Ready for mas again!!

I have a confession to make. It’s one I’ve made on this site before, but I’ll make it again for my more recent friends. I love carnival. I love soca. I love jumping in the hot sun. I love glittery costumes. But I’ve never been to Trinidad.

2008 was supposed to be the year. But you know how these things go – elections get in the way, people aren’t sure if they’ll have jobs or leave, hurricanes distract you, the girls you are going with are in too many countries to make the planning easy… so it is only know that we are actually trying to get it sorted. Which is of course late to be doing it. Tribe is sold out. Flights are getting fully booked.

The question is: Is it too late? Should we postpone our dream for another year? Or should we go for it?

I need help! People who have done Trini carnival, let me know! Will we be able to get Tribe costumes through Carnival Junction or somewhere? I’ve looked and it seems that loads of people are looking, and no one is selling. Or should we jump with another band?

2008 or 2009…

Learning from an early age

I went out for a drink last night  at a bar near to my new house (I love living in the centre of the city!! And yes, ‘my new house’ is going to be a common phrase around here for a while, am reckoning at at least twice per post for a month…)

A friend of ours had been for a meal next door so came in afterwards for a drink with his wife and daughter, daughter was about 15/16. I was talking to daughter when the guy from the band came around. They always have a collection for the band on a Tuesday night, and last night was no different. They approached daughter, who looked at them with that sophisticated look that only a 15 year old has (you know the one, they know that they are cute but are not yet too self-conscious etc) and said:

 ’Oh, but of course I have no money on me – I’m here with men.’

On another note: thanks for all the good house wishes – I’ll invite you all to the virtual housewarming party, all I need to do first is find where camera batteries were packed…

Jumbie Jumbie

I am having a hard time staying awake today. My whole body is tired. But it looks like my toenails are not about to fall over which is an improvement over last year. I have racoon eyes (you know, the big un-sunburnt area around my eyes where I had sunglasses on).

But I don’t care. It was a great weekend. Once again, I chickened out of J’ouvert and instead focused my energies on Frenchmen and jumping. Which were well worth it. The music at Frenchmen caused me to kick off my shoes so as to enjoy it better and I had to restrain myself from jumping on the very cute Machel Montana when he walked right by me on the dance floor with a huge grin on his face!

And then of course, the following morning it was on the streets. The march was longer this year and the sun was hotter. I reapplied sunscreen all day and am still burnt to a crisp with some very interesting patterns. It was great. The vibe was good, the people I was jumping with were fun as usual. The drinks truck was close by. What more does a girl need!

And I have made a promise to myself that next year will find me in Trini…

Ready for mas again!!!!

Light it up!

Damn it. I have found a major problem with being abroad for the month of February. The Frenchmen costumes for carnival (which I think are quite cute – they look better in person that the ones shown here – and they are purple and pink – my colours!) have sold out. Yup, not one left. And my friends who I jump with were too high and then too tired from Trinidad to go earlier and order one for me. So we are all stuck back in the t-shirts this year. And I had made up my mind to do the costume and grrrr, all gone wrong. And yes, I know I could jump in another band, but that isn’t really an option.

So t-shirt it is. Will just have to hope that the hot sun, the music (and 2007 is a good soca year!), the drinks, the glitter (I discovered that Israel is a good place to get glitter make up)  and some fit guys will be enough to take my mind off it on the day…  yeah, I think that ought to do and take me higher than high!

And on the positive side, it means that I can still enjoy food for the next 6 weeks!

Food glorious food

Now without wanting to sound like a hungry belly, I’m going to do a review of my food from the weekend because it was a good food weekend! And I’m having to put in some extra hours at the gym this week to make up for it…

Friday as you all know was lunch at coffee mill. Their frappes are heavenly and their smoked marlin bagels are out of this world. I just love that place, it is so calm and mellow depite being right in the middle of New Kingston. Shame about the parking though…

Friday night I kinda skipped food. Gin and Tonics and birthday cake provided all the sustenance that I needed! I was too busy talking and laughing to eat food, a great time was had by all. (Although looking back at the photos now, I didn’t realise quite how precarious my new dress was on top – no wonder all the guys loved it!)

