I love it when I can get me some balls that are nice and tender.

Juicy and tender.

Soft, juicy and tender enough to devour.

I love cupping the balls and rubbing them slowly between my finger tips…until I get them ready to spring up their juice. But, the one thing I hate is when the balls fall a part, so I try to be really gentle with the balls cause what’s the sense doing all these things with the balls, if they are just going to tear away?

And don’t let me get started if you accidentally burn the balls. Burning the balls is the worse thing cause when they are rolling around in your mouth, the taste, oh the taste is not too good! So, I prefer to have mine nice, seasoned and a little medium rare.

And then I put the balls into my…tomato sauce and let it cook until it gets brown.

I always make sure to use Jamaican Seasoning salt on my balls, cause then they are more flavorful.

So, as I write to you my Possums, I am trying to get over having Christmas dinner with my family. And how do I get over something that really pisses me off to the core?  I eat.

As usual, I was kind of weary because I always say the wrong thing that gets a least one person mad and then it is kind of a slippery slope after that. Remember last year, how I was “gently” ribbing my brother and reminding him of the time when my mother found a prescription from the doctor in his room, only to look up on the Internet and find out that it was used to clear up an infection of some sort. And then, in front of everyone at the table, I asked my brother which slut ended up giving him the said infection.

The “slut” ended up being his wife.

His wife that was directly seated across from me at the table.

I swear, it was my Grandma’s Jamaican rum cake.

Or, the Christmas before that when my mother brought up the time I tried to run away as a teenager and she wanted to know what caused me to run away and I let her know that it was because of her and her tyrannical ways.  Common, my mother always told me to tell the truth! Albeit, maybe not in front of the ten people that were at the table, but that was her own indiscretion!

Again, I swear it was my Grandma’s Jamaican rum cake.

Umm…right.

So, Possums, you would be so relieve to know that this Christmas, I did not start anything! No sirree!

Ava did!

You know sometimes in life, things happen to you and you are not really sure how it happened, or even when it happened, but when it does happen, you try and go over it in your head and still can’t figure out why it happened.

We were just nearing the end of dinner and I was kind of getting antsy. I found myself talking slowly, just in case something was going to slip out of my mouth, at least I was going to catch it between my back tooth and the tip of my tongue. I even threw in the customary laughs one throws in when they are watching the clock, waiting for the time bomb to go off. I took the last sip of my drink, when my mother brought up the fact about black people, I think. All I remember is that my mother pulled the “race” card. She does it all the time. Why is it that some women have to break down Black people by shades?

Well, Ava fought back with the “slavery” card, and the fact that slave masters didn’t care so much about the shade of black people’s skin, that they just grouped us all into one category anyways-Black. Well, my mother tried to talk  some more foolishness, when Ava reminded her that while Ava would probably have been made to pick cotton in the fields, at least it would be better than what my mother would have been made to  do- working in the house and becoming the master’s side beyotch. And maybe my mother wouldn’t even be the master’s side beyotch cause she was too ugly anyways, so she would be put to work in the kitchen. Way, way back in the kitchen, probably manning the stove.

Well, my mother got on top of her soap box and then got off her sop box and then she threw the soap box and then shouted a few things about her life and left us all to clean up the mess at the table.

Ava would like to think the argument was started because my mother and all the women before her on that side of the family have a complex about the darkness of one’s shade of skin.

My mother would like to think the argument was started because she has ungrateful children, grandchildren and husband.

And if you asked me?

I think it was my Grandma’s Jamaican rum cake.