Well, to those of you who pass this way today let me take this opportunity to wish you ALL THE VERY BEST FOR 2003, and HOWEVER YOU CELEBRATE THE ENTRY INTO THE NEW YEAR ENJOY BUT DON’T OVERDO IT!!!
BTW, I may just post later, so check back if you are bored and have nothing better to do than read my scribbling! 
Well, ’tis the Eve of New Year’s Eve, and as I may not post tomorrow, apart from perhaps a New Years Greeting, I have decided to post this evening. (Let’s just say I feel inspired today.)
For me the end of a year and the start of a new one, is a time for reflection and self evaluation. It is time to look back at the year past and ask myself how it went. I think I can answer that easily and say, not too bad, (or as we like to say in Jamaica, only one bad.) Now, for myself, I may not have actualised all the goals that I set for myself in 2002. But, I am not complaining, as I think the more important ones were achieved.
What I need to do now, is look to 2003 and make some plans for the coming year. I have already done this. The thing about planning for the future, is that we are not by any means entirely in control of what will happen. Our plans are affected by the people around us and our various life situations, and, I think you will agree that these are things over which we do not have full control.
Having said that, if we simply sit back and allow life to do as it pleases with us, things will just pass us by and before we know it, we are old. So, I like planning. I can’t just live day to day and I despise indecision. Make a plan and go for it with a positive attitude.
Anyhow, I am getting long winded as usual. So, I’m going to wrap up. Take a quiet moment to set some goals for yourself. Make sure they are realistic goals, and stick to them. Whatever you hope for in 2003, I hope that the good Lord will see it fit to grant it to you. Happy New Year.
BTW, my bredren Mad Bull has a post of a similar nature! Hey, de yute is now a self acclaimed doctor! Go give the new medical graduate a check nuh!
Well, I’m in one of my moods to share a slack joke again! 
Now, this one was sent to me on e-mail and it is possible that you may have seen it before. Anyhow, here goes…..
A woman was helping her computer illeterate husband to set up his computer. At the appropriate point in the process, she told him that he needed to choose and enter a password that he will use to log on to the computer.
Her husband was in a pretty horny mood and decided to try out a password that would get his wife’s attention, in the hope that she may feel inclined to give him some of the goodly stuff later.
So, when the computer asked him to enter his password, he made it quite obvious that he was typing in the word P E N I S. His wife almost fell off her chair in gales of laughter when the computer replied, “***PASSWORD REJECTED…….NOT LONG ENOUGH!!!!”***
( I guess the bredren is definitely not a Jamaican man! )
A friend told me this story. She said that one of her daughter’s friends was visiting her home on Christmas night. Apparently, this has been something customary that they have done over the years. Usually, they exchange Christmas presents and then hang around for drinks and so on. The friend is a guy, let us call him TJ. I met him once about six months ago very breifly. He is a vey fat individual who apparently cannot control his appetite for food and he is the type who will consume two or three burgers and then wash them down with the supersize soda that they sell in fast food chains.
TJ recently got engaged to one of the girls that my friend’s daughter knows. The wedding date has already been set, but I am not sure when it is.
This girl (TJ’s fiancee) was also there on Christmas night and is also quite large herself. But I am told that prior to meeting TJ, she had become quite concerned about her size and had developed quite poor self esteem. She made a considerable effort to exercise, curtail her eating and lose weight. This she did apparently with great success. She lost over 40 pounds, had bought new clothes and was wearing makeup and started going out again (this is apparently when she met TJ). Since meeting him, she has regained all the weight that she lost and more (perhaps because she is happy) and she is accompanying him on his eating binges.
Anyhow, please don’t feel I am criticising them for their size, I am just telling the story (after all, I have gained weight myself, something I need to attack in earnest in 2003).
TJ’s fiancee is a lawyer. He fixes cars, but he has no steady job and does the odd job from home, and, he really has no formal training in auto-mechanics. I don’t know if I would give him my car to fix, as I was told by my friend that he has had a number of dissatisfied customers in recent times.
Apparently, on Christmas night when gifts were being exchanged, TJ’s fiancee said that she had something special to give him. Everyone gathered round watching eagerly as she said she wanted the attention of all present. She got down on her knees in front of TJ, and took a very small gift wrapped box out of her pocket. She gave it to TJ and told him to open it, which he did. It was a ring. Still on her knees, she then took the ring out of his hands and then proceeded to ask him if he would marry her. Well, naturally he looked at her and said yes, as they were already engaged with a set wedding date. Apparently all in the room started to laugh, including TJ. She laughed eventually and told them that she had wanted to be different. I guess she was.
