Be Careful What You Wish For

It has been approximately eight months since my last blog entry. This might have something to do with the fact that my firstborn is now ten developmental months (forty weeks old). Juno was right when she speculated that babies were "quite the time suck." It has also been seven years since I have moved back to Trinidad and six years living in the same apartment. I think it is safe to say that we don't go more than a month without having some sort of issue related to our rental. BC (before child) my husband, chihuahua and I were a lot more tolerant of the constant issues. We also love our location so we would continue to put up with the *insert expletive*. Life goes on...

Aside from the reality that I do live on an island, I am particularly fair skinned and motherhood just took that to a whole new level. I think I'm usually somewhere between egg shell and alabaster. Now, I do believe in The Secret and the power of the Universe. Not to the extent of those idiotic girls who got a show on the E channel and were part of the Bling Ring who robbed Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and some other "talented" celebs. But, I do think there is some truth to what you put out "there" is what you attract. So in true "Secret" form I visualized sun. I had been out of practice for a while and forgot to visualize exactly what it was that I wanted.

My husband took a business trip and my mom filled in to help with baby. She brought some Starbucks coffee (instant). Yes, we finally got a Starbucks in Trinidad but they don't sell the Via Instant. My husband bought some ground Starbucks coffee for me before he left. I asked them over the phone why they didn't sell the instant. They replied that they didn't think it would sell, but would now think about it. So if we do get the instant packets, I will take full credit for that.

Low and behold, week one went well.

Week two: Mother drops wedding ring down bathroom sink. No problem. Thanks to endless plumbing issues, I got this! Retrieved in under a minute. Then, the kitchen sinks back up. Husband had thrown out plunger but not replaced it. *Insert another expletive* I purchase another, stand up on the kitchen counter and use my body weight to plunge the double sink. Nothing. It was a Friday, and mind you, in the fifth world I might get a plumber on Monday. So for the weekend, I toted draining boards full of dishes out to the hose down by the pool to wash my dishes in true ghetto form. But guess what I got? A semi tan! Thanks universe.

Then, after six years of shady electricians provided by angelic landlord and insanely high electricity bills, we find out that we have been paying for an outdated water heater that works overtime, not only for our apartment but also for the one below *more expletives.* We decide to confront the landlord about our electricity bill that is half the amount of our rent. He was away and unwilling to do anything about it until his return. Normal scene. I put it out "there" again that this situation would be over. Thanks to the universe, the water heater just stopped working. So I guess that took care of that. Cold showers morning, noon and night for me and baby. *Double expletive*. We will never ever ever ever ever see a dime of that money back. But his Rolls Royce, Bentley and several Mercedes are safely parked in his covered garage.

Just when I was about to grab our passports and set fire to the rain, my husband brought back enough Starbucks instant coffee to last me until I return to the U.S.A. one fine day.

So, I took a cold *triple expletive* shower ...

and had a latte (instantly).

#trinidad #landlord #starbucks #coffee #baby

The Beautiful Misery of Parenting

I once bought a puppy for Harley (my Chihuahua) as a means of company. That was over ten years ago and I have obviously changed my stance on buying dogs from pet stores and puppy mills. My Chihuahua is also from a pet store but I like to think that even so, I technically rescued him from a life without a king size bed, trips to the beach, shiatsu massages and other excessive means of spoiling. So I bring this “new” puppy home to meet Harley and it just wasn’t the right fit. I didn’t like what “he” did to our family of two. So I did the unthinkable and returned this sweet, innocent puppy to the pet store.

Three short weeks ago, I gave birth to a baby boy (human). There I am, in the clam position after forty-five minutes of pushing, with no drugs I might add (third world problems) and after hours of hot, steamy contractions, only to be rewarded with a bundle of baby, guts and goo on my chest. The doctor might as well have put that returned pet store puppy on my chest and said, “Okay, it’s all yours, enjoy.”

Of course, after he was cleaned up, dressed in human attire and in my husbands’ arms I loved him right away.

When you find out you are pregnant, it’s all daisies and pixie dust. Then you get a bit more pregnant and you start to think thoughts like:

Shit, this thing has to come out of my body, someway, somehow. Is it going to hurt? Nah, people do it all the time, it will be fine.

I am the apple of my husband’s eye, am I willing for some being to take a bite out of that apple?

I should have done this when I was younger. I can get used to little sleep, I was twenty-one once.

Will I really hate my husband like all my friends warned I would?

So far, this is what I have found.

Yes, it hurts! It hurts a lot. Especially when no one has accurately described the pain of a contraction. No, it is not like a bad period pain. It is more like the Devil himself blowing up a fire balloon in your abdomen and back at the same time for two straight minutes until you literally have no words, no breath, no understanding of reality. Then the Devil allows the balloon to deflate for thirty seconds and repeats for a number of hours. You pray for death to come first, totally ignoring the feelings of any loved ones you may leave behind.

