We're Like Fine Wine

So another year older, Happy Birthday to MJY my Blog Twin and to me. We're getting better with age. I hope you have had a great day and have an even better year.

I'm actually having a really nice day now, even though it didn't get off to a very rosy start. I just had a pedicure to make sure my toes look nice in my sexy gold sandals when I go out later tonight. There's a nice juicy steak and a glass (or 3!) of wine with my name on it.

About a year ago, Medusa challenged me to do a list of 100 things about myself. So I figure why not do it today when I have a genuine reason to make everything about me. :)

Here goes:

1. I love the rain when I’m in the house, warm and dry.
2. I don’t like to be outside in snow but love the way it looks it’s falling.
3. If I have a choice between reading a book and watching a movie based on a book, I’ll read the book first.
4. I still hate going to the dentist.
5. The yearly check-up at the gynaecologist still freaks me out.
6. I love to drive fast, I’m not reckless, but I do love speed.
7. I’m not scared of dying, but I am terrified of how I’ll die (memo to self: drive slower?).
8. Dishonesty, in any form, is the hardest thing for me to forgive.
9. I’m terrified of snakes.
10. I use swear words very rarely and when I do, it’s for shock value.
11. I’m a hopeless procrastinator.
12. I love working under pressure.
13. I try to believe the best of every person unless they give me a reason not to.
14. I learn something new about myself almost every day.
15. I am fiercely loyal to my friends and family.
16. I’ve loved looking at myself in the mirror since I was a child.
17. I love to show cleavage, if you’ve got it, flaunt it! Truth be told though, big boobs are overrated, I wouldn't mind smaller ones.
18. I believe everything that has happened in my life has happened for a reason, no accidents, no coincidences.
19. I believe in God, the Devil, in Heaven and Hell.
20. Although I tend to anger quickly, I never stay that way for long.
21. I don’t like to hold grudges, they only hurt me.
22. I’m not really sure what I want to be doing in the next 5 years.
23. I’m ok with that.
24. I’m addicted to telly. Currently my favourite channels are the Food Network and The Travel Channel.
25. I’ve come to love working out; exercise makes my body feel alive.
26. When I was younger I loved to write letters. I miss doing that. I’ve resolved I’m going to start doing it again.
27. I love to sing and I do it well.
28. A lot of people think I’m confident, but I’m actually terrified of appearing incompetent and try very hard not to.
29. I talk to myself a lot when I'm alone.
30. A hot new outfit is one of my favourite pick-me ups.
31. Until I got married, I thought multiple orgasms were ngano cia marimu (urban legend).
32. I used to write poetry, I’m not sure why I stopped.
33. I believe in happy endings and always hope for them even in the face of unfavourable odds yet I don't consider myself an optimist. Hmmm...strange.
34. I love to give gifts to people I care about for no reason, but don’t want people to make a big deal when they get them. Thank you is sufficient; I just love to do it.
35. I love to find the perfect gift for someone I care about.
36. I hate it when people forget my birthday – even a phone call or e-mail is fine, just don’t let it pass in silence.
37. Now that my hubby and I are not long-distance anymore, I’ve realised that I really don’t like e-mail; it’s a necessary evil.
38. I’ve been a victim of sexual assault and it took me a long time to realise it wasn’t my fault. I don’t think of myself as a victim anymore.
39. It might not endear me to many, but I always try to speak my mind and be as honest as I can without hurting anyone.
40. I love words and word games.
41. I love to travel; I plan on doing it more.
42. Routines drive me crazy, I crave excitement, spontaneity.
43. One day I hope to start a non-profit that mentors girls and young women (kind of like the Big Brother Big Sister or Girls Inc. programmes here in the U.S.).
44. Sometimes I underestimate my own capabilities, sometimes I overestimate; I’m still learning to find the balance.
45. I miss my family and friends in Kenya but living away from them has helped me grow up and redefine who I am on my own terms.
46. I detest authority that insists on being recognised; the “don’t-you-realise-I’m-in-charge?” attitude riles me.
47. Pretentious people amuse me, but mostly I feel sorry for them; it’s sad to be so afraid to show who you really are.
48. I can be very sarcastic and I’m not always happy about the things I say.