I can’t say that I would like to have been put in that situation, but maybe I am just a bit too conventional. Anyhow, that is what I have to share this evening. I thought it a bit different myself and if you wish to, please feel free to share any comments or thoughts. Have a nice pre-New Year weekend! Cool vibes.
Well folks, Christmas Day passed and the family dinner we had here yesterday was irie. Nuff food: ham, turkey with stuffing, my very own shrimp pasta, Gungo Rice and Peas and more, but I will stop as I don’t want you to salivate all over your PC! Of course there was liquor of all forms in ample supply and the refrigerator is bursting at the seams today. The company was good also, perhaps the best part of the festive season, cooling out with friends and family.
The latter continues today as I am going down by one of my cousin’s house in a while to have an early dinner. Gosh, I’m tired, all of the excess, I may need a holiday from the holidays! And, unfortunately, me haffi go work tomorrow!
Anyhow, let me not complain, the holidays have been irie nuh rass! And then New Years is just around the corner, that is usually one heck of a party time!Latah.
Well, it is Christmas Eve, the air is full of the aroma of hams baking and the smell of Sorrell! Just in case I don’t get the chance to say so again, let me wish all of you who come here a very Merry Christmas. May your day be filled with festivity, good fellowship and all of God’s richest blessings. Wherever you go and whatever you do, try not to overdo it though as I want to have you around to comment here again in the year to come. Respec due to all.
Well, I am half way through baking the Christmas ham. It is supposed to be done 15 minutes per pound approximately. I just finished taking the skin off and putting the cloves into it. Then I basted it with pineapple juice, orange juice, brown sugar and a touch of Jamaican Orange liqueur. I have to keep doing that about every 20 minutes until it is finished cooking. It smells good. I think it has about another hour and a half to go. I guess I will let you know how it turns out. Of course, if it fails (hardly likely) then you will hear nothing further about it. Any of you out there baking a ham as well?
Is there anything else that I have to talk about? I don’t think so. So hear what? Me gaan!
In the last few weeks more than one person, including Mad Bull has noticed that I have not been updating the site as frequently as I used to. That is quite true. Why it is so is perhaps I have been pretty busy, and I have decided that if there is a day or two that passes when I do not feel that I have anything to write about, then I will just not post.
There have been times in the past where I have found myself with nothing to write about, and in order to force myself to post something, I would seive through newspaper articles and comment about things I find interesting. Well, nothing is wrong with that, but, I have decided that I will post when I have something I feel is worthy of sharing with all of you who come here. No, I am no less interested in blogging, but I am not going to make it become a chore. For me, the things in life that become a chore do not bring me any pleasure, and I would never want blogging to become a chore. So, having said all of that, this does not necessarily imply that I will not post daily. If I find that I have stuff to share, all o onoo will be privi to it, seen?
So after that typically long preamble, I have a few thoughts to share today. I have just finished cooking. While I was cooking, I was listening to one of my Kenny G CDs. Yes, I know some of you may think that by so doing, I am getting old! No, in actual fact, I listen to many types of music including popular music. But I find Kenny G to be spiritually uplifting and his music stimulates my thoughts and is pleasing to the senses. Also, while doing stuff like cooking or any other type of work for that matter, listening to good music does help me to get through the task speedily. So, yes, me done cook, all who waan come fe dinna can rope een! (Not that I can feed the five thousand!)
What I really want to say here is that over the past few days, I have found myself thinking about Christmas. One of my colleagues at work Diana, asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I said to her, that in all honsety, I really do not NEED anything that I can think of. Most of the stuff in life that I have wanted, I can buy for myself or has been given to me by friends or family. Let’s face it, material things cannot keep you company at night, they can’t bring you a cup of hot soup if you feel ill….you know what I mean, don’t you? What is really important to me, is to have around me family and good friends that I can count on and exchange pleasantries with, whether this be over a drink or food and even through gving a gift.
This business of exchanging presents is something I feel that some folks take to extremes. We tend to give to those around us whom we hold dear, and that is fine too. But, do not feel that simply because I gave you a gift, that means that you are obliged to return the favour.
I think that many of us (myself included) tend to forget the less fortunate around us. All truth be told, despite the fact that we may quarrel about the hardships about living here in Jamaica, I know that I could be far worse off. My bills are paid and I still manage to have something left to dedicate to entertainment and savings. Please don’t think I’m showing off, I am just being factual. I’m no millionaire, but, for the moment, I’m alright (within limits). I thank God for that .
So, my response to Diana’s question, is that I am trying for Christmas (and the year round) to reach a level of acceptance for those things in my life and others that I am close to, that I have wished to change and have been unable to. I don’t know if you understand what I mean, but I am sure that you have all been faced with life situations that you wished you could change (and sometimes they do change favourably), but there are some that we just have to learn to accept and say, well, that is just how it is or is meant to be. Hope you catch my drift and I am not going to get into specifics here, but I’m sure I am not speaking in parables.
