Views from a BrewTown Sista (aka The Chronicles of Kayleah H. Madison)

On Wednesday, February 2nd 2011, the Rockford area was literally and figuratively blanketed with well over a foot of snow, basically shutting down the city. This added insult to injury for us as I was racing against time and eviction. We were still getting our belongings packed when this was happening. We had called this place home since October 2002. It was ending the next day.  I did find a couple of motels that did have immediate rooms for us. They were both about a block away from one another. It came down to a matter of cost. One place was worth $500/month; the other $625 plus deposit. I didn't wish to pay that much for a damn motel room, but that time wasn't a really good time to be picky now, was it? Since I was Mariah's payee, I was responsible for making sure we had a roof over our heads. One by one, I started taking down the items lodged on the walls, such as the Christmas lights, which made the place look like it's an actual wonderland. The numerous pictures...

We're almost at the end of the first month of 2013. Hopefully, the wintry weather that has kept the midwestern U.S. in the icebox from hell this past week will start to cease and that damn groundhog known as Punxutawney Phil will wake up next weekend, see his shadow, and just say, "the hell with this!"  This laptop is the only thing that I use to speak my piece and not get myself chewed out by my common-law roommate. Speaking of "hell", Mariah and I have been going through a never-ending battle of this, which  rings in its second anniversary as of next weekend.  You can only guess how much longer we'll be stuck in this predicament. I have done quite a bit of sacrificing since 2011.  There's nothing like the embarrassing feeling of being evicted from your home that can make you put your whole life in perspective, is there?  One day after watching my beloved Green Bay Packers win a spot in Super Bowl XLV against the Pittsburgh Steelers, I received some ...

Happy New Year, everyone! Yeah, so I'm almost a month late in getting my 2013  blog off to a rousing start. Yet I am glad that I am at least in a positive mood about how the remaining 300-something days will turn out for me. The reason I entitled this blog "God is still speaking..." because I know He is telling me something, even if it's the motto of my church, Spring Creek United Church of Christ. I feel like I am in the right direction. Prior to my last post I did participate in my church's Christmas Cantata, which was held just two days before Christmas. Who knew I would have fun ringing some bells and singing unfamiliar Christian songs with the choir? I get along with everybody there, even our newly-elected pastor, Rev Ivan Schoen. He's a good guy ( as long as we don't bump heads about my Brewers and his beloved Cardinals!). To think I only started attending the church since last April on a whim to get out of the house on Sunday mornings. These ...

So the Christmas holiday has come and gone. Everyone has basically either gone back to work or is wondering how much closer to oblivion we'll all get when we go over the fiscal cliff. Have you ever noticed that nothing is ever decent to watch on TV immediately following Christmas? I went ahead and yakked about that on my YouTube page ( www.youtube.com/creamcitysista1970 ).  I am at an age where I don't care about all these damn college football bowl games leading up to the big boys on New Year's Day. Play them games, make lots of dough for your schools, and get off my TV! (Kick Stanford's ass in the Rose Bowl, okay, Wisconsin?) Since typing my blog late on Christmas Eve, I have recalled a few more memories about my late dad's home state, Mississippi. You know, the one state in the US that has four "eyes" and still can't "see" how screwed they really are? Forever steeped in racial backwardsness, the Magnolia State is at or near the bottom...

It's Christmas Eve 2012, and I'm watching the climax of the classic It's A Wonderful Life. When George Bailey's life was down in the dumps, he tells an angel that he'd wish he'd never been born. Slowly but surely, he slowly realizes just how important his life was.  "Remember...no man is a failure when he has friends", as the message the would-be angel Clarence tells George Bailey, aka Jimmy Stewart. His friends and family help good ol' George out with his problems. Now, I might not have as many situations than George Bailey did in that movie,however I can say that I will have some more friends than I started with. I spent the greater part of this evening with a friend on facebook who is originally from Tuepelo, Mississippi...the same town where Elvis Presley was born. We chatted about life in the Magnolia state, which is where my dad's side of the family came from. Although I haven been unable to return there since 1996, I do have a few memori...

We are just days away from Christmas 2012. Just got into winter today, the first day of winter. I'm watching David Letterman's annual holiday show that features Dave & guest Jay Thomas throwing footballs at a meatball on top of a tree and the annual appearance by Darlene Love singing her classic Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).  Yeah, I have been a Letterman fan since he started 30 years ago. At least he gets to have some fun during the holidays. Last year at this time, I can easily tell you I felt about as low as anybody, aside from being six feet underground. Spending Christmas locked up in another county sucks, it just sucks. All because I had a warrant for my ass over a traffic ticket. No, wait...they wanted me to appear in court... in another county...to deal with this. It's just a damn ticket, but the county where I got this in June 2010 has a no-bullshit policy. So I may have not yielded into the far lane to a state trooper when I was coming home from a conv...

Let me tell you something about myself. It seems since as far back as I can remember, I feel like I am a jinx. As a self-described sports nut, if I do or don't do something, bad luck usually follows. There is this blues song I remember, Born Under a Bad Sign , that basically can explain the orgins of why some things just don't go well with me. Homer Simpson did a cover of that song, too, but he's more popular than he actually thinks.  I was all ready to attend church this morning, when I look at my soon-to-be-replaced cell phone and received a text saying that one of my friends that gives me a ride to church had gotten sick, making him unable to pick me up. Another friend that occasionally does this was out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend. This is the equivalent to having a monkey wrench thrown at will into my daily agenda, whatever that is. So much for wearing a little makeup today. Since this is the first time since joining my church in the last spring that I h...