Flight 2-1 to the USA, now boarding!!!

The USA crashed out of the World Cup today and many people screamed Good Riddance. The Americans wonder why many don't like them when it comes to international sporting activities and I don't know about other people, but I can hardly stand the commentary and the we are the greatest, we are the best, and if we lose, it's not because the other team was better, but because we had a bad day mentality. Yes, there is talent, but talent without humility and sportsmanship is wasted.

I was channel surfing and heard the dude with the microphone on ESPN (cannot call him an unbiased sports journalist) say How can a country one-tenth the size of America beat the USA? I mean....wow. The level of arrogance is mind numbing and worse, America is home to many immigrants from small nations - immigrants that contribute to their economy. This flippant, arrogant statement really floored me. Especially coming from people whose team features players from countries even smaller than Ghana, including Trinidad and Tobago. I guess when it's not so shocking when it suits them.

 Take the Olympics. The 100m finals. The premier event of all track events. Usain Bolt is from an island way smaller than Ghana and runs circles around their best athletes on a bad day. The results table above just shows that. A Jamaican and a Trini beat an American into third. Shocking. And then for good measure, a dude from the Neth. Antilles, 2 more Jamaicans and another Trini decided to show the other American how it's done. Their total populations probably cannot fit in Alaska. But hey...they beat 'em. USA's World Champion in the 400m hurdles, Kerron Clement is from an island smaller than Ghana...my island. So yes, I am a bit miffed that these people continuously assert themselves as the greatest athletes the world has ever seen and it is incredulous that people from countries with smaller budgets, less resources but a whole lot of heart and pride can drub the USA in a sport that they have not even fully embraced. Shocker! I guess they have gotten so used to being kings in CONCACAF, a region with teams from countries so much smaller and with less financial resources than theirs, that the fact that a "small" African nation could send them packing is too much for their imaginations to handle.

Ghana played some spectacular football today and it was a well deserved win. I hope the USA at least gets first class seats on Air "Got my Ass Kicked" back to the States, as opposed to the French who sadly were relegated to economy after their dismal showing. I mean, coming from a country so much larger than Ghana in every way, shape and form, except on the field, this is the least they can do.

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You just cannot please black people

You just cannot please people and if I was aiming to please people I would have gone crazy by now. First it was

- You putting on some size.
- You getting fat, girl.

Now it's

- What happen to you? You stressed? How you getting small so?
 You're not looking your usual rosy self.

Seriously?? lol.

I am not the most patient person. I attribute my road rage to this lack of patience. I also attribute fitness frustrations to this lack of patience. You watch shows like Celebrity Fit Club and see these fat celebs losing like 15 pounds in a week and you want to lose 15 lbs in a week too. But I know I hate diets that tell me I have to eat 3 Crix a day and a carrot for lunch and nonsense like that. And I do not have a personal trainer on contract, though I have one on speed dial, because I know my schedule and it is best not to set up busy people on days when I cannot help if I have to work late. So if it takes me a month to lose those 15lbs, or maybe 2 months, it's good for me and how I live. I have come to terms with this reality.

I have no idea if I have lost 5 or 15, because I still believe the scale is an evil, evil device, but my pants are no longer screaming at the seams and I don't have to buy new clothes because what I own now don't fit anymore, thank God. And I am not craving anything bitterly. If I want a cheese puff, I go buy a cheese puff. Okay, maybe three and not just one. But I just don't overdo the bakery love and I am trying my best not to eat on the run, which is my problem. I am used to having meals in the car, on the road, speeding to some destination. That's not healthy at all. And I am a bit more disciplined with my gym sessions. Not the best, because I said I would go yesterday after the ice cream dinner the night before (eating on the run) and I did not go because I was dead tired (was in bed by 7pm), but better than before, which was going "never" a week. But I was up at 3.45 on a Saturday and on the way to the gym to make up for yesterday's dismal showing, even though I felt sick as hell this morning. So I do well to make things right. For a few months, I did not care and though I knew I was a brown dumpling, I was too tired to be bothered. But between mean, farse Trinis and their "you think it helps, but it doesn't" comments and tight clothes...lol...I just decided it was time to stop the foolishness and here I am, stopping it.

And I am happy, which is the most important thing. I don't want to be skinny. I will never be skinny. I was born to be bootylicious and curvy. I just want to be comfortable and healthy and feel like my usual hot self. Well, I always feel hot, so I guess I mean, hotter. That's it.

