One of the things I love about living in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Trinidad and Tobago is how we celebrate each other’s culture.
During Divali our Hindu friends invite us to celebrate with them. During Eid our Muslim friends invite us to celebrate with them. During Christmas, we invite them to celebrate with us.
When we have a public holiday that commemorates a Hindu event we are all welcome to dress the part. The same with a Muslim celebratory event or an African or Chinese. For us it is not appropriation, but a respectful celebration of each other’s cultures and the fact that we share a nation together. We do it to honour one another.
I love how inclusive we are. Everyone is welcome to join in. Every few months someone else is celebrating something else. Everybody gets a holiday. Everybody gets a feast. I think that’s how it should be.
I need a fan in the kitchen. Cooking in there is like cooking inside of an oven. Jesus.
I told Chris he wouldn’t be able to use his anniversary gift for a couple of months and he grinned and asked if it was a baby stroller (of course it’s not but I can’t say in case he happens to see this post, unlikely but it could happen).
I’m filling a consignment order and I’m really dragging my feet on it. I really do not like making the same shit over again.
I bought my dress for my sister’s (church) wedding in Orlando in December ($33), got myself a new fall jacket for $30 (!!!!), new heels for $17 (!!!!), AND I found a website where I could buy gold filled and sterling silver chain for about 1/3 less than Rio Grande (the go-to supplier) and in true Capricorn form I am ecstatic about my bargains. More than I will be to actually receive the stuff. Well except the chain I’m really excited about the chain.
I am tired already and I have to make an airport run tonight. *sigh*
Reading Dear Prudence today and a woman wrote in about her newlywed husband who keeps insisting on butt play in the bedroom even though she made it abundantly clear before they were married that she wasn’t interested and didn’t enjoy it.
My policy when I was dating was that I’d try anything once as long as they did it first. It’s funny how quickly a guy will backpedal when he has to be the one getting things shoved up his ass.
Feminists who are proud viewers or defenders of porn aren’t socially progressive—they’re ignorant. I understand and support their foundational pursuit to eliminate the taboo nature of female sexuality, but the porn industry cannot be utilized as one person’s form of sexual liberation while it remains a source of oppression, abuse, and objectification for so many others.
Talented child actress Quvenzhané Wallis is making leaps and bounds in the publishing world by landing a four-book deal with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Wallis’ deal includes a chapter-book trilogy and a picture book to be released between January 2017 and Summer 2018, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Golden Globe nominee’s picture book will be loosely based on her life. It follows Shai Williams, a spunky third-grader who attends an award show with her mother.
Wallis, 12, was the youngest actress ever to receive a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her poignant work in the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild. Since then, Quvenzhané has starred in the remake of Annie, Twelve Years a Slave, and the animated film, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.
Wallis released a statement about her new project and hopes to encourage readers to tap into their imagination.
“Reading is very important,” Wallis said. “It allows people to form a visual experience in their minds of what is going on in the story. I hope all readers enjoy using their imaginations along with me and take a journey into my books.”
Dawn Davis, vp and publisher of 37 INK, a division of Atria added, “The characters Quvenzhane has portrayed have an alluring mix of self-possession and vulnerability. We look forward to her bringing that same electric combination to the page. We also hope these books will help expand the diverse array of voices in the children’s book space.”
Wallis is currently working on more films. Her next role will be alongside Russell Crowe and Aaron Paul in Fathers and Daughters. The movie is about a widowed Pulitzer-winning writer who struggles to find his voice after a mental breakdown.
Congrats to Wallis on spreading more Black Girl Magic!
This past May, Catalin Alexandru Duru broke the world record for the longest hoverboard flight.
Duru flew up to five metres above a lake for a distance of 275.9 metres aboard his homemade, propeller-powered hoverboard in a trip that lasted more than 1½ minutes.
Now, the 31-year-old Duru and his company, Omni Hoverboards, are working on a secret, next-generation version of the device.
Chris told me that today on a whim he applied for a job overseas. I know a guy who did that a decade ago and his family has been living the life in Dubai ever since.
I was just entertaining the thought of us moving abroad and then I realised I’d have to make new friends and I thought of what a drag that would be, seeing as I hardly even see the ones I already have. I could see us going over there and staying home in our free time just content to watch movies and curl up in bed. After two years we’d come back home having met no one.
In my dream scenario we also have a dog. And I get to sell my jewelry to fancy boutiques all over the island.
Now I’m wondering why I’m not selling my jewelry to fancy boutiques here.