The love. The love is a different kind of love. It’s worth sharing. It’s more of a sense of responsibility and as for the way your husband loves you, in my opinion, it only increases. He came, he saw, but I conquered. It is just like they say. After he sees what you go through, he really can’t ever be mad at you again in life, ever. He even let me name the baby, which we previously agreed would be his perk.

If I had done this when I was younger, I would likely have resented my husband and resented the baby. I applaud those who were and are able to birth a child before age thirty and then look after him/her. Of course it’s personal for everyone. For me, waiting until after thirty and accomplishing my life goals first only put me in a better place to care for another life. I am lucky to have what everyone is calling a “good” baby. Even so, a newborn baby needs to eat… all the time. When they wake up they need their diaper changed and need to be fed. After they are fed they need to burp. Until they burp, they cry. After the burp then need to sleep. Sometimes they cry again, and again. This process takes an hour (minimum), which means, you have about another one to two hours before this cycle repeats, and repeats and repeats. So as “good” as your baby may be, you will lose sleep. You will also cry to Adele’s “Hello” for no apparent reason, out of nowhere.

I have not hated my husband once since our baby was born. I need him. It takes a team to raise a baby. I have the best partner. Hopefully I didn’t just jinx it.

On a positive note, I no longer feel the guilt of over-caffeinating a tiny being. I stuck to my 150mg max of caffeine a day during pregnancy. I am thankful I had the time to write this blog only getting up three times to push my baby’s swing that I can’t be bothered to buy batteries for…

…And have a latte.

In Your Dreams! My Freudian Analysis

About three years ago I read half of Freud’s book on dream analysis on a flight from Trinidad to Orlando. Clearly that makes me an expert in the field. Now that I am almost six months pregnant I have had to cut back of caffeine and therefore my daily double dose of latte. I’ve picked up some new vices like having Frosted Mini Wheats and Cheerios for dinner. People always say that eating right before bed will give you weird dreams, not to mention pregnancy itself. Last nights dinner involved chicken noodle soup followed by a tiny bowl of cheerios. Honey nut, to be specific. My pairing of choice was an episode of Seinfeld. It just so happened to be the episode where George recommends the name “Soda” to an expecting couple and informs Susan that their future child would be named “Seven.” 

Choosing baby names can be a difficult task. I’ve had a girl name picked out for over five years but all boys names just seem so boring and uninventive to me. Since I don’t know the sex of my baby and won’t until D-day, I’m plagued with the reality that I might in fact have a boy! And then what?!  I read the baby name book of 100,000 names cover to cover and nothing. And then I had a dream….

I gave birth to a perfect, tiny baby boy with a full head of dark brown hair. No name. Segue into an immediate outdoor barbeque where everyone was dressed in cocktail party attire including my dear friends Kourtney Kardashian, Taraji P Henson and Gabrielle Union.  My new baby, who had not cried or woken up since birth (11 hours ago now according to my watch) sat at my feet in his car seat.  I asked my mother if I should wake him to feed him. She advised that I allow him to sleep until he was hungry and he would eventually awake. It began to rain and the car seat filled with water submerging my new baby. When I eventually remembered, shit, I now have a child, I looked down to see him all wrinkly totally under water. A voice from the side says, don’t worry they still have gills at birth. What a wonderful point. Maybe if I allow him to live partly under water and partly above water he would be an amphibian and always be safe in and out of the water. There I sat at my designated table at this cocktail party barbeque with the baby name book in front me. Kourtney is now glaring at me with her troops around her waiting to find out what this baby’s name is. It comes to me! 

I haven’t heard this name since my mother last mentioned her childhood golden retriever. So yes, it once belonged to a dog but it is actually a human name. I won’t reveal it just in case my husband is flexible enough to let me use it! I then became aware that I’d like to get out of this dress, so Taraji, the girls and I, went to change. I unzipped the front zipper of my dress to see that dreaded line down the center of my stomach only to realize it was an imprint of the zipper and my pre-pregnancy stomach was back! Happily the dream ended there. So, what does this all mean? Will I be a bad mother and forget my baby in his/her carseat? Will I name my baby after a deceased dog? Will Kourtney K finally realize that we are kindred spirits? Will my pre baby body resurface 11 hours after delivery?

Freud’s explanation is something to the effect that your thoughts and various happenings of the day are all bouncing around in your subconscious. Sometimes in REM sleep they become crossed and you end up kissing your dad (how very Freudian) or falling for that neighbor you hate. So, not to worry. Here’s how I think my signals got crossed.

My best friend is planning a wedding and stressing over table numbers. This would explain the fancy attire and assigned seats for the barbecue.

Kourtney K has managed to choose cute and unique names for her kids, unlike her younger sister Kim K. This would explain her glaring at me demanding I name this child and it better be good!

My mom came up with the one and only boy name that I approved of but it has since been reconsidered. This would explain the need to pay homage to her childhood dog. The uniqueness of said name can be chalked up to George Costanza.

The zipper line on my stomach would account for my fear of that horrid “linea negra” that pregnant women get.

