CityGirl

I’m really terrible at Memes. I post impulsively most of the time(and later go back and edit for grammatical, spelling errors etc) and a meme doesn’t have the spontaniety element. Plus I’m just too lazy to write about something that I wasn’t driven to post about. Well, Lex has tagged me for a ‘10 secrets meme’. Even though initially I groaned at the thought (sorry Lex, I’m a lazy bum at times), I’ve enjoyed travelling down memory lane for most of the ’secrets’. I love reading memes though so it’s only fair. I’m supposed to tag two persons but you know what? You are all tagged. As long as you’re reading this post, you’re tagged. Simple as that.

1. At age 17, I was in love with a ‘foreign’ cousin. I thought he looked so cute. He had jerry curled hair which was hot at one time but not the dripping type. Ok, stop laughing y’all. I think he was about 20 at the time. We actually did indulge in some touchy-feely. (Gosh, I hope my family doesn’t find this blog).

2. I once double-booked a date. Not intentionally. This was back in the days when I was a hot-to-trot 20 y-o with men lining up to date me. Happened like this. Phone rang, male voice on other end. Fellow asked where and what time he should pick me up on Saturday. Assuming that he was the person that I had already made plans with for Saturday but hadn’t confirmed the pickup time and place, we made firm plans for him to pick me up at work. I was too embarassed to cancel when I realized that he was wrong person after speaking with him some more. So I did the cowardly thing and asked my girlfriend to meet me at work (to do what I don’t recall now) but I remember sneaking out with the right one and being worried that the ‘wrong’ one would see.

3. In my 20’s I dated quite a few older men for the shock value. Wasn’t interested in them (nor their money either-I was a well-brought up child who was taught not to accept money from men!) but was just mischieviously trying to get a rise out of my mother. In retrospect, she handled that phase quite ok, considering that some were about her age.

4. My Aunt caught me ‘getting it on’ with my neighbor when I was about 8 y-o. He was the same age. At that age ‘getting it on’ meant me sitting (without panties) on his lap, concealed by my dress/skirt and ‘rubbing’. I was reprimanded so loudly that I hid in my room in shame for the next two weeks. When I thought it safe to come out, it turned out that the entire street heard about it. I wanted to die.

5. I used to invite all the children in neighborhood over to peep on our tenant when he had his girlfriend over on Thursday nights for sex. I was probably about 9 or 10 y-o. He was an ‘elderly’ gentleman of about 50 and his g/f was about the same age. He didn’t know he was Feature Presentation for the neighborhood rascals once per week. We couldn’t see much with the light off but from the sounds we knew something ‘rude’ was going on.

6. I use to wear a ‘Mr. T’ hairstyle ‘down-under’ I thought it was cute and was greatly amused by the expression on my Doctor’s face whenever I had to see him and it involved me stripping.

7. After I got tired of the ‘Mr. T’ hairstyle, I attempted to texturize my pubic hair. I don’t recall now if that was the time when I had to hop screaming to the shower or that was because somehow I had gotten rubbing alcohol down there.

8. I have a profile on ‘AdultFriendFinder’. I created the profile for fun. Yes, it’s for fun, I have no intention of meeting up with any of those horny fellows. It’s hilarious reading the messages that my ‘very steamy’ profile generates though. Offers for all-expense paid trips to exotic places, invitations to meet up in Negril or Florida, just to have sex. Hehe. No! I won’t tell you the name I use. Haven’t checked it in a while though.

9. I love swimming nude in Negril. It’s liberating!!! Correction. I enjoyed it back in the days when I had the body of a supple 20 y-o. I’ve put on some weight since 5 years ago, the last time I was there, so will have to see if I still like that when I go in December.

10. I rarely brush my teeth more than once per day. But I’m addicted to flossing. Every day, quite often several times per day. I don’t walk with a toothbrush but you’ll find floss in my bag.

Ok, there you have it. Juicy details about me.

