I win, You lose

I think we can all think of one of those moments in our tender youth where we distinctly remember being wrongly accused of an offense and being punished without due process. Even more, some of us might  still be carrying around some trauma over said transgressions. Maybe you were a victim of the court of school yard public opinion, or you had a mama who was the supreme court justice of "don't-even-try-to-explain-yourself-because-you're-just-going-to-get-beat-harder-cus-I-don't-play-that" and you never got the chance to prove yourself innocent or atleast concede reasonable doubt. Maybe some of you have buried the image of that person that got you that epic beatdown or never ending punishment. You've finally gotten to the point where you can let old dogs lie and have moved on.

Not me. Just when you thought you might never get your day in court, I am hear to let you know that you will too have justice.

Everybody get your roll on

It is officially time. I've traded in my lily pad bus and train pass for a set of new wheels and I am beyond excited. Yep that's her above. The new love of my life. In beautiful Spelman Glacier Blue. And she's just quite magnificent.

Making my first big purchase has been an incredible journey. Delayed gratification has paid off big time. While I know that this endeavour is not an asset in the traditional sense of the word (this item does NOT appreciate in value), it signifies for me the first time in my adult life when I truly feel free. So that's an ASSET for me indeed! I mean, being mobile has literally given me the attitude check I need. I feel now that I can go out and literally conquer the world- and my baby SUV is going to give me the security I need to make that all happen. In celebration of this new found freedom, I am embarking on a monster of a road trip with 2 great friends to totally seal the deal.

However, the journey to finding the perfect wheelie companion has been quite a rocky one. First, it was just deciding on what to buy. Then, it was finding the right dealer. Between ARP's, MSRP's, EX's, LX's, and all the other automotive acronyms, I was literally DRIVEN to tears on more than one occasion. The most difficult part, hands down was financing. I wont get into the details of my personal melodrama, but I will say, people, TAKE CARE OF YOUR CREDIT! Like, you have no clue how much those little plastic cards can damage your life. Oh yea, its ALL good your freshman year when you get that first piece of magic cash. You're tearing down Victoria's Secret and Bloomingdales. But then you get older, and try and make a large purchase, like oh, i don't know, A CAR- and the dealer and financier looks at you like you MUST be crazy if you think they are going to get a loan. Maybe some of you aren't familiar with this situation, but for those who do, here are a few steps for repairing your credit so that you can get rolling whenever you are ready.

To-MAY-to...To-MAH-to

A couple weeks ago, I talked about picking your produce or rather, picking the kind of person who is looking for the same things you are looking for. Vegetables are the guys/girls who you only want to be friends with or who only want to be your friend. Fruits are the guys/girls who you have a reciprocal attraction to.  Both vegetables or fruits are created equally, but there is something and someone for everyone. However, if the goal is to find our frog prince/princess we will have to spend a great deal of time shopping for fruits, which brings me to the tomato.
In terms of produce, the tomato is without question the holy grail which resides at the nexus of what you need and what you want. The beauty of the tomato is that it has all the characteristics of a vegetable. Its often referred to as a veggie by cooks because of its savory flavor. However, if you ask any scientist, she will inform you that the lovely tomato is in fact fruit, as it is produced by a plant rather than being the plant itself.

Now before you assume I'm going off on a random scientific tangent, allow me refocus this information. The ideal mate, whatever that is for each of us, has to be a tomato. We need the characteristics that have made the vegetables solid friends that have been around for years, coupled with all the things that we loooove about fruits, including really liking the way they look. Fruit is too sweet and has too much sugar for us to eat all the time, but it just looks and tastes so dang good. As many of us now, everything that looks and tastes good, isn't always good for us! Tomatoes are just as fun to look at but we don't have to worry about getting a stomach ache because they have a savory foundation instead of  just some sweet flavor.

Where would I be without you?

So over the past couple months of writing for KFdiaries, I've learned a lot about myself and am starting to feel like a real blogger. Thanks to the support of great friends and even people we have never met, Kissing Frogs has flourished and we are happy to share our lives, thoughts, and yearnings with you on a daily basis. What we should clarify is that everything we write on here is not always indicative of actual events happening at the exact moment in our lives. Most things are thoughts we've had for awhile and have toiled over for at least a few days to a few weeks before posting. Sometimes they are things that we have actually experienced but most are just thoughts and criticism on the world as we see it and how we think its being dished to our peers. Sometimes a little more anonymity might help our readers see our comments for what they are instead of attaching it to what (they think) might actually be happening in our lives at the moment. Contrary to the title, this isn't a diary at all. This is just us, telling it how we see it, not putting our innermost secrets out for public consumption but making a little social commentary with our special twist. But this post. Oh this post is very much about some foolywang I, MYSELF(forgive the redundancy), experienced in the streets of Oakland only a couple days ago. This post comes deep from the core of my spirit. I'm about to tell it all- we're going LIVE and I'm about to give it to you as close to real-time as it gets.

Now, you should know, if you know nothing else about Oakland California, that it is quite possibly the strangest place in America. I say this for a number of reasons. For starters the diversity is deceptive. Not so much to others, but to its inhabitants. Its not that we have so many different kinds of people, but more that cultural lines are so incredibly blurred, Bay people tend to be a breed all of their own. We think a lot of things are socially acceptable, that wouldn't fly in any other part of the world. (i.e. We made 'going dumb', make sense. I rest my case.) This understanding of the deceptive nature of urban Bay culture is literally the only way I can try to understand what I saw on one of my rare weekend social outtings.

Read on for the rest.....