Tuesdays with Mamarita

If you can make any sense out of all of these, please feel free to explain it all to me :)

When am in a funk and I need to get out of it, I remember my favorite joke in the whole entire world;
Two young men are on a bus sitting next to a woman who's got her stroller nearby, and one of the young men says to the other "Yo thats a f'ugly baby". To which the other responds "Thats a rude thing to say to a person" and then he smiles at the baby in the stroller turns to the mother and says "Your monkey is precious!!!!" Each time I think of that joke, I laugh so hard I whizz!!! It is my happy place :)

Today was an interesting day, in a turn of events I find myself heading back home after the installation of the training materials was completed thank you Mr IT person, I had burned some plastic on things I may need in the future I'm always prepared, DEAL WITH IT! and I was now at the subway station waiting for hte train, I had come down hastily and just moved to the end of the platform, I noticed that the platform was very crowded I don't remember the last time I left work before sundown...I'm not a workaholic so I thought I'd take the train going north as the platform seemed emptier, yes I'd have to get off and change trains but at least it wouldn't be as crowded or so I thought.
So the train comes into the station, it is relatively empty and I got on dreading the getting off and changing trains at a different platform part of it all, and then we started moving and I was so sad that I was on the wrong train and planned to get off and change once at the next stop, when all of a sudden we pull up to the next stop, and the operator announces our stop and no one ran out of the train in confusion and then I realized...I was on the right train which I got on accidentally just to avoid having to stand...it does pay to be lazy sometimes :)

One final thing before I leave, I think that failure at the early stages of one's life should be embraced, it may be easier said than done but let us face it, if you've faced "the worst thing that could ever happen to you" you go on thinking to youself "the worst is behind me now", you would be accostomed to it, know the feeling and well not accept it but know how to deal with it.
Think about the first time you got into trouble and how frightened you were you couldn't think straight and rather than get yourself out of trouble you probably just got into more trouble. I remember my old days as an "advocate"; the housemaster and I became very well acquainted as I knew him well enough to understand that he had a loud bark and the bite wasn't tough at all. I'd been in trouble, I had been punished and whatever was left now was just....well....cold ashes and so each time I marched boldly to his quarters during night prep and freed all my friends that were under punishment, why? I knew the worst that could happen because it had and everything else was just "not as bad".

Now am not saying you should purposefully loose or fail at whatever you are doing, I'm just saying welcome it early on in your endevours and learn to deal with it. Part of a process management practice at one of these Japanese plants was praising failure. I may be understating this, please do forgive me, and the Japanese have really helped the field of TQM a great deal...just saying So if you made a mistake you'd put up your name on a board with the mistake and if anyone could fix it for you, they'd change the issue to a smiley face and help you with it. In that way, you learn what you're doing wrong and not just go through life thinking you're doing everything right.
When you fall, you stand look behind you to see why you fell and well avoid that mistake in the future, someone once said "We fall down and we get up" When you fall, or loose, or relapse at something remember the "cause" walk on it and continue and in that way you look fear in the face and say you don't scare me. That being said, EAT A FAT JUICY UGLY FROG A DAY, it'll change your life and try to name 5 impossible things before breakfast and make them possible!!!!

VERY LONG OVERDUE - THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN

I was 17 when I first read about the "virtuous woman," and back then I was in my “forming” phase of life, I was not sure I knew myself and at the time marriage, being a woman, a wife, a mother were not thoughts that crossed my mind. My life was lived on the dream of one day owning a castle in one of the Caribbean island with so much money I wouldn’t know how to spend it, the marriage/womanly part of it was all a gray area.
But then as I grew older and started noticing boys, and going on dates, the virtuous woman started to resonate in my mind, and I would constantly ask myself at a point in my relationships if I could see myself being a woman of virtue to this man or if I didn’t think he was worth that type of woman who I knew I could be but knew it would take a lot of work.

The Virtuous Woman
She is very hard to find
I think every woman has the potential to be a virtuous woman, given the right “tools” and with guidance and lots of supplications. By tools, I mean the right partner, about 90% of people end up with the wrong people, for some it is obvious, but for others they may go along life thinking everything is ok, but when you’re with the right person, everything is NOT OK, everything is fantastic, everyday words will seem like love songs and NOTHING, no condition, situation, weather will shake you or take away that perfect feeling you feel within you when you are with the person you are meant to be with and when this happens, you find yourself, being a virtuous woman.