I’m not sure why my baby was part fish part human and submerged in his car seat. Maybe the liquid from the soup and milk from my cheerios was sloshing around him/her in my belly all night. Maybe I need to finish Freud’s book.

So tomorrow, I’ll forgo my daily dose of cereal…

….and have a latte.

Just One of Them Days

A day that started out like any other day turned into one of "them" days. I opened the fridge to pour some milk for my morning latte and then opened the freezer for ice. Before my eyes was nothing short of Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" with everything dripping and drooping, melting and morphing. I was suddenly thankful that I had little to no groceries and had procrastinated stocking up for Christmas.

In true OCD fashion, my morning routine consists of counting all of the things I have to do before I leave the house. I don't always remember what those things are but I remember the number of things I have to do and cross them off my mental checklist as I go. It seems to work.

Off to work.

Seven things, I had seven things to do. I only remember getting up to number six. What was seven? Deodorant!!! Noooooooo. Thankfully, I had a short day ahead and would be safe in the air-conditioning all day. Except, I had to stop and put air in my tire. Remaining relatively cool and managing to keep my missed number seven anxiety at bay, I got back in the car and cranked the AC. Where is my antibacterial pocket pack?! After vigorously searching my purse and causing the missed number seven anxiety to rise, I remembered where I left it. It was in the purse I took to the movies so that when I paid for my popcorn I'd feel less uncomfortable licking my butter fingers.

Finally at my destination, body temperature intact, an inopportune run-in with a psychiatric patient ensued. I remembered what we were taught about positioning yourself near a door if you felt threatened by a patient. My only door was an emergency exit and probably locked knowing the functionality of the hospital. So I excused myself to take a "phone call."  Crisis averted but definitely creeped out.

Home.

If my food can't be cool at least my body can. I turn on the second AC unit in the living room which is now apparently blowing warm air. I'm reminded that I'm now home and can finally correct the missed number seven. Feeling way more tired than usual, I am looking forward to that afternoon latte. By now the milk in the fridge is just safe enough to give me one warm latte. I drank it with no ice out of  pure desperation. As the day turned into night I found the apartment strangely quiet. At long last! The seemingly invisible pantry cricket has made his escape! He only knew one vowel (e) which he sung all  through the night from his alternate universe, unseen and unscathed. Just as I decided to turn in for the night, I turned off the lights, walked toward the bedroom.....


"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee".

No. Way.

With my mini-muffin baking pan as my proxy ice tray (who owns ice trays anymore?), I better be able to wake tomorrow...

....and have a latte.

Tongue Thai'd

As a shorty biscuit, there are a few novelties in life I am not privy to. High on the list of shortcomings is the massage chair at the nail salon. I’ve had to give up on the dream of the lower back massage. When all hope of that dream disappears, I remember the actual reason I’m there, the pedicure. But before long, my mind wanders again. I often imagine the sheer terror and pain of childbirth but I am reassured when I remember that gazillions of women have done it and most more than once. I’ve sat through a few hours of tattooing and survived, so I could probably handle it.  Just then I’m brought back to reality by the equivalent of a cheese grater tormenting the arch of my foot. But it’s not pain it’s worse, it’s ticklish! I can’t take it and I start to hold my breath. I breathe through the seconds. It will be over soon. I can’t take it anymore and I jump inches off my chair. My Thai friend at the receiving end of the flinch laughs, I laugh and we get to talking. We talked relationships, family, friends food and fun. I shamefully divulge that I saw the Kardashian’s family trip to Thailand via the E channel. I immediately back it up by bashing the level of squeamishness that said Kardashian women displayed when stepping onto a boat, swimming, touching sand, seeing a bug, feeling a breeze, getting a hang nail blah blah blah. Ever since I continued on my path to becoming a psychotherapist, people just seem to wanna tell me their life stories. In true practice, I’ll keep our conversation confidential but lets just say that in 60 minutes of talking to “Sally” (why can’t they ever use their real names?) I learned more about her culture, her people, her reality than three hours of part one, part two and the conclusion of the Kardashians in Thailand. No, I’m not surprised. The only time the Kardashians left their fancy shmancy suite was to take a gratuitous trip to an orphanage where Kim pretends she’s going to adopt an orphan because she was “cute.” Coincidentally, it doesn’t work that way in Thailand. Unfortunately for me I’ll never get back those 3 hours of Kardashian watching even though I willfully subject myself to it. I was however, lucky enough to become that much more culturally aware, a competence crucial to my future profession. Having gained by shedding some skin, I left the salon in my new color “Mrs. Robinson.” In an effort to be more aware of the coffee culture I drove myself to the nearest Starbucks…

…to have a latte.

Church laughs: A Series of Inappropriate Events

Trying to stifle a church laugh is a task no less difficult than trying hold in a sneeze when your mouth is full of fried rice. The silence your fear to break is unbearable and time moves like sand through an hourglass. Prayers of intention become prayers of petition and you pray that the choir erupts in an impromptu Hallelujah.

