Nov 09

Letter to my granddaughter

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The photograph on the left was taken on the way to my sister’s Going Home Service in Maryland in December of 2017. That’s my 100-year old mother reading a menu at a seafood restaurant. She has a cellphone in the pocket of the jacket she’s wearing. She never leaves home without it and the emergency medical alert chain around her neck. She uses her cellphone to call folks like me; her two other children; six grandchildren; her AKA sorority sisters; friends and her neighbors. The photograph on the right was also taken in December of 2016. That’s my 3.5-year old granddaughter in reindeer clown makeup. We’d just returned from the main branch of the NY public library at Fifth Avenue. We had gone to NYPL’s Christmas Open House for children. There she is relaxing with her mother’s cellphone in a chair made just her. (That’s what I told her as her mother; and I put the two chairs together). As she sometimes does, my granddaughter is watching one of her favorite movies. She loves Sophia, Frozen, Pound Puppies and so many more kiddie movies I can’t remember. At nearly four, she can scroll down screens; she can enlarge or reduce […]
Nov 01

COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch and get the girl too!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Wilma Eames a nurse/receptionist puts an ad online about a couch for sale. Wilma never told Dr. Zola Daniels, her boss and friend, she placed the ad online. Zola realizes her favorite couch is for sale online when a few strangers come to her office at all hours to inspect the couch. Ms. Divine Billups, the next person interested in the couch is a gym owner from D. Billups Boxing & Reconditioning Gym, who offers to pay cash $100 above the asking price for the couch and immediate, same day removal. Little did Dr. Zola Daniels or Ms. Divine Billups the gym owner, realize how complicated matters become when a medical emergency at the gym results in both women coming to the ER. Both women end up spending the night at the hospital and learning a great deal about each other. Will the information they learn become reasons for seeing each other again or reasons for never seeing each other again? Will their families be a help of hinderance to their relationship? Find the surprising answers in COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch & get the girl too! It’s available NOW on Kindle, Smashwords and Draft 2 Digital. […]
Oct 26

WHY I WROTE: COUCH 4 SALE. How 2 sell a couch and get the girl too!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wanted to tell the story of a woman caught between a demanding and bossy aunt who raised her and less bossy but still demanding nurse receptionist who works for her. She feel squished between the two strong women in her life and she doesn’t know how to get breathing room. While she is a grown woman over 35, a pediatrician with her own practice, she still lives in a brownstone with the aunt who raised her. She rarely goes on dates because she’s too busy with work. In the doctor’s office, while the doctor maybe the woman who signs the checks, it’s her nurse/receptionist who runs the office. The nurse also redesigned and modernized the look of her office against her objections. When her nurse/receptionist posts her favorite purple couch for sale on the internet without her permission, it’s the straw that breaks the doctor’s back. The doctor fires the nurse over the sale of her couch but not before the nurse quits. They argue back and forth. The nurse packs up and leaves. She won’t return unless the doctor sells the couch the next buyer who drops by. The doctor’s aunt hears about the quitting AKA firing and […]
Oct 19

HISTORY & WHO TELLS IT

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above was taken in 2015 around Thanksgiving. The shadows you see are my mother and me. We’re watching what’s left of our home being torn down. It’s a complete surprise to us. We both thought when she sold it to a nice young white couple for a great deal less than she imagined, the house … our house would be there forever. It just wouldn’t belong to us any longer. Two other unique houses built by the first Black families to live in this township, just outside of Akron, Ohio, were gone too. My home and my history as well as the homes and histories of the two other Black doctors had been torn down and buried in the in the grassy earth. Permit me to explain by going a bit backwards. My mother sold our home eight years ago in 2010. She’d been trying to sell the ranch-style home for years. She couldn’t get the asking price for it. Since the area my mother lived in had been zoned for commercial as well as residential use, she thought it would be easier to sell her house. Unfortunately for my mother, Ohio was one of those states that […]
Oct 12

WHY ARE APOLOGIES SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, I had friend I was always trying to impress. She was in school earning her masters when I first met her. After twenty years of dancing around the edges of higher education, I returned to school for my BA first and then my masters, inspired by her quest for higher education. We grew close. We shared our hopes and dreams of the future. She wanted to be a lawyer, then a civil court judge. I wanted to be school psychologist until I learned how long my journey would be. I calculated I’d be a year or so from retirement before I met my career goal. In a particularly revealing moment, she told me how guilty she felt when her kid sister died in a fire and she couldn’t rescue her. I told her about suffering spousal abuse literally at the hands of my former husband. My tale of woe would come back to haunt me. My friend began to tease me about my domestic abuse. She made offhand, mean jokes about getting hit. The first time she did it, I ignored it, which was my mistake. The next time she said something offhand about spousal abuse, I stopped […]
Oct 01

COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch and get the girl too!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Wilma Eames a nurse/receptionist puts an ad online about a couch for sale. Wilma never told Dr. Zola Daniels, her boss and friend, she placed the ad online. Zola realizes her favorite couch is for sale online when a few strangers come to her office at all hours to inspect the couch. Ms. Divine Billups, the next person interested in the couch is a gym owner from D. Billups Boxing & Reconditioning Gym, who offers to pay cash $100 above the asking price for the couch and immediate, same day removal. Little did Dr. Zola Daniels or Ms. Divine Billups the gym owner, realize how complicated matters become when a medical emergency at the gym results in both women coming to the ER. Both women end up spending the night at the hospital and learning a great deal about each other. Will the information they learn become reasons for seeing each other again or reasons for never seeing each other again? Will their families be a help of hinderance to their relationship? Find the surprising answers in COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch & get the girl too! It’s available for pre-order 8/16/25 on Kindle and Smashwords. The […]
Sep 28

WHY I WROTE: COUCH 4 SALE. How 2 sell a couch and get the girl too!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wanted to tell the story of a woman caught between a demanding and bossy aunt who raised her and less bossy but still demanding nurse receptionist who works for her. She feel squished between the two strong women in her life and she doesn’t know how to get breathing room. While she is a grown woman over 35, a pediatrician with her own practice, she still lives in a brownstone with the aunt who raised her. She rarely goes on dates because she’s too busy with work. In the doctor’s office, while the doctor maybe the woman who signs the checks, it’s her nurse/receptionist who runs the office. The nurse also redesigned and modernized the look of her office against her objections. When her nurse/receptionist posts her favorite purple couch for sale on the internet without her permission, it’s the straw that breaks the doctor’s back. The doctor fires the nurse over the sale of her couch but not before the nurse quits. They argue back and forth. The nurse packs up and leaves. She won’t return unless the doctor sells the couch the next buyer who drops by. The doctor’s aunt hears about the quitting AKA firing and […]
Sep 21

HISTORY & WHO TELLS IT

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above was taken in 2015 around Thanksgiving. The shadows you see are my mother and me. We’re watching what’s left of our home being torn down. It’s a complete surprise to us. We both thought when she sold it to a nice young white couple for a great deal less than she imagined, the house … our house would be there forever. It just wouldn’t belong to us any longer. Two other unique houses built by the first Black families to live in this township, just outside of Akron, Ohio, were gone too. My home and my history as well as the homes and histories of the two other Black doctors had been torn down and buried in the in the grassy earth. Permit me to explain by going a bit backwards. My mother sold our home eight years ago in 2010. She’d been trying to sell the ranch-style home for years. She couldn’t get the asking price for it. Since the area my mother lived in had been zoned for commercial as well as residential use, she thought it would be easier to sell her house. Unfortunately for my mother, Ohio was one of those states that […]
Sep 14

WHY ARE APOLOGIES SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, I had friend I was always trying to impress. She was in school earning her masters when I first met her. After twenty years of dancing around the edges of higher education, I returned to school for my BA first and then my masters, inspired by her quest for higher education. We grew close. We shared our hopes and dreams of the future. She wanted to be a lawyer, then a civil court judge. I wanted to be school psychologist until I learned how long my journey would be. I calculated I’d be a year or so from retirement before I met my career goal. In a particularly revealing moment, she told me how guilty she felt when her kid sister died in a fire and she couldn’t rescue her. I told her about suffering spousal abuse literally at the hands of my former husband. My tale of woe would come back to haunt me. My friend began to tease me about my domestic abuse. She made offhand, mean jokes about getting hit. The first time she did it, I ignored it, which was my mistake. The next time she said something offhand about spousal abuse, I stopped […]
Sep 01

COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch and get the girl too!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Wilma Eames a nurse/receptionist puts an ad online about a couch for sale. Wilma never told Dr. Zola Daniels, her boss and friend, she placed the ad online. Zola realizes her favorite couch is for sale online when a few strangers come to her office at all hours to inspect the couch. Ms. Divine Billups, the next person interested in the couch is a gym owner from D. Billups Boxing & Reconditioning Gym, who offers to pay cash $100 above the asking price for the couch and immediate, same day removal. Little did Dr. Zola Daniels or Ms. Divine Billups the gym owner, realize how complicated matters become when a medical emergency at the gym results in both women coming to the ER. Both women end up spending the night at the hospital and learning a great deal about each other. Will the information they learn become reasons for seeing each other again or reasons for never seeing each other again? Will their families be a help of hinderance to their relationship? Find the surprising answers in COUCH 4 SALE: How 2 sell a couch & get the girl too! It’s available for pre-order 8/16/25 on Kindle and Smashwords. The […]
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