When 2012 was no more

It's the day before the start of a new year (except for places like Australia...so impatient those Aussies), and I guess many people are sitting around reflecting on the last 12 months. I could do one of those cliched year in review round-ups, but who has the time? lol.

Instead, I will just say, 2012 was a good year and as I get older I realise that any year that you get through in one piece is a damn good one. I know so many people who have encountered loss and sadness in 2012, and I am so grateful for the many mercies bestowed on me that I cannot sit here and gripe about a year that saw me in my cap and gown walking across the stage with the other postgrads, in a job when so many of my class were still job hunting, fat, when so many have no food - hey, gotta find the positives!!

So what about 2013? Well, the number 13 always strikes fear into the hearts of many, but you have to make your own luck and as I told a friend last week, you have to make your own way and your own happiness. So I am hoping to be happy...happier in 2013.

Maybe a couple more trips...

Maybe more reading, especially as my girlfriend will be hand delivering my birthday present this week. I finally got this, after much resistance, but the traditional way is taking up way too much space in my house!!!

Maybe more writing...

Definitely more sweating and less eating and drinking. I will not be buying new clothes (ha! good one!)

Hopefully more single girl adventures...

It's really just about making the next 12 months better than the last, and to be happy, be a better person - a good daughter, sister, aunt, friend - and to keep it movin'...in the right direction.

Hope everyone has a great 2013 as well. I surely look forward to reading all about it.

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I Survived Christmas

My awesome Christmas tree

Yes. I did. I have the battle scars to prove it.

So Christmas has come and gone and the day itself was pretty cool. The nephew came over pretty early to open his presents, which were all under my avant garde, unconventional Christmas tree. But put some lights on a thing, and any kid would love it. That kid is really good at ripping stuff up so watching him open his presents was a treat. Funny, he was more interested in scamming bits of turkey from his grandmother than he was with any of the presents he had just opened. Kids.

The rest of the day was spent with family, eating, drinking and laughing. Oh the drinking. I usually do not drink a whole lot cause I am usually out, and usually driving myself home. But stick me on a chair with nowhere to go, and the merlot kept flowing. A lovely merlot I had gotten as a gift. I don't get drunk, but rather I get very sleepy and I was soon dead to the world on the couch, with noone being able to resuscitate me. lol

It was a good break from all the work at the office. Whereas most people are kinda on auto pilot at work in the last 2 weeks of the year, I seem to be on overdrive, so the down time is so appreciated.

Today I food shop - as I am having friends over tomorrow (still no idea what I am cooking so this may be a long visit to Hi-Lo); think of some serious 2013 KPIs for my life - as I need to ensure things keep moving in my life; primp - as I have a function to attend later; and hopefully sneak in some sleep - as I once again, am suffering from insomnia on the one day I can actually sleep as long as I want to.

Suckage.

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Christmas Rage

Bad Santa - No wonder this guy was in a bad mood

There is road rage and then there is Christmas rage, and this is a phenomenon which I have been paying close attention to in recent years, because it  baffles me that we sing carols about peace and love, and then want to body slam another human being for a parking spot or the last action figure in the toy store.

I have seen it all in the past couple weekends, but this weekend was especially ridiculous, as grown men honked their horns at grannies, rushing them to get the hell out of the precious parking space in the mall carpark. Mothers cutting into line ahead of others, in a bid to pay for their item so they can rush around to another store like headless chickens. People just seem angrier and not happier and cheerier.

I will admit, I had my brief moment as well. I don't like those people who come into an already volatile environment aka the mall on the weekend before Christmas, with no purpose other than to just stand around. Hello? While I think it is cute that you want to bring your kids to take photos in front of the Christmas tree during the holidays, this was certainly not the weekend for it. I mean, not even Santa was in the mall on Saturday cause clearly the old guy is not suicidal. Standing aimlessly in store entrances and in the middle of the foot traffic, just taking photos, when people want to get through and get out, is well...it's annoying. Cute kids cannot save you here.

That being said though, I am glad the nonsense, i.e. the mindless mall trawling, toy shop stalking, picture posing, mall mobbing nonsense is almost over and hopefully everyone's Christmas Day will be what it should be - a day of love and family and togetherness.

Merry Christmas from the snarkiest of them all - moi.

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CNN made me cry - Sandy Hook Tragedy

Sandy Hook teddy bears - remembering...

Today as I sat watching CNN, for a second time in as many days, the broadcast made me cry. No matter where you live or what you do, the senselessness of this tragedy is so beyond anything any of us could have ever imagined. I watched as families, friends and well wishers consoled each other. I watched as the school principal's husband spoke about his wife, and with him being much older than her, how he had believed he would be leaving their home to her and their kids and grandkids to enjoy. "I did not think it would be me. I don't think I can do this" before he and her daughter broke down. The President's own reflections and emotion as he called each of the 20 names of the angels whom "God has called home".

