Cleopatra Jones, Yolanda King …and me

Since purchasing my first computer I have found that I actually watch little TV…actually I watch no TV at all now.  Not that I have ever been big on watching television in the first place…because I am always too busy.  But growing up it was one of my favorite things to do.  I sat in front of the television a lot watching ‘Gun Smoke’,  ‘Mission Impossible’,  ‘Secret Agent Man,’ ‘Julia,’  ‘Sanford and Son,’  etc…etc…the Saturday Afternoon Movies, the After School Movies, the Sunday Night Movies etc.  Those were the days that TV actually had something on it. And today with over 100 channels to choose from it is very much not the case.  Of all of those channels that you have to choose from you still can’t find anything good to watch…except maybe re-runs and old television shows…and network TV…which doesn’t offer very much any more either. 

So, then what are you wasting all your money on?

Which is why I have really never had cable.  If I bought cable I would have to sit in front of the television all of time just so I could feel I was getting my money’s worth.  As shameful as it may be, I am that kind of person.  I need to feel I’m getting my money’s worth.

While my son was going to school in North Carolina, I had gone down to visit him which is something I did usually once a month…just to double check that he was taking care of all of his bills.  As I had to get him an apartment since his campus didn’t have any dorms…which meant that he had for the first time in his life he had utility bills and rent to be paid among other things. 

So, I would go down to make sure that everything was being taken care of…which really is something  you should do when your children are just graduating from high school and going off on their own for the first time in their life…as was the case of my son.  Because for one thing…since they never had to pay for anything…particularly bills…they start off not being very good at tending to their priorities.  Which really was the same way we were growing up.

While down in North Carolina on this particular trip, my son took me to some buffet where you could eat all you could eat.  It was some place that he liked but I thought it was a bit high.  And if you know about buffets…for some reason or other after spending all that money you find out that you really aren’t very hungry.  Then there is this other thing too…for some reason these places all seem to have the very best bread on the planet.  So, you sit and sit…eating bread…and lots of it.  So, by the time it comes to the food you have no place to put it.

But this place was expensive…and I just was not going out like that.  I had spent all that money and I felt that I needed to at least eat my money’s worth.  If I had had a couple of plastic bags on me things might have been very different…I would have eased some food into the bags and taken it home…but I didn’t have any plastic bags or anything else.  So, I had to eat it.  I was determined to get my money’s worth.  And I did.

I became so filled…I was sick.  I tried drinking some water hoping that it would force the food down…but it only made it worst.  I had no room for nothing…and the little water I drank made me feel sicker.  I was filled from all the way where the stomach begins up into some place near my tongue at the back of my throat.

I told my son, “I think I’m going to be sick.  We need to leave.”

I was so stuff…I was miserble.  I wanted to do anything that would give me relief…but nothing was working.  I was doubled over and definitely not feeling well.  And the ride in the car back to my son’s apartment only seemed to make me feel worst…and I felt like I was now getting nauseated. 

I was terribly miserable that day.  And of course…I learned my lesson in a very big way.  I don’t care how much it costs…I am not going to try and kill myself eating anything.  It is one of the worst feelings.

I am not a big eater.  My problem is and has always been…that I eat at the wrong times…usually right about before going to bed.  During the course of my life my  schedule has always been too busy for me to want to break it up going to lunch.

When you’re in LA working on a project or outside of LA working on a project (film or pushing out a script)…all the vendors and movie studio people will call you (if they know you are working on something) saying-

“Lets do lunch.”

They do this because everyone wants to be a part of your project.  They either want you to spend money with them…or as in the case of the studios and acquisition people…they want “first look”…meaning they want to see your movie first…before anybody else…in case it is really worth buying.

But who has time when they are trying to complete a film project…or get it up off the ground…to be sitting around and having lunch with a bunch of people who really want to take from you.  That’s LA, baby.

Most of my life I have been involved in the creative arts particularly when I started editing.  I would go into a editing session early in the morning and literally leave out when they kicked me out sometime later that night when the facility would be closing. 

During my editiing sessions which were from Monday thru Saturday…I never got up to go to the bathroom or eat anything.  Because once you are involved in the creative process of editing you never want to break up your momentum…(really that goes for anything that takes a lot on concentration)..and you just never seem to have enough time as time always seems to fly by so quickly.  So, you never want to waste one moment of time by getting up to do anything…and you don’t.

