Travel

We was chatting today bout travelling.

Apparently all the airlines now want you to travel wid ya two long hands cause they charging left right and centre for big check in bag and they becoming more strict about the weight and size of the carry-on.

Is one time man used to travel wid two big valises looking like they could hold a dead body, not no boney dead body eidda a good size duppy and then still got a big big two tonne carry-on bag pack down dat dey used to squeeze up squeeze up in de overhead bin and you used to be sitting underneath saying lawd avest mercy I hope that this bin doan open midair and this bag catspraddle me as I sit in me tight seat.

Well dem days dun star!

Ferguson MIssouri

It was about 6 years ago that I wrote this rather euphoric post. I had the audacity to hope for black folks.

Now today after the Grand Jury decision to not indict Darren Wilson for shooting Mike Brown I think I've done a 180 turn and just feel despair.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) slammed the grand jury decision not to indict Ferguson, Mo., Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed teen Michael Brown, calling it a “frightening narrative,” Talking Points Memo reports.

“This decision seems to underscore an unwritten rule that Black lives hold no value; that you may kill Black men in this country without consequences or repercussions. This is a frightening narrative for every parent and guardian of Black and brown children, and another setback for race relations in America,” the Ohio Democrat said in a statement.

 What a shame, what a shame what a crying shame!

Chicken-got-cha!

To add injury to insult, a few days after my mum's funeral I came down with chikungunya. Yep talk about joint pain. wow! Was pretty brutal.

Anyways I think I had a milder but more chronic version. Let me explain: my joint pains and fevers only lasted about a day and by the time I was ready to head home it was like having mild arthritis in my knees. However when I got back to Toronto I started getting all the other symptoms which lasted maybe another two weeks.

Still its pretty much gone and has been replaced by my latest illness: sinus infection which is killing me at the moment. 

Where this chicken-gunya thing come from though/ I swear about 40-50 of the people I spoke to i Barbados had had it at some point in the past couple of months and some were still recovering.

I guess the only good thing about having it is that I'm told the virus stays in your system a while so my next visit home in the new year I shouldnt catch it again.

The funeral went as well as could be expected. I'm still not sure what I feel to be honest. I've ben angry, depressed, sad and defiant at times but I still feel like I cant believe my mum is dead. Its still sort of weird.

Well

I'm off to Barbados in a while as my mum has passed.

It wasn't unexpected but still I'm a little depressed well actually a lot depressed about it. I think her illness has been one of the reasons I wasn't writing or blogging or doing much of anything over the past 6 months. I just was living in fear of that phone call. Honestly, every time I heard a long distance ring on the phone my heart skipped a beat.

Anyway she has passed and I feel sad no scratch that I feel lost. The last time I was there in March I did feel like we were saying our goodbyes though. I'll be honest, I've hated going to Barbados for the last two years as its felt like every time I went she was slipping further and further away and the pleasant memories were a distant thing. At the end its almost like I've been grieving for a long time as the person I knew, the person who raised me and taught me and made me who I am today for good or bad had slowly disappeared over time leaving only this shell. And now even the shell is gone.

Not sure what else I can say. When my dad died I was able to write a bit and express myself and that helped  somewhat. Maybe it will be the same this time although I'm feeling far less eloquent than I did then. Just hoping that I can do her justice in her eulogy.

p.s: guess I'm an orphan now

Begging

Times tough....still. I know everyone says the recession is over but I dont know. Maybe this is the new norm, with less people working and more businesses closed. I dont know.

Leaving

One of my better neighbours is selling his house. I wrote about him a few years ago. All around good guy and I will be sorry to see him go.

Gluten

Every few years it seem that another word is added to our list of bad words, undesirable words.

No, I not talking about cuss words ah talking about words related to food and eating an ting so. Remember years ago it was carbs and everybody was on a wuhloss I aint want no carbs, carbs not good for you, ah cutting back on carbs, hummuch carbs dat got in kick?

Donald Sterling

I wanted to write this days ago but never got the chance but I'll try to make it brief....maybe

So here are a few thoughts

- Regarding Donald Sterling's fall from grace so much has been said. He does seem like a despicable human being if the reports are to be believed and the penalty handed down by the NBA seems to be the way to go.

Cutass!!

So there is a video knocking around of a Trinidadian mother beating the crap out of her 12 year old daughter because the daughter was apparently being tummuch woman an posting provocative sexual type photos on Facebook. a rude she well rude!

If a can find de link ah will link it but trust me I could only watch about two minutes of the 6 minute video cause the mother beat she like a bobolee. (bobolee - A stuffed effigy of Judas which was tied by the neck and dragged through the streets on Good Friday, usually followed by youths with sticks, beating it until it fell apart.)

