Project Kengikat

Smiling because…..

// October 25th, 2009 // Uncategorized

You know when you wake up and have this feeling that the day you’re opening your eyes to is going to be a good one? The days when the sun is already up and the movement of the city has already started. Almost like it is in full swing? Days where you think to yourself, maybe even say out loud “this is going to be a great day.” Do you know what kind of days I am talking about? Have you had many of those days? Today was one of those days for me…..in fact it has been one of those weekends.

I woke up pretty late because I was on the phone talking to a friend from my youtube channel until late. However shortly after I woke up I got a call from my niece Adraine asking me if I wanted to have breakfast with her and her family. Since I really had no plans until my 3:00PM Conversations with Kengi interview I said yes. However she later called back and asked if I wanted to spend “family day” with them and at first I said said “no” because I had already scheduled the interview for 3:00PM, but after speaking and laughing with her for a minute I told her “yes” and then sent a text message to my friend Kelly, the lady I was going to be speaking with and asked if we could do it later. It wasnt long before she texted me back to say that would be ok with her. So I was set to have an awesome day with my family.

I spend time with my niece quit a bit, but her husband Kevin most times is at work when we hang out so when he comes by after work they really dont hang out very long. Plus youhave to pay for parking where I live. Since I dont drive there is no parking for me and I was just told that even if I get a car I still will not have a parking space. The meters here in Hollywood by my place are $2 per hour and many of them fail right after the swallow your money, leaving you at risk of getting a ticket for something the city should be required to fix. Just doesn’t seem right that the City of Los Angeles has meters that take your money, but then fail and they you get a parking ticket for it. Sounds like a double payment to me. Because of this I dont get many visit from people here at my placeand when I do they are for a very short time period.

Today was very different, Kevin was off, the kids were not in school and since they never go to church there was nothing like some long drawn out collect all your money, pay to get a blessing from Jesus lessons that needed to be tended to either. Nope we had all day to laugh and have a great time with each other.

Our plan was to head to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, but once we made the left turn onto Gower and all of us saw the crowd of people waiting outside I suggested we check out the new placed called The Waffle that opened not too long ago. I was under the impression that this place was very much like the place in Atlanta called the Waffle House, but man was I wrong and was I ever sorry that we stopped there. In fact I think all of us were….well the kids were cool with that they had, but kids dont really care ya know. We all had our mouths and stomachs set for some awesome food and that just wasnt what we got at the Waffle. Nor did we get good service and the prices were far to high. Burgers that cost more then Hamber Hamlet and taste the same as Burger King is really a bit much and then have your food auctioned off once it gets to the table was just really bad. Kevin ordered Cranberry Juice and as soon as the waitress set it down I could clearly see that water had been added to it to stretch it. Even the Iced Tea was watered down to make it go further. The meal itself took forever, more the 30 minutes and we ordered was three burgers and two kids meals that could not have taken more then 10 minutes to cook. Yes the place was busy, but other tables that came after us with larger parties got their food before us, which leads me to believe that the waitress never punched our order in when she should have, thus making the wait time far longer then it should have been. Even when she came to the table and said “you order will be here in one minute, it was still over 10 minutes before it came and then there was clearly no quality control or check to make sure it was made the way the menu says because we had to ask for things that should have gone on the burger. The Waffle is not worth the time nor the effort.

However we made the most of it, laughing and talking and enjoying our conversations about how we use to cater events and provide meals for both USC and UCLA. We also laughed at how we use to hang out and just enjoy the awesome lives that God has blessed us with. I even had a chance to visit with my great nieces and great nephew which was just so cool to sit with them and watch them color. Ray even shared and talked with me about the book he is reading for school.

We laughed as we walked out of the Waffle and headed back to the car to head pretty much around the corner to enjoy the rest of the day at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum where we had such a blast hanging out, laughing and taking some pretty cool and down right funny pictures.

Once aback home I did some work on my upcoming Thanksgiving outreaches that I am calling “Giving Thanks” which will provide two Thanksgiving boxes to a family in Santa Monica battling HIV and a another family in Santa Monica who has just come through over two years of homeless. The Thanksgiving Day I am planning to feed at least 20 homeless people a home cooked kick butt Thanksgiving Day meal as well as provide them with a Do Something Kit. The the Saturday after Thanksgiving my Unpluggin HIV outreach will return to Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles to provide a awesome holiday meal, gently used clothes, shoes, and Life Kits to 40 people battling HIV and AIDS as well as low income.

My plan to do the interview for conversations with Kengi didn’t happen, which is fine because I need to prepare myself for tomorrow’s Conversations with Kengi as well post my “I am grateful” blog to my blog network and even take the time to get some dinner in my system.

I really could not have asked for a better weekend. From start to end it was filled with smiles, friends, helping other and it ended with smiles, FAMILY and working towards helping others. As I sit here an type out this blog and think of all that I have in my life to be “grateful” and “thankful” things that come to my mind are my health and strength, a sound mind, my love for life, the awesome organization that my heart and soul are poured into each day and last I think of this time last year, when many said my life was over, many said I could never pull through it, many said how worthless, stupid and backwards I was, but I simply took it all in stride and said “keep it pushing” and from where I sit right now, from the view I am enjoying of my awesome life, I am smiling because just like then, I am saying to all the doubters the very same things I have said all along.  So right now I am smiling because this joy that Ihave aint up to you and you cant take it away. God is keeping me.