This is a pic from their engagement shoot. She’s AA; he’s Italian.
Thanks, JR–for this link.
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Back from vacation, recovering from my granddaughter Ada’s 2nd birthday “affair,” and trying to stay cool here during these dog days of summer. Darren and I have been having fun taking Ada to the pool as much as possible. She has become too heavy for me to carry around much. She’s a baby and doesn’t even want to know she’s too heavy for me. LOL! So it’s great that Darren is always there to carry her when she wants to be carried. He’s a doting granddad and loves carrying her.
Vacation was wonderful. It’s always great to travel, see new sites, and mingle with people who come from a different place geographically and historically. Mostly what I love about traveling is that I get to go to other cultural settings, different language, different ways of doing things. That way, I’m able to absorb new experiences which I can then allow to percolate inside me or become a part of me, that is, if it’s something that will and can enhance and enlarge this human experiences I’m having.
I get all kinds of artistic ideas when I go to other locales, and I always buy a few items while there to continue my growth. The one thing I always include in my purchases is a French mystery novel of some sort. Last year, I bought a Marry Higgins Clark novel in French. The year before that, I got an Agatha Christie novel, Le Miroir se Brisa, and this year, I picked up Louise Penny’s Revelation Brutale. I really struggle to read these books in French but without struggle, there is no growth. My French reading has gotten so much better!
And while on vacation this year, we went to the museum exhibition of a prolific black artist, where I heard a soprano sing an aria that I plan to download from Amazon. Of course, I just had to get a new pair of headphones while there in order to hear some of the notes in the song more clearly. LOL! So they, too, will be a part of my growth experience.
But the type of experiences I’m talking about can be something so simple. I mentioned one of these simple experiences in my VETTING 365 post HERE.
My son and his French speaking friends joined us there at the vacation spot. They arrived a few days after we did. They weren’t coming to spend time with us; they were coming to do their own thing, which was of course, mostly different from what Darren and I were doing, but we did see him once while there. He and I walked around for a couple of miles and soaked up the area together, took pics. That was precious to me. I love it that I got to share that experience with him! He and his friends really enjoyed themselves and one of them mentioned that he instantly noticed how different the racial vibe is there, as compared to what we’ve been experiencing here in the States. SMH–the more things change, the more . . . .
I write about selected intercultural and interracial events, so I will present some of my views on current racial happenings and social conflict at my Vetting 365 site since my views mostly fall under the heading of regularly vetting situations, which also cover becoming a better mate, having a higher quality marriage, and sound parenting skills. Also, as I’ve stated before in various ways, my views are sometimes of the outlier type and are therefore prickly to some people. For those who may want to know why I don’t just post those prickly views here since this is an interracial, intercultural marriage site? Well, it’s because this site is overwhelmingly about presenting MARRIAGE to a CQLL mate of any group as a highly desirable goal because an averagely good marriage is a great benefit for women, men, and children. This I KNOW to be true because I’ve experienced this twice now and I’ve observed it much in my life since I’ve mingled mostly with married people. So, I try hard to not dilute my message about marriage with anything else.
The following type of content inside the blue braces is the type I will push into my VETTING 365 private content because it’s the type of common sense content that I want my children, grandchildren, and all my descendants to read and benefit from one day. I already know that nothing will have changed much because there will still be human beings around and as long as we are human, there will be this type of conflict to some extent. The type of disease-brained mentality that drives this conflict is therefore timeless. Look at history. It’s always been there. It can’t be legislated away or warred away. Enough of us must simply evolve away from it. Darren and I have chosen to deliberately evolve in that direction by selectively avoiding the overwhelming most of media, social media, and those in our everyday lives who spout poison. For all of our adult lives, we’ve focused instead on people coming together, bridging divides. We mostly live by our own design. We have chosen NEXT LANE LIVING.
{I steer clear of mixing the topic of interracial/intercultural marriage with social/racial conflict (negativity) because no matter how much racial or other type conflict there may be in a society, women who want a long term relationship and a family must PRIORITIZE finding the best CQLL man for marriage and fatherhood material. NOTHING is more important than that. EVER. Smart women and/or those who come from viable networks and cultures will always prioritize MARRIAGE or a long-term committed relationship–by whatever name.
There is always going to be conflict between people. Women, of any group, cannot wait for conflict to end to get married and have children. Men can wait longer, maybe? But women can’t, IF they want a family. So AA women who may be interested in dating or marrying interested white, non-black, or any type of men must not allow the politics of social unrest to interfere or get inside them internally or inside their personal relationships. Women also can’t allow social conflict or unrest of any sort to harden them, turn them into battle axes, or de-feminize them. I already know that some people who don’t genuinely care diddly about the betterment of AA women are trying their best to capitalize on the current social strife between some blacks and some whites to pound the wedge deeper and further divide AA women and well-meaning white men. What’s happening between some blacks and some whites all began hundreds of years ago in the U.S. due to politics and money and continues to be about politics and money. HOWEVER, any person would be foolish to the max to base their key personal decisions on politics because politics–like opinions and religion–shift, whereas key personal decisions are like forks in the road. Once you go down one path, you usually can’t shift or ever come back. You will simply have to live with the path you chose and any regrets. Here’s some advice: When the lights come on, don’t YOU get caught at the end of the wrong path, holding an empty bag!}
Anyway . . . Ada’s birthday party was really a grand affair, complete with ponies and a huge portable playset with an enclosed trampoline unit (in case of rain) and slide set up in their back yard. I think I even saw some adults get inside there, jumping and sliding! LOL! I know I saw some of the adults riding the ponies! Darren took 203 pictures! I did some videos. Mountains of food. Grilled salmon–yum yum! My daughter-in-law arranged for guests who weren’t bringing young children (who’d need car seats) to park at a reserved area nearby, and my son hired a shuttle to go back and forth transporting them from there to their home (where the party was) since there wasn’t ample parking on the grounds of their home. I wasn’t involved in any of the prep for the party, but I had to get Ada dressed for the party and keep her calm until she got used to what was going on. Whew! I tell ya–parties like that are not for the child; they’re mostly for the parents (memories) and the guests.
Ada won’t remember any of this, but she will have tons of pics and videos of it all when she gets older. That’s the point. I know she won’t remember because I can clearly remember the parties we had for our sons when they were very young boys and neither of them remembers any of it.
As summer winds down, it’s time now for me to get back to some of the projects I love. I shouldn’t call them projects since that makes them sound like work. I love doing these blogs, podcasts, handcrafts as well as showcasing and sharing them. They’re more like my new babies and I’m like a mom who spends quality time with my babies and shows everyone pics of them. So, I really appreciate that the internet enables me to easily play endlessly with all my babies as much as I want and to then present them publicly. LOL!
Hope y’all will sign up for my Interracial Intercultural NEXT LANE LIVING Newsletter, the VETTING 365 Newsletter to get the updates and visit my Butterflitia shop where I’ll feature handcrafted items made by me and others, along with the Vetting Men 101 Newsletter and many of my other articles/writings that will be for sale. The shop will open later this month. Stay tuned!
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