But having this conversation with my friend, an elderly woman from our church…the one whom I informed you in my blog entitled ‘Losing a friend…’ where I state that we believe she is in the process of passing…she informed that I had to change my eating habits or otherwise I would ruin my stomach.  There is nothing like wisdom…hearing that made me immediately consider my eating habits and make an adjustment in them. 

I try now not to eat anything after 7 PM…whereas before I only ate one time a day and it was usually after 11 PM…just before I would crawl into bed…to get up and go back to editing, or writing, or to the radio station, or film classes or whatever it was I was doing the very next day until 11 PM the next night.

The one thing about me…whatever I am doing I become grossly involved in it. I sank all of my energy into what I am immediately involved in.  I have been told I have tunnel vision…meaning when I am involved in whatever I am involved in or doing something…it consumes me and all of my attention.

This was never more apparent than when I started my advertising business, Queen Bee Multi-Media Advertising Agency and Consulting, Inc..  It is so funny…because I would go to bed and iterally dream up ad campaigns for clients…really.  And amazingly could remember them that morning upon awakening.  I was so engrossed with creating work…creating whole advertising campaigns for my many clients…that I eat, drank, slept and dreamed the thang.  I loved it…and still do.  There is something about the creative process that is highly intriguing to me.

I spent a lot of time developing concepts, sitting with artists and discussing client ad campaigns, and planning new stragies, figuring out rates, where I wanted commericals slotted, which publications we were going to buy etc…  But every moment was worth it…and New York provided with an wide open playing field.  Bud I just loved the work…and besides all the projects represented a part of me.  They were me. 

I love the creative process…seeing a beginning and an end of a thing.  Something that starts from nothing…an idea then blossoms into radio spots (commercials), magazine and newspaper copy, booklets, journals, posters, sold out venues, concerts, plays, screenplays, radio dramas, television programs, radio programs, and other various types of productions, film stuff…etc..etc…  It is…exciting…just seeing the end product, figures, responses etc…   Hearing what the copy sounds like, or reads like etc…amazing.

Everything I have ever done…I have to perfect it.  I have to get to be the best at it…which to me means putting in the time required to make that happened.  And that is just what I do…I live, sleep and eat it…until I perfect it. And I constantly keep challenging myself…by taking whatever it is that I am doing…to the highest levels of mastery.

When I learned video editing…and I am proficient in the use of all 3 of the top professional softwares…Advid, Premerier and Final Cut…but when I learned it I nearly slept at the editing facilities where I was working.  After a time people would walk by and begin asking me-

“Ooooh, how did you do that?”

Then they started saying-

“When I shoot my footage I want you to edit for me.”

My belief is…if you are going to do…then perfect it.  Become proficient in everything you do and take pride in your work.  And always work towards excellence.

Just a quick story.

Once I was a manager…one of 8 at this particular place where I was working.  I shared with you earlier in another blog of mine how one day while in downtown Brooklyn, I ran into one of our employees whom I hadn’t seen in while…who hugged me and I said-

“I thought you didn’t like me.”

And she said-

“Yes, but you were fair.”

You can read that blog somewhere amidst my now many blogs…right here @ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com   …pass it on.

At any rate…When you have so many managers in a small high paced space…the atmosphere becomes very competitve. 

Since I am a person who works towards excellence in everything I do…so, on this job I was not very well liked.  Because my way of working really meant that all the other managers would have to step up in order to contend with my overall job proformance.  I, of course, never realized that…because I had never encounted that type of thinking before.  And since I was the new kid on the block…meaning I was new on this job compared to them…they weren’t having it.  They liked things just as they had been…not that I was trying to change anything.   I…well, I just worked differently from them.  And somehow they felt threaten by that.

At first I thought it was because I had the highest level of education among them…but over time I came to find out it was that too,  but more so…that they just didn’t like me because I was me…a person who sought to do her job ‘well.’

I was not trying to show anybody up…nor was I trying to impress anyone.  But it was just how I worked.  I worked towards excellence.  It is the only way I know how to work…even on my own projects.  I commit myself.

On this job I was the one who hired all the new employees.  To do this properly sometimes (actually on almost 1 day of all of my 2 days off I would go in to inview folk)…as I would usually have to hire as many as 30 to 40 people at a time to keep up with the company quota for our location.  So, to do this I usually went into work on one of my days off.  As I not only had to hire them but I would also have to train them, issue them their uniforms and in many cases have them ready to hit the floor the next day.  I did not mind using one of my days off to do this as I felt it was something I had to do in order to keep up with the company requirements in term of staffing.  But the other managers…looked upon me as an over achiever.  And they did everything they could to sabotage me…including forging my name to company documents. 