Our wedding day was no different:

My dad reminded Andrew of the deal they made after 18 holes and the answer to his request to marry me. You can have her but YOU are my new retirement plan :)

I can only speculate that the best man found this time appropriate to show the groom one version of his speech, the one  that they would read only once and then burn. I imagine we were all still a bit drunk from going down the islands the day before.

Yup, that's my boy..

One of us is about to burst into flames....it's probably you.

He had one job......

I went all in...what are you waiting for?!

There may not be enough room for you in this union :)

Help! I'm tripping over my dress. We tied the tulle in a knot! My fairy godmother and those mice pulled a fast one last night. My dress is 6 inches longer!

What they should have written underneath the  grooms shoes.....

Ants? In there?

No it's not ripped at all, it's fine (The Best Man)

Doing what he does best, sacrificing someones dignity for the benefit of a joke :)

Where is this story going.....

Cheers!

Shots worked!

Caught!

Final thoughts for the bride and groom..... I had to burn those.


The best thing about a church laugh is that the intensity accrues and sometimes you get to express it in this type of forum.

So, where's the latte in this story?

The restaurant manager may have slipped while carrying all of the glass bottles filled with iced coffee and may have hurt his back and may have been out of commission for a while.

This was the one day I was on such a high I didn't need............. to have a latte.

10 Truths After 30

I recently celebrated my 31st birthday. This new accomplishment has brought some self- reflection on my life before 30. Those of you who are not quite here yet may want to peek into the future of life after 30 and avoid makings some of these truths your own. Please note the disclaimer for #9 :)

Here we go!

1. You spend your birthdays telling your friends you haven’t quite decided exactly where you’re thinking of celebrating when you know full well you plan to be in bed by 9:30p.m. and you really cannot afford to be eating cake at this age.

2. You realize that there’s no such thing as overfilling the Brita pitcher. The filtered water actually comes out first allowing the rest to filter through before drinking. (Glad I didn’t call my husband at work after all to complain about that).

3. You spend countless hours researching trendy calorie burning workouts and 25-minute full body circuits only becoming too tired to actually do any of them.

4. You consider setting your alarm for 7:00 a.m. a treat but lets face it, you will already be up when it sounds.

5. On Tuesday, you foresee your Saturday night as a glamorous, club-hopping, champagne popping extravaganza. Instead, it ends up as a night of Facebook and Instagram where you live vicariously through the twenty-somethings you once were.

6. Making dinner is like doing your homework. If you don’t do it, you may not be punished but someone will be ‘disappointed.’  If you try to hurry it, it’s just a big ol’ mess. If you avoid it all together, you will have twice as much to do the following day.

7. One drink with a heavy pour is not the start of the ‘best night ever’ it’s an early end because you have to make it through the drive-thru before it closes.

8. You wonder what other breakfast items exist besides toast.

*9. People constantly remind you that you have no children yet no one congratulates you on not getting pregnant in your teens.

* Some of the most amazing people I know have had children in their teens, whose kids are also pretty amazing. I just think I should receive an award because I like awards.

 10. You reward yourself for eating a healthy dinner by eating all the cookies in the house.

The best thing about life after 30 is that you have an excuse ...

....... to need a daily latte (or two).

HAPPY FRIDAY! 

Cherry Pie

It started with a tin of cherries, a very lonely tin of cherries. The tin of cherries reminded me of the graham cracker piecrust I had left over from Christmas. Luckily, I was out of flour so there goes the idea of baking a pie.

I really need milk though, and coffee for that matter. I could pick up the flour since I’d already be at the grocery.

Looked up a quickie recipe for cherry pie and realized I needed butter. Okay, a carton of milk, a stick of butter….  I began to think of that little cartoon snippet that used to come on between segments of Sesame Street and I cannot believe I actually found the link…. a loaf, of bread, a container of milk, a stick of butter

http://hot1047.com/loaf-of-bread-container-of-milk-stick-of-butter/

Well color me surprised, it’s Valentine’s Day and the grocery is a sea of pink and red reasons to turn around and leave at once. Carnival is less than three weeks away, which is precisely two weeks more than the last time I ate three doubles. I bypassed the chocolates, the cakes, and the cupcakes. I was almost free of the temptation when I saw the most beautiful piece of pink perfection. A doughnut. I flirted with it a bit and was able to ignore all of its ingenious pick up lines. Proud moment. I picked up a box of six tiny bite-sized jam tarts with the idea that they would be shared. I could not endure the three-minute drive home so I decided to have one, a raspberry one.

Who am I kidding?  I’ll try the apple next. Why are there so many red ones? It’s cherry? I’ll just have that one so it doesn’t feel left out and then take the rest home.

I made it all the way in the front door when my Chihuahua wanted to inspect the bag as usual. I couldn’t deny him a little piece so I broke off a piece of the pastry and fed it to him.

What to do with the rest of it?

Needless to say there was a 3-2-1 effect with the remaining tarts and a cherry pie baking in the oven.

