Well I am victim.

I was caught up in the massive number of flights that Northwest Airlines canceled. Since I am a flight attendant of some sort, I fly standby. Flying standby makes the lowest person on the totem pole in this game.

I left Florida on Thursday at 7 a.m. and didn't get to Detroit til Fri morning. Yes, you read that correctly. I felt like a contestant on the the television show, the Amazing Race. Trying to get here from there by plane, train and automobile. It was crazy. I couldn't even fly into Detroit. I had to fly into Toledo and rent a car and drive in the rain an hour home. All this for the family reunion. No one can ever say that I am not a team player.

So I have been trying to get back South for two days now. Every flight that I have attempted to take is booked solid. So in the meantime, I am just going to chill and take it easy. I figure why get worked up and bent out of shape? For what? There is nothing that I can do about not getting out on a flight. They say everything happens for a reason.

I have been told the reason flights are being canceled is because pilots are calling off sick. Some say they are overworked and others say they are disgruntled with their contract. Whatever the reason, I wish them well. I like it when people stand up for what they believe in. It's not fair for a CEO to rake in millions while the folks that are doing the real work make close to nothing.

So while I wait out a seat on a flight, I guess I will just enjoy these lovely Detroit summer days and catch up with my Godbabies. Every day is blessing so I might as well enjoy them.

My goodness, it took me 3 months to finally break down and get cable and now that I finally got it, I don’t want it anymore. I haven’t always felt like this. It’s just this past weekend I was driven crazy by all the Michael Vick coverage.

In case you have been living under a rock, Mike Vick was in indicted last week on dog fighting charges. Boo damn hoo. It’s a sad thing, yes, for the dogs that is. I have been witness to a dogfight live and in living color and it is something that I never want to see again. Although I only watched for about 20 seconds, it was the most terrible, vile thing that I had ever witnessed.

Senators, news commentators and protestors are all over FOX News, MSNBC and the local news calling for Vick’s head on a stick. Media overkill, of course. What got me is the investigation started in April and the indictment came just two months later. Vick is going to need all of his fancy footwork to get himself out this one. Those boy’s ain’t playing.

It would be too easy for me to play the race card and say because Vick is a black man with a mind boggling amount of money that the law is going hard after him. Instead, I am going to play the human race card.

Senators, news commentators, protestors are all over FOX News, MSNBC and the local news calling for Vick’s head on a stick. But where were all these jokers when Katrina was going down? The Feds worked around the clock getting a case together against Vick but who is working the day shift getting a case together against those who dropped the ball concerning the victims of Hurricane Katrina? Let’s not mention Katrina survivors are still being victimized. It was reported recently that the FEMA trailer’s walls were built with asbestos and formaldehyde. Hmmm, walls made of trash and embalming fluid. Niceee. But no let’s not talk about that.

There was a senator on the Senate floor last week that gave an impassioned speech about dog fighting being “dastardly” and he used some other adjectives that I forgot. I think I was too caught up in how this man was shaking like he had Parkinson’s disease. I wondered where he was when Katrina was going down and how helpful he is being now in the restoration. I mean if he got up out of his sickbed to hurl colorful adjectives at Vick then surely he has been ringing the alarm making sure Katrina victims get the aid that they need, right? I know, I know. Let’s not hold our collective breaths.

So it is safe to assume that dogs are more important than humans, at least in the eyes of the government. A hurricane single handedly wipes out an entire city and almost two years later the majority of the residents still haven’t moved back. I’m sure it’s not because they don’t want to but because rebuilding is slow. In a country as prosperous as the United States there is no reason why more isn’t being done to restore New Orleans. The US finds money for everything else. It would be nice if George Bush would just have a forum and say aloud that Black Folks are unimportant to him and his cronies so we can just that out of the way.

Hopefully, when the FED’s are finished chasing down alleged dog killers then maybe they can pursue some of their own. And maybe we can finally be on our way to getting New Orleans together.

Home was wonderful, as usual. The reunion was awesome and everyone looked so good. That really warmed my heart. It was a hoot to see the class clown show up with his wife and four kids. I swear you never know how people are going to turn out.

One of my best friends, Cherish, did make the flight home and our antics started when we met in the Minneapolis airport. She ran up on me while I was looking for a lottery machine. (Please don’t tell my Pastor because in his sermon today he said stop going to the lottery line.) But anyway check out her blog http://cherish08.spaces.live.com to see exactly what I mean. Or just click on Cherish's Space going down the side of this page.

I posted a couple of pictures and when I say a couple, I do mean 2, pictures in the gallery on this page. Click on the “gallery” link below my picture. Then in the section box, select “all images” from the drop down box and, viola, all two pictures from home posted!

But although everything went well, I was kind of disappointed. How about out of 177 students in my graduating class only 50 of us showed up? What was that about? Maybe I walked through high school with rose colored glasses on but, my goodness, were things that bad?

That’s why so many of us can’t get ahead in life. Because we can’t get over what Little Leroy did to us 10 years ago. I mean, really, can you hold what someone did to when they were teenagers against them 13 years later? For heaven’s sake, they weren’t even old enough to vote.

What is so funny is that during the time I was home I ran into a guy that I had graduated from eighth grade with. Eighth grade! I remember when we were in grade school and our teachers would go to great lengths to keep us from each other. But me and Damon always found our way back to each other. He was the rabble rouser. I was the cherubic child. He was the bad boy. I was the good girl. He did his homework sometimes. I did my homework all the time. He was constantly in trouble. I could do no wrong. Those opposites connected like magnets. We became like brother and sister. A platonic relationship that never, ever crossed that line. Ever.

So Damon and I had a conversation on Sunday and he almost made me tear up. He told me that my courage as I faced my health issues had really inspired him. He said that when he was going through his low points, he thought about me and how gracefully I handled things. Wow.

That’s just a testimony that you don’t have to be the richest, the most beautiful or the brainiest person in the world to make an impact. We don’t have to be any of these things but we all can make a positive difference. Mother Teresa once said, “we think that what we do is just a drop in the ocean but the ocean would be less without that missing drop.” I learned that lesson a long time ago. In my mind, by now I was supposed to be rich like Oprah with that BMW 745 sitting in my driveway, giving money to the United Negro College Fund and the Lupus Foundation by the millions. But I’m not Oprah rich, I have a Cavalier in the parking lot and I give money to bums outside of the Piggly Wiggly. But my soul is happy.

And yours should be too. Accept all your quirks. Stop trying to fit in. If someone asks you how you are doing, reply, “pretty fair to be a square.” I have always been comfortable being the “backwards” one. At some point you just accept things and keep it moving.

So as I wind up this post, I hear the sounds of Erykah Badu illuminating my background and as she croons, “let it go, let it go, let it go.” Don’t be a Bag Lady or a Bag Dude. Or you might miss your bus.