I also have a slice of chocolate cake in the fridge. Oh yes. C-A-K-E. Not a carrot. Not sugarless rice cakes. But an honest to goodness slice of Puff n Stuff chocolate cake which I intend to share with the mum during the football later. Yeah...what you gonna say about it??

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How busy high heeled days derail diets

Yesterday was just one of those high heeled days, when you're sitting suffering in your office, waiting for approvals so you can send stuff out and go home to get some food and a shower. I called my mother ahead of time and asked her to pick up a soup from my fave cafe in the second city, but she did not think my soup was important enough apparently. This left me with very little options when I did manage to leave the office at 7.30pm. Having missed gym sessions on two days straight this week because of work, I was not feeling the BK/KFC/Pizza Hut options. But I knew it was one of these or sure starvation, so decided I would jump in the car and make up my mind when I got there.

This was the final decision. Sorry for the fuzzy photo, but hunger is serious and I was sitting in the carpark hoping noone jacked me, my car, my Berry and most importantly, MY DINNER!!!!

My reasoning for this was simple.

1. If I am going to stuff my body with calories, it might as well be  via Coldstone ice cream
2. If I was going to stuff my body with calories, it might as well be via oil free, non-acne causing Coldstone ice cream
3. If I was going to stuff my body with calories, it might as well be via yummyColdstone ice cream, which for a lactose intolerant person is basically like being bulimic. lol.

So that was dinner. I just wanted to say though that I wish more international franchises like this one, would set up shop in Trinidad. Why? The level of service they expect is reflected in the way the staff interact with customers. It was a refreshing change to be greeted with a smile and kind words. As opposed to when I went to have passport sized photos taken earlier this week and the woman's mouth stretched out from her face to across the street, as though I was begging her to climb Everest barefoot. And note I said Trinidad and not Tobago cause honestly, I don't think anything can help customer service in Tobago, except maybe Jesus.

So kudos to the staff at Coldstone Creamery in Price Plaza, even the nice ice cream assistant (dunno what the right term is) who tried to fatten me up with all kinda mixings and toppings. I had to say no. My diet had been derailed enough with just the ice cream. But it did not stop him from pouring fudge sauce and chocolate chips in my yummy French Vanilla ice cream and yummy waffle cone pieces. Okay, I will stop now. But come hell, high water or overtime, I WILL be at the gym this evening.

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Beach Boys Strike Again

So after a LOT of pulling and tugging with one particular department, which shall remain nameless, I finally got the last of my documentation to go apply for my visa today. I was vex like Rex eh cause after weeks of waiting, of course my budget has now taken a hit cause of course the airfare has now gone up and I still have to wait to see if I get the so and so visa. I have a mind to send an invoice for the additional spend to the people who kept me back so long! But God is good, yes.

So I mosey on over to the Embassy and I was thinking I would be a quick 5 minutes and then be outta there! Had to take...wait for it...public transportation ...cause of the suckage of POS and its no parking and when yuh tief a park, by the time you come back, your car is gone and you have to go hunt it down in the Savannah. That taxi was another story, with the nasty sweaty man who throw his whole fat, big bellied, sweaty self on the brown skin I took my time to lather with Bath and Body Works body wash this morning. But I digress.

Well, I made two very important observations:

1. Trinis have money. When you see them on the tv protesting for salary increase and talking about how their chile cyah eat cause they cannot buy bread - a lie. Because travelling to Europe is not cheap, so I was expecting an empty room or at least 2-3 people. I was NOT expecting to have to stand up after walking in the hot sun, because all the chairs were taken. And as an aside, I also observed that Trini men have no damn manners cause yuh think one of the men sitting on the plush blue chairs would have offered me, obviously hot and frazzled, a seat so I could unfrazzle myself? Think again. I watched one of the men rock back and close his eyes as if to block out the fact that a woman was there standing. I watched him so hard I think his brain must have started to burn. In any event, I did not expect the unwashed masses in the place, that's for sure.

2. With the exception of one family - a dad, his wife and his 2 daughters - it was beach boy fever in there. The one thing about the place is that the conversation between you and the visa officer is not private so when the lady asked the 3 men, including Mr Rock Back, where they going and/or how they met the girlfriend they were going to visit/travel with, the answer was a hattrick - I met her in Tobago when she was on vacation.