No one will ever be home to stop you from eating butter, pancake batter, plain ketchup or all of the leftover cherry pie filling.

One thing you can do alone and not feel guilty,

…Is have a latte.

Happy Valentines Day!

Taking Down the Lights

After all the excitement of putting up the tree, elfing the shelf, baking the cookies, wrapping the gifts and eating the food it always comes to an end. But before it does, for these three weeks we allow ourselves to believe.

We believe that it is okay to eat sugar cookies.

We believe that two pastels and garlic pork for breakfast is a balanced meal.

We believe that punch de crème is an acceptable dessert.

We believe that all gym visits will resume on Boxing Day.

We believe that people are genuinely that nice year round.

We believe that our pockets are deep.

We believe that we will be able to lose the holiday weight before Carnival.

After committing those 7 deadly sins I did the inevitable. I tried on my Carnival costume.

They say that seeing is believing….

Well, I saw the sugar cookies in my cheeks where my cheekbones used to be. One pastel each topped my derrière.  The garlic pork made my mouth pout at the sight and Punch de crème seeped from my poor pores. It turns out that people are not very nice after Christmas, especially on Boxing Day when they reach into their pockets for their gym card and only lint and receipts come out.

I choose to believe that what I saw in that mirror was proof of a great Christmas and that the only way to fight the seasonal blues…

…………Was with an ice cold Latte.

Happy New Year!

10 Not-So-Practical Ways to Adapt to a Trini Christmas

1.     When I crave wintry weather I just skip drying off after a shower and stand naked in front of my air conditioner.

2.     When I miss all the Christmas sales and deals, I just go to West Mall and pay the 600% mark up.

3.     When I miss the continuous playing of Christmas carols on Magic 107.7 FM, I just blast parang with cotton balls in my ears.

4.     When I miss the pleasant faces of the splendid Starbucks staff and the robust aroma of freshly ground coffee beans, I stand on my balcony and breathe in the burnt garbage smell of the Beetham Highway that has wafted 10 kilometers.

5.     When I miss the jingle of extra change in my pocket after shopping, I just stand next to the bell ringers at the grocery.

6.     When I miss pumpkin pie I buy a box of curry and a pie shell and, well, you get the idea.

7.     When my friends post pictures of themselves in boots and scarves I put up my bikini pictures (as if year-round bikini season is a good thing).

8.     When I miss Santa passing through the neighborhoods on the fire truck, I just get up early and wait for the garbage man.

9.     When I miss mom and dad eating the Christmas cookies and drinking the milk I left out for Santa, I leave the teacup and saucer near my Chihuahua’s food and act surprised the next morning when it’s gone.

10. When I miss strolling around Barnes and Noble (that conveniently has a Starbucks in it) I sit down with my laptop, write a blog entry, and make myself ……………a latte.

Go Gatsby or Go Home

Lately I was graced with the opportunity to experience new levels of being tired. My lapse in blog writing is due mainly in part to my much delayed furthering of education known commonly as the Master’s Degree. What’s funny is that nowadays a Master’s Degree is like an iPhone. Everybody has one. Those who don’t have one wish they did. Furthermore, once you get it, a newer and more efficient model is born. Therefore, we are somehow predestined to be one step behind and always wanting more. I hadn’t really considered going further than the Master's until the other day when I received a wedding invitation addressed to the usual Mr. and Mrs. How cool would it be if it was addressed to Mr. and Dr.? (Doctor being me!) To appease that thought I think I might just address an envelope to myself with the title and save myself the insanity.

While balancing my five classes, my part time home-school and remedial teaching, lesson planning, cooking, cleaning, laundry, dog walking, textbook reading, reflection paper writing, popcorn addiction and of course liming (or lack thereof) I was able to successfully get the flu, question my existence, have a minor panic attack and lose a few pounds. Thankfully, I think this was an adjustment phase and I am back on track, no thanks to the pounds regained.

One day, on my way to school, while stuck in traffic to the usual spot (the lighthouse) I looked over and saw a child driving a car. (Enter extreme exhaustion.) At the same time I thought to myself that I really needed to buy print for my inker and that I hate literally every song on my ipod. I really just do not want to “boom bang bang with your body-o” ever again. Thankfully the song “Bumpy Ride” is forever deleted from my ipod and I anticipate only smooth rides from now on. As for you Lana Del Rey, I love, love, love(d) your song “Young and Beautiful.” Vivid memories of Leo dancing (with that girl from Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Drive) in his mansion of scintillating objects of grandeur with champagne flowing and confetti raining down. Ugh, any girls dream right? Wrong! This song is bipolar dream. From manic highs to melancholic lows, from dancing to being no longer beautiful and having nothing left but an aching soul? Meanwhile I’m picturing my husband looking handsome, youthful and tan while I have a grey haired bun, wrinkles and a ghastly hole where my face used to be. Who wants that?!  I did the inevitable. I pulled down my visor mirror and looked in. You know when you flip the view in your camera phone to take a pic of yourself? That ugly distorted face you see? Haha, it happened. My nails were seriously un-manicured and my hair was in need of some “serious highlights” as Elle Woods would say. Needless to say, Lana Del Rey is reserved only for instances where I’m glammed up and would not be ashamed to walk into a Gatsby party, not for school traffic.