The whole affair was quite disconcerting to me.  I had never in my life been anywhere where people didn’t like me.  But I did my job any how…and I continued to do it the only way I knew how…with excellence.  And in the end I won. 

At some point I am sure I will share that whole story.  But God has been exceedingly good to me.  He took me out of that situation…but not before making the company pay me.  And He made them pay me well.  From August of 2000 that company has been paying me…and I have not had to work one day since.

Through all the problems on that job, all the lies, deceits and falsehoods…I continued to be me.  I continued to be the worker I had always been…someone who goes in to her job to get it done…and to do it to her best ability.

My bantra is…do it well.  Don’t do it good…but do it well…to its highest level…the best that you can do it.

If it is anything worth doing…and you should only be doing things worth doing…then why not do it well?

As stated earlier I am not much of a television watcher…so therefore I was surprised when somewhere over the internet I ran across the fact that  actress Tamara Dobson had died in October 2006.  She was absolutely beautiful and I had thought that I had heard she had gotten into ministry.  But during the last 2 years of her life she was in a nursing home suffering from MS, Mulitple Sclerosis.

That was very hard to read considering how tall she was, 6’2″, and knowing the debilitating affects of MS…having lost a good friend to it.

My friend had just completed college…and a group of us were in Jersey for a wedding of another college friend when someone said to me-

“When was the last time you’ve seen___.  I think you need to go see her.  I hear she’s drinking or something.  They said that she was pretty tore up when they saw her.”

For the whole wedding that stayed on my mind.

I loved my friend.  She had been the very first person in my class whom I had met on the campus…we met my first day on campus and we became very close friends.  When we started hanging out…she took me to this club in Connecticut called “Mr. Peas.”   That place was fabulous…black lights, bubble machine and the best music.  I was, of course, a wall flower…and I had never been in any club or disco anything until my friend brought me to Mr Peas.  And I was quite a wall flower…but that was okay…I didn’t mind it.  I loved the place…I found the disco thang exciting…but my friend…well, she was beautiful…so, she was always on the dance floor.   We always had fun…and I loved it at Mr. Peas.  Neither of us were drinkers so we didn’t drink at all.   It was a lot of clean fun.  

I remember once how my friend…how she had bought us these matching glittering tops to wear to Mr Peas.  It was fantastic.  It was like we were sisters or something.  She was the best…my friend.  I would have never have thought to buy her anything…but the sheer thought that she did in regards to me meant so much to me.

She was a lot of fun…but after graduating from college, I later found out following the conversation at the wedding, that she started having problems holding onto things.  Pencils and pens would just fall from her hands…and gradually the problems continued to grow.

After that wedding I sought my good friend out…whom I had not seen in a while.  When I visited her…I cried.  As I have already stated in another blog of mines…I am not the best person to go and see anyone who is sick…because I become too emotional.  I just cried.

She did not look anywhere close to the person whom I had known.  She was confined to a wheelchair now and didn’t have the strength in her legs to keep her from falling much less walk.  Her eyes were going in 2 different directions. 

I could do nothing but cry. 

But she was strong…and kept trying to console me.   I could still understand her somewhat…as her speech was a bit slurred…but later on I could not.  And even then she was trying to console me as best she could.  Imagine…her trying to console me…and she was the one who was dying from that disease.  That was the kind of person she was…and had always been.  She was beautiful.  And I am happy to have been graced by God to have known her as ‘my friend.’

They say that MS is not hereditary…but not only had my friend had it, but come to find out her sister also suffered from it and has since passed too only a few years ago…and most recently I have found out that my friend’s daughter, her only child, now has MS also.

When I think of them, my friend, her sister and her daughter…whom I keep continuously in my prayers…I think of the electric reactors I saw by her apartment when I went to visit her on that first time following the wedding conversation.  For some reason when I looked over and saw them across the street from her house…I don’t know what I thought really…but for some reason those things stayed in my spirit.  And now as we become more informed…we have to stay away from areas that have large energy sources.  They just look unhealthy…and they are.

There is just no way that this stuff cannot affect you…if you live somewhere near it.  All this energy is going through your body and is being absorbed into your body.  That being the case it stands to reason that sooner or later it is going to affect you healthwise. 