49. My relationship with God is in need of a tune-up.
50. I can roll my tongue.
51. It drives me crazy that I’m never able to raise only one eyebrow unless half my face is numb from novocaine.
52. I hate the word “minority” and all the connotations and assumptions that come with it.
53. Fire fascinates me; note to self – discuss possibility that I’m a repressed pyromaniac with therapist.
54. I love sunsets.
55. I’m nocturnal, being up alone when most people are asleep is cool.
56. I’m still a little scared of the dark
57. I’ve never been drunk, a little tipsy, but never drunk.
58. I love cats.
59. I sometimes think about getting a parrot for a pet, I think it would be cool to teach it to talk.
60. I’m a feminist who isn’t in support of abortion. But even though I wouldn’t have one, I don’t believe that any government has a right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. Her body, her choice.
61. The effect helium has on the voice amuses me
62. I have a very short attention span. I think if I went to school in the US as a child, someone would have tried to prescribe ADD medication for me. Ritalin anyone?
63. I hate taking medicine.
64. I’ve never forgotten the name of the first guy I had a crush on. His name was Martin and I was 7.
65. I can be very unpredictable and sometimes it’s frustrating for my dear Mr. K.
66. I hate sleeping alone. Whenever he’s away, I sleep with a huge bear he gave me.
67. My favourite food is a juicy steak, medium well – a bit charred on the outside with just a hint of pink on the inside. Yum!
68. If I had to go vegetarian for any reason, I think I’d go mad.
69. My favourite snack is warm milk and an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie or warm milk with a slice of homemade cake.
70. Pineapple is my favourite fruit.
71. I hate reading instructions/instruction manuals, so I figure it out by myself or I ask hubby dearest to explain stuff to me.
72. I miss having guy friends. Since I became Mrs. K, I’ve found it much harder to make friends with guys. Or maybe it’s ‘cause I’m not at home? Je ne sais pas.
73. I love to talk, can you tell?
74. I sleep on my stomach.
75. If I had to choose between doing what I love and making a tonne of cash doing something I don’t enjoy, I’d pick the former.
76. I eat my cereal with warm milk. This apparently seems to strike some as odd because I’ve had people tell me that they think it’s weird. One cannot imagine having one’s cereal any other way.
77. I hate alarm clocks; I prefer to be woken slowly by the sound of a noisy bird or by the sun shining through the window.
78. As a child, I thought it would be cool to break my hand so people could sign my cast; it never happened.
79. When I’m nervous, I tend to speak faster.
80. My capacity for the recollection of minutiae astounds me—it probably annoys others though.
81. I’m very detail oriented; life is in the details. (Read, I'm a little anal or have borderline OCD)
82. Most of the time I’m between 5 and 15 minutes late.
83. I possess the ambiguous talent of being able to sleep anywhere—I once fell asleep standing during a super-long choir practice in high school the night before a Music Festival.
84. I can sometimes be lazy.
85. When I decide I want something, I seldom fail to get it.
86. I love the smell of roasting garlic.
87. I love to cook and enjoy making things from scratch.
88. I don’t like being photographed, I like to be behind the camera instead.
89. I don’t suffer from insanity; actually I enjoy it.
90. The first word I could spell as a child was "bog" (don't ask) complete with three little black sausage-shapes to illustrate.
91. I don't feel my age, I feel younger.
92. I'm married to my best friend, the most special guy I know.
93. Sometimes I feel like I'm just pretending to be grown-up, that one of these days someone is going to arrest me for masquerading as a responsible adult.
94. This year I’m making a concerted effort to try more new things. Yesterday, yoga. Today, Jamaican jerk chicken pizza.
95. I have a loud laugh. When I think something is funny, I laugh with everything I've got, just like with everything else, I don't do it by halves.
96. I think I'm good at reading people, I find that I'm often accurate.
97. Growing up I wanted to be a lawyer; I sometimes think I still could (or should).
98. Other things I've wanted to be - criminal psychologist, radio show host, counselling psychologist, and sex therapist.
99. I'm not shy, I've never been.
100. My favourite cereal is Weetabix (yes, with warm milk); I've loved it since I was a child.

