l i s a l a p e e r y . c o m

In the past year I've had five female friends who have snooped on their men and it's taught me one thing. If you feel the need to snoop, it's better to just walk away. One of two things will happen. Either you'll find nothing and dig further until any little infraction - an email saying "hi" from another female, even - will give you the ammo you need to attack your man and then cause irreversible problems, OR, you'll find out he's cheating or almost cheating or doing things you find unacceptable, and once confronted, he will leave or stay amd keep treating you in an inferior way.

So save your energy for something prosperous and positive. Minimize the damage to your health and ego and make the decision you don't need to be involved with someone who makes you doubt you, him, or much of anything else. Have strength, demonstrate grace, be prideful in all you do.

If you get a chance to see comedian Dov Davidoff, GO.

He is funny. He resembles a crazy guy, much like the characters he jokes about, and plays that off so well wandering around the stage in an army jacket and baggy jeans you wonder if he's crazy, too, or just if he just got done smoking a joint. Either way, it doesn't matter because when he tells a joke, you will laugh. With one liners like 'hot dogs are like pussy. If you knew what was in it, you wouldn't want to eat it." Or the story about the PhD he dated who was always quoting guys who lived 200 years ago. After a few dates where she was 45 minutes late, he had to throw out a quote himself- "Get the F&^% out -Ike Turner, 1967..."

Dov is a master of analogies and humor while making good points; about gay bashing (what a waste of time and energy), his family, breast enhancements, how to talk crazy to a crazy person (two crazy people cancel each other out). If I tell a whole lot more I'll be telling all of his jokes, and trust me, he tells them much better than I could. He made me forget to eat my cheese quesillas and I almost left my pina coloada (non alcholoic) untouched, I laughed so much. He's worked with Dave Chappel and Snoop Dog, and his clips on his site showcase some of the funniest jokes. The oneliners are the best - you have to catch him live to hear those. I'm excited to catch his set again with new material and get my laugh on.

Every morning of my life until age 22 I woke up to the smell of coffee. It might be fresh-brewed or it could be burned. It couls be 2pm on a Saturday before my young body rolled out of bed, but the scent of java has always been there. My parents love coffee. They passed this on to me.  When I discovered Arabica coffeehouse while attending high school, I decided I would open a coffee house some day. Over the years I've tried to work a coffee theme into everything I created, though not always sucessfully. Until I created this blog.

But coffee is just part of my history, part of how I ended up being here. Back in the 1950's my mother and my father knew a woman they both determined to be quite a few cards short of the proverbial deck. SHe kept telling them both- "I know the perfect man for you, Natalie," and "I know th ebest woman fo ryou, Dick." Her words of reccommendation led both to believe they should never meet. So they ditched each other a couple of times from what I heard. Eventually they did meet at some event, and with some doubt, set up a date and kept it.

That's when they discovered their shared interest in coffee.

It's a typical Saturday night after bowling. I'm "watching" a movie and waiting for Tarot calls. I remember being light-weight irritated at being home, not out, but then again there was a gangster movie marathon starting with "The Godfather" and ending with "Goodfellas." Six hours of entertainment and I get to enlighten lives when the phone rings.

But the White Russian at the bar down the street is calling my name. So is my girl Lizzie, on my cell. "Lisala, I've got your drink you just have to come get it," I hear, in tandem with "To the window, to the floor.." she wins, with the help of Lil Jon. Twenty minutes later I'm ready to dance.

But there's one little problem. Not the usual stuff- I look good in my white ensemble and I have my keys in hand, cell in the purse. I have my water. I'm ret' to go! But the dang door won't open. More accurately, the lock won't turn. Another twenty minutes and I resign to the fact that I am, indeed, locked inside my apartment.

I didn't know this happened to people in their 30s. At midnight no less. Good thing I went grocery shopping because I wouldn't be able to call for help until 3pm Sunday afternoon. Well, helpful assistance wouldn't come until then, anyway.

I dialed Lizzie and she answered "No excuses this time Lisala, just come down here and get your drink on." She's used to me not showing up when I say I will, bad habit number 2. I explained what happened, three times. "See, if you lived on the second or third floor you could just climb down and get over here." She had no ideas for how I would get back into my home. We hung up.

I did what I do when these things happen. I called my friends. Luckily for me their lives are on par with mine. I like to think so, anyway. Knowing my friend is getting off work in ten minutes, I call.

"Hey Akwasi, guess what?"
"Lisala, " I think I heard doubt in his voice. Definite skepticism. Like he knows it's going to be messed up. So I didn't tell him anything. "Just saying hello, but I have to get going."

"Are you hungry?" Oh no. Not dinner. So the conversation ended in laughter because I couldn't join him for a meal. Because I was trapped.

Walter called to say hello and good job at bowling. I told him I was trapped. Once he understood the situation, he wished me luck and quickly ended the call. He had to finish driving.

So by the time Goodfellas was over my apartment was steam-cleaned and spotless, save for the tens of small grocery bags filled with useless junk waiting to go to the disposal. I awoke to find a message on my phone. Someone thought it would be funny to leave R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" on my voicemail. By the time 3pm rolled around, I was batty. On a typical weekend I would've been in and out of the place at least a couple of times by now. After hearing my mother laugh (I was supposed to meet her for breakfast) I was tired of laughing. It wasn't funny anymore.

Especially since the guy who fixed my lock was the same guy who came knocking during my flood episode.

"Hey, never a dull month with you, huh?" I bet the thought that was funny.

But what was funnier was the fuse that blew while I was typing this story. The computer is on, the lights are off. The tv and VCR are on, but the lights over there are out too. The alarm clock is on, but again, no lights in the bedroom, or hallway. Great, another call to after-hours maintenance.