Saturday mornings are twofold. I am rested for the first time in a week. Then, I check my Instagram only to find out that everybody was doing something exponentially cooler than I was. By something, I mean anything. If this is a sign of things to come (child bearing/motherhood) I’ll go for the Ph.D.

To add to my wedding vows:

I will get out of bed every morning and “put on a face”

I will dress as if I’m going to see meet the Great Gatsby

I will take Vitamin C

Most importantly, I will always reserve time…..

……………….for a latte.

Local Mysteries

I promised positivity so I have managed to find a silver lining in each circumstance.

Why is shopping for clothes in this country a lot like trying to ignore a creepy guy in a bar?

The moment you walk into a store, number 32 appears and asks seductively, “ya getting thru?” Getting through the doorway? Yes, I managed that.

What I would prefer, “Hi, welcome to “store name” we have sales on “blah, blah and blah, my name is blah if you need any help.”

What we get? Nothing short of a stalker, following your every move, continuing to let you know that when you get to the register tell them number 32 helped you. If by help, you mean studied the silhouette of my body, suggested heinous options, breathed down the back of my neck and possibly pick pocketed me, then yes, number 32 did in fact help me.

How do you get annoying clerks off your back? Ask for a pair of jeans that are “not skinny.” One of two things will happen. They will either tell you they don’t have any and leave you for dead trying to find a pair, or they will search high and low for a few minutes giving you enough time to hide behind the pants rack and wait it out. At this point, keep your eyes on the floor and do not make any further eye contact. Do not make any sudden movements. Do not reach for anything higher than you are capable of reaching. Do not initiate conversation or make any requests. Most importantly, do NOT turn around, they might still be lurking…….

Silver lining: I spend way less money on clothes and I get to play a game of hide and seek in which I always win and no one knows I am playing.

Why should purchasing daily coffee be a punishing experience?

Let me refer to this local coffee establishment as a Starbucks wannabe.  The staff has the talent to carry on a phone conversation that lasts clear through the hours of operation via earpiece while staring into your soul as you place your heavily inconvenient order. They can’t however, make an iced beverage. Why must we either have it hot or blended? Am I the only one who finds it warm outside? What happens when you dump ice into a cup of boiling liquid? Correct! It melts! I have walked the staff through this before.

1. Brew single/double shot of espresso.

2. Pour into cup.

3. Add sugar if the guest requests it. Do not point me to the sugar at the end of the counter. Sugar will not dissolve in a cold beverage and I will end up sucking sugar particles through my straw and being forced to snack on them.

 4. Add cold milk.

5. Add ice and put a lid on it. Done.

You know why the Starbucks staff is so happy? They drink the coffee!!! What do you think of a restaurant where the staff does not eat the food? There is no possible way that the staff of this establishment is drinking the coffee.

Silver lining: I save money by making my coffee at home and in the odd event that I do order an iced beverage at this establishment, I teach one more barista something they should have learnt on day one of training.

Last but not least………dear sweet MovieTowne. I love your popcorn. I would just about see any movie to experience your warm, buttery, popped perfection. But WHAT is up with your concession line?? Thirty minutes is absolutely ridiculous. Like a true addict, I leave home extra early and anticipate the wait just to get a fix. I start to cold sweat and my mouth waters. Eeek! Fourth in line and movie starts in five minutes!  Ahhhhhh what to do? I can wait, I can wait, positive self talk. I recite the order in my head a few times, “one regular popcorn and a water.” “Oh my gosh, Dasani or Blue Waters?” The Dasani bottle used to fit better in the cup holder but now they are the same shape! “Oh no! I’ll just wing it.” I recover.  Don’t worry dear MovieTowne, I would never bad talk you without offering you a solution. Instead of a “cash only” line (which absolutely does not move any faster than the other line) how about this? A line strictly for…..wait for it…….purchases of popcorn, drinks and candy! You’re welcome. In other words, ready made food.

Silver lining: I have learnt to cope with popcorn addiction.

Of all the definitions of a “mystery” this is my favorite:

Mystery (noun) any truth that is unknowable except by divine revelation.

The closest I have come to experiencing divine revelation here on Earth is through latte therapy. When unsolved mysteries far less puzzling than the Bermuda Triangle, the Zodiac Letters, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, The Shroud of Turin and Stonehenge continue to plague you…….think of a solution.....

…………while having a Latte.

Planning A Wedding vs. Planning a Marriage

If we put as much time and effort into planning our wedding day as we did into planning our marriage, maybe the marriage success rate would be higher. Most people spend anywhere from six months to a year planning a wedding but never consider planning a marriage. TheKnot.com provides a very handy checklist for the newly engaged to check off.