Saturday morning the man was at a golf tournament so I was required to smile sweetly at people which have pre-lunch drinks there. Then it was lunch with the girls at Restaurant East, our favourite lunch spot. It’s a gorgeous Japanese restaurant with good service and great food. Although I had one misfortune – I enjoyed the food so much that I was unable to eat most of my dessert! Sushi, teryaki chicken… mmmmm

Saturday evening I was supposed to go to a friend’s birthday party, but I skipped it… stayed in bed instead… (and someone needs to tell me how to use iconthingys in blogger as I wanted to put in a nice wink!) Apparently the jerk there was excellent though!

Sunday I was taken to Cafe Aubergine for lunch. Although they have just opened a branch in Kingston, we decided that it was a good day for a drive out so headed out of town – it’s in Monegue on the way to Ochi, the drive takes just over an hour. The hills were looking good and the trucks weren’t on the road so it was a good journey. And it was totally worth it. The food was excellent – stuffed crabs, salmon in dill sauce and lemon mousse with a really nice bottle of chardonnay…mmm…. The only problem was staying awake on the drive home!

And the weekend was finished with homemade melted cheese on toast – perfect sunday evening food!

So now I’m looking forward to the Kingston Restaurant Week which is coming soon, an excellent opportunity to try out all those places you’ve been meaning to go but haven’t quite made it to yet!

A Good Excuse

I got a call from one of my friends yesterday saying ‘I need help with something I am doing for work’.

At which point mild panic sets in. What does she want? Will it be painful? Will it involve sitting for hours stuffing envelopes or putting stickers on envelopes?

And then she says she needs me to meet her after work for the Jazz evening at Christophers. Things are looking up.

And they get even better when she explains what is happening. Her large private sector organisation is about to do a new advertising campaign and is in need of some talent. And that evening, they were looking out for cute young male talent.

So I was needed to go to Christophers, to sit down with a drink, listen to live jazz, and discuss the merits of the different men in the room. So far, sounds like a regular girls night out. But this time we had an excuse – if we saw any men we liked, we had a legitimate reason to approach them and get their contact details and a photo.

Excellent.

So being the good friend I am, I went and helped her. And we found some good talent! Now that’s a good way to get rid of the blues.

And in case any one is interested, the band was good!

I’m Very Sorry..

… that I missed the great Jamaican blog meet-up last night! According to Dr D, no excuse is good enough, but I’ll tell you mine anyway.

The apartment I thought I was buying fell through yesterday. For the second time, the seller liked someone else more than me so sold it to her. (Note to self – maybe I should start taking flowers and a bottle of wine for the house sellers to make them like me?)

So I wasn’t in an overly good mood yesterday evening. But then, a ray of sunshine emerged from around the back of the cloud – someone knew someone who had a place in the same complex which they wanted to sell. So last minute plans were made – I went to see it last night. The idea was that once I’d been there, I’d head to the link up.

Well, the lady who is selling it did mention that the place ‘needed some work’ so I wasn’t expecting a super pretty place. However, I also wasn’t expecting to be met at the door by 3 dogs – it’s a one-bed apartment!!! Well, some work would firstly include a heck of a lot of bleach and fresh air – I haven’t been in somewhere so dusty and dirty for a while. It would then involve tearing out and burning the carpet in the bedroom, which currently looks like it is made of dog hair. Then a new bathroom would need to be installed – I don’t think that the current one is supposed to look black… and the same with the kitchen… There’s no a/c or water heater… However, if she makes it cheap enough, then I would buy it… and spend the difference making it nice.

So the end of the story was that by the time I left there, I felt so dirty and smelt of dogs so much that I decided I couldn’t come and be sociable – you’d all be wondering who the miserable smelly person was which isn’t the first impression I wanted to make with the blogging community in real life!!

However, I promise promise promise that next time, I’ll be there… and if I get this apartment, La Kabana would be a great place to meet as I’d be living less than 5 minutes away!

