Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

rap battles

A Great Rapper

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I like to fancy myself a great rapper. Not because I am one, by any stretch, but because… Actually, I don’t know why.

I just do.

So, kiss my shoe.

See how I spit a rhyme there?

I’ve blogged before about hosting family rap battles. These involve sessions of awkward rhyme around the dinner table. None of us even beat box, although I frequently threaten to. And over the past year we’ve added Hamilton to the mix, so we don’t have to make up all the words anymore, which helps.

You haven’t lived until your seven-year-old has broken into a spontaneous rap solo about the constitution.

All of this is a lead-in to me receiving the greatest compliment of my life a couple of weeks ago. Several friends purchased gifts to donate to the International Rescue Committee in Seattle to celebrate “Winter,” which is suspiciously like Christmas, but for refugees from various countries and religious backgrounds.

I was nominated to drop the gifts downtown because all my kids are in school and I am now a lady of leisure. It took me a fair amount of time to find a non-parallel parking spot near the drop-off point, only about 4 blocks away.

Luckily, I’d brought my wagon, still full of sand from the softball field. So, I loaded it up with food and gifts and started to slowly, slowly, ever so awkwardly, make my way over the sidewalk cracks and crosswalks to the building.

As I inched across one crosswalk, holding the presents onto the wagon with one hand, pulling it with the other, a woman pulled up in front of me, gave me a huge grin and a thumbs up. It was as though she “liked” me on Facebook, but IRL.

She unrolled her window and yelled out, “YOU ARE A GREAT WRAPPER!”

There I was on the streets of downtown Seattle and people were calling out to me about my great rapping skills. I prefer to spell it without the “W”. As does Lin Manuel Miranda.

It made my day.

Bust a Prayer Printable

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I’ve been blogging for almost nine years now. I know, kids. I am the oldest Daring Young Mom ever. That was before Instagram was a thing. It was back when you’d say, “I blog,” and people would cock their heads to the side, squint their eyes and say, “You, what, now?”

After nine years, I decided to create my first printable. I figured it had better be something amazing, something life changing, something written by Stanley Kirk Burrell, doing business as MC Hammer. You’re welcome!

busta printable

Baby of Rage

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I’ve written a new song for Wanda entitled “Baby of Rage.” The words are different every time I sing it but they basically consist of me singing to her in my sweetest voice about how she’s a Baby of Rage and I don’t know why.

Most of the time she’s a Baby of Sweetness but every so often, every day or two, she has a rough period of rage and physical turmoil that I assume is caused by digestational distress incomprehensible to someone whose intestines are as highly developed as mine.

We’re at the stage in her life where I feel directly responsible for any sickness she feels in her tummy. “It must have been those Swedish fish I ate yesterday. I’m so thoughtless! Tomorrow I will stick to a strict diet of steamed carrots and mashed potatoes.”

But then the next day I will eat the steamed carrots and mashed potatoes and sneak a bite of Magoo’s hot dog. At 1pm, Baby of Rage will surface and I will think, “What a feckless MORON am I?! I did this to her. Darn that meat product!”

In reality I have no idea what causes Baby of Rage to rear her pathetic head, squawking and grunting her way to burden-free bowels.

The composition and subsequent performance of the song reminded me of how much we enjoyed doing freestyle family rap battles back in the day, the rhyming, the flow, the hoodies and do-rags. When Wanda’s older, I hope she’ll be all up in hee-ya wid-it. Holla!

Alas. We need to work on getting her to freestyle her fecal matter before we proceed to anything more creative.

Can’t Touch This

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I like to get down, especially when I’m driving alone in my car. For that reason, I have not yet burned to the ground the radio broadcasting corporation that took away my favorite Seattle mix station and replaced it with a station called “Movin our-commercials-show-multiple-people’s-butts-shaking-and-bobbing-around-in-circles 92.5-FM.”

The station is REALLY hit or miss. One minute you’ve got some Nelly crap (no, not that Nelly) and the next, you get some sweet eighties dance tune.

On the way to Target this evening, they were playing some steaming-pile song, degrading women in general, yet glorifying those who walk around in daisy dukes and bikini tops… and they couldn’t even turn a rhyme… HELLO!! If you’re gonna rap over a bad generic Hip-Hop track about all kinds of skanky skeez, at least do it with some style. I still won’t listen to you, but at least I won’t call you out publicly on my blog.

So I ended up with Delila who instructed me to “slow down and love someone.” I personally like to love people very quickly because then I have more time to love more people. Please do not connect this paragraph with the skeez mentioned above.

In the parking lot, two girls were standing by their car, huddled up together and looking nervous. One mentioned to the other how fast her heart was beating and I thought, “I wonder if they’re meeting up with their internet boyfriends for the first time tonight. How exciting and scary. Does their mother know?” This line of thought brought to you by my viewing of the movie “Drive me Crazy”, starring that teenage witch girl, a movie which I attended in disguise, lest I be discovered by one of my film friends and mocked for the rest of my college career. Incidentally, this film also started a chain of events which landed me at a Backstreet Boys concert with sparkles on my chest and corn-rows in my hair.

On the way home from Target, I was lucky enough to catch MC Hammer doing his stunning rendition of his original classic You Cannot Touch This on the posterior-shaking radio station. I car-danced like it was my job, and at 9:00 at night, it basically is.

On my post yesterday, creatively entitled “Dude.,” Anonymous said “You get a lot of comments, so what exactly are you insecure about?”

I think it’s time I come out with the truth. I am insecure about the fact that although, like the great MC Hammer I am “dope” “on” “the” “floor”, I am not, however, “ma”-“gic” “on” “the” “mic”. There you have it. My rap skills have been slipping lately. We have yet to christen the new house with a real, no holds barred, Daring Family Freestyle Rap Battle.

I feel your collective gasp before it escapes your keyboards and I am ashamed. If I ever find the Karaoke machine in the 6’ high stack of boxes that is my living room, I will remedy the situation. Then? Once I’ve brushed up on my skeelz on the microphonizzle, insecurity… she will be gone. Until then, it doesn’t matter how many comments I get or how many times Laylee bolster’s my confidence with questions like, “Mommy, can you please use some covering-up makeup? You have some red spots on your face,” I will remain insecure.