To list a few:

Budget, invitations, stationery, wedding cakes, wedding flowers, reception ideas, ceremony and vows, DIY wedding ideas, bridal party, your guests, music and dancing, photo and video, wedding favors, rehearsals, transportation and sticky subjects.

If I learned one thing during my Catholic Engaged Encounter it was that a wedding is for one day, a marriage is for a lifetime. See mom? I did learn something. Cheesy but true.

Ok so I have only been married for eight months give or take but I would like to share some thoughts on those necessities that websites like The Knot make us crazy over.

Budget: Whether you spend a little, a lot or a “not too big, not too small, just the size of Montreal"amount on a wedding,  your guests will eat, they will drink, they will dance and they will most importantly go home. You will then go on living life, which is not free so keep that in mind. The E! Channel is not filming or paying for your wedding so do not feel obligated to "Keep Up With The Kardashians." We all know how those marriages turn out anyway.

Invitations: Invitations are a means of simply that, inviting your guests. Whether they are floral, textured, square, round, pocket, modern, rustic or vintage, your guest will open it, say “Awww” and stick it with whatever magnet is available to their refrigerator which in no way coordinates with the invitation that you and hubby carefully created on numerous websites while falling asleep at dinner or behind your computer at work, seeking approval from mom, mom-in-law, maid of honor, the pool man and your nosy aunt before narrowing it down to four and and just closing your eyes and choosing one. So don’t stress. Spell your names correctly, give us a time, date and location and we are there.

Stationery: This is for ‘Thank you” cards. Make it easy, match them to your invitations and order them at the same time.

The cake: Tiers, flavors, fillings, round stand, square stand, décor, and embellishments. The only people who care about your cake are you, your mother, your mother-in-law-to-be and your decorator. Most of the time, WE don’t get to even eat it and we knock it over on the dance floor anyway. Or in my case, its ends up with glow bracelets sticking it out of it. Sorry aunty Angie! Advice? Make sure you choose a flavor you love. DO freeze the top tier like your momma, your mammy, your granny and your auntie told you to. I was out of dessert the other night and I pulled mine out of the freezer, unwrapped the many layers of wax paper and scotch tape and saw the tiny stab wound my husband and I made in the cake last December right before we fed each other our first cake as husband and wife and it made me go, “Awwwww.”

Wedding flowers: I was lucky enough to have a mother-in-law who specialized in floral arrangements. I handed the reins over to her on this one. Advice? Pick a color and let someone else do it. You don’t know what looks pretty even if you think you do. Our mothers have been reading issues of “Better Homes and Gardens” since before we could tie our shoelaces so let them handle it. Take a moment the night before or the morning of to go and look at your venue all decorated and say, “Awwww” because on the day you don’t even know you have feet. Everything truly is a blur and you won’t remember it.

Reception Ideas: Food, bar, done!

Ceremony and vows: Stick with the standard “repeat after me.” You will NOT have an enormous sense of confidence that you THOUGHT you would to pour your heart our to your loved one in front of 200 of your closest friends and family members. That’s your husband’s job, ha-ha! DO think of something hilarious before you walk down the aisle because you look ugly when you cry and it’s a happy day. So if you must cry, practice in the mirror before you do it front of all of us.

DIY: Don’t DIY. It’s fun to leaf wrap one mason jar and fill it with glass gems but it’s not fun to do it 100 times when you have a dog barking for his walk, a pile of files to go through at the office, dinner to cook for your husband, an empty treadmill that you should be on and too many loads of laundry to do.

Bridal party: OMG, who is going to make the cut? Unless you want a 20 person bridal party, you are going to hurt some feelings. Big bridal parties are hard to photograph and Cindy Lou's arm will be cut out of every photo. Your oldest friends are not always your closest friends. So don’t feel obligated to have them in it. Sally from pre-school who you haven’t seen in 25 years does not need to be in your wedding just because you two used to dress up in sheets in front of the mirror holding hairbrush bouquets and play “Bride” and you send her a Christmas card every year. Who are you likely to be close with for the rest of your life? Being a bridesmaid is WORK. Save someone the trouble and the awful dress. This way they can enjoy your wedding and not be enslaved by you all night long.

Guests:  Treat your guest list like a bonsai tree. Look at it from afar. Decide how you want to shape it. Remove the weeds and continually trim for maintenance.

Music & Dancing: Remember that the cameras are rolling even when you have had your thirteenth vodka and Red Bull with intermediate champagnes. I know I forgot to remember and now I have a three DVD wedding video, the last of which is full of horrible dance moves performed by mostly me.

Photo and video: I would seriously opt for a raw, live video as opposed to one set to music with cute fading in and out making you and your husband look like an ad for eHarmony. This way you get to hear all the things that people thought they were whispering as you walked down the aisle. Drunken people posing for what they think is a still photo but is actually live video is pretty awesome too.