So in case you were wondering where the hot spot is for picking up island men, then come on down. And men, if you're looking for a sugar mama to take you on free vacations, put you on their insurance plan so you can travel, and you see Europe 3 times a year even though you may not have a job, then jump on a plane to Tobago. I know it happens elsewhere, but I cannot speak for the rest. I would be farse and bright to do so.

But yes, the "brotha" in the chair could not be bothered with the tired "sista" standing in the corner, cause he was running his nashy fingers through the blondeness of the woman pawing at him in most nauseating fashion. That's why I snickered when he was called to the counter and refused a visa, cause he thought he had it made. And then he kept back productivity by trying to show his true colours in the people place by arguing with the visa officer. Oh gosh, behave yourself!

But I also noticed and I now realise I am on observation #4, that some of these women could not compete with the likes of me (modest I know) and wondered, what on earth...??? I mean...nashy!!! But as they say, every rat has its mouldy cheese and the place was stink of ole cheese.

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It's my black hair that keeps me curvy!!!

Going to the gym takes a special type of commitment. I am usually tired, so that's the first thing.

The next thing is to get to my gym I pass my turnoff for home. It only takes one sharp bad drive to the left and maybe some cuss words from some fellow fat motorist to get me off the beat me up path and onto the path to salvation aka home. There have been a few days (count Mon, Wed, and Thurs of last week) where I made the necessary bad drive from the fast lane (as we call it here) to the lane to make the turnoff to my couch.

Then I go to a very popular gym, with all the teeny bopper girls whose main purpose in life is either to see or be seen. I don't mind you doing what makes you happy off your membership fee, but when you crowd up the gym, hog the equipment to chat with boys and keep me back from whittling away my hips, then I have a serious serious problem with your extracurricular activities.

And then I also remembered a conversation I had with a dude last year at a conference in New York. My fellow Bajan PR superstar and I were the only black women at the table. You know this was deliberate that we sat together - but it was just a bonus that she was from the Caribbean as well. This bright American dude of Anglo-Saxon descent, then comes to our table to tell us he is writing a paper. On what you ask?

Black women, weight and hair.

It was his observation, from talking to other black women (so he say) that black women shun the gym because they don't want to sweat and ultimately sweat out their perm or their weave. He was saying this all with the straightest of faces. Now while the dude was probably right, and we will get to this, ummm...I don't know you and you're suggesting I am fat? lol. No no...he says. But he wanted to know if I avoided the gym to safeguard my expensive salon job. The question therefore really was would I prefer to be fat with great hair, or skinny with jacked up hair?

You know he was still waiting for an answer. Ms Barbados was not feeling him either with his farseness and out of order line of questioning and I could tell the white women at the table were wishing he would just leave as well. He took the hint real quick.

But to answer the question, unlike Caucasian type hair, washing black hair after the gym if say you go in the morning, requires great skill, equipment and hair products. It's not a wash and wear kinda thing, especially if you have locks or a weave. THIS requires a trip to the salon or a neighbour with salon skills. Thus I now go in the evening, in case you were wondering why (plus the other hassle of walking with clothes and makeup and sharing showers with nasty women who insisted on showing off ALLLLLLL their junk before and after a shower was not at all appealing anymore).

Would I prefer to be fat and have Pantene commercial type hair? No. Do black women avoid the gym because of the hair issues? I don't know. I certainly don't. I go to the salon on Saturday and may take a day on Monday but it's business as usual in the sweatshop on Tuesday. I avoid the gym for all the other reasons listed above. My gym has a lot of black women who work out hard, sweat a lot and they keep coming back -perms, dreads, weaves, braids, screwballs, you name it, we've got it. I don't know about American women, but Trini women seem to be fine with it, mister. And when was the last time he looked at say the Olympics? Ever noticed your American female athletes? They did not win medals cause they were scared of messing up their hair. Maybe they won via other means (ahem), but the hair did not hold them back. Female track athletes are some of the swankiest athletes out there. Steups. And once you ladies wash it and keep that from smelling like ole socks, I am fine with it as well.

But I still hate trying to find new ways of making the treadmill or stepping on an elliptcal for an hour exciting. Although, there is a dude who now thinks he can compete with the elliptical master and tries to keep up with my faster than a speeding bullet pace and hold perfect sexy form for the full hour. After 35mins I was alone again. Loser.

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