Cheese Eggs and Kyra Phillips

I made two wonderful discoveries on this beautiful, yet chilly Wednesday morning here at CNN. I know that you're anxious to hear them, so details are directly below :-)

First: I have started having an order of scrambled eggs w/cheese in the mornings for breakfast. I either whip them up at home before getting the kids ready, or I order them from Great Wraps here in the CNN Center. I don't particularly like ordering them from Great Wraps. I always seem to detect a feeling of slight annoyance coming from the cashier/owner because that is the ONLY thing that I order from there. I've noticed that most other people in line with me order bacon, sausage and egg sandwiches with grits, stuff like that, so they more than make up for my little order of eggs. Besides that, I don't even like their eggs! They cook them over such high heat that they taste hard and are always slightly brown (which I hate!). They charge $1.31 for these hard, brown scrambled eggs, which I forgot to mention, have American cheese. AMERICAN? No cheddar! Yuck. :-(

So this morning, I decide to go and see what the CNN Diner (which is for CNN employees only) has to offer for breakfast. I walk in and a wonderful, "breakfasty" smell hits me. I walk over to the Made-to-Order counter and see a price list. Scrambled eggs: $0.69; Scrambled eggs w/cheese ($0.89). What?! I figure that they can't taste any worse than Great Wraps, so I order them. I also throw in an order of Turkey Sausage, since that's supposedly pretty good for you, and an extra source of great protein. Total price? $1.50, including tax! The eggs and sausage were DIVINE! I'm going to tell everyone who works here that I know eats breakfast from Great Wraps what they are missing out on. They even used cheddar/jack cheese on my eggs without me even having to ask!! Mmmmm.

Secondly: While I was in line at the CNN Diner waiting for my order, I saw someone enter out of the corner of my eye. I don't usually make direct eye contact with people unless they are addressing me or I need them for some reason. But something made me take notice...the way they walked in just felt like a breath of fresh air had entered. I hear "Good Morniiiiing! How are my girls doing this morning?!" My first thought, "My GIRLS?" (Just in case you didn't get the memo , black women over the age of 30 don't take too kindly to being called girl by white women under the age of 70; history and such) So this triggers me to look directly at the woman...it was Kyra Phillips, CNN News Anchor. (She is even more beautiful in person, if that's possible) The women working in the diner appear to range in age from 30 to 65. They are ALL black, so I just brace myself for their reaction. They all looked immediately cheered up! She walked up to the counter with a big smile on her face and began asking one of the women in particular about some personal discussion that they had obviously had the day before. They got into a lively, pleasant discussion, which included the women in the diner talking to Kira about things going on in her life that they had obviously discussed with her as well. I got my eggs and went to pay for them. As I was handing over my money, Kyra walked up behind me in line to pay for her food. The cashier's eyes lit up. The cashier hurries me out of the way, and Kyra steps up to her and they start gabbing about something or another in hushed tones. They giggle about different things here and there.

As I leave the diner and walk back to my desk, I begin to think about the fact that I was ready to be typical judgmental Tami about the fact that I heard a young white woman using the word "Girl" to refer to these women old enough to be her mother. Fact is, clearly Kira has actually taken the time to get to know these women not only by name, but cares about them and what's going on in their lives. They ALL looked so happy to see her, and she looked just as happy to see them, which says all that needs to be said. I still stand by the fact that if she wasn't friends with them, I would still view this situation negatively. Calling a group of grown women that you don't know very well "girls" is just offensive and condescending, in general. But when you are "girlfriends" or have an actual relationship with someone, you have an understanding with one another that shouldn't matter to anyone else, in my humble opinion.

Loving me some Kyra..