Friday, February 21, 2014
Bottoms up!
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861)
This poem written about a hundred years ago is one of my favorites.
It is believed to have been written by a lady poet for her darling *hubby*.
How romantic!
Love is a beautiful thing. Even more so when after being born alone, you go about life’s processes in solitude wandering each day, searching for that special one to fill an imaginary vacuum and if he will ever be found.
He is special because he completes, enhances and makes you more than you ever imagined you could be. He is the wind beneath your wings, your partner in crime, champion and best friend.
He is the love of my life.
Unfortunately, some people loose patience and go for just about anybody.
That doesn’t always quite turn out nicely… These unlucky souls endure all sorts of abuse, develop a foreign character and end up cold, jaded and prejudiced.
Fortunately, today its not ‘man and woman’ matter I’m on about. It is a different kind of love.
Today I felt a beckoning warm glow, an attraction towards a darkness that felt so right its hard to admit it was wrong - devilish even.
I actually saw myself embrace ‘peace’ induced by death and a soothing voice cheering me on “just do it Oseyi” it urged “one sip and all your troubles are gone” it promised.
Backed by the feeling that I had nothing to loose this 'voice' appeared to be the voice of reason.
You see although we celebrate love; Valentine’s Day, weddings and anniversaries, there is a type of love we feel at some point (hopefully forever) but tend to take for granted.
A mother’s love.
It’s a security pass, a ‘get out of jail free’ card, a confidence booster, a soft cushion… a blanket.
A feeling that protects and shields us against whatever life throws at us.
We fall we get up.
We know were we came from and where we are headed so “no shaking”.
“Monkey no fine yet im mama still like am” a saying repeated often in jest but still manages to hold truth.
Show me a child who doesn’t love her mother and I’d show you a human with real shitty issues.
With that in mind, what happens when said beloved mother takes her love from you is a feeling best left to the imagination.
Impossible to happen in reality, I know but the thought that it could happen is worse than anything I can put to words.
On this day 21st February 2014 I say a prayer with you not for riches or fame but as a future parent. On my knees and praying to God, I pray that I may never be a source of despair or heartache to my children. To bring them up to be independent, responsible, just and smart and should they fall along the way, my shoulders be strong enough to pull their weight until walk again, they can.
To all mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers.
I celebrate you!
For your unfailing strength, patience and prayers. I appreciate you. If not for anything else but for the pure unadulterated love you give without condition.
Thank you.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Turn it Up!/Belated Happy New Year
There's this native proverb that translates to "as long as its the first time you are seeing a friend in the year even though it is on the last day the of the last month of the year in question, it is proper to greet them by saying - Happy New Year" with that in mind and feeling rather pleased with myself for remembering to do this while the year is still young, I holler a big and cheerful "Happy New Year!!!" to friends, family and fans who are alive and able to read this post.
May this year be one of fulfillment, accomplishment and victories for you.
Walking along the road and cursing the bitter weather, I often wish I had my PC on hand to nag/whine/grumble about how wicked the weather is being and my suspicion that earth has a personal vendetta for me.
What I have done to offend it?
I cannot say.
I know that complaining about the weather would not make it any more bearable but then again wouldn't it?
Based on the marked absence of my once traditional "*Christmas Mangoes" it is safe to say that there is really something up with the weather.
In school between doodling around the edges of my notebook during lectures and willing the time to move faster so I could make it in at the precise moment to eat hot jollof rice with fried plantain/moi-moi and goat meat at Main Gate Restaurant (going too early gets you the tasteless potty-like top of the pot of rice, while going too late gets pieces of fat/bone pretending to be goat meat on your plate of rice often times minus the plantain) a particular discussion caught my attention.
The lecturer was talking about Greenhouse gases, the pros and the cons.
At the moment, I can't recall the precise details of the lecture or what brought about that discussion but what I do recall is that Greenhouse gases was fingered to be reason behind the missing mangoes.
Before I get carried away and go on and on about what other fruits might have gone missing or changed their delivery dates, it occurs to me that persons who were not in that particular lecture with me might still be stuck on “Greenhouse gases” and wondering how a curious green house and probably cooking gas are responsible for missing mangoes or worse be considering that a man named Greenhouse proposed a theory of Gases.
I’d spare your amazing brains the trouble of wandering off to wherever in search of an answer by giving what I believe is a layman’s take.
Greenhouse gases combine to form a nice fuzzy blanket around the earth that allows just enough sunlight to get to us so the planet can be nice and warm. Without the greenhouse gases, earth would be a very cold planet. With this nice greenhouse “blanket” present, when the suns gives off energy, even though the it is miles away, the earth is able to retain just heat to keep us warm while the excess heat goes back to the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases occur naturally which now seems to be a problem for us because we humans are creating more green house gases than is needed (it’s like feeling a little cold and deciding to sleep on a water heater - something you should never ever consider doing between) because not enough heat is leaving the planet while more heat is being accepted from the sun it is getting quite hot in here! As a result, we are witnessing effects of greenhouse gases and global warming. We have floods, lands drying up, some animals dying out, change in seasons (no more mangoes in December) and so on.