And most of the time these things are located where the poor people live…electrical receptors or contaminated waste dumps…the folks whose lives are put mostly into jeopardy by such installations are poor.

When I used to walk around with all the video equipment, cameras and things…as I would walk pass the television at home it would mess with the reception…just because I had passed it.  I knew from that that all the equipment I was operating and sitting around in the televison studios and editing suites for all those prolonged hours really could become potenially hazardous to me. 

My body had soaked up some of that energy…enough to radiate off of me and distrub the television signal whenever I neared the television.  I didn’t think about that at the time…but I do now.  I recognized it…and what was happening but it had never dawn on me what overall effect it could have upon me physically or mentally.

It is energy and your mind is made of electronic impulses sending signals to various areas of your brain which enable you to speak, walk, talk etc…etc.  Inducing other electric signals into your system could technically cause it have some type harm or malfunction…or interruption.  Which in case if you haven’t been listening or reading over the internet…they are saying that your cell phone could be hazardous to your health…for the exact reasons I have just laid out. 

There are all kinds of nervous disorders…and some of it can be attributed to the meats and other things we eat…some to where we live and what we live near…some to (hold on to your seats) the microwave or your cell phone etc.  I didn’t think that you would want to hear that.  Not about your microwave…and cell phone too.

They are saying that about the cell phone now…but I do believe that in a few years we will hear how the microwave causes health problems too…because that process is just not natural.  Think about it…microwaving causes the molecules to speed up and rub against one another at such a rate that it generates heat causing that generated heat to cook or warm up your food (depending upon how you use your microwave).  I use microwaves very little…because I just don’t trust them…they have a tendency to change the texture of the food and alter its taste…and I just feel that that is not only un-natural but also will prove to be quite unhealthy.

When I think of MS…I always think of my friend…and I also think of  Congress Woman, Barbara Jordan, who was quite an eloquent speaker, being highly gifted in oration and as well as well educated.  It was during one of her speeches that I first heard the word ‘xenophobia’…but she also early in her life had to battle the crippling affects of Multiple Sclerosis.

Who gets MS…women mostly between the ages of 20 to 40.

Symtoms of MS…blurred vision, eye pain, possible double vision, lack of coordination, weakness of muscles, partial or mild paralysis, slurred speech, involuntary contraction of muscles (jerkiness), partial numbness, pain without apparent cause etc…

Now, that I have given you these symtoms please don’t go around trying to self-diagnose yourself.  That would be a foolish thing to do.  Sometimes we can work ourselves into a state just believing we have something…when we don’t.

If you care to read more on Multiple Sclerosis please CLICK on the LINKS below.

http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/mssymptoms.html

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/multiple_sclerosis/detail_multiple_sclerosis.htm

Well, today I finally opened up some mail I had put off opening for a couple of weeks now.  Sometimes I just don’t want to read anything that I don’t think is going to be good news. 

Well, I finally read a letter that came to me fromt the North Carolina Court of Appeals.  I thought it was a letter informing me that the court was rejecting our appeal…but it was not.  But the letter only gave me 10 days to respond…and I had sat on it for 2 weeks before opening it…(you do the math). 

I was late. 

Yes, I was.  And very late…which meant I had to really kick it into gear and get going on it.

So, I immediately called the court trying to get an extension of which I was given 7 days…this meant I had to interrupt my vacation today. 

It is summer and I am on vacation.  I don’t even leave the house unless I have to.  After all, I spent all of last semester, Spring Semester, carrying 21 credits of school courses…dealing with foreclosures, courts, got arrested and wrote a book…all of which you can read about in some of my other blogs.  So, clearly I need a break.  And if I say so myself…I am definitely entitled to one.  So, I was taking it…but now today…

So, today I had to interrupt my vacation and leave out of the house…because it was paramount that I get that Appeals Court information to Charlotte and then on Raliegh, North Carolina.  And I had to do it today…via express mail.  Because I had no intentions of missing my 7 day deadline…not if I could help it…now the court…well…the judge has to sign it, it has to be entered into the record, then sent to Raliegh…I’m praying on it because that means that there are whole a lot of other people involved and they may not have my resolve in handling this matter.   But I did what I had to do…I got out and got it do done.

Now, I have to follow up with Charlotte to make sure my package made to that court and that they get what I need done and out to the court in Raliegh hopefully all within the same day.