I’m in so much pain. I have aches and pains in places that I didn’t even know exist. I thought this was one time that the flu virus would pass me by. Alas, I’ve never been so wrong. I have a very low pain tolerance so I’m also weepy. I just bawled on my long-time ’suitor’ who called earlier just because he was insisting that my study technique was wrong. The poor soul was so shocked and filled with remorse. I couldn’t help it. I just felt miserable and in pain and he was making me more miserable by insisting that he knew me more than me (well that’s how it felt to me). I’m over that weeping spell now though.

So anyway, I’m here self-medicating. I stopped at the pharmacy and now I have a mini dispensary. Panadol multi-symptoms, drowsy and non-drowsy; Rubex vitamin
C effervescent tablets, strepsils, Ginko-Biloba tablets. Well, the ginko-biloba is for memory not for flu. Some people who are studying swear by it. Hopefully it will help me to remember everything I’ve studied (or most).

I had the idea to make some chicken soup so I also stopped at the supermarket to pick up chicken. I wanted to buy oranges too (bought orange juice last night and it tasted horrible so I decided on the real deal), as well as some mushroom for the soup. I read that mushroom has medicinal properties, never mind that it’s not necessarily to treat the flu, I feel better having it in my soup. None of the three supermarkets in Liguanea that I managed to drag myself to had any oranges or mushrooms.

My soup is simmering quite nicely and smelling heavenly too. I’m sure that the garlic and carrot (which also has some medicinal value) will more than make up for the lack of mushroom. I’ve added some irish potatoes (cut up really small) to that and some dumplings (just for the pleasure value-gosh I love dumplings!). Onions, a combination of soup mixes, a huge country pepper(love spicy food) and my mouth is watering with anticipation.

I also have honey, lemon juice and rum. I’ve grown up hearing that that mixture is a potent medicine if you have flu. I know that lemon juice is great if you have a bad cold on your chest, it removes the phlegm (I know that spelling is wrong, can’t be bothered to check the dictionary) from your chest, the honey is very effective for sore throat. But what does the rum do? Puts one to sleep perhaps? Methink I’ll just leave out the rum this time. Afterall I’ve already taken two of the panadol multi-symptoms.

I’m already sweating profusely from drinking the soup (I had some just now). Sweating is supposedly good for the fever. Depending on how I feel if I wake up during the night, I might apply some Vicks vapor rub under my nose (to clear my stuffy nose) and bathe myself down with some rubbing alcohol. The rubbing alcohol is suppose to cool the body.

Later after finishing soup, I’ll call my Mom in the States for some sympathy, put my phone receiver to my head so that she can kiss my forehead (she thinks it works and I don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise), say a prayer, turn my tv to Nick At Night and curl up in front of it.

I should be ready for work tomorrow.

And if that doesn’t work, I’ll just call in sick but at least I tried.

Ok, before posting anything else, I think I need to make some very subtle changes to make this blog more anonymous.

I just realized how easy it is for people to find my blog. I’ve noticed that some of the visitors to my blog were actually doing a google search for ‘Jamaica,’ ‘Miss Lou’ etc.

I can just imagine how eerie it must be to search for something on google only to encounter a website where it appears as if the owner is talking about you. Or, you realize from what’s written that you know the writer.

So, I’m going to painstakingly go through each post, reading and assessing to see how ‘discoverable’ they are. I might even do a subtle change to the name which I’m thinking is a dead giveaway.

While I’m at it, if I’m not too lazy I might just update my links. I have been depending on both Madbull and GuyanaGyal whose blogs are like BlogLinks Heaven to find the blogs of people that I read a lot. Last week I was a little amused at myself. I was searching MB’s blogroll for a blog that I wanted to read (think it was CoolDestiny), didn’t immediately see it and was chastising him mentally for not updating his links. Imagine that! I was thinking Dammit MB, do you not know that people depend on you for links? Or I might just add those links that are not on the MB or GG blog.