Before we have another ice age, evolution, or whatever, it would be a good idea to begin to nag/whine/grumble about the weather so that more people get concerned, ask questions find solutions and practice ways to reduce production of greenhouse gases plus save energy (long story).
On the long run, who knows maybe 10 years from now, I can get my Christmas mangoes in December and see if I am still daring enough to eat more than I know I should at one go.
Until then, welcome to the year twenty-fourteen.
Cheers!
*wink*wink*
*Four to six years ago during Christmas period and early January in my village, I would make myself sick by eating too much mangoes fresh off the trees a pleasurable experience I believed was worth the pain afterwards.
May this year be one of fulfillment, accomplishment and victories for you.
Walking along the road and cursing the bitter weather, I often wish I had my PC on hand to nag/whine/grumble about how wicked the weather is being and my suspicion that earth has a personal vendetta for me.
What I have done to offend it?
I cannot say.
I know that complaining about the weather would not make it any more bearable but then again wouldn't it?
Based on the marked absence of my once traditional "*Christmas Mangoes" it is safe to say that there is really something up with the weather.
In school between doodling around the edges of my notebook during lectures and willing the time to move faster so I could make it in at the precise moment to eat hot jollof rice with fried plantain/moi-moi and goat meat at Main Gate Restaurant (going too early gets you the tasteless potty-like top of the pot of rice, while going too late gets pieces of fat/bone pretending to be goat meat on your plate of rice often times minus the plantain) a particular discussion caught my attention.
The lecturer was talking about Greenhouse gases, the pros and the cons.
At the moment, I can't recall the precise details of the lecture or what brought about that discussion but what I do recall is that Greenhouse gases was fingered to be reason behind the missing mangoes.
Before I get carried away and go on and on about what other fruits might have gone missing or changed their delivery dates, it occurs to me that persons who were not in that particular lecture with me might still be stuck on “Greenhouse gases” and wondering how a curious green house and probably cooking gas are responsible for missing mangoes or worse be considering that a man named Greenhouse proposed a theory of Gases.
I’d spare your amazing brains the trouble of wandering off to wherever in search of an answer by giving what I believe is a layman’s take.
Greenhouse gases combine to form a nice fuzzy blanket around the earth that allows just enough sunlight to get to us so the planet can be nice and warm. Without the greenhouse gases, earth would be a very cold planet. With this nice greenhouse “blanket” present, when the suns gives off energy, even though the it is miles away, the earth is able to retain just heat to keep us warm while the excess heat goes back to the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gases occur naturally which now seems to be a problem for us because we humans are creating more green house gases than is needed (it’s like feeling a little cold and deciding to sleep on a water heater - something you should never ever consider doing between) because not enough heat is leaving the planet while more heat is being accepted from the sun it is getting quite hot in here! As a result, we are witnessing effects of greenhouse gases and global warming. We have floods, lands drying up, some animals dying out, change in seasons (no more mangoes in December) and so on.
Before we have another ice age, evolution, or whatever, it would be a good idea to begin to nag/whine/grumble about the weather so that more people get concerned, ask questions find solutions and practice ways to reduce production of greenhouse gases plus save energy (long story).
On the long run, who knows maybe 10 years from now, I can get my Christmas mangoes in December and see if I am still daring enough to eat more than I know I should at one go.
Until then, welcome to the year twenty-fourteen.
Cheers!
*wink*wink*
*Four to six years ago during Christmas period and early January in my village, I would make myself sick by eating too much mangoes fresh off the trees a pleasurable experience I believed was worth the pain afterwards.
Friday, December 6, 2013
On my life, for my children
Just like that (snaps fingers) November ended with me drooling over Men in Gray.
My watch says Monday December 2 but it could be wrong. Since when do watches give the date? Last I heard, they told time.
Then again with all these modernization, cashless policies and what's not going on in Nigeria it really shouldn't come as a surprise if watches now serve as POS machines after all, most atm's in PH don't work, I keep curbing the urge to throw confetti and drapes around them and call them my work of art. Hmm... Graffiti is an idea.
Speaking of cashless Nigeria. I'd tell a tale of how Nigeria's cashlessness did not save my life (or come close to resembling life saving).
This tale begun on sunday with me feeling peevish and missing check-in by 3minutes.
As it happened, there were about 20 of us in the same boat as well. (Kinda makes you wonder how many people were on the flight) while we stood in front of the ticketing office for the 5th hour appealing, pleading and seeking ways to make the next flight about 13 tickets appeared for the next flight and were magically disappearing beneath our noses.
The saga of the day is something that'd make for a classic movie with the end credits revealing "Alejandro" riding off towards the sunset on his stallion with the fingers of the alluring "Sophia" daintily fastened around his impressive waist. Sadly the script didn't end that way.
It continued...
The day after found more people, human beings to be precise kneeling down in front of the ticketing agent for the same airline company. One person that got me really troubled was a mother with her children. She knelt down while her children stood looking forlorn behind her. The flight was delayed by 30minutes, she was still up to one hour early, she had checked in online yet she was refused a boarding pass.