Let’s play a game where we reblog something we remember from when we were younger, but no longer seems to exist or in the public eye. I’ll start:
Sucrets throat lozenges in the tin flip top container.
Pay phones. Lolz
Everything being clear. I had a clear phone, drank clear Pepsi, my first legal beer was Bud Ice.
VHS Camcorder
Metal slides
Lawn darts
I remember saying debit cards and ATMs were just unbelievably ridiculous and people would never trust them. I was like 20.
“Units” clothing stores. One size fits all and one piece could be a top, a skirt, a dress, etc…
I remember being in the car with my mom, hearing something on the news about an internet shopping scam, and we both laughed, because imagine sending your credit card number over the internet. That’s ridiculous!
Probably 1997 or 1998.
Home phones with party lines. My grandparents in rural northern Louisiana had one well into the mid-80s.
Lucite Click-Clacks Clacker toys. One of the neighborhood older kids had them and I thought they were so cool.
County Seat and Hastings.
Cherry flavored Certs breath mints
Freakies Cereal. I fucking loved that shit!
hypercolor shirts. and swatch watches (and phones! i had that groovey pink/green dual handset phone!)
If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.
Louie Gong describes his company, Eighth Generation, as “a Native-owned, community-engaged small business that began when I started putting cultural art on shoes.” It’s true, in 2008, Gong began decorating sneakers and skateboarding apparel with indigenous Nooksack patterns — a move that, as a Nooksack himself, set him apart from the non-Native designers who’d been doing so for years. As demand grew, so did Gong’s ambition.
I’m feeling hungry. Chris just got up and left the room. I’m secretly hoping that he’ll bake some of those Pillsbury croissants we have in the fridge and bring them to me piping hot with some Irish butter.
Most likely he just got up to iron his shirt for tomorrow.
White Caribbean writers are really trying it…like. How about acknowledging the privilege that you have and humbling yourself? This is not an imposition of Western racial politics onto the Caribbean landscape, this is the ugliness of colonial legacies rearing its head once again. These white writers will claim the space and proceed to butcher dialect to make their writing more interesting to other white people internationally. They do not interact with the people they write about. They literally have their own communties and are able to do so by tapping into the colonial archive that prioritizes their bodies and enables them to access wealth and education that is far out of the reach of the average Black/Brown Caribbean person.
THEY are the ones who are constantly creating this dichotomy of us vs them with their laziness and reluctance. Why you doh write about that and stop throwing white tears in the newspapers?
“they do not interact with the people they write about” is SOOOO striking to me. i’m not familiar with the works of white caribbeans, and what i’m about to say isn’t about caribbean literature, but i just remember one time (i’m trinidadian) i went to this white-caribbean-owned restaurant and the owner’s dad was making rounds and being all hospitable and making small talk, and my mother said something about not being much of a foodie, having grown up in central trinidad as part of a low/lower-middle class family. and this mf had the audacity to play the humble card and be like ‘haha you think i know bout these things? i’m from [insert whatever ridiculously privileged and traditionally wealthy part of trinidad he was from here]’ and i was just instantly infuriated. white caribbeans have no idea
lmao they really don’t though.
Had to listen to a white trini woman at an artist talk of an artist who’s work puts black women (especially dark skinned black women at the centre) in response to an interesting discussion about colourism and pigmentocracy say something like “shouldn’t we just emancipate ourselves from mental slavery?” If Bob wasn’t already dead that wudda kill the man….
Is cuz they at least acknowledge their mixed up ancestry (just not enough to interrogate the hows and the whys) and think that this erases their white privilege…
I once said in the presence of a very sweet white Trini girl that I worked with that anyone growing up in Trinidad with only white friends made a deliberate choice. She looked as if I had just shattered her entire worldview.
I was by Chris’s mom today and she was listening to old people music and I wondering if when I’m in my 70’s listening to 80’s music it will be seen as old people music.
Whenever I go there I get to visit the place I fell in love for the first time. I love that.
Getting back with your first love is a study in how age, time and circumstances change people. We aren’t the same people we were before. Life has changed us in ways that we can’t unlearn. Yet there are times when he will say something to make me laugh and I will throw back my head and he will watch me with glee and the years will peel away and we are sixteen and eighteen again and light and free as two people can be.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
This quote from Carl Sagan represents one of the most poetic truths of our scientific reality. That heavy elements weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of earlier generations of stars that have since exploded and spread their material across the universe. We are literally made of stardust. This allows us a new and profound feeling of connection to the stars we see in the sky, to the universe, and to everyone in it. I created this new painting to remind us of this, a fact which Neil deGrasse Tyson calls the most astounding fact in the video below. I highly recommend watching it and others such as the Sagan Series.
