Post for Tumwi

For my sister whose imagination would turn these clouds into a fabulous story. (I still sing “Follow me”)

Gorgeous clouds swirling close to the CN tower! It almost looked like a tornado was brewing!

How many words?

How many words can you make from asiadonejrwgae?

I made orangeades!!! You?

My neigbourhood at night when I play weird word games with my roomie.

Becoming more feminine

Was told I don’t take time to make myself more feminine or confident.

Sigh.

I think I’m going to have to explore this a little more!

Caribanna

This weekend is Caribbana weekend in Toronto.

Nappy, what is Caribbana? You ask? I TELL!

Most of the immigrants in Canada are from the Caribbean and every summer they hold a “festival” in Toronto. Throngs of black people pour into the streets. The girls are half naked and I think the boys are going that way too with the whole pants falling off the ass routine. On the way home (and it wasn’t even dark) a girl who was wearing some kind of onesie had half her ass out and this white guy hit a light pole looking back at it!!! I pointed and laughed.

Anyway tomorrow the parade will take place downtown and will pass close to my apartment so I’m going out with camera in hand to take some news worthy pictures. I’ll post one here, but my full commentary will be on http://discoveringtoronto.wordpress.com and I promise not to disappoint!!!

I think I’ll go back to watching all the people struggling to get lucky multiple times this weekend. Good luck to them!

PS. If there is a random ‘j’ somewhere in here please forgive me. My keyboard is on the fritz!

Mad Black Woman

Irritation 1

So you think you can dance.

It’s an interesting show. To see how my views and the views of the chichies (according to the Australian who can’t say judges) completely CLASH, well, aside from their praise of Brandon, is quite interesting.

For centuries black people have been the butt of jokes for our thick lips, high cheekbones and big butts. THEN someone got praised for their features (they were not black) and now it’s all the rage. Then last night I heard the MOST ridiculous thing ever.

“Drop your hips.”

The person to whom this was said has a butt of a generous size, but not unlike the kind my brothers sport. Dropping your hips is supposed to make your butt smaller?!

Sigh.

Irritation 2

Obama has been cowering since his Gates comment. I don’t remember Bush saying sorry for sending hundreds of people to their deaths in the middle east based on a fucking lie.

Every black person in North America knows a black man has to tread lightly in the presence of police. If you ever speak up you’ll end up in cuffs on the inside of a jail. Why is this okay? Why is it always okay for a black man to cower in the presence of a white man no matter what their stature, education or respectability? Why can’t he stand as one man facing another?

Irritation 3

My stupid landlord thinks she can step on my neck. Okay. Who pays her fucking mortgage?

~~~~~~

I’m having a difficult week with the whole race thing so forgive me while I do my angry black woman routine.  And forgive my french!

Uphill

It’s always an uphill battle.

Friendliness during the call.

Seeing the look as disappointment clouds their eyes…

Watching the wall fall down and the only door slams in your face squashing your big ol’ nose.

Walking away knowing it’s over and you just wasted 1/2 an hour talking to someone who won’t give you a job because of the color of your skin and the whether your genitals are inside or outside.

why?

Borrowed from http://www.rights2rights.com

If we agree that:-

children need to be protected and under the UN convention rights of a child have declared that the relationship between children and their biological parents has to be promoted and protected,

THEN,

why haven’t we allowed children to appear in court to demand that their biological parents spend time with them and spend money on them?

Who fights for the rights of the least of God’s children?

Answer

Too much puzzlement at previous post #4 and decided to elaborate.

My roommate is a new age hippie and I love her for it. She has a pet fish that ain’t got a name! It’s a common plec and eats only algae. It’s suposed to keep the tank clean by sucking the sides of the tank.

The common plec feeding on the side of a tank.

This picture isn’t our Plec.

Here is ours.

Our Plec

And this is his tank. He’s all alone.

Pleccy sucking on a rock

He’s got a lot of rocks with jagged edges and the water level in the tank is really low. Either he can’t swim slowly or he’s trying to commit suicide but every couple of hours he zoooooms to the other side of the tank and his dorsal fin is torn!

Poor Pleccy.

Anyone want him?

Puzzled

Well the weather outside is frightful... and there is no fire in here.

I don’t understand why

1. Guys think that simply because I’m open to talking about their sexual issues, somehow I’m interested in sharing my porn. GET YOUR OWN!
2. Receptionists treat people badly. Do they really think that one day they’ll not be sitting opposite me in MY conference room at MY table? And then what?
3. Why people don’t realize that those cleavages you see, boobs all packed together like that, are indicative of SAGGY BOOBS. So what if mine hate each other and are 5 fingers apart (and growing futher and further apart)?
4. Why people keep fish and yet don’t cover the tank to protect the water from dust, keep algae eating fish without providing it, keep the water so low that when the poor fish is trying to get to the next rock it tears it’s fin!
5. Why swollen sagging lips have become more prevalent on the screen with people aching for Angelina Jolie lips! Do the bottom one as well! Even them out! Sheesh! Can you imagine kissing those saggy things… ugh!
6. Why people let their dogs pee in perfectly good snowman making snow!

I’m just wondering.

Of flavors and teas

A while ago, I purchased flavored tea at the local grocery store close to my place of work.

It took me back.
Come walk with me.