I have a pet peeve. Isn’t conversating a made up word? Then why oh why is it that so many people use the word in proper conversation instead of saying conversing?

Which brings me to another issue. What’s a proper word anyway? Does a made up word become a proper word because of frequent use even if it’s grammatically incorrect?

Another thing, (I realize that this post has inadvertently become a correct english post), does anyone ever actually use the word folk without the ’s’? I think I learnt some years ago that one shouldn’t really say folks because it means more than one person anyway. However, I’ve never heard anyone used it without the ’s’ unless they are refering to something cultural eg. folk music so I’ve gone along with the crowd.

I feel discouraged. I haven’t studied in three days. I feel discouraged. So I’ve just been sleeping, waking up in the night to study but watching tv instead.

I’ve been averaging 60-odd% in the questions that I’ve been working. That’s no good because the passmark is 75%. If I don’t finish everything by April next year, I’ll lose the other two that I’ve already passed.

Exam is 2 months away and I don’t feel comfortable about any of the subjects.

Maybe I should do one in November instead of two, do the other one in January. But jeez, I wanted to enjoy my December. Who wants to be studying throughout the xmas season? Plus I want to enjoy the three days of Jazz Festival in January. Also, I wanted to avoid the additional plane fare to travel to the USA to do the exams. Oh sh_t!

I’m so scared of failing.

Very scared.

Sigh.

On my way home today, I decided to stop by Island Grill for some festivals. Before I came out the vehicle I observed that a young fellow who seemed to be selling stuff had moved closer to my door. “Oh Lawd,” I thought to myself, “can I get a break from these sellers/beggars?”

“Miss yu can buy a socks from me?” Just as I expected.

“Don’t need any socks.” Even though I’m tired of them all, the beggars, the windshield wipers, the sellers, I try not to show the annoyance that I feel at not being able to move around without being accosted by one of them.

“Yu can buy me a soup when yu go inside please?”

As a rule I don’t give money to anyone on the street. I keep thinking that I don’t want to encourage a bad habit, they’re young and strong, they’re going to use money to buy drugs. However, I’m a sucker for someone indicating that he/she is hungry. So I went inside and bought him a proper meal (chicken sandwich, fries & pepsi and chided myself for not getting him some soup to settle the gas). While I was inside another beggar came up and ask that I put some money on the coins that he had in his hands so he could buy something to eat. So I had to dole out some more money.

I’ve been wondering these past weeks though, been turning it around in my head, what’s the solution? How do we deal with all these sellers-cum-beggars-cum-windshield wipers?

I’m thinking that we need some unskilled work for them because of course they have no training or education. On the surface our construction industry (one obvious source of unskilled work) seem to be booming. You can’t drive two minutes without seeing some new apartment building, office building going up. The problem is we don’t hear people within the construction industry complaining of a dearth of unskilled labour.

Maybe we should set up some skills training centres so that they can learn a skill (plumbing, tailoring, etc) and create their own employment. The private sector should fund these as its in everyone’s interest to have less unemployed young men with too much time on their hands.

Did I single-handedly solve one of Jamaica’s problems? I doubt it.

I do wonder though if any serious thought is given by the power-brokers to how to solve that problem.

Oh bloody hell!!!! I hate you, you Blogger!!!!

I just did a long post, a really long one. For half hour I waxed lyrical on the subject that I was posting on, only to have the darn post disappear just as I was contemplating what what title I should give it.

Google, if you’re reading this, Blogger needs to get a ‘recovery’ thingy. You know, similar to MS Word, Excel. Damn you Blogger.

I’m going to bed!!!! *storms off in disgust*

After the intensity of the ‘Can’t find a man’ blogdrama, I just want to do a nice light post. Plus it’s Friday. Ooops, just looked on the time on my notebook and it not quite Friday, it’s 11:14pm. Anyway, in a few minutes it will be Friday and I always feel light and relaxed on that day.

