{"id":256,"date":"2013-02-25T13:08:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T19:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/?p=256"},"modified":"2013-02-26T07:19:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T13:19:55","slug":"the-big-payback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/?p=256","title":{"rendered":"The Big Payback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I been sold out for chicken change. Oh, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a long story, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not nearly as interesting as a single trial or tribulation of James Brown (oh, no!), but suffice it to say that my wonderful husband, Pretty Bad Dad<\/a>, totally promised a friend I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d write a blog post in her honor, in exchange for $1.5984 (I gotta getta better agent). And the check\u00e2\u20ac\u201din that exact amount\u00e2\u20ac\u201darrived a few days ago.<\/p>\n

So in honor of both the Godfather of Soul and our beloved check-writing Kendra (not to mention that fat chunk of change!), I give you:<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0Five Ways Kendra is Totally Like James Brown (Only Even Cooler and Far Less Dead).<\/strong><\/p>\n

But first, a word from our sponsor<\/a>:<\/p>\n

OK. Now on with the show. Kendra is totally like James Brown because:<\/p>\n

1. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got soul\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<\/p>\n

Let me make one thing clear: I knew I was going to like Kendra the moment I met her. Well, OK, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not entirely true. Technically, the moment I met her took place during a mass family Skype session on my boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3rd<\/sup> birthday; all of the local family squished up into my living room like D-cup boobs into a B-cup bra and stared at our TV, where Kendra, the yet-unmet love of our favey boy Jake\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, made her flat-screen debut from our mutual Mother-in-Law\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Arizona abode.<\/p>\n

At that point, she was only moderately impressive; I mean, sure, she seemed unfazed by the tribe of roughly 876 folks who sat in curiosity and judgment on the other side of the screen (which is key to survival in this family), but what else did she have? Could she cook? Tap dance? Make a free throw 94% of the time?<\/p>\n

Actually, as I eventually discovered, she had something even better (two somethings, actually, and no, not THOSE, get your mind outta the gutter): a killer wit, and a solid knowledge of correct grammar (both of which I discovered later, via Facebook friendship). I mean, seriously? Those are the reasons I married my husband, so needless to say, Kendra won my heart with her well-placed adjectives and immaculate subject-verb agreement.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until her wedding to Jake, a year and a half later, that I discovered something else she has: a kick-ass set of pipes. At her wedding reception (and at her family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s request) she moved us all to clutch hands with our neighboring table mates, chins aquiver, and vow to be better people\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall with her gorgeous rendition of Amazing Grace<\/em>. So it turned out that not only does Mama have brains\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got soul to boot.<\/p>\n

2. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s super bad.<\/p>\n

So Kendra\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s love affair with Jake has basically had her poinging back and forth across the country like a rabid squirrel on a racquetball court: from Arizona to Pennsylvania and, eventually, back again. When the two love squirrels began, in the midst of a Pennsylvania winter, to plan their future together, they decided that in addition to making MY cutie-booty son the ring bearer at their wedding (a decision I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure has resulted in some regret, because the kid stuck his tongue out in every single photo, and then spent the latter half the reception wearing the garter\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d caught\u00e2\u20ac\u201daround his head) they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d also be making Arizona their long-term home.<\/p>\n

Part I of that plan involved Kendra blazing the cross-country trail ahead of Jake, to seek her fortune and to set up camp. And honey, our girl did it in style; not only did she pick up a classy new ride for the occasion, Sister also got herself a gun (which she named Clarence, at my suggestion). Then, with her best Clint Eastwood \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mess with ME, Motherf!@#$%&%#er!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d face at the ready (for those of you who rely heavily on mental images, please conjure more of a Dirty Harry-era face, and not a 2012 Republican National Convention face\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 although if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gone for the latter, that empty passenger seat would have provided some great road trip conversation for our heroine), she set forth like the bad-ass she is.<\/p>\n

3. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say it loud\u00e2\u20ac\u201dshe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s black and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proud!<\/p>\n

Wait . . . what? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not? Oh. Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sticking with this one, because honestly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d give her an honorary membership in the club of my people any day, if I were in charge of that sort of thing (which, unfortunately, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not any longer, after an early-90s debacle in which I accidentally sent a congratulatory letter of honorary membership to David Koresh<\/a> instead of David Bowie\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut can I just say that it was an understandable mistake, given that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both pretty, pretty men who are (or were<\/em>, in one case) kinda out there<\/em>?). As it is, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll either have to wait until my 20-year probationary period ends (on Juneteenth of this year), or complete a rigorous exam that includes full memorization and one-woman performance of The Wiz<\/em>.<\/p>\n

4. She don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know karate\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Actually, I have no idea if this is true. In fact, I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised if Kendra does know some serious karate moves, and is just keeping them under wraps until such time as she is called to bust \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem out\u00e2\u20ac\u201dlike if she should happen upon someone in the midst of a ritual puppy-kicking, or catch a mofo purposely using an apostrophe to denote plurality (actually, this grammatical atrocity may not have the same effect on her as it does on me (in short, it makes me want to rip out the nearest six sets of eyeballs\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on a billboard, television, or some other display that I know will result in at least a thousand people seeing that business and perhaps beginning to believe in their hearts that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK (it is SO NOT OK), then also a few uvulas to boot), but I would like to think that in the name of grammar pedants everywhere, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have my back on this one). Because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bad-ass, I tell ya. She does Cross-Fit. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to jack with her. She will sit, all calm and Zen, through whatever petty tyranny you think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gangster enough to dish out\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut then, like Mr. Miyagi, she will bust out some surprise black-eye-makin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 moves on your ass without even ruffling her mustache. Or she would. If she knew karate. However, for the purposes of this blog, post, she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

5. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6but she knows ka-RA-zy (yes, she does).<\/p>\n

Now, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong: I think crazy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexcept when it borders on the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer or Fred Phelps\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis a good thing. Frankly, I kinda have to feel that way, because crazy people love me. Seriously. LOVE MY ASS. When I lived in the Bay Area, California (which is replete with all kinds of insanity), my friends would marvel, as we walked together to the BART station, at the (apparently invisible) come-hither beacon that drew every left-of center being within a two-block radius straight to my bosom. Guy who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d peed on himself in the grocery store? Hither he came, in response to my silent siren call, to engage in a lengthy conversation about the hoisin sauce he spotted in my cart. Dude who spent his days hunched gutterside in his special-issue FBI suit (which, according to him, kept his body absolutely pristine for top-secret missions; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Check out my hands,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, floating them near my face, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been in the pockets.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)? Ran straight to my side daily to protect me from aliens on the way to the BART station. Doughnut shop clerk who changed his name weekly to evade government flunkies who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been dispatched to dispose of him and his classified knowledge about the Great Microwave Conspiracy? Dropped to his knees before me and offered me free doughnuts, in recognition of me as the Queen of his people.<\/p>\n

OK, that last one is an exaggeration; I did get the free doughnuts, but I was never officially crowned. Point is, I got no problem with crazy, as long as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accompanied by kind. That said, I have one crazy family. So far no FBI consorts with rampant incontinence\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still pretty far left of center ourselves. And Kendra has squished in among us nutballs like it ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t no thang\u00e2\u20ac\u201das evidenced by the $1.5984 check she actually wrote, signed, and mailed\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich is all the more reason to love her crazy ass (as if being cooler than James Brown weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I been sold out for chicken change. Oh, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a long story, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not nearly as interesting as a single trial or tribulation of James Brown (oh, no!), but suffice it to say that my wonderful husband, Pretty Bad Dad, totally promised a friend I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d write a blog post in her honor, in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Big Payback”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instaprincess.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}