I explained the problem to Danny, and he said he would be over in a bit. Then he asked for the apartment number and re-thought the whole thing. "Oh, really? I'm not going to come over and fix it, but I'll tell you what to do."

I don't even warrant a visit anymore. I went to the stash of fuses in the secret public location and switched the fuses. I also wonder how long it will take for the closet door to be put back on the hinges.

The Sympathetic Flood of 2005

I watched CNN for 34 days straight because I could not turn away from the hurricane coverage and the political rumble. Trying to write, doing my thing, responding to Anderson Cooper in print, but this is the middle of the story.

One sunny day in September I was feeling pretty good after 8 hours of helping people and running queries. I stopped off at my standard Mexican joint for a pick-up dinner and, I'm embarrassed to say, a packet of red Kool-Aid. The elevators were jammed up, so I carried my work tote, purse, burrito-on-a-plate, and mail up 12 flights of stairs. Once everything was in it's rightful place, I went to jump into the shower.

6:30 pm There I was in the tub fiddling with the faucets and after a minute or so it hit me. The water was out. A quick call to maintenance and I learned that some pipe burst somewhere and the water was shut off to repair it. Should be back on by 7pm. No Kool-Aid. I ran out to the store and got some bottled water and salad fixings. I settled in to watch tv and eat.

7:45pm I checked faucet in the kitchen, still no water.  I poured bottled water into the coffee maker for tea and wrote.

9:15pm I was writing, surfing and watching CNN. By this time Rita had hit and there was a story about dehydrating cows in Texas and Mississippi that sent me over the edge.Thank goodness the phone rang.

While talking, I started my evening routine. Holding the phone to my ear, I got up from my chair and walked across the room, with only votive candles lighting the way to the powder room. Left, right, trip, giggle, talk, slosh, glosh... what? Wet! Water! "Arrrrghhhh! ARRRRGGHHHH!"

Water is everywhere that I can see, which isn't far. Can't go turning on the the lights when you're standing in water. I turned on the bathroom light finally and shrieked, "DAMN!." The kind of exhalation you don't even think about, it just comes out. I saw the tub was totally (obviously) overflowing. "Yeah, right!" my phone friend scoffed. He's only known me since April and still hasn't figured out what it's like to be me. He asked if I had renter's insurance, and suddenly had to go. I called my neighbor Raj. He's always getting into similar situations, and even if he couldn't help out he could help me laugh. But he didn't answer the phone. I called my dad, with the same result. "Every man in my life!" I mutter, and look around at the lake in my foyer.

I cope by calling. I call everyone I know until someone listens. It's better than lighting up, anyway. I finally called my girl MaryJo and told her to come over for a footsoak in my hallway.

"Oh no Lisala." MaryJo is used to these things, being my friend of six years. The truth was, we could have had a little wading-pool-mini-spa that night. "What happened?"

She knew what was up before I told her the whole thing. I was standing in my hallway leading from the front door to the bedroom entryway, between the restroom and the closets. I was standing ankle deep in water. The hem of my pants was soaked. Every which way I turned led to more water. I went back to the living room where it was dry and on tv the streets were soaked, from Hurricane Rita.  MJ suggested this was a sympathetic flooding, and I should turn off the tv. I put down newspapers to soak up water. I wrang out washcloths into my actual footspa. I remember trying to kneel without getting my knees wet. "Oh no, MJ, I hope the woman downstairs isn't effected by this," and as I spoke the words I heard KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Loud. It sounded like the way the federal drug enforcement agents knock on druggies' doors in the movies.

As MJ told me "there's no need to worry" about the woman downstairs, the man at my door told me she called after-hours maintenance about water leaking through the ceiling. "You got a dry-vac?" I asked. Then I had to explain the tub overflowed, but I left out that it had been overflowing for probably an hour if not more. "Uh, you got this all right?" he looked at me like I had fallen out of the sky. I looked at all the newspaper I'd thrown down on the floor that he couldn't see, and he walked away. No dry-vac, I guessed.

 MJ let me freak out for an hour longer as I threw towels on the floor and wrang them out. After telling me to get out all the clothes and old blankets, and wished me good luck. It was time for bed. Right around the time I started feeling anxious and completely foolish, the phone rang. The universe cares about me.

My guardian angel actually promised to bring his dry-vac over and help out. We talked as I walked on towels and yes, clothes, blankets, sheets and pillow cases to soak up water. But a funny thing happened. When one area would start to feel dry, another area would be soaked. Once I dry out the wet area, the dry part is soaked. I was just pushing water around and getting the least amount up. I gave up around 2 am and went to bed.

I crossed the floor to set the alarm and felt something cold. Not cold, wet. "Mary, Margaret and Clementine get out of here!" I interrupted Nate to yell. There was a large wet circle in the middle of the living room. No trace of where it came from, just a circle. I bet apartments up and down my hall all had a mysterious wet spot on their floors somewhere. I didn't realize till much later the water outside my door in the hallway was ankle deep as well.

5:15pm the next day By now, I had wrung out 15 gallons of water with my hands. My finger jewels were gleaming. After I sprayed the carpet numerous times with "Shout," my angel arrived and we got up another 10 gallons with the vac, and it still wasn't dry. I hit it all weekend with the fan, and by Sunday night it was dry and smelled fresh and looked brand new.

I later found out that's exactly how they clean carpets: they drench them with hot water and a detergent solution, let it soak for a few hours, and dry vac it up. My little mishap actually helped out. At least my landlord will be impressed with how clean the bedroom is once I move.

They say every cloud has a silver lining, but this cloud had two. I had to drag everything in my bedroom to the living room and kitchen, which forced me to throw out a lot of crap. I have a lot more space now. I plan on purchasing one of those machines and cleaning the rest now.

The bonus? My landlord never found out.