Missionary Mauve

Ah had a lil flashback the other day. (not sure where this note going but we will see)

Growing up my mom was always deeply involved in church: choir, Sunday school, missionary work, church board etc which of course meant that until I was a teen I had to go with her to church whenever she went so I guess I can rightly say I grew up in church. Ah not sure if that is a good thing that I admit that or a bad thing cause allya might say wait he grow up in  church an he duz behave so fa true? lawd a mercy!!

Anyways church was Sunday school followed by long, long, long service on Sundays from as far back as I can remember and of course there was also Sunday night service to go to if my dad wasn't home and Wednesday night service as well.

I don't remember much if anything about those services to be honest, just shouting pastors, off-key loud singing and sharply beating cymbals which I wish I had the rhythm to use and me sitting in a church pew hoping that the time would go by faster.

I used to have to take part too: reciting poems at Christmas and Harvest programs and singing in choirs and the like. For those, I just remember the very strong feeling of fear in anticipation of my performance, a salute, a duty out of necessity to properly form and project my words (sans microphone in those days) followed by a relief that I didn't mess up or at least no one seemed to notice if I did slightly mess up.

Ha!

Was a small church, not more than 40 or 50 members total but it was kind of cool that you got knew everyone. Of course everyone knew you too so ya had to behave properly.But that was a different day doan get me started on today's youts.

So my church also had this women's missionary group which would once or so a month carry on some early evening Sunday service or "cottage meeting" for shut-ins before the main Sunday evening service. I never really got the point of it but all in all it wasn't as long as regular church service so it was all pretty tolerable just another church event except for one thing.......

The missionary ladies had this uniform that they wore, a dress made out of some heavy type of material. It was some sort of light mauve with a white color.

I don't know what that uniform ever did me but from small til now I cannot stand that color.  

I mean I'm pretty sure it wasn't a traumatic event that led to the dislike of the color but maybe it was just seeing that badly shaped uniform over and over that drove me over the edge with regards to mauve lol.

Up to now anytime i see that color I will tell ya straight I just don't like that color.

Anyway that came flooding back in my memory this weekend for no apparent reason. Maybe I caught sight of someone wearing the same color but I don't remember. I just remember it is just not me favorite color.

See knew this post was going nowhere lol

Business sense

So two weeks ago I got a random call from a credit union, which I'm not part of,  offering me some savings on a product I already have with another company.

I was somewhat intrigued by the call so I set up an appointment, at home to meet their representative with regards to the product they were hawking but in the meantime said I'd look into it myself. Anyway time flies when you have twins to deal with so when they called me back to confirm the appointment I postponed the appointment to yesterday which gave me just enough time to talk to my bank to see if the opportunity was worth pursuing.

So thought it kind of strange they never called to confirm last week but anyhow yesterday I rush out a work to get home early to make it to this appointment. Was hungry but said I'd wait til after the appointment to eat so I'm sitting there watching the clock and ummm no one showed up, nuhbody call nuttin.

Fine.

Got a call this evening, representative says appointment is this evening, umm no it isnt, insists it is, umm no I have it in my calendar as yesterday and I wrote it down minutes after we chatted the last time cause it was supposed to be an exact week from the postponed appointment cause ya ask me is Mondays good for you and I said yes. And besides I aint rushing home to meet you this evening is you trying to sell to me not me to you.

Anyways no apology from them but they asking for another appointment, only this time they want it during the day and I'm to come to their office.

Ammmm I aint know bout wunnah but i aint went searching fa dem an they product, dem is the body dat call me up an offering um to me so why they cant meet me on my terms. Ah mean I duz always be skeptical bout these things when people call ya up an mek ya offers so cause I duz be trying to figure out how them tiefing from me and gilding duh pockets so an no guarantee I would sign with them but ah did gine gi dem a chance to talk duh talk.

And ah mean in dis harsh economic climate is not like I have money to throw at nobody so if you want my money ya have to come correct. Ah did very happy where I was before dem come confusing me an now they want me to act like I doan wuk nuhway an run up to their office which is by the way far far away from where I work to meet them.  Chupse!!!!!

Naa star. nuttin a gwan so!

Ah dont know what happened to people and business. Ah mean like I said is tough times we living in, if you trying to sell somebody a product the least you can do is be professional. Ah find nowadays people acting like ya doing them a favor when they want ya business. Ah cant deal wid dat sort of attitude at all. Den when ya business not doing well, ya wud wanta know what happen. Well if ya was professional mebby wunnah wud last. Another big Chupse!!