Hiatus

Doctor's Note
Webster can help me explain where I've been. He's my equivalent of a doctor's note to be excused from swimming or P.E. (long story).

Hiatus
a : an interruption in time or continuity, a period when something (as a program or activity) is suspended or interrupted

Webster however can't fully explain why I've been there. For that, we need a therapist, or several and a whole lotta time!

To everyone who's stopped by periodically and said something, or not, thank you. And Medusa, thanks for being that incessant voice in my head (well, my ear) telling me to get back on the horse, ok, the computer.

At the risk of sounding like a wannabe Oscar, Emmy or other award winner...oh wait, too late!

The Real Reason
It’s been a crappy past few months. Oh heck, it’s been SHITTY! That’s the word. No room for pretentious political correctness. There are days when I felt so tightly wound that I knew that writing down how I felt would crumble my carefully crafted control to smithereens. So I’ve stayed away from my blog and inside my head because that’s been the safest space to unravel my thoughts and iron my mental creases.

In retrospect, maybe writing it all down would have helped but I needed to allow myself not to push, not to do anything I didn’t want to. It seems counterintuitive that I would stay away from something so freeing and which I love so much but it’s helped. Either that or I’m so far gone now I’m under the illusion that it’s all good. Now, where is that other bottle……

It's good to be back! I did miss the blog and the bloggers.

Comes The Dawn

After a while, you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that loving doesn’t mean leaning
And company isn’t security.
(Kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises.)

After a while you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain
And the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
If you stand too long in one place.

So, you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn you really can endure,
That you really do have worth.
You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn.
- Judith B. Evans

What employers wish they could say but can't (or won't)

Some things get easier to deal with as we get older or as time goes by. Rejection isn't one of those things. I'm still looking for a job and recently I received a rejection letter in the mail. It was the standard response;

"Dear blah blah blah,
Thank you for your application. We regret blah blah blah et cetera et cetera blah blah blah."

Basically, they were saying they weren't interested in giving me a job. Rejection letters seem to be the same no matter who writes them. Some are a little nicer than others (if it's possible to be nice while telling someone to shove off) but for the most part they are the same.

To humour myself (and because really I have nothing better to do), I've drafted an alternative rejection letter. It says what potential employers probably want to say but are prevented from doing, either by the dictates of etiquette or the fear of a lawsuit.

Being unemployed, excuse me, in-between opportunities, and in the mood to disregard etiquette, here's my suggestion for a truthful rejection letter;

Dear Applicant,

Thanks for sending in your application. It provided us much needed
comic relief. We were rolling on the floor laughing by the time we
were done reading your letter and resume. Thank you for the
entertainment. Please note that as it was unsolicited, there shall be
no form of compensation provided to you. But thank you anyway.

Although this office is direly in need of humour, we currently have no
funds for such a position and unfortunately you are not qualified for
any other position. You didn't really think we'd offer you the job though,
did you? Thanks for the laugh.

Sincerely (and still in stitches),

Wennell Frizzizova,

Chairperson, Selection Committee.


Happy jobhunting and good luck to anyone else who's looking!

Lost in translation?

Dubai Int'l Airport - I'll just use the "ladies toilet", thanks. Is there just one?





















Hee! hee! Saw this sign on a cab window last week in Dallas. My cat fancies a cigar every now and then but i promise he'll behave, now may we ride in your cab?

