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