Deep Freeze

Happy new year everyone.

Well we here in North America getting lik up with these cold temperatures. Is not only up here in Canada but even way down in the US they getting polar vortex effect that got places like Kentucky and Georgia bawling fa blue murder from the cold.

Up here in Toronto since the new year we have had ice, snow, and then cold temperatures alternating. If it ain't one trying to kill ya is de next.

Pain is relative

Story 1

A potentially live power line lying mere inches from his car prevented him from getting to the office outside Toronto this past week.

Sniderman said if nothing happens soon, he’ll likely have to pay for a rental car to get to his job in Markham, which would take over an hour and a half by public transit.

 Story 2

Holding spent a week in darkness. The days blurred into nights and the nights dropped below zero. Holding cloistered herself in bed, crying between sleeps and trying her best to stave off morbid thoughts.

 The 39-year-old is largely immobile due to multiple sclerosis, and the scooter she uses outdoors froze in her shed on Dec. 21, the storm’s first day. (A neighbour helped her push it back in, where it became even more useless as it lost its charge.)

Not sure if you guys can get into the full stories cause the Toronto Star's website has somewhat restricted access but I thought these two icestorm related stories were interesting.

Iced out!

Belated Merry Christmas to everyone!!.

Christmas came and went with little fanfare for us this year. Not alot of cerebrating, in fact up to now we haven't exchanged gifts. Mainly because we got caught up in the aftermath of the ice storm which hit Toronto last Saturday and left 90,000 households without power. We braved it out in our home til Monday morning but then ran out of firewood so had to pack up cause well with the babies and all it really wasn't a pleasant atmosphere for them to be in.

And so we trekked over to a friend's place where we hunkered down and waited out the repairs. Quite the number of fallen tree limbs in our backyard but luckily no damage to the wires around our home but yet we still waited and waited.

Basically in a circumstance like that all thoughts of Christmas go through the window and its all about survival. We checked in on the lights on Tuesday and Christmas day Wednesday but still nothing and the house was colder than an icebox.

 As an aside, my son was singing in the church choir on Christmas Eve and even though the church was without power the service still went on by candlelight. Quite the experience and a show that the joy of Christmas although tempered by adversity could not be overwhelmed by it.

Eventually though and thankfully all our power came back to normal so we are back home with lights, power and heat restored although some of our neighbours are still facing day 6 of no power.

Kind of sucks but  our experience puts things into perspective.

People are still upset and quite rightfully so that more wasn't done earlier to handle the households without power as a few people have died in their homes. I mean we also went through the great power outage of 2003 back then living in an apartment where not only was there no power but because we were on the upper floors we had no water as well. All in all we were one of the last to get our power back then and I was hoping the law of averages would even things out now but alas no we still waited 5 days to be restored.

Still 3 days in the summer without power as a married couple with no kids isn't that bad compared to 4-5 days in the winter without heat with a 7 year old and two nine month babies.

But with God's help and that of some great people who took all of us in we survived.

My thoughts go out to the folk here still without power as this drags on and also to the folk in St Vincent who were affected by the rains and mudslide on Christmas Eve.

Like I said tragedy and adversity puts it all in perspective.  But such is life, we survive and we move on.

Seasons best to everyone.

Mandela

Sad that such an incredible individual is gone. A true hero, a fighter, a man of the people and one who endured persecution for his beliefs. In terms of the ideal for freedom I dont think anyone who has walked the earth in my lifetime can come close to what he meant, what he did.

But as with us all, regardless of our standing or our achievements his day came and he was taken from us.

Rest in Peace Madiba.

De Mayor

So Toronto's mayor huh?

Somebody request I speak about him and while I had jokes a tonne I think that point (I mean really what can top the "I have enough to eat at home" statement?) has passed so here goes.

1) Toronto is embarrassed. Not just cause the mayor smoked crack but because we also really had/have no way to send him packing. He's been de-clawed somewhat but he's still Mayor in name and we cant totally get rid of him. No one ever had a contingency plan for suppose the mayor has embarrasses the city and needs to be deposed apparently. We are just thankful that we were able to restrict his powers as is.

2) I fear Ford could possibly make a comeback. For all his cracksmoking and inebriation I will tell you this: The man is a masterful politician, or maybe its his handlers. Its not just that he has a diehard following who believes everything he spews, its that before the evidence started to mount he positioned the whole issue to be one where it was the media was out to get him and made it seem plausible. He's also positioned himself to make it seem he is a man of the people and others are out to get him. His whole gravy train rhetoric, his stance on getting a subway to Scarborough and greatest of all his whole no tax increase talk made him popular.