But it was the faces of the kids, who would not enjoy Christmas, would not receive the presents they had asked Santa for, who would not see another Thanksgiving or Halloween or birthday.

I celebrated my own birthday this week and believe me, this is something I never take for granted. This thing called life. As I sat in my hotel room on Friday night, coming from a night out, I cried for these children who will never fulfil the potential so many would have seen in them, and who would never marvel at the life moments that they would have created, the experiences and triumphs, the heartbreak and failures, the joy, love and happiness of a life well lived. As I reflected on my own life's journey and thanked God for the blessing, I thought of these little faces and the life snuffed out from their bodies too soon. Little Ana Marquez-Greene whose singing in a home movie, would now be limited to that movie. Or Jack Pinto who was a star wrestler, even at 6 years old.

Six years old. It is incomprehensible to me that someone would be so evil or so incapable of knowing better, for whatever reason, as to look into the eyes of the innocent and pull the trigger, ending a life before it had even started. I listen to friends - parents themselves - who tweeted and updated today that they held their kids tight before sending them off to school, not with the usual heavy heart of temporary separation, but with a heart filled with dread and terror. Is this the way we want to live? Is this the life we have promised our children? As a non-parent, is this a world I want to bring children into?

I pray for these families - both of the children, and the 6 amazing women who gave their lives to ensure dozens more could go home to their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. And for the remaining members of the perpertrator's family - victims themselves. The world mourns with Newtown. Our hearts break with this community, and my own prayers are with each and every family, and for the world we live in.

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LinkedIn or Link Up?: Woes of the Single Professional

LinkedIn Dating? Really?
Photo credit: Business Insider

Two entries in one day - how lucky you are!

I am sure many of you, at one time or another, have been virtually accosted by strange men or women on social networking sites, whether it is Facebook, or to a lesser extent Twitter (if you have a Twitter hook up story, please share). I have had friends of friends hit me up for dates and stuff on Facebook, though why they feel Facebook is a dating site is a bit beyond me.

However, I did not think that I would get date requests and be hit up on freakin' LinkedIn. LinkedIn - the social networking site for business. The site where you clean up well, with a nice professional looking photo, and you talk shop with your peers, try to make connections, and look for new opportunities. That was what I thought it was for. So imagine my dismay to find a connection request from some random guy, and a note that was anything but business-driven, unless the business he is in is matchmaking, pimping or soft porn. To make matters worse, he listed his actual job, and has a photo - though the photo itself was more Facebook party time, than business.

Is this what we have come to? Trolling any and every site for a hook up? Maybe he felt that he can find a good wife - employed and possibly a sugar mama type. But I was totally unimpressed. Totally.

Then I remembered this.




There is a REAL market out there for people looking for professionals as matches and I am not disagreeing with this, and this service does not open up all of LinkedIn for the lonely hearts out there which is good. I would then suggest people like Mr Wonderful sign up for this, and not use general LinkedIn as a meat market. Most of us are really not using it for that. Or are we???

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Great Pizza is Back: Bacco Pizzeria Italiana

The wood burning pizza oven
Photo credit: Bacco Trinidad

When my girlfriend and her husband decided to return to Trinidad from Italy, in addition to the warm and fuzzy friend feeling, there was also a deeper, more primal longing and sense of relief - the return of good Italian pizza.

Since they have left, we have improved on the Italian food front here in Trinidad, with places like Buzo and Emiliana, but in the Southland, if you wanted a pizza and did not want to drive, your choices were still nasty commercial American pizza (Pizza Hut, Domino's) or "face the oven" homemade pizza, which I had last week and it was great!

(My homemade pizza is da truth!)

Anyway, Bacco Pizzeria Italiana opened last night and before the first bag of flour could be opened, I was there with the troops. And believe me when I say, there is no bias or favouritism here, but the pizzas are just damn good. See for yourself.

My proscuitto e funghi pizza

Salmone pizza

Diavolo pizza

There was a steady stream of pizza lovers coming in to the place but I feel like I need to say something here cause when one of the patrons who had ordered this awesome looking and awesome smelling pizza, called for KETCHUP, I thought I would jump over the table and strangle him myself. Trinis' fascination and sloppy habit of putting ketchup on pizza (or on anything for that matter), really bites me.

Other than that moment of lunacy, it was a lovely evening and now knowing that I do not have to brave the highway just to get a taste of Italy, I welcome Bacco and the Montis with open arms!

You can find Bacco Pizzeria Italiana at 183 SS Erin Road, Duncan Village, San Fernando.

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