Ouch

I’m in a reflective mood today. One of my favourite bloggers has had a nasty experience – she has just been fired for what she has written on her site about her job. Now, from regular reading, I can’t really see what her employers are making a fuss about – she has hardly written about work, and what she has written in very general and names no one. But none the less, she is fired.

So if anyone has a keen eye, they might realise that a few things don’t make sense on my site now – some stories are missing bits and my 100th Blog Posting is now actually my 94th. She’s got all her readers worrying now…

But on a completely different note, I went to the Wild Wild West party on Saturday night. My friends and I did some sort of costume, going for the saloon girl look, wearing what I thought were very short skirts etc.

Well, once again, I have proved I am getting old. Our skirts were among the longest in the place! And no one had told me that ‘batty-rider’ shorts were back in fashion!

We had a dilemna when we arrived – we were parking and noticed a group of girls walking in front of us. And we noticed something very odd – you could see the string hanging down from the tampax that one of the girls was wearing – her skirt was that short. So what do you do? On the one hand, it would be embarassing to tell her, but on the other, I’d want to know if it was me before I went into the party. So we went for the other option – we told one of her friends and got her to deal with it. I don’t think that even when I was 18 I’d have worn a skirt that lenght!

Busy Thursday

I had a very busy day yesterday!

Firstly I was co-ordinating a focus group session for CARICOM. They are planning a regional HIV/AIDS campaign and wanted to test the message in Jamaica. So we were ensuring that people from across the country got to Kingston on time, making sure they got food to eat and checking that they had bus fare to get home at the end of it. The workshop was split into males and females as apparently you don’t get honest responses from a mixed group – the guys are showing off too much and the girls are flirting! Apparently the guys are usually hard work -they don’t want to talk and discuss their views etc. However according to the consultant, our guys wouldn’t shut up! They were all very keen to share their perspectives and experiences!!

Then I went shopping downtown. I haven’t been for a while and I like to go when i get the chance. Things are cheaper down there, but I also like to support the area and stay in touch. I went with a friend as we are planning on going to a party next weekend called ‘Wild Wild West’ and we want to dress the part. We were about to leave one shop when we saw their bargain section and found skirts. Well, something resembling skirts – they are very small but very suitable for the saloon girl look that we are going for! And we figure, we are growing up, there won’t be many more years when we can get away with wearing something that length so make the most of it while we can! And at the grand price of Ja $350 (US$ 1 = Ja $65) we thought it had to be done… So between that and the bargain prices at the wholesale, a good afternoon was had.

In the evening, I headed out to Port Royal for dinner and ate some excellent steamed fish. Kingston has been so hot recently that it was lovely to sit outside in the breeze and enjoy being cool!

So am kinda tired now – good thing that there was no traffic otherwise I’d have been very late for work this morning. And think that it might have to be a quiet night tonight, one of my friends is having a baby today so need to pass by there after work and then will go and do some sleeping!

Outfit extremes

I now know what people like to read – when I ask questions about clothes I get lots of comments! So I guess if I wanted lots of readers, I really should go down that line of thought…

To answer your comments, I chickened out. Well, we both did. Friday night, end of a long week, went out for a couple of drinks after work and couldn’t face the idea of the party. So had an early night instead.

But transferred the dilemma to Saturday night instead when one of my friends was having a party. So went to that with the man… and bumped into my ex. Which wasn’t much fun – it was the first time he has seen me with the new man (who is his friend…) so a bit awkward. But in case you wanted to know, I managed to do the the sexy AND sophisticated look that night. Which, as the ex was the one to end it, made me feel good! I don’t want him back at all… but there is that mean side of me that is pleased to see him looking at me as if he thinks he made a mistake…

On the other extreme, I had to do a presentation on policy to the Minister and Ministry staff this morning. So it was into the suit and proper shoes – which is cruel in this climate. At least the conference room was well air-conditioned! And it went well, especially considering that my boss was supposed to be the one presenting and he had to go elsewhere at last minute leaving me in charge… and that the powerpoint didn’t work. So am feeling very pleased with myself now and like I deserve some Haagen Daz on the way home from work as a a reward!