Somehow the week seem to have passed really quickly. Hasn’t been a bad week. I found out that we are in store for quite a few looooong weekends, yippee. I have two long weekends to look forward to in October. There’s Yum Kippor (I hope I spelt it correctly) which falls on a Friday (2nd October) this year. For those not in the know, Yum Kippor is a jewish holiday - I haven’t googled it as yet so I can’t say more. Even though it’s not a public holiday in Jamaica, I’ll be getting the day off because the founders of the company that I work with are jewish. Absolutely great! Nothing like having a day off when the rest of the country is working. I’m so looking forward to that.

Then there’s Heroes Weekend (On the 16th I think). Also found out that, christmas this year will be a really long weekend and my December birthday falls on a Saturday. Quite nice. I’m already thinking of what plans to make. But it’s early days yet.

The weekend is shaping up to be quite ok too. I’ve decided to go sailing on Sunday afterall. The mother of one of our regular ‘crew’ died this week so we’re all going to do our best to cheer him up. I definitely can’t not go. I’m going to order some cocktail sandwiches tomorrow to take with me.

Saturday is supposed to be some coastline cleanup day or something to that effect and it is being organized by one of our environment protection agencies. I called and gave my name because I heard they were looking for volunteers to pick up rubbish from specific beaches, haven’t heard back from them as yet. I think it’s important to help out with things like that if you can. Also, supposed to go swimming on Saturday. I’m now swimming on weekends instead of during the week. Now that all the children are back from holidays, the swimming pool is just too packed on weekdays.

As usual, on Friday I’ll be rushing home to see who gets voted off Rising Stars. I sure hope it’s going to be Natel.

Ok, I think I’ll try and get some shut eye now. It’s still not midnight and since I didn’t go to UWI tonight, will have to wake up about 2am to do some work.

Update: 15/9/06 - 9:16
I got my wish and Natel was voted off Rising Stars. But gosh he looks so sad and youthful and now I’m in tears. I’m sooo silly!

I have to post on this. It’s too long to include in someone’s comments. I have been following KG’s little problem about whether to date an older person and the comments from everyone who has been weighing in on the matter.

I so totally relate. It really isn’t the easiest thing to find a partner. Or rather find what you consider the ideal partner. I don’t think my standards are too high. I just really need someone who has the following qualities.

Not bisexual
Honest and non-womanising
Caring and supportive and respectful
Intelligent
Preferably don’t have a string of children but I know it’s difficult to find a man who isn’t a father so that’s negotiable
Non-smoker
Financially OK (I don’t require rich but he must have a job, or something going, at this point in my life, I can’t handle any less)

I also realize that it might be pointless to even have a list of desired qualities, characteristics because the person might have all that and there’s just no chemistry. We’re talking about a life (or part of) partner so it really can’t even be reduced to a list. I sometimes wish that I could adopt a more pragmatic approach to finding a man. A friend/acquaintance of mine certainly has no such problem. My oh so practical friend sat me down recently and told me that I’m the ideal woman for him. He sees me and knows that I’m exactly what he wants because:

I’m quite educated
In a management position
Look nice and dress well
Has the potential to make plenty money
I’m of the right age

According to Mr. Practical (who’s also eductated, great management job etc) we’d make the perfect couple as two nice looking, young executives. He even went as far as to calculate (yes he actually crunched some numbers) that with our combined salaries we could purchase a nice $20million house together. According to him together we could have a good life. He tried to convince me that that’s the way to go and cited examples of Jamaica’s top rich families who seem to seemed to merge their families to their advantages.

Now I must admit that he had a point. He wasn’t doing anything that women haven’t been doing for years. Somehow though, I felt like a commodity. You know, I could easily well have been another pants or shirt. While listening to him, I couldn’t help thinking “but you don’t know ME, dont you want to know ME?” I couldn’t help looking at the contrast between my ‘suitor of 15 years‘ who I have not given the green light and thinking what a difference.