In a prior blog I told you how the car I had purchased so my son could get around while in school down in North Carolina…how that vehicle had gotten hit and was virtually totalled  in that accident…which caused us to have to file suit against Allstate Insurance Company and the car dealership, Parks Chevrolet, who was suppose to do the repairs.

In that blog about the trial I informed you how when we finally got around having our court date…the actual trial…how the other side tried to steal our case from us…you have really got to read that blog.   Which is how we were forced to appeal the case by taking it into the Court of Appeals to have our dismissal overturned.

My son tells me…that I don’t do anything but sue people.

But you know what?

Some people need to be sued.

Allstate and Parks Chevorlet needed to be sued…if for no other reason than they knowingly endangered the life of my son.  Of which I just could not let that go.

You can read more on my trials and tribulations with Allstate and Parks Chevorlet in my blog entitled ‘Tired…’   And also please keep in mind to share this blog address with your friends, neighbors, co-workers…just everybody…. www.bsmith101.wordpress.com    pass it on….

You do have to pick your fights…there will be some you fight and some you just have to pray over (and I guess that really goes for all of them).  There will be some that you just want it on the record but know that you won’t win (don’t go into any case that you know you won’t win with a lawyer)…but your putting on the record (because all court cases unless they are sealed by the judge are public record).  

However, since I handle all of my own legal affairs…I do not have to worry about lawyer fees and things like that.  If you can’t handle it yourself…and most people can’t…and I am not great at it either (because they try to make it very hard on you so that they won’t have a bunch on non-lawyers handling their own cases running all over the court…and they will do nothing to help you).  For the amount of time and effort you would have to put going to a law library and researching whatever information you need to know to handle your case as properly as you can…takes up an awful lot of time and diligence. 

But if you can do it and know that you might not win…because believe this too…nothing beats a failure but a try…you may win…if you back up whatever you want to sue over…if you have concrete evidence…but believe me that putting it on the record goes a longs way and can be a powerful weapon.  It may not be all that beneficial to you if you decide it is a battle you have to take on but may lose.  Doing so may make you feel a little better over the situation…but one thing is for sure…you are exposing someone or a company for what they are and that could prove to be very helpful to someone else.

Most recently I had to file something in small claims also.

After having all those problems with Allstate and car I bought for him to take to school down in North Carolina…my son finally bought himself a new car.  But not having any credit meant getting one of those ‘no credit or bad credit’ deals.  Which when you get it…you are just happy for the transportation and that you finally got something that you needed.

But with these people who financed this SUV for my son…they would never credit us properly.  My son would always pay more than what his monthy amount was for…and usually before its due date.  But the company would always call and say-

“Well, you’re 30 days late.”

Or they would say, “You are 61 days late.”

How could this be when he had just finished making a payment…and it was before the due date…and far more than required?

It was by continuously rigging their books to seem that what they were saying was true in order to make it appear that we were always behind in order for them ‘the company’…United Consumer Finance…to pad their pockets.  Which is illegal and considered by law an ‘unfair trade practice.’

My son was trying to build his credit so that he would not have the problem a credit problem the next time he wanted to buy something or another car.  

But these ‘bad credit/no credit’ deals are not as good as they seem.  Going into a deal with them and getting a vehicled financed by these kind of people who prey upon the needy…may just work against you rather than work to your benefit.

The company, United Consumer Finance, never credited my son’s account with any of extra money he was paying against his car loan.  Nor did when he paid off his car loan…which he paid it off in advance of its due date by several months…but the payoff amount was no lower than had he made all the payments through to the duration of the loan.  And then during the course of time my son had had the loan…each month they charged him late charges though he was overpaying his monthly payment and was usually sending in the payments ahead of their payment date. There was not one month that a late fee had not been applied to my son’s account.

And on top of all of that…they ruin my son’s credit too.

I think this company, United Consumer Finance, deserves to be sued. 

Don’t you?   

So, I filed the papers on them.  Later this month we will meet them in court.  I will keep you posted on the outcome.

Smile…and have a beautiful day.

Oh, yes…not only had I not known that Tamara Dobson, Cleopatra Jones, had died…but I was never aware that Yolanda King had also passed.  I was shocked in fact to read that story.  To have lost her so close on the heels of losing their mother, I know had be hard on the entire King family.  Be encouraged.

I hear the thunder outside.  So, I guess we are in for a rainy day. God bless… ©2008

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