Started reading this today after I finished that other awful book. Much more engaging I’m quite enjoying it. Thank god.
(It’s set in the Appalachian Mountains and I remember that @treebourbon explained how it was properly pronounced so I’m reading it with the correct pronunciation)
It took forever for me to finish this book. The plot was engaging but the characters… they were so horrible, so despicable, so pathetic and depressing. I really had a hard time getting through it even though it was worth it at the end.
Let me break this down for you and everyone else who has made variations of this comment.
Underneath this picture, I wrote “Quote by Shonda Rhimes.” That means the text on the image is made up of words that Shonda Rhimes said. Shonda Rhimes is in fact a real person. She has three daughters. She has zero sons. She mentions her daughters because they exist. She does not reference her sons not because she hates them, but because they do not exist.
It is not sexist for her to wish for more for her daughters. It is not sexist for me to like the idea of a world that holds more love than hate in it and post her quote. It is not sexist for women to occasionally have conversations, or even just make statements, that do not involve men.
The concept of liming encompasses any leisure activity entailing the sharing of food and drink, the exchange of tall stories, jokes and anecdotes etc., provided the activity has no explicit purpose beyond itself. As such, it may seem as though liming occurs in most societies. But whereas idling and inactivity are frequently seen unequivocally as shameful and slightly immoral kinds of social situations, liming is in Trinidad acknowledged as a form of performing art; it is a kind of activity one wouldn’t hesitate to indulge in proudly. In liming contexts, verbal improvisation, ingenuity and straightforward aimlessness are highly regarded, provided one follows the rules, which, however, are nearly all implicit.
I just got invited to a lime at my former workplace for my ex boss who is leaving.
While it would be lovely to see everyone, I’m staying home and working as I’ve had a week of meetings and errands and very little time in the studio.
Furthermore you could not pay me enough money to go to a lime in his honor.
I detest him. And I don’t say that lightly. His machinations were largely responsible for destroying my love for my career. The way he sabotaged me professionally is something I can’t quite forgive and my sentiments to him run along the lines of go rot in hell.
So in short, I will not be going to that lime today.
The deeply worrying thing about catcalling is that the catcaller must know that their target isn’t going to turn around and fall in to their arms pleading ‘oh dear my please have sex with me here and now’. A lot of the time they know that. Often they don’t do it for that, someone who shouts ‘nice tits’ from a van isn’t trying to date you. They’re trying to humiliate you, reinforce their dominance over you; it’s an exercise of male power. It’s a way of communicating ‘I can say and do whatever I want to you, no matter how inappropriate or how uncomfortable it makes you feel, and you can’t do anything about it.’ Catcalling is not a compliment, it’s a threat.
Me: *closes whatsapp family group*
Me: Mom is badmouthing Dad’s side of the family again
Chris: She mention Tyrone yet?
Me: Don’t say his name! It’s like Beetlejuice if you say his name he’ll appear in the chat!
Tried to get Siri to call me Tasha instead of Natasha. So she says Tosha. So I say no just call me Tash. So she says Josh. Apparently I’m not pronouncing it American enough. So we settled on Tosh. It sounds close enough.
My niece has never had a hint of a Trini accent, even when she lived here for months at a very young age. She has now taken to correcting the way her Trinidadian mother and step father speak. She thinks it’s wrong. This makes me kinda sad. She’s so totally American it’s not even funny. *sigh*
I love it when my subconscious works to solve design dilemmas for me but the solution to my problem was so obvious that right now Its making me feel stupid
No. I keep seeing them in denim. We went the the Shabba Ranks concert a few weekends ago and so many women were wearing them and all of them looked half dressed like they forgot to put on pants, it was so weird. When did that become a thing here???
Banking here is a testament to the patience of Trinbagonians because lawks it takes FOREVERRRR. My strategy is to always to get there before the bank opens, I don’t think I could manage otherwise.
Well that would require me to get up and get dressed and get out of the house at the kinds of hours that I am non-functioning. The wait didn’t bother me so much. Long as I have my phone I’m ok.
I have some sort of chronic allergic reaction to something in my environment that makes my face break out in a rash and itch like crazy. I take antihistamines daily but sometimes it still flares up. I believe it’s environmental because it became exponentially worse after I moved into Chris’s apartment.