Who can find her? A man who sees his woman as a jewel, who finds a seemingly worthless “stone” and bestows unto it values that make it the stone feel like it is worth more than diamonds. In Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the don saw Aldonza a worthless “whore” and he bestowed unto her virtues far more than she could ever deserve, he named her “Dulcinea” a princess with hair made out of gold and she was nothing when he met her, but as the story progressed she found herself and although she wasn’t a princess with hair made out of gold she was able to help Don Quixote prolong his life and find happiness even if for a moment, in her he found virtue.

ORIGINAL SIN
If you have not seen original sin with Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas this may be lost on you, the wonderfully told tale is about a man who decides to marry a woman he had never met based on letter exchanges, and through the course of the movie, his life is slowly taken away from him because of his “wife” – She was a woman of virtue, she brought him joy and pain, lots of adventure that he otherwise would not be privy to and in the end he was wiser for the experience and we can say to him, she was a good wife, a virtuous woman.
He trusted her enough to drink the poison she has served him because he knew deep within him that the love and virtue bestowal would eventually kick off (which happened) and she saved him from death. "Virtuousness" although it may refer to pure, of all things good and pleasing to God, should also be taken in the context of the receiver of the virtues, or in many cases the bestower of the virtues. A woman may constantly bring a man grief, cause him pain, take all his money and run, attempt to poison him but in his eyes she is the epitome of the virtuous woman.
It is the love, and care and attention and appreciation for the little things and gratefulness for the large things, most importantly the amount of love the receiver of the virtue gives that determines if he has found a virtuous woman, because every woman has the potential to be trusted, to bring prestige and royalty to their men, to care for their home and children and make them popular among their peers and superior but it is the love, the worth that the man shows his woman and the extent to which he bestows values unto her that determines how virtuous she will be.
And it is evident in the whole reading, it does not start with the virtues of the woman, but the way she will be treated when she is found, and what the man does for her, then it goes into why she will be treated so, and the reading ends with what the man must do.
"Give her everything she deserves, feston her life with praises"
There's a proverb To whom much is given, much is expected may we all find partners who will allow us to be virtuous.

AMEN


THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN (Proverbs 31, 10-31)

Her husband trusts her without reserve,
and never has reason to regret it.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously
all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
and brings back exotic surprises.
She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast
for her family and organizing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it,
then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
diligent in homemaking.
She's quick to assist anyone in need,
reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn't worry about her family when it snows;
their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own clothing,
and dresses in colorful linens and silks.
Her husband is greatly respected
when he deliberates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them,
brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and elegant,
and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.
When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,
and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,
and keeps them all busy and productive.
Her children respect and bless her;
her husband joins in with words of praise:
"Many women have done wonderful things,
but you've outclassed them all!"
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised
is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-GOD.
Give her everything she deserves!
Festoon her life with praises!

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Since I was a child, I found I hated the word NO! Or being told what can and cannot be done, I did not like hearing that a woman's place was in the kitchen, or that my dreams should be limited because after all I am a woman. My father did not raise me like that, when I wanted to become a lawyer, he thought I would one day become a chief judge, when I wanted to pursue acting, he wanted tickets to the oscar so that when I received my award he would point out to the crowd that is my daughter. And now that I am a banker, he has visions of me being the Chief Information Officer one day, and the same goes for my sister and her aspirations, she's almost PEng, and he's been behind her all the way, because he believes that what a man can do a woman can also do and sometimes better.

A few months ago, a certain gentleman, started updating his facebook status very frequently with the message #lightupnigeria. I wondered what this was so I googled and read up on it and I totally loved the message so for this reason and this reason alone, I broke my vow to never join twitter and did *if you are a follower...did you #lightupnigeria today?*

For me #lightupnigeria is not just about constant electricity (I will get back to that in a moment), it is about the future generations of Nigerians and what they will become, it is about doing something so little so that we won't have to tell our children about the Nigeria we grew up in, but that they will get to experience themselves. I remember a time when light was constant in Nigeria, we did not own a generator for a very long time and even when we did we never had to use it and it broke down a lot due to lack of use, now people have back ups for their back up generators and I know of a whole apartment complex that didn't bother with connecting to the PHCN grid, and who can blame them?