People just like to hear politicians push a view they held. There was no real ridiculous overspending at city hall but talk about it all the time, have a catchy phrase like gravy train and just make up stuff as you go along and all the folk who believed that something like that was actually happening will believe you even though no plausible evidence was put forward.



3) People will overlook everything for the sake of a dollar. Even now with almost insurmountable evidence and admissions of guilt there are those who are like well its his personal business, as long as he doesnt raise taxes I would still vote for him.

4) Laughing at the idiots south of the border is sort of a a Canadian pastime since we usually feel we are so much more superior somehow. Well now they laughing at us. I hear CNN the other night say boy it should be mandatory to refer to this man as the crack smoking mayor of Toronto. Lawd ave mercy, look how we have fallen

5) With all the evidence that the police had why didnt they make a bold move and look to gather even more or increase the scope of their case to include the Mayor? Same police that duz stop random  black kids on the street for no reason than walking through a certain neighborhood can watch the mayor exchange packages with a known drug dealer and not make a move somehow? Strange I say
If he did black or any minority for that matter dem wudda find a way by hook or crook to deal with this long time. Sorry had to be said.
6) For all the lighthearted banter in the media, the guffaws and the late night parodies this isnt a joke. As the allegations and the revelations continue to be made known you realize this is some really serious stuff even if Ford continues to laugh it off.

I mean your city's leader is doing drugs with drug dealers, exchanging packages surreptitiously in gas station parking lots and behind school buildings, drug dealers are planning to blackmail him, he's allegedly offering money for incriminating evidence, someone who may or may not have had an incriminating video was killed, he's making disparaging comments about minorities and other politicians, attending official functions inebriated, ranting on camera about fighting or something.  He's arguing he didnt lie cause the question of drug use wasnt asked in the correct tense, he's admitting to such use but only when he's drunk? He's offending folk with his lewd speech on live camera. I mean seriously if this was a movie I'd say naa dude this is unbelievable, over the top, this is just overkill. But its not a movie its Toronto's reality as weekly new info comes to hand. 

The News

Times they be a changing.

A few weeks ago I cancelled my print subscription to the Toronto Star, a newspaper I had subscribed to on and off (mostly on) for the past 18 years. It was a bit of a sad moment for me but with two babies soon in need of daycare, the rising cost of newspapers, the lack of time to actually sit and read a newspaper and the myriad of free online options it was time.

Still I have fond memories of newspaper reading over the years having grown up in a household where my dad bought the Barbados Nation or the Advocate every day on his way home from his morning sea bath.

Newspapers were all around me growing up and something I liked to read. I remember grabbing the paper as soon as my dad came home in the morning and started to get ready to work, and reading the comics first then the sports pages while he was in the shower. As time went on, I moved on to the international news and then finally got into the court cases and local news. Not that the local news was boring (although it sort of was) it was also that you got the local news on radio and on the 7 o'clock TV news etc so by the time it was in the paper the day after you'd already heard most of it.

Tweet Tweet

Yes I like to make fun of twitter. Sorry I cant help it.

Yes I have a twitter account. Sigh yes I can admit it without complete and utter total shame....but just barely.

I actually use it once every year during the NBA draft (for following sports writers) and then I promptly forget that its there so I cant say its absolutely useless but at the same time I think people duz tek this tweeting thing too seriously and it has affected our lives with trivial nonsense and a preponderance of #hashtags


Some folk just seem to take this tweeting thing so seriously though.

Traffic

Last week was the first week of school for elementary and high school kids. I was expecting the streets to be crazy with traffic last Tuesday or maybe Wednesday once everyone got back into the swing of things but really aside from a few extra kids on my school bus it wasn't all that bad.

Compare that to today when University students also started in earnest and the traffic pileup got serious. I mean my usual 10 minute bus ride took about 20 minutes and the subways were more packed than they have been since last March.

It also feels although I have no proof to back it up like whole sectors of the employed just take the summer off cause as you look around the crowding doesn't readily appear to be caused by school kids and university students it seems to be an influx of workers who you didn't see all summer.

I guess maybe people change their schedules but it just feels like folks were off all summer and just started back work.

Oh well time to factor back in that additional 10 to 15 minutes for travel time.

Apologies

For the break in my writing here. I havent completely given up on this blog yet just so much to do and so little time. I've had lots of thoughts but everytime I think one is worthy of sharing I think I've either shared that already or naa thats not really worth the effort.

Still life goes on as it must.