~~~~~~~~

Like sleepy zombies that had suddenly espied a good breakfast, the girls in my class from the dormitories close to mine rushed to get to laboratories, outside which our early morning dance classes took place. The morning was overcast and slightly cold and the sleeveless short uniforms we’d been assigned were unable to protect our legs from the cold.

I could faintly see the outline of Ms. Cutler and her faithful dog rush  ahead of us so I took off my rubber slippers and ran to catch up with her so when she called my name during the roll call, I’d be there to quip “Present” in my most cheerful morning voice. By the time I got to the location of the class, my feet were completely wet and some of the grass from yesterday’s mowing had attempted to fashion a sock near my toes. My parents, like many others, couldn’t afford sneakers, but the grass was always so soft it really didn’t matter. Most of our sports were played barefoot.

I stood across from my assigned partner as the classical music we were going to dance to began. Sometimes I led, other times she did. All in all we shed our sleep and let our feet find the rhythm of the music while we twirled and danced to foreign music in the  complicated formations that are usually reserved for period movies. Most of us enjoyed this exercise not only because it meant the half hour reserved for housework was cut short, but also because our bodies enjoyed the rhythms of EarlyMo as we called it.

My housework leader sometimes let me off housework on the days I had EarlyMo. I’d still have to report to whatever location I’d been assigned, but I’d either find she’d done it for me or someone else had done it and I could go clean up the grass that had dried on my feet. This morning was no exception and she sent me off to get ready for a day that was packed full of as many activities and classes as could possibly be crammed into a couple of hours.

The dormitory to which I belonged stood on the edge of the school grounds, close to farmland that was tended to by University Agriculture students. We never saw them there, even though we could see the tall stalks of maize waving in the breeze. Somedays we would sit in the grassy area behind the junior wing and dream of the day when we would become university students too. I jogged all the way back so I could get a spot in the bathroom before housework was over and the bathroom rush began.

The bathroom consisted of two large rooms with a rough floor, a series of taps on one side and a drain that carried the water away. On busy mornings we’d line up to get into the bathroom with our basins or buckets in one hand and loofah and soap in the other. Any semblance of shyness had been erased within the first week of  school and we’d all learned to have a grand old time getting clean and splashing water everywhere. Luckily, there was only one other girl on the senior side of the bathroom and I could take my shower without worrying about a waiting crowd.

Just as I wrapped the belt of my uniform around my waist, the breakfast “gong” pealed out signalling the arrival of tea in the dining room. The gong consisted of an old metal angle bar that would be hit with some other metallic object. For breakfast we’d have numerous choices that we could pick up and then carry back to our dorms and depending on the amount of time that had elapsed since your folks had been to see you, it could be a breakfast of champions, supplemented with goodies brought from home or just a cup of lukewarm tea.

Tea was served in large saucepans that were placed on the tables with metal jugs. On one end the senior saucepans stood, on the other end were the junior saucepans and in the kitchen, the A-Level students poured tea out of a dispenser into their cups. Sometimes weak maize porridge or millet porridge or soya porridge was served. Towards the end of breakfast time, evidence of sloppy serving and unstable hands and feet was on the floor of the dining room or on the way to the dorms.

My parents visited my sisters and I every fortnight, bringing with them fresh fruit, toasted loaves of bread and cookies which my mother preferred to make rather than buy. I sat on my bed with my rapidly cooling cup of tea and simultaneously read from part 2 of one of Jeffery Archer’s novels while nibbling on a cold, but fairly delicious slice of bread that had been toasted with margarine. 

The tea always had a musky wood flavor since it was prepared on a wood stove and the fresh milk that was purchased from the agriculture school close by also had a distinctive flavor. It complimented my toast and lifting my eyes briefly from the adventure of Archer’s hero, I smiled contentedly and thought, my life is good.