So, in essence, that is what I have been trying to achieve for myself this Christmas, a level of acceptance for things in my life and those around me that may not necessarily be ideal. At the same time, I don’t want to sit back and watch the people who are close to me, make bad decisions and slip down a pathway of doom. And please, I do not think of myself as being able to solve everyone’s problems for them. I have of my own that I have to deal with.
Having said all of that, Diana and I have been giving each other presents at Christmas for a long time now and this year was no different. In addition, I will end by saying that all of the deep phlosophical kind of writing that you have just read can easily be disregarded as bullshit, if you wish, as these are just my own thoughts and opinions. Last but not least, any of you who wish to give me a present for Christmas, I will be most happy to receive it whether it be material, spiritual or in kind, if you catch my drift! That part about kind was for the ladies, seen! (Me and me bad behaviour again.) Have a Merry Christmas all, and whatever you wished for this Christmas, I hope that you will get it, material, spiritual or otherwise. Me gaan till next time.
Last night I made preparations to have a drink up with some of the folks I went to high school with for Christmas. I started preparing for this from Wednesday evening. In honesty, I was expecting about 12 , perhaps 15 people. Hmph!
Were it not for Mad Bull, Heathcliffe and Twin Batty, there would have been no drink up. Anyway, it is no problem, there just simply will not be any future planning from my side. For those of you who turned up, thanks for coming, the company was good. And the jerk chicken, pork and breadfruit that Twin Batty brought made good eating.
As for me, whatever preparations that I had planned to make for Christmas are now finished as the traffic from hell that comes with Christmas every year, is out in full force. Not much else to report from me, so ’till next time, have a good one!
My sistren Diana at work related this story to me today. I found it quite interesting. Here goes….
One of Diana’s friends, a single female, decided to employ a painter to do some painting inside her home recently. The man was recommended as reliable by one of her male neighbours. The man turned up for the job on the morning as planned before she left to go to work. She showed him where was to be painted and then left for her job.
During her lunch hour, she decided to pass by her home to see how he was getting along with the job and to have some lunch. She did have some leftover food in the fridge from the previous night’s dinner which would have been more than adequate for lunch. When she reached her townhouse, she called out to the painter, but there was no reply. She knocked but there was no answer. After calling out for a few more minutes, she went back into her car to get the keys for the front door and opened it. She called out again, but there was still no response from her painter. She was a bit puzzled. She walked around to the dining room only to find an empty bottle of her Appleton rum on the floor, which was not previously opened. She saw no glass and no chaser. He was drinking the rum straight form the bottle and evidently finished the quart. Then to her horror, in the bay window, there is the painter, shirt off, snoring away cuddled up with one of her cushions and drooling on it as well. She was shocked.
She proceeded into the kitchen only to see a dirty plate on the kitchen counter and the pots with the leftover food which she had planned to eat, thrown down in the sink. She became livid. The painter was still blissfully in deep slumber and totally unaware that she was around. Eventually, she tried to wake him up by poking him with her finger and shaking him. This was to no avail. He was obviously drunk to rass!
She thought about what to do for a while. She opened the backdoor only to see thrown down on the lawn an empty can of her bully (corned) beef and, to make matters worse, an empty tin of her cat’s food!!! The bastard had eaten one of her cat’s tins of food! Eventually, she became a bit afraid and decided to call out nextdoor to see if her neighbour who had recommended him was home. Luckliy he was and she asked him to pop over for a minute. Before he came over, she went into her bathroom to find the toilet seat up and the roll of toilet paper left in a state. Luckily, the bowl was flushed as she did not see anything gross and solid!
Her neighbour used a piece of bamboo to rouse him from sleep and eventually he awoke. Poor girl was livid and started cussing him, as after all of this, there was no evidence anywhere to suggest that any painting had even started! Hear what the painter replies, “Lady, me nuh know a wah you a gwaan bout so. Jus easy nuh!” (Lady, I don’t know why you are getting so upset, just relax!)
Eventually, they were able to get him outside and demand that he leave the premises. However, they decided to call the Police just in case he gave any trouble in his drunken stupor. He agreed to leave and said he was going around the backyard to put on his shirt. Well, guess what? He falls asleep on the lawn around the back. Eventually, the Police took so long to come that her neighbour offered to take him to a bus stop far away, after all, he was the one who had recommended him. Talk about some damn nerve eh? I am sure that I would have been quite pissed myself and cussed some serious claats, if a similar thing had happened to me. What would you have done?(Bear in mind seh man dead inna dis country fe less dan dat!) Peace.