Sunday Lunch-ing :)

I'm back at it again. This time I had a little help though :D

Sunday lunch: A weekly excuse to satisfy your inner glutton, all in the name of culture and tradition lol.

Never underestimate the therapeutic powers of cooking :D

Life, etc.

I'd love to start this post with a grand ole "I'M BACK!", but the truth is I didn't go anywhere. Unlike my other moments of work, travel and procrastination-induced delinquency, the reason behind my lack of blogging was a conscious need for time to sort my thoughts....As it turns out, when you have a big head like I do, it takes more time to find your thoughts in order to sort them...

I wanted to share something. I felt I HAD to share it....but I wasn't mentally ready. I thought that time would "heal all pain" and make things easier....yet here I sit, no more comfortable than I was a month ago.

Life is such a funny thing. The last post I did was about an experience my younger brother had...and that was actually "HA HA" funny. This post is about an experience my younger sister had...and it's the kind of "funny" you use when you really want to say that something just makes you question your beliefs and look at life in a whoooollleee new light.

In the early hours of February 2nd, my sister awoke to find a man with a knife standing a few feet from her in her apartment. She'd fallen asleep watching TV in her living room and I guess he made a noise (or maybe it was Divine Intervention) as he was burglarizing the house, and she woke up.

The thing about my sis is that she's as equally brave as she is a coward. She often blames me for her cowardice as one of my childhood passions was scaring the shit out of her. Whenever I spent holidays with them, I'd actually wait around corners and jump out at her because it gave me great (sadistic) pleasure to hear her earth shattering screams....Don't judge me :)

As it turns out, those earth shattering screams probably saved her life that morning because the intruder got so startled when she jumped up and started screaming that he ran and dove through a window, injuring himself in the process. The police were called in and from my sis' account, they were extremely thorough; dusting everywhere for prints, taking notes and doing a search of the area. When they eventually left, it was to go to the scene of ANOTHER break-in that took place earlier that morning. I guess the dude was on a roll.

Now I've never been one to take life for granted. I am a FIRM believer in living life to the fullest, and to me, part of that means appreciating the people I'm blessed with. HOWEVER, that incident has given me an even deeper appreciation for my family and friends because it was a sobering reminder that things can literally change in an instant.

At the police station, one of the officers taking her statement actually told my sister how lucky she was. You might be thinking, "Lucky?!", but trust me, when you live to see another day as opposed to having the police tell your family members that they just found you dead; raped and murdered...YOU'RE LUCKY and BLESSED!

We moved my sis out the very same day....she's back with the rest of the family and in no hurry (understandably so) to live on her own again. I wish I could say the police caught the guy, but I honestly have no idea.

I know this could have happened anywhere, but as I've said time and time again, it sometimes seems that in T&T we're just waiting for crime to come too close for comfort. There's no concept of the ripple effect when it comes to criminals; it's just them and their target. The moment that asshole brought his knife he decided, without even knowing it, that he'd make my nephew an orphan if he had to....and that ENRAGES me!!!

I'm thankful. I'm angry. I'm confused. I'm thankful.

When I had just moved back home, I could answer the "Why did you come back?" question in a heartbeat. These days I stutter. I know why I came back...the reason hasn't changed. I just have to hope that no one ever asks me the one question I'm still having some trouble with......."Why do you stay?"

Thanks for reading...

♬ That's Him In The Corner...♬

HAPPY FRIDAY GOOD PEOPLE!!! I hope your 2011 is going well so far :)

After checking my sidebar and seeing that I managed an abysmal 49 posts for the entire 2010, I've resolved to be better at taking care of my blog and giving her the attention she deserves. Godspeed to me :D

Anyway, I just had to share this story my younger brother just told me lol. He's at the ID card office right now and a man in Muslim garb joins the people waiting to be serviced.

As with any service-oriented government office in Trinidad, the wait can be painfully long. So they're all sitting there waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

The Muslim gentleman finally gets through and he's so happy that he shouts, "THANK YOU JESUS!"......He then catches himself, looks around and says, "Allah hu akbar", at which point the entire room bursts into laughter LOLOLOL.

Ladies and gentlemen, in case you missed it, THAT is what Trinidad & Tobago office service can do to you!!!! You sit around waiting for soooooo long that you actually forget what religion you follow lmao.

The man was a bit ashamed afterwards, but hey, we get you, bro. We've all experienced levels of frustration with government services that only Jesus could understand....so don't feel too bad lol.

Ah yes! Sweet T&T! Where you go into a government office and lose your religion lol.

Thanks for reading ;D

HAPPY 2011 EVERYONE!!!

I may have missed the Christmas greetings, but I couldn't let New Year's Day go by without sending best wishes to my Blogger family. To you and yours I say "HAPPY NEW YEAR" and send my sincerest wishes for a prosperous 2011.

I'm not sure what your 2010 was like, but I am sure that whether you loved, hated or felt indifferent towards 2010, the new year brings the opportunity for a fresh start. I had a great 2010 and honestly, I'm not one of those people who wait until the new year to change what doesn't work for them....but I do understand that something about ending one year and beginning a new one symbolizes renewal and hope for a lot of people....soooooo BIG UP YUHSELF FUH 2011!!!

THANK YOU, to everyone who took the time to read, comment, send an email or just keep in touch. Thanks also to the other bloggers for providing me with laughs, relevant information, stimulating "conversation", new ways of seeing things and encouragement to keep writing.

I'm really excited to see what 2011 has in store....and I hope you guys stick with me for the journey :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! ;D

Tis The Season For Brain Farts?

Have you ever had so much you wanted to write about that you didn't know where to begin? Have you ever felt so baffled by the things taking place around you that you're stunned into silence despite wanting to say A LOT!? If this is your present state of mind, it probably means that you're in Trinidad, so all I can say is: WELCOME TO MY WORLD!

I've actually been experiencing an overload of WTF moments brought on by this sudden prevalence of willy nilly decision making à la Minister of the Arts and Multiculturalism, Winston 'Gypsy' Peters and Port of Spain Mayor, Louis Lee Sing. Somewhere in the back of my head I keep expecting Ashton Kutcher to come running out, laughing and tell me that I'm on an episode of Punk'd....because this ish CANNOT be for real!

Before I go in hard on the two individuals who are apparently competing for the 'Beh Beh of the Year' Award, I would like to take this moment to shout out all my friends and family members who did NOT buy me a ticket to come up for Thanksgiving. I love you guys!

To show that I hold no hard feelings about having to miss my favorite US holiday AGAIN, I've decided to dedicate the following photos to my oh-so-dear-to-my-heart-loved-ones abroad :)...As we know, Christmas time is here again and there's NOTHING on this earth like a real Trini Christmas. So just to give you guys a taste of what you've been missing....

Pastelles ;)

Church Christmas Dinner....YUMMY ;)

 

That's just the tip of the 'Christmas in Trinidad' iceberg. You're welcome :D. And yes, I could have bought my own ticket, but it's called ThanksGIVING. That means that next year I expect you guys to GIVE me a ticket so that I can GIVE you the honor of my presence....LOL.

Anyway, back to Beh Beh 1 and Beh Beh 2. Since this post cannot go on forever and I have much to say, I will dedicate separate posts to these two lovely gentlemen who have inspired me to break my "Stop getting worked up over and blogging about political incompetence" rule.

STAY TUNED!