Friday, July 17, 2020

2020 Summed Up

Guess this about sums up 2020 so far: WOW it is only half way through JULY!
🤷🏼‍♀️🤔
Dear Diary 2020 Edition,
In ❄️ January, 🔥 Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran 🇮🇷 . We might actually still be almost at war with them 🤔. I don’t know, because 👩 Jen Aniston and 👨🏻 Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards 🏆 show and everyone flipped the crap out 😲, but then there was this thing happening in 🦇 🇨🇳 China, then 👑 Prince Harry and Megan ✌🏼 peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial 👩‍⚖️ , and then corona virus 🦠 showed up in the US ✔️“officially,” but then 🏀 Kobe died 😭and UK 🇬🇧 peaced out of the European Union.
In February, 🌽 Iowa crapped 💩 itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the 👩🏼‍💼Speaker of the House took ten. Whole. years. to rip up a speech , but then The👨‍🔬 🌎WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused 🤔some really important people 👔 in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty👨🏻‍⚖️, and 🇺🇸 Americans started asking if Corona beer 🍺 was safe to drink🤦🏻‍♀️, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor 👨‍⚕️ who just knew the 🤒flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.
In March, stuff hit the fan👿. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust 💥, but then Italy 🇮🇹 shut its whole country down 🚷, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a 😱pandemic and then a nationwide state of emergency 🆘was declared in US 🇺🇸 , but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu 💁🏻‍♀️, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? 💡 I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks👨🏻, get y’all to close all of the schools so y’all can 🙏🏼 appreciate teachers 👩‍🏫 for once (because you can’t teach them anything other than how to use a touch screen🤦🏻‍♀️ ) close down all of salons so you can’t get your 💇‍♂️ hair or your nails done💅 , everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings in their underwear. The 📉 DOW took a crap 💩 on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing 🤔 (I still don’t), We were then all introduced to 🐅 Tiger King and the ONE thing we can all agree on this year , 👍🏼Carol totally killed her husband⚰️ ..... whacked him! And then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion now.
In 🌧 April, Bernie finally busted✌🏼 himself out of the presidential race 🏃 , but then NYC 🗽became the set of The Walking Dead 💀 and we learned that no one has face masks 😷, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID , and by now our 🦁outgrowth is showing, so there’s a shortage on 📦 box hair dye and all of our hair dressers are like , 😱 NO DONT DO IT!!! But, then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released 🎥 videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April….
In 💐 May, the biblical end times kicked off , historical locust swarms, we learned of murder hornets 🐝 and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games🙈 however people forgot to let us know. people legit started to protest lockdown measures with 🔫 AR-15s, 🏀⚾️sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were 🗣protests in every city🌃 ,which was confusing to some of us because people were definitely gathering in 👫crowds of more than 🖐🏼🤚🏼10 and for sure closer than 6 foot away ⬅️➡️from each other . Those people must have forgotten about the 😖pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media 📺 🗞 struggled with how to 🤬focus on two important things at once, people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing. A dead whale 🐋 was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest 🌳 after monkeys 🐒 stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab 🔬 and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid ☄️ narrowly missed the Earth🌍.
In ☀️ June, common sense just got thrown 🤾🏼 straight out the window and somehow 😷 wearing masks became a 🏛political thing, but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, then 👨‍🔬scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🚧DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind 💨 was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange 🛰radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe 🌌 that repeats itself every so many days 🗓 , and everyone was like 👽 DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT‼️🚫 but then America reopened 🙌🏼from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly .... not that great 👎🏼. All of the Karen’s came out at once, and people started tearing down 🔨 statues. Everyone is on Facebook arguing 🤼‍♀️ about masks 👃🏼, but then Florida 🏖 was like hold my beer 🍺 and let me show you how we’re number one 🥇 in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Coronavirus. Then we learned there was a massive dust cloud ☁️ coming straight at us 📍from the Sahara Desert 🐫 , which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the 👻 ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud. We then 📚 learned of meth-gators 🐊 , and I'm like that is so not on my flipping 2020 Bingo card 😡 can we use it as the free space?? 🤷🏻 Then we learned that the Congo's worst ever Ebola 🚨 outbreak is over 😓, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worse ever? 👀 ....... and don’t forget we just discovered FLYING SNAKES! 🐍, seriously! FLYING SNAKES!!!!
So here comes July…. at this point we are over it , just tell us what’s next .... 👽 Aliens? 🔱Zeus? ☄️ Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self aware? Can it just be something cool 😎 or fun for once? Maybe even a good laugh , like hahaha 😂 April Fools! We all actually wouldn’t mind that joke at this point.
Also, why didn't I know about the whale in the Amazon? Or a few other things because I just can’t keep up anymore!
But I’m sharing it because as long as we make it through 2020, I really want this to pop back up in the memories a few years from now. 🗓
Author unknown 🤷🏼‍♀️

Monday, July 13, 2020

Panel Discussion Replay: Life in a Black World

Panel Discussion Replay: Life in a Black World

If you missed my panel discussion - Life in a Black World, here is the replay. Please share. Further Discussion coming soon

https://youtu.be/Wk490pJ5ADM


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Wednesday, July 08, 2020

The Greatest Man I Never Knew...