The things from home I miss the most

This week one of my best friends from Kenya came to visit. We had a ball but the downside of that is that now I'm really homesick. I miss Kenya. No, let me rephrase that; I miss the idea that I have of home, of Kenya. Do you ever get that feeling? You miss something so much and you build it up into this perfect thing and yet the perfection is all in your mind? That's how I feel. It's not hard to think of Kenya as the perfect place to be when one is in an unfamiliar, unfriendly place. I mean, at least in Kenya, no one would be referring to me as a (non-resident) alien.

Along with the idea of Kenya that I have in my mind, is the taste and smell of some things I haven't eaten, seen, smelt, tasted or heard in about a year, some longer. It might sound crazy or mundane but sometimes I have the oddest food and non-food longings. I miss:

1) Creamy toffee - the soft, sticky, gooey sweetness of creamy toffee in all it's different flavours. That's something I haven't tasted in years, but somehow recently I remembered it. I don't even think it exists anywhere except in my memory.
2) Goody goody - they used to be soft, then they became hard, but they were still pretty good. mmmm....I think this was my favourite sweet as I was growing up. Are they still in existence?
3)Kenchic chicken - chicken in the U.S. of A tastes like reconstituted chewing gum. Sure, lots of spices help, but the cure for my longing would be a whole kuku porno/kuku somersault right now.
4) Kenyan Chips/French Fries - yaani, I miss fresh cut french fries. I miss knowing that there is some unseen person in the kitchen working the potato peeler/chopper or cutting the waru (potatoes) by hand. The frozen, pre-cooked fries in most restaurants have caused this self-confessed fry addict to go cold turkey. I'm suffering withdrawal.
5) I miss going to tao and bumping into people I know.
6) I miss having a kiosk just down the road from the house which i could walk to and buy anything i realised i didn't have in the middle of dinner prep.
7) I miss the noise, hustle and bustle of tao on a normal day -- the hawkers selling their wares ("beba na fifty, fifty bob!" - buy for fifty shillings), the woman who sits outside stanchart, opposite nando's, yelling, "nipe shiringi!", the matatu manambas yelling for passengers..., the boom twaff of their (mostly awful) music.
8) I miss Kenyan radio--there was stuff i could relate to. here, i don't even listen to radio anymore except for NPR and BBC online.
9) I miss cheap, fresh produce. Cheap 'cause all I needed to do was go visit mathee for the weekend and she would unleash maize, onions, tomatoes, potatoes - uchumi kando!
10) I miss, and I can't believe I am saying this please hit me over the head hard now, being called "auntie" and "siste". Somehow "ma'am" just doesn't have quite the same ring.
11) I miss the open nature of Kenyans. When people can't stand your guts, they don't pretend. They may not say it to your face outright lakini they don't smile at you and shake your hand, and pretend to laugh at your jokes so you don't think they are racist and sue their arse!
12) I miss guilt-free decisions about whether to tip at restaurants or not. The decision was influenced solely by the quality of the service not by the 10% or more rule. (P.S. - guilt doesn't mean that I tip just because it's expected)
13) I miss having my hair done every week because it was so cheap. Speaking of hair, I miss being able to braid my hair without it costing me the equivalent of a whole month's worth of lunches.
14) Two words; nyama choma.

If you are away, what do you miss the most about home? And if you are at home, what do you think you would miss the most if you left?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

And my twin MJY!! Please visit her and send her lots of birthday wishes (even though she had a head start on celebrating this day since she's a few hours ahead!)

It's that time of the year again (I LOVE IT!!!!) when I don't have to pretend to be modest and everything can be about me! I'm grateful for a wonderful year that's made me an even better person (hey, I said no modesty). A better friend, wife, daughter and sister and I believe overall a better human being.

I'm grateful for a wonderful family, loving friends and a FANTASTIC hubby. Most of all, I'm just grateful to be alive and healthy in a beautiful body. Thank you Lord.

'78 was a very good year.

Picture a raised champagne glass here:
Here's to love, life and celebrating many more birthdays!!!

I'm off to enjoy the rest of this glorious day. I'm preparing my stomach to enjoy the delights of non-stop meat service at a Brazillian steakhouse later this evening. My mouth is already watering.