I find that you can find an ‘age appropriate’ person who is financially secure, good job, blah, blah but why is it that the ‘older’ person demonstrate the more caring attitude?

I’m being punished. Yep, I’m punishing myself. I find that I’m the most indisciplined person in the world and sometimes I have to resort to some really stringent measures in order to get control of me.

I had a yen for some home cooked rice ‘n’ peas. I spent all of last week thinking about it, salivating about it, daydreaming about it. I cook quite infrequently and with studying it’s even worse. I certainly had no time to be cooking now. I figure that I’d wait until in November when I visit the States to get some of my Mom’s delicious rice ‘n’ peas. However, my stomach wasn’t having it. I had to have rice ‘n’ peas now. I had peas at home, had rice, didn’t have any coconut cream so I went to the supermarket and got some on Saturday afternoon. Cooked a big pot of rice ‘n’ peas and chicken. I really don’t too much like vegetables cooked by itself so I cooked up stringbean, carrots and broccoli with the chicken. I got a little creative and did a sauce that was a combination of lemon juice, honey, worcestershire sauce and it was absolutely delicious.

Anyway, the plan was for the meal to be dinner for Saturday night, Sunday night and lunch today. I’m one of those strange being who don’t mind eating the same thing for days if that’s the food I’m feeling for that week.

That didn’t work and I had practically everything Saturday night. The rest, I had for breakfast on Sunday. Sunday dinner consisted of junky, nonsensical things.

Today I didn’t have lunch. That was punishment for having my lunch on Sunday. I drank plenty water and had a bag of tamarind ball at work. I just now made myself a salad.

I really need to eat better.

Some months ago I went into my bank to get a replacement ATM card since I couldn’t locate the one I had. I was sure that I hadn’t left it in the machine as usual but still couldn’t find it. I got the new card and went home. Later that day when I tried to access my account online, I was having all sort of problems so I called up internet banking customer service people. They told me that the reason I couldn’t get online was due to the fact that the I had a new ATM card (which had a different no. of course). So I thought, no problem, she could just fix that right there by me giving her the new number on the card to update her system. Wrong. She said it didn’t work like that, the branch would have to contact them and advise them of the change.

Now why the dickans didn’t the girl dealing with the replacement  say that, I thought irritably. Anyhow, I called the branch, they took the number and promised to deal with it promptly. A week later I tried to get online again. Still no access. Apparently the branch hadn’t passed on the info to the internet banking people. I tried a month later. Same thing. Several months passed and during this time I called the branch several times. Each time they took the information and still no internet access. So I visited the branch, they wrote down the new atm #(aren’t they supposed to have this info anyway?), promised to pass on the info. All this time, I’m still not able to access my account online.

So last Friday in a fit of rage, I went to the bank’s website and typed the following message and sent it off.

Message: (Taken verbatim from the email they sent responding)
“What do I need to do? Who do I need to kill to get the bank to record the fact that I have received a new ATM card so that I can finally start accessing my account online again. It has been several damn months since I have received the card. Customer service rep. advised me that the branch will need to inform them (I can’t do it myself!) so that they may update the system. I have requested the branch (New Kingston) to do this by phone (several times), I have gone into the branch itself to request that they do so and they recorded the information. Yet, I’m still unable to access my account online. So again I ask, what do I need to do, who do I need to stalk, in order to have access to my account online. Sheesh!!!

Let’s see if this medium is any better!!!!

I got a call while I was at work today. It was a representative from the bank calling the advise that my request via the net has been dealt with and I am now able to access my account online.

Apparently you’re not supposed to be polite all the while. I haven’t confirmed that I can actually access account online as yet though.

Update: 20/Sept/06

Got in and clear voice mail message. Personnel from the bank calling again to assure me that I’m now able to access my account online and urging me to call if I encounter any problem. I still haven’t checked as yet.