He was the greatest man I never knew. Every time I hear that song, I think of him.

"The greatest man I never knew lived just down the hall,
and ev'ry day we said hello but never touched at all.
He was in his paper. I was in my room.
How was I to know he thought I hung the moon?"


For me, he was the only dad I ever knew.

To me, Lewis Berg was not my stepfather. He was not just some guy my mom married. He was my dad. I always feel odd trying to explain that though when many knew my father passed away when I was ten. Now they ask, you had two dads? Yes. I was blessed with two fathers.

My biological father, Art passed away as a janitor from a scaffolding accident putting up a high school scoreboard in 1980. I was at the age of ten. I did not grieve until I was the age of 13. It never felt real until one Thanksgiving in 1983.

Lewis Beg passed away on the 4th of July, 2020 of natural causes because of lung cancer, black lung, and breathing issues.

He was the only father I ever knew.

He and mom married when I was thirteen, the year of 1983. I pouted all the way through the ceremony. In our pictures, I am pouting. I didn't want a new dad. I wanted my dad.

Many years later, was when I acknowledged him as my dad, but he always WAS my dad.

He bought me my first ten-speed bike.

 The bike was the start of our relationship. When my mother and he were dating he brought me a bright red big kid bike. A ten-speed. I barely could ride with the seat all the way down but I didn't care. I rode it everywhere and had it until I was 18 years old.

He was my chauffeur.

He took me to dance, ballet, or modern, or jazz or ice skating, or gymnastics. He took me to modeling classes, baton classes, etiquette classes, choir, bells, whatever I was in, he was my ride.

He was my referee.

He always stepped in when mom would be really upset with me about something. HE knew mom's temper could fly off the handle and I was always so sensitive that he wanted to protect me.

He was my friend.

We went to Golfland almost every weekend. We had a pinball machine in our house for many years and we would battle to see who had to do the dishes! He told silly dad jokes and many Norwegian Ole and Lena jokes. We would do funny little skits back and forth and mom would hake her head and roll her eyes.

My favorite was one of two old deaf guys talking on the porch


"You think that's sufficient?"
"You say you went fishing?"

"You say that's plenty?"
"You caught twenty?"

"You poor deaf sole!"
"You lost your pole?"

then together we made up one to add...

"Are you for real?"
"You lost your creel?"

Mom would roll her eyes and dad and I would laugh and laugh. my husband and I do the skit to this day. It will be a fun way I will always remember him.

He taught me to crack my knuckles, take things apart and not know how to put them back together (my mother hated that) and he taught me how to enjoy family time by playing Yahtzee or Dominoes or cards. In the past few years, I knew he was not well when he refused to play Yahtzee with me anymore.

He tried to teach me to drive a stick and after an hour dropping the clutch and getting stuck in traffic, as we were trying to get gas down the street from where we lived, I could not get the car up the driveway to the gas station and got so mad I put it int park and told him I would meet him at home. He teased me for years about that and never let me forget it. It was a funny story, we always shared.


As an adult, my life took many turns and he was always there for me. Sometimes being the dad chastising me for my bad choices and in his Norwegian way, telling me "get my shit together" and in other ways bailing me out or being there as I cried about things I was going through to him and mom.

We have had our ups and downs as all families do and yet we always end up speaking to each other again and moving on in our lives. No matter what, he was there for me.

When I found out I had cancer the first time, right away he told me to come to see them. I went down right after my port was installed before I started chemo. You could tell it was hard on him to see me suffering.

When my second cancer came, 18 months after being in remission, once again, he wanted to see me. He did all he could to be there for me and help me. He always was there for me, even if he never said. Many times I would find out through my mom because that's just the way he was. He may not have always been the one to tell me, but I knew.

Just like I knew that he loved me, though he didn't ay it often. He would hug me, or make jokes with me, we would make sure my tires were full of air or check the oil, things dads do.

I knew, however, that he thought I hung the moon.

I was his "Gold Turd" as the family would often joke.

My mother and I have spoken daily in these last days leading up to his passing and now every night since his passing. She told me last night how he would tell everyone that would come in about something I gave him or something I did. No one could leave the house without knowing or hearing about me someway somehow.

While we as daughters know our fathers love us, hearing this touched my heart deeply.

He was my dad.

and now he is gone.

My heart is sad but my memories of our relationship will live on forever...