Today started at 8:30 am with the vibration of my cell phone. I normally turn it off, but I promised my sister that I'd be available to take my niece Serenity to school is necessary. When I picked up the phone, a female voice asked for Tiffani, and I promptly told her 'wrong number,' and hung up the phone. While the phone was in my hand, I decided to call Henry Ford Hospital because Uncle Elvin had been taken to the emergency room there last night. Of course, he had already been discharged from he hospital.

Once I had some coffee, I started to come alive, excited for another Friday, and warm weather, though dreary. For some reason, I felt really inspired and free for the first part of the day. I stepped outside to stand in the warm rain because I couldn't remember the last time I'd let myself do that. I actually uttered the words, "I love my country,"...which never fucking happens. Above all, I actually dropped my nerdy pretenses long enough to touched by Katy Perry's "Firework." I'm in another chapter in life where I feel like I'm rising from ashes, so the song spoke to me. I've had the blues for so long over the past few years that I really cherish the days when vitality radiates from me. Today would be a good day not because of the outside world, but because I'd decreed it so within me.

I spent the afternoon catching up with Chael. That was a mostly positive experience, outside of a brief and snarky interruption from Frank. Not that out of the ordinary, but still prickly and off-putting. Oh well.

Nikki ended up asking me to pick up Serenity from school, so I decided to use the opportunity to have some quality time with Rennie. We stopped at the grocery store to get supplies to make strawberry milkshakes for Rennie and her friends on the block. The making of the milkshakes happened in typical six-year-old fashion: impatiently, with lots of spills, and lots of internal effort on my part to not try and control everything. We topped shakes with extra-thick whipped cream, a couple sliced strawberries, and some leftover red birthday sprinkles. Rennie definitely scored some cool points with her clique, and did not hesitate to take FULL credit for making the milkshakes. She has an above-average need to be liked. I can relate.

I decided to hang out with Rennie's clique while they dove into their shakes, and saw a few interesting things. Joe-Joe, Rennie's homie from down the street, said that he hadn't had an actual strawberry before. Is that strange for a seven-year-old? I thought it was. I couldn't help but think of how often I see his parents walk to the party store around the corner. My family stopped shopping for anything there in the 90's because the quality of merchandise was poor. Strange how so many hood kids get better acquainted with artificial fruit flavors before we know the original flavors our candies imitate.

Later, as the sun left us, Rennie broke my heart when she walked up and asked, "are you going to ask my parents if I can spend the night?" With her grandmother out of town in California, she clearly felt like I was her only hope for having a fun evening. It was really wrenching to see the look of sheer disappointment on her face when I told her no. She was so devastated. She wasn't being a brat. Rather, she was trying to communicate that generally, she prefers being over here to being at her own house. I don't blame her (at all). Most of the kids on the block seemed starved for quality interaction with their parents. I just wish these same parents were in tune with the needs of their own children.

Inside of 30 minutes, the sun fell completely, the porches of the block cleared after today's Ghetto Show, and there was nothing but the faint sound of cars flying along the expressways in the distance, and a pre-recorded Call to Prayer blaring from the loudspeakers of the mosque a few blocks away. Friday.