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When my husband got home from his gig tonight he asked me if Esperanza Spalding had Brazilian parents. Apparently, he had a bit of a disagreement with someone about her ancestry. Someone was insisting that she was Brazilian and my husband insisted that she was African-American or what I sometimes refer to as North American Black. I find that it causes less confusion when living overseas.
Anyway, I went to Wikipedia to find out about her ancestry for certain. Instead, I learned that she deserves nothing. In fact, she is non-existent. I copied the page because I knew it wouldn’t be up long. Here it is.
Biography
Early life and education
WHO IS ESPERANZA SPALDING!?!? REVOKE HER GRAMMY. SHE DESERVES NOTHING! I FEEL SORRY FOR JUSTIN BIEBER… HE SHOULD HAVE WON THE GRAMMY. ESPERANZA SPALDING, YOU ARE NONEXISTENT!
Spalding grew up in the King neighborhood of Portland, Oregon,[6] a neighborhood she describes as “ghetto” and “pretty scary”.[7] Her mother raised her and her brother as a single parent.[8]
Spalding has a diverse ethnic background.[7][9] She notes, “My mom is Welsh, Hispanic, and Native American, and my father is black.”[10][11] She also has an interest in the music of other cultures, including that of Brazil,[12] commenting, “With Portuguese songs the phrasing of the melody is intrinsically linked with the language, and it’s beautiful”.[13]
Poor Justin Bieber. Well at least he has the privilege of existing.
I used to have quite a problem with depression, but that has gone away. I’m telling you this because today when I talked to my father on the phone he asked me if I was happy. “I mean you haven’t been depressed or anything have you?” he asked.
When I told him that I hadn’t he seemed pleased. Then he said, “That’s because you’re married now and you have a good husband.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “I thought it was just because of all the butter I’ve been eating. Butter makes everything better.”
Don’t believe me. Try it. You’ll find that it’s true. I believe in butter.
Remember when I wondered if I brought extremely cold temperatures with me everywhere I go? If you don’t here’s a reminder. Well my current experience here in Florida is confirming my suspicions. The other night when I went out I swore I could see my breath. I’ve brought the English weather here with me. Here’s a news report from the other day.
I travel quite a bit so I’ve been in a lot of airport, but somehow I’ve managed to avoid JFK until now. I expected so much more from this airport that I hear mentioned on television and in movies on a regular basis. I expected expansive open terminals lined with fancy stores where weary travelers can spend their money on useless overpriced items in a jet-lag induced haze. Boy, was I wrong.
Instead, I experienced an airport that smelled faintly of poop. Even though there was no actual construction going on the airport felt like it was under construction. I kept thinking that maybe it would be a nice airport once they finished working on it.
Our layover was only 2 hours and most of that time was spent going through immigration and customs. Once we got through immigration and customs we had to stand in line to go through security screening again before going into the terminal for our transfer. What do they think I’m going to have on me? I just got off the airplane. Then we walked around the narrow halls of our terminal. I’ve never seen an airport with hallways this narrow. The foot traffic was constantly getting blocked up by confused travelers lugging around oversized bags.
No Gucci store, no seafood bar, no shiny tile floors. This airport was a shabby disappointment. I give it one star.
Every winter that I’ve been in the United Kingdom the weather seems to have gotten progressively worse. People are always saying, “This is the coldest I remember it ever being this early in the year,” or “We don’t normally get this much snow,” or “It doesn’t usually snow this late in the year.”
I lived in Korea for a little over six years and while I was living there I heard the same thing over and over again. Snow blanketed the streets and my friends all told me they didn’t remember ever seeing this much snow. Every year there was more and more snow.
I’m starting to think that I bring worsening weather conditions with me whenever I live.
I’m constantly feeling like I need more hours in the day. I’m sure you know the feeling. You wake up and you have a list of things to do. For me the list usually looks something like this:
check my email
write an article
check my email again
write another article
fix lunch
check my email
You get the drift.
No matter how well I think I’ve planned my day I can’t get everything done on my long to-do-list. My husband will happily tell you that my problem is that I check my email way too much. I admit to being a chronic email checker, but it only takes 5 to 30 minutes to sort through the millions of newsletters, yahoo groups updates, and Google alerts that flood my inbox throughout the day. That’s not that long really, is it?
Most people have a favorite season. When I was a kid, my favorite season was winter. I loved the snow. I remember sitting in front of the radio on snowy mornings waiting for announcements of school closings. Unfortunately, our school superintendent was from the Arctic tundra and he thought there was never enough snow on the ground to justify closing school. There was still plenty of time after school to play in the snow though.
I went to college in Vermont and at that time my favorite season was fall. I used to love to see all the leaves change colors. The green mountains that made the state famous turned all shapes of red and gold every autumn. The weather was so crisp and the sky so clear that it made me wish winter would never come.
Now my favorite season is summer, mostly because I have the best summer clothes. Even though I’ve lived in the UK for three years now I’m still not properly equipped for cold weather. I love t-shirts and shirts and sandals. Sitting outside in the sun until I’ve practically melted then retreating inside to an ultra air-conditioned room and slipping on a cardigan so as not to freeze to death is my idea of a good time.
It’s fall now and even though I long for the summer heat I can’t really say that I’ve completely given up on fall. Today while walking home from the grocery store I noticed a bush covered in the most shockingly bright pinkish red leaves and I thought I could start liking fall again.
If I invented a season it would be called fummer. It would be hot like summer but the leaves would change color.
When I was in elementary school my two most hated subjects were spelling and phonics. I was always a good student. I got A’s most of the time, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to get F’s on spelling tests.
In third grade one of the boys in class cheated on his spelling test by copying mine. He was stunned when he failed. “I thought you were smart,” he said to me when he got his test paper back. I think the highest score I ever got on a spelling test in third grade was a C and that was amazing.
My problem is with short vowel sounds. Many of them sound the same to me. Apparently there are differences in the pronunciation of certain words that I just don’t hear. Words like pen and pin, him and hem, and then and than all sound the same to me. I never realized there was any difference in the pronunciation of these words at all before my husband pointed them out to me.
I like blame my pronunciation problems on my regional accent, but I don’t think I’m fooling anyone.
We often get letters in the mail from our water company telling us that we should buy insurance from them. The mailings include prices for having plumbing issues repaired and explains how much we’ll save in repair costs if we purchase their insurance. For example, to repair leaking costs 94 pounds, to unblock a sink 97 pounds, to unblock a toilet 100 pounds. Where do they get these prices from? Why aren’t they all just 100 pounds?
Plumber: I unblocked your toilet. It only took me five minutes. Give me 100 quid.
I don’t worry about these prices because we’re renting so my landlord has to pay for any plumbing that goes wrong. My landlord probably isn’t very worried about it either because her nephew is a plumber.
My husband has this story he always tells about a plumber. It may sound like a joke, but it’s a true story. A plumber asks a jazz musician about how much it would cost to hire a band for his wedding.
Plumber: How much will it cost me to hire a quartet for my wedding?
Musician: Take the amount you would pay 4 plumbers to work for that amount of time and half it. That’s what it’ll cost you for a band.
