or perm is not going to happen as long as she is under my roof.

Sometimes I wonder if either Suzanne or I were a darker hue of brown, would Sade have a different outlook on her image. I guess, I will never know.

To all my blog reading boos, did you have Black girl issues growing up, do you have them now, how do you navigate? What advice can you give that I/we may need to consider?

By the way, check out Sade’s latest photoshoot, with noted Negro photographer Tafari K. Stevenson-Howard

One of my most cherished relationships is with my Cousin Dee. I remember when I moved to Detroit from Alabama (1979), my brother Topot, Cousin Connie & I used to fight over Cousin Dee because we wanted her all to our selves. My grandmother Mommie would break us up & ask us when are we fighting over that yellow nigga. The answer was always cuz.

Over the last 29 years, Cousin Connie grew to not like me or Cousin Dee & we all try to keep a small distance from Topot. So I guess I won the cousin fight.

Now that my sister Baby has children, I am excited about seeing the relationship of my daughters & her sons blossom & become life long.

When I think about Boo Boo & Bay Bay, I like wish that they will have a similar relationship to mine & Cousin Dee’s.

Over the past few days, Bay Bay stayed with us & he & Boo Boo raised certain hell from sun up to sundown. There were few moments when they were separated & it was cute to watch, especially when they fought over a spray bottle. When he went to sleep, she went, when he had to potty, she did too & they demanded to bath together.

The only ones who did not as much fun this weekend was Olivia & Sade because they were charged with keeping the dynamic diaper duo out of trouble.

This afternoon, when I was getting ready to take Bay Bay home, he got sad & Amelia begged to ride her cousin home. Her argument was convincing so she got to go.

During the drive, they laughed & screamed like they do & I was so happy when they fell asleep because I was starting to get a headache.

Once we got to Baby’s house we chatted about the kids as we sipped on peach Faygo & ate Flaming Hot Cheetos. We both agreed to get off of our lazy asses & take turns making the drive so that the kids can develop the way we did when as kids. Relationships with cousins are important & special in my eye.

As I was leaving to go home, we joked about me having all the girls & she has all the boys. Hopefully there will be no more kids!!!

Olivia is always a willing participant in my photographic experiments.  She usually goes with the flow, gives me ideas & sometimes she improves & it really works out.

This is a shot that I did the other way in an attempt to practice working on silhouette shots.

I took me about 25 tries but I think I nailed it.  I plan on practicing a bit more with this photo motif I picked up a new toy to kick up the bubbles a notch. 

Stay tuned for some bubblelicious photos!

Amelia has a very interesting personality.  She neither acts like me or Suite Suzy, and very much unlike Olivia.

My little Boo Boo is sporadic, emotional, dangerous & lovable all at the same time but like most 3 year olds, she can drive you to that I wish you would point.  And just as you say, I wish you would, she does & that’s when all hell breaks loose!

Gotta love it!

Part 1: I hate when my kids are right & I am wrong about anything!  This evening when I got home, I had a photo session with Olivia & she begged me to le her put on some lip-gloss for the photos.  I told her no & she pouted until I threatened to cut her lips off.  As some point Sade came out side & handed Olivia the lip-gloss & I said don’t even.

After 10 minutes into what we were doing, she asked again & I said go ahead because I got sick of her asking.  So with the quickness, she put on her strawberry lip-gloss & seconds later her lip-gloss was popping all over the place.  We took a few more photos & called it a wrap., as I put up my camera, she tanked me for letting her put on the lip gloss & I thanked her for modeling for me.

Call me protective or whatever but I want my girls to stay little!

So anyway, earlier tonight I was processing my images & could not help to notice that all of the photos that I took of Olivia with the lip-gloss looked so much better than the ones without.  I guess it added that something special that she only she knew about.

After I finished working on a few images, I called her down to see how things turned out & she was excited about the results.  Before she left to go back upstairs, I told her she was right about the lip-gloss & apologized for being an asshole it.

Part II: Last Sunday Sade went to get her hair twisted, but before then she was rocking 2 old school style Afro puffs & I thought she looked really cute but she did not.

When I washed her hair 2 weeks ago, she was like all of the kids on the school bus (summer school) were going to tease her etc.  After her whining, I went into my love your beauty sermon but she was not feeling it AT ALL.  Well, the bottom line is, no matter what she had to wait 2 weeks for her appointment because my loctician was booked like a mutha & her cornrows were busted.

So Saturday night before the appointment I ceased the moment to get a few photos of Sade in her puffs, which is normally hard because she all but runs from the camera.

I took a few photos & that was that.

On the way to her appointment Sunday, I told her how much I love her puffs & she said that she did too.  That was the 1st time I heard her say that.  Most times when she is between braids she wears puffs for at most 2 days, so the 2 week wait was just to much for the chocolate diva.

She now has her twists in & we cannot tell her anything.  She has been dressing up all week & rocking her little dangly earrings.

What is it with Black girls & their hair???

A few weeks ago Boo Boo started kinderdance at the rec center.  She says that she likes it but on parent watch day she clamed up & did not perform with the other kids.  She was not the worst offender of the little dancer wannabees.  There were a few cry babies calling for their mama, a few doing their own dance & a few who were making it happen.

It was kinda funny watch her in the middle of everyone dancing around her.

Suite Suzy wants her to stat back up in the fall with it but I think not, unfortunately, I have no say in the matter.