I remember a time in Nigeria, when someone would knock on the door and anybody would open the door to them, or a stranger would ask where your mummy went and you would tell them and nothing would happen to your mummy because the stranger was just a well meaning individual! Nowadays, you can't even trust the man driving you not to point a gun at you in the middle of traffic, all for what N50,000 that won't even buy diesel in a generator for a week!

Constant light is not just a problem for Nigeria alone, it is in my opinion a valid global crisis, let us analyze it properly, lights go out, 25 million people turn on their generators, 90% of whom emit green house gases very dangerous to the environment, and the fumes grow and grow and grow, this is not taking into account the industrial strength generators needed/used to power up plants. And yet young Nigerians keep shouting give us light #lightupnigeria and the rest of the world just turns their heads and continue ticking off their goals towards the kyoto protocol papers signed and I laugh

If the G20 countries with their population of like 4 million to our over 3 billion (I exagerate you see....) reduce all the greenhouse gas that they can and we keep emitting them from our asses like it were natural, doesn't anyone else think it would counteract their good. Look at it from another perspective, you buy a house close to the beach and as you clean it, the wind blows sand around you, it'll ruin all the cleaning work you've done and you could have stopped it if you closed your window!

I constantly dream of a Nigeria where the lights going off would trigger a national emergency and the President would be woken up to give a presidential speech on the cause of the outage, a Nigeria where we can breathe fresh air not tainted by the fumes of candles, kerosene lit lamps, diesel/petrol powered generators, and we can yell our children/nieces/nephews/maids/dogs/mouse/cat/snakes yell when they are being molested because there is no sound of generator to muffle those sounds.

So the next time you're in the midst of intelligent folk and they bring up ways to improve the air quality and reduce pollution, tell them that they can help save the planet if they #lightupnigeria, visit www.lightupnigeria.org and help raise awareness that Nigeria needs to be lit up, they may think you are crazy but when you explain it to them the way I just did, they'll understand and join the movement.

Tell you M.P. too! IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97

It is lent again, that wonderful time of the year where many Christians remember their catholic faith with regards to the Church calendar that calls for fasting. Yes, yes, they skip the whole bit with the ash Wednesday, "dust you are and unto dust you shall remember" or "turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel" and jump right off to the part where they give up something they tell themselves they are addicted to.
Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against lent, or peoples' beliefs towards lent, in fact am happy people look forward to lent to give up their vices, it is just like every other day, knowing what you're doing makes it seem like you're doing more. You don't stand on a treadmill or fry your carrots or do yoga without breathing properly or write an exam without reading the material for which the exam is based. You just don't give up something because it is lent and go about your old ways, it is a season of reflection, getting back to the core of things now just announcing the fact that you're celibate for the next 40 days (although we're thankful that 30 less people will catch STIs in that time)
I don't believe that it is my job to teach anyone about lent, if you don't know, google it and make sense of it, I will say this though, I love lent and in as much as every Christian I know has jumped at the idea of giving up a vice in place of good old "dry fast" for the duration of the lenten season, it is a time of sober reflections, of attempting to be Christlike, temptations will come like the devil on that holy mountain, offering the world for what seems like a small price but you have to be steadfast in what you believe in.
You don't have to give up anything at lent, you can change something about yourself, do something special, my friend decided to give his transit money for the 40 days of lent to a charity and he walked like 2 hours a day to work and 2 hours back from work for 40 days. He spent his time reflecting on his life and how he could be a better Christian. Obviously when lent ended he went back on the train. Am not saying to castigate yourself over the lenten period, I just want to spread the gospel of knowing what it is that you are doing.
This lent, I will be a better person, as each lenten season passes, I find that I am able to give my vices to God and he has taken them away from me, this year will not be any different. And I urge everyone to pray fervently for graces to stay true to the calling of lent. God help us all!!!


And this is a special message to the person that wanted to know what the "ashlike" substance on peoples' foreheads were today...ash Wednesday..... Margaret Mary Caroline whatever you go by, I KNOW YOU ARE CATHOLIC, I KNOW WE TOOK COMMUNION TOGETHER, ATTENDED CATHECHISM TOGETHER, AND YOU ASK WHAT THE "ASHLIKE SUBSTANCE" IS? REALLY? REALLY?!!!!!
I can't even begin to