As I watched the tears trail down the lady's cheeks the rule that the customer is king flashed and burned in my minds eye.
Okay in my case I admit I was wrong. I should have left the house about 5 hours before the time (like I did today because I have nothing else to do with my life but to come and sit in the airport all day for a 45 minutes flight - add 2 hours to that and I'd be snugly in bed in Lagos if I traveled by road) but come on! To make grown men and women grovel and beg before they are given boarding pass for a flight they paid for with their hard earned cash?
"Me thinks something is seriously wrong".
Oh in that classic movie I was talking about, the twist would be from the people selling tickets for twice the price behind the ticketing office, people(human beings) with police escorts traipsing in 20 minutes after the boarding gate has been closed and the general bullying of the little people.
At this point, it is safe to wonder when the cashless story would begin.
My watch says Monday December 2 but it could be wrong. Since when do watches give the date? Last I heard, they told time.
Then again with all these modernization, cashless policies and what's not going on in Nigeria it really shouldn't come as a surprise if watches now serve as POS machines after all, most atm's in PH don't work, I keep curbing the urge to throw confetti and drapes around them and call them my work of art. Hmm... Graffiti is an idea.
Speaking of cashless Nigeria. I'd tell a tale of how Nigeria's cashlessness did not save my life (or come close to resembling life saving).
This tale begun on sunday with me feeling peevish and missing check-in by 3minutes.
As it happened, there were about 20 of us in the same boat as well. (Kinda makes you wonder how many people were on the flight) while we stood in front of the ticketing office for the 5th hour appealing, pleading and seeking ways to make the next flight about 13 tickets appeared for the next flight and were magically disappearing beneath our noses.
The saga of the day is something that'd make for a classic movie with the end credits revealing "Alejandro" riding off towards the sunset on his stallion with the fingers of the alluring "Sophia" daintily fastened around his impressive waist. Sadly the script didn't end that way.
It continued...
The day after found more people, human beings to be precise kneeling down in front of the ticketing agent for the same airline company. One person that got me really troubled was a mother with her children. She knelt down while her children stood looking forlorn behind her. The flight was delayed by 30minutes, she was still up to one hour early, she had checked in online yet she was refused a boarding pass.
As I watched the tears trail down the lady's cheeks the rule that the customer is king flashed and burned in my minds eye.
Okay in my case I admit I was wrong. I should have left the house about 5 hours before the time (like I did today because I have nothing else to do with my life but to come and sit in the airport all day for a 45 minutes flight - add 2 hours to that and I'd be snugly in bed in Lagos if I traveled by road) but come on! To make grown men and women grovel and beg before they are given boarding pass for a flight they paid for with their hard earned cash?
"Me thinks something is seriously wrong".
Oh in that classic movie I was talking about, the twist would be from the people selling tickets for twice the price behind the ticketing office, people(human beings) with police escorts traipsing in 20 minutes after the boarding gate has been closed and the general bullying of the little people.
At this point, it is safe to wonder when the cashless story would begin.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Through The Looking Bowl
I refuse to ponder over what in particular makes these men strike me as drop dead gorgeous and incredibly sexy.
I could see a lowly midget with gray hair and boom!
He’d turn into a 6’4 inch man with a mickey blue gaze and great potentials.
Sha, thank G*d for 2nd, 3rd and 4th impressions.
The annoying thing about this fetish is that once the distraction of the gray hair has been eliminated, these mortals loose their awesomeness and make me go “hiss! Total waste of drool.”
I have been known to leave the company I am with, walk up to a complete stranger and go “hi my name is…” because I noticed a sprinkle of sugar on his head.
Oh my!!
That could be it, sugar!!
Gray hair is somewhat white, sugar is somewhat white and I have a sweet tooth so…
Oh my.
Now I have figured out the connection. I’m counting on the good news reaching my brain and disabling the hormone/sensor/nerve or whatever blah that sparks and jiggles on sight of it.
I received a broadcast message that the eclipse will ‘arrive’ by 13:03 in Port Harcourt be at the highest point by 14:43 and eventually depart around 16:00hrs.
Somewhere along the wait, I dozed off.
When I woke up, outside from my window was gray and windy like that point in a romantic flick when the guy runs after the girl and goes “I choose you Violetta! You are my sun, my moon my heartbeat. I want to be with you, I love you!”
Ok maybe not so dramatic but you get the picture.
Remembering what I was waiting for I scrambled off the bed, ran down the stairs and bolted out the door only to run back in almost immediately because of the heavy downpour that started abruptly.
Determined to see the ‘thing’ (thanks to bbm updates and whatsapp broadcast messages) but not wanting to get wet, I charged into my fathers room and hopped from one foot to the other pleading until he agreed to give me his precious umbrella with its seal unbroken.
Armed with an oversized umbrella, sunglasses and rubber shoes, I went outside threw my neck backwards and began to search for the sun...
I am much too distracted to go further.
It has been serious ages past since I licked a cube sugar but as I write, I can see this lump of sugar complete with droopy eyes, nose and a lopsided smile in my minds eye singing “lick me-lick me, lick meee” in a shrill tra-la-la scratchy voice.
Erm…
Bye?
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