Last Friday Sade & I hung out for the day for some brother/sister (“Brother/Sister” is my favorite Brand New Heavies Album!) time.  We started with that voter registration drive that I mentioned below.  After the voter registration piece, we did a little lunch & then decided to go to the movies to see “Hancock”.  After seeing previews of “Hancock” I was not all that thrilled to see it but Sade seemed pretty excited about it, so we hit it up.

I walked into the theater with no real expectation to be entertained but I was open minded (I guess).  The movie kinda started off with some of the stuff that was played on TV for press but started to take off after the 1st thirty minutes.

The ending story line was a trip (in a good way) & unexpected.  I left the theater feeling satisfied that my 13.50  was well spent/  I also walked away wondering when I will see a Will Smith movie when he has a BLACK love interest.  “Enemy of the State” & “Independence Day” is not enough IMO.

Ok enough of that….

After the movie, I decided to head to the Detroit Taste Fest or City Fest, whatever.  Sade did not want to go but, guess who had the car keys boo!

So 45 minutes later we arrive at the Taste Fest & make our rounds to the various vendors, did some people watching & chit chatting with random friends.  We chilled for a couple of hours then it was time to go & I was getting tired.

As we were walking out, I spotted the concert schedule for one of the stages & it said Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 performing @ 530.  I was like Sade, we gotta see this, which resulted in her doing some eye rolling & teeth sucking.  I could not be mad at that because I felt her.  It was a long day.

We had like 20 minutes before the show started & managed to get seats up front which were cool because I did not have my 70-200mm lens.

It’s now 530 & the show is actually starting, then Egypt 80 (Fela Kuti’s original band) walks out to energize the crowd.  They performed a few songs & were JAMMING!  They sounded so damn good!!!

So after a few cuts, Seun was introduced as he walked on stage with these tight ass wrinkled angel flight pants with a coordinating polyester shirt.  I was thinking to myself, I know this nigga did not come all the way here with no damn iron. If the pants were ironed he would have looked more together.  I’m just saying.

Anyway, Seun put on a great show & had the crowd going.  His vocals almost made it seem like I was listening to his father.  The song themes were similar if not the same and still empowering.

During the performance Seun danced his ass off & so much that it seemed like his pants got tighter.  Eventually the polyester shirt came off & the ladies were like take it off baby!  Minutes later, I think we all got more than we bargained for.

After the shirt came off the next song that he set off was a cover of Fela’s ”Suffering & Smiling”.  During the instrumental intro, Sade was like didn’t we just hear that in the car,  then she said, I thought he was dead, which made me laugh.  “Suffering & Smiling” is my jam so I joined the crowd by dancing, singing, & cheering on the band.

Half way through the body of the song Seun started doing this weird booty thrust dance move & next thing you know his dick was hard & popping up & down.  The ladies were really geeked now.  I could not believe that I was watching a skinny, singing, shirtless nigga with a hard dick popping around on stage in the middle of Detroit.  I was like I gotta get out of here because it was a little too much & I was with my child.  The last thing I want to expose my kids to is light pornography.

As I was leaving the area. I ran into a friend/local international celeb who knows Seun & Femi Kuti & he said that Seun is good but cannot compete with his brother.  Apparently, Femi is more energetic, has better looking girls & a little more original.  And according to this friend who I will call AF, said that Femi is not as nasty & horny on stage.  I laughed & we parted ways.

So catching up to the other day, I posted a comment about me seeing Seun on the “Black Cool” Blog’s  “Happy 4th Everyone!” post:

“Ooooo you know I love Fela! I saw his son Seun perform in Detroit on the 4th.

He covered Suffering & Smiling & set it off. The women in the crowd or up least up front where I was were very excited especially when he got a spontaneous erection.

I was so turned off & pissed off. I was with one of my kids.

Anyway…
Bygbaby”

Then the Invisible Woman followed my comment by saying “Love it! and I am referring to the video and not bygbaby’s comment…lol!” 

Then the Invisible Woman came here & called me out with the following comment:

“Hey yo….why didn’t you write about seeing Seun Kuti? I was lmao at your comment on Black Kool—I told you I went to see him too…want to hear about your perspective….I wrote about mine on my blog.

Dude does seem pretty horny tho–those tight ass pants were the first indication!”

She cracked me up with that last line because I was thinking the same damn thing miles away.  So then I go peep her post out & read the following

“…Seun is an entertainer, but what caught my attention more was the fact that Mr. Kuti looked like he’d been raiding his father’s 70’s closet. He had on a bright polyester floral shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, and the tightest white Angel Flight pants one could ever witness in their life. I haven’t seen anything like it since “Saturday Night Fever”. Tho admittedly, but the end of the show, he was half-naked, which seems to be some sort of trademark of his….”

I guess the bottom line is ladies or gents, if you are into hot dick & nuts along with some ass popping, check out Seun when he hits your town.  No seriously, he did put on a good show but homeboy is mos def hot in the pants!

Oh and by the way, speaking of hot, his new album “Many Things” a must have for the Afro Beat lover.

I used to wear gardening gloves all the time when working in my gardens.  I used to hate having dirt embedded in my finger prints & stuck under my nails. 

Over the past few summers, I stopped wear gloves because I wanted to be closer to the earth, I wanted to understand it, feel it anoint it with my green thumb.  The only time not wearing gloves has a draw back is when I get splinters from mulch.  Ouch, I hate splinters!

I have seen similar images to this one on some of my favorite stock sites & just love the concept.

Today, I decided to take the theme into my own hands.  Well at least Sade’s hands. I am finding that my kids come in handy (no pun intended) when it comes to setting up certain shots that I want to create as well as assisting me when necessary.