Wedding favors: Wedding favors are like the candy stands you get wedged between at the grocery or Target before checking out. You don’t need them. You want them.  They look enticing in photos. $1.99 times 200 hundred guests is a lot of money. I wanted bubbles. I chose tiny silver monogrammed jars of bubbles from a website in China. When I got them, I had 200 monogrammed stickers to peel and stick on my hexagonal shaped bubble jars………by myself. Dementia almost set in until thankfully “Father of the Bride” happened to be on, so I watched it and I  “awwww” and happily continued sticking. I also had hundreds of glow bracelets and necklaces that my bridesmaids hurriedly cracked and snapped together somewhere between eating, dancing, holding my dress while I used the bathroom and taking shots. Here’s the clincher…….CONNECTORS! They didn’t just snap and connect; they had separate connectors, hundreds of tiny clear plastic connectors. God bless their precious hearts, we were all aglow in no time.

Rehearsals: Rehearsals are long; time consuming, confusing, obligatory and nerve wracking. But, they do lead to dinner so go ahead and have one.

Transportation: Do opt for transportation. It’s affordable and after all, you spent how much on bubbles?

Sticky subjects: What?  TheKnot.com did not provide you with a checklist for marriage? Just a wedding? While planning a wedding is exciting and a once in a lifetime (hopefully) event, marriage is FOR a lifetime. So compromise! When he told you he’d rather an outdoor than indoor venue did you storm out the door and drive off in your car? When you wanted salmon on the menu and he preferred lamb, did you send him hundreds of mean texts all day long? Hopefully you answered “no” to those questions. There will be many more decisions to be made in marriage and ones that are far more important than fruit filling or custard. So look back on the blissful, carefree days of planning your wedding when planning your marriage. When he comes home with 8 lemons when you SPECIFICALLY asked for 12 eggs, just sigh, make lemonade

………And have a Latte.

Things I Remember That I Can't Forget

In the third grade we were individually required to write and publish a book. All this really meant is that the book would be covered in a semi hardcover fashionable fabric, typed, illustrated by yours truly, bound and stamped with a shiny gold seal. This is when my two bestsellers were written. “The Cat who had no Claws” debuted on my parents’ mantle for the while right next to “The Girl With Too Many Names.” Recently, over a latte I re-read these literary masterpieces. The first book was simply about cat’s struggle to catch and eat birds without the necessary claws. The latter, however was about a girl who just had TOO many names. This poor girl would have to recite these names every time she was asked what her name was. The other side of the problem, she had to be called by ALL of these names or she would not respond. One name (that I had given her) really caught my eye. “Speakeasy.” I had never heard this word before or even said it, but I liked the way it sounded. Ironic that a girl with so many names could speak….easy (or easily to be grammatically correct.) By definition a speakeasy is a (noun) saloon or nightclub selling alcoholic beverages illegally, especially during Prohibition. Why on Earth? I truly think that I had just made it up and it just so happened to be a real word. Once in college I had seen my American History professor grading our essays over a pint (or two) in the campus bar. Needless to say I received an A on that paper, yet today, I shamefully retain little to no American History. I pictured my third grade teacher editing this book over a glass of wine putting huge red check marks all over the page. This led me to another image of Ralphie’s teacher in his own daydream correcting his composition on the Red Ryder BB Gun that he so desperately wanted for Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8L86Z8YgeQ

That particular third grade teacher did in fact tell me that I had a “gift” for writing. I never forgot that. Every single time I wrote any piece of creative writing I thought of it. 

In middle school, I went on to place 3^rd in the 4H Tropicana Speech contest where I wrote a heavily embellished piece on my home country Trinidad (The Emerald Isle) Uh what?  It was all very encyclopedia researched since in 1993 Trinidad might as well have been Tanzania to my classmates. 

"Mom, there's nothing in the encyclopedia about Trinidaddddd!" This was still a time where students used the public library, their parents Encyclopedia Britannica set and their elders for historical information. 

The Second Place winner wrote about her home country, Columbia, and said a few words in Spanish. What? We didn't know she could speak Spanish........AMAZING! 

The first place winner spoke about her native land, England, and pronounced the word “hamburger” in a heavy English accent, which was a crowd favourite, and the auditorium erupted in laughter. Cheap shot Jemma, we all know Americans LOVE hamburgers :)

Today’s positive note:

Children want to hear that they’ve done well. Of all the words you share with the little people make them worthwhile.

Other unforgettable sayings/quotes I remember:

Fork on the left  ------------when setting a table

Lefty loosey, righty tighty -------------------when unscrewing/tightening anything

Right on red ----------------------------ONLY in the states

“Why is the carpet all WET Todd?” ------------National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iByfqls-xbU

“He’ll keep calling me, he’ll keep calling me ‘till I come over” --------------------Cameron sitting in his car stewing whether or not to go to Ferris Bueller’s house. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdcFYNe9U7A

 Seems to happen more with age as you consider the logistics of “going out” when you know you’d rather sit at home in pajamas....

……….with popcorn and a LATTE