I ran out of antihistamines yesterday so the rash was flaring up. While I was deep conditioning my hair decided to use this mask I had gotten from a beauty subscription box called Petit Vour. It took about half an hour to dry but after I scrubbed it off my skin looked amazing. The rash was almost completely gone and my skin felt soothed and wonderful and has remained so all day. I don’t know what was the active ingredient in this that worked it’s magic but I’m going to keep using it on a regular basis as it’s the only thing that’s brought me any relief in a really long time. Sharing cause I’m caring.
I don’t think Trinidadian women understand the concept of a shirt dress. It’s not supposed to actually look like you’re just wearing a shirt. It’s meant to be a dress cut like a shirt. Where are y’all buying these awful clothes that are cut way too short leaving all your business hanging out?
I find that free the tatas campaign so insulting. What good does that even do for breast cancer awareness? We have to sexualize a disease to get people to pay attention to it? People are so disgusting.
I am not sure running is the only problem really. Some of these examples are likely appointments and certainly military ranks are awarded, not run for.
seriously just getting militant with new followers who have weird/boring/irrelevant blogs. I’m just blocking their asses cause honestly I can’t even imagine why you would follow me when our interests are so disparate
“He recalled that his first novel, John Crow’s Devil, was rejected 78 times by publishers, before it was eventually published in 2005. “I had to sit down and add it up one day and I had no idea it was that much,” he said.
Despite the success of his latest novel, which the Man booker judges described as “an extraordinary book” after a unanimous decision, James said he thought the publishing industry had not changed that much since his first book was repeatedly turned down.
“There was a time I actually thought I was writing the kind of stories people didn’t want to read,” he told Today. Asked if he had considered giving up writing, the 44-year-old writer said: “I did give it up. I actually destroyed the manuscript, I even went on my friends computers and erased it.” He said he retrieved the text by searching in the email outbox of an old iMac computer.
James is the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker prize, taking the award for an uncompromising fictional history of the attempted murder of Bob Marley in 1976.”
Oh, I have been looking fir a good Shepard’s pie recipe!
Meh. I just threw it together. And it wasn’t real shepherd’s pie because I used beef instead of lamb. I added fresh mushrooms, onions, some garlic, and fresh herbs and sauteed them together with the meat, added some steak seasoning and red cooking wine which I think was what made the difference. Normally I add peas and carrots too but I didn’t have any.
I feel guilty for eating dinner before Chris got home but I was really hungry and I made shepherd’s pie and it is fucking delicious so maybe I’ll have seconds when he gets here so we can still eat together yay
Apparently if you google New Xkit you can get a new version for chrome. Unfortunately I was using Safari and it’s done working so I have switched browsers.
I was just washing dishes and for some reason this memory popped into my head.
I was in college and me and this other girl had gone to the cafeteria between classes, and this white guy came up and started talking to me as if he knew me.
I figured he was mistaking me for someone else and told him so and expected him to leave, but he insisted that we’d met and I politely again told him we hadn’t.
All of a sudden he got angry.
“So what about last night at the party? We sat all night talking on the couch!”
I knew with absolute certainty I hadn’t been anywhere and so I told him so, and said that I was sorry but he was mistaking me for someone else.
He stared at me with utter disgust.
“Oh so it’s gonna be like that!”
And turned heel and stalked off.
And my friend and I turned to each other and burst out laughing.
I felt really sorry for the guy. He really thought I was avoiding him. I hope he met up with the girl again and realised his mistake.
This one definitely needs some adjustment. The band is too wide. It was a bitch to shape too. I don’t know why it looks silver, it’s a gold coloured brass. Back to the drawing board. I liked the last design much better.
I’m glad I didn’t make this one in silver. It’s a bit small. I forgot that wide band rings have to be sized up. But I’m still really happy with how it came out. I love the design. I’m going to work on some others of different shapes.
Behold. A sheet of sterling silver. I’ve drawn on a template for a ring but I can’t bring myself to cut it. Argh. Maybe I’ll do a test piece in brass first. Yes! That doesn’t make me feel like I’m about to jump off a cliff. Lawdamercy.
Auvergne Treehouse. A cozy treehouse with a hanging bridge which leads to the observation deck. The interior is colourful and gets a lot of daylight through the huge windows. Located in Auvergne, France.
80s music and movies are already being referred to as classics, so yeah…back in times session when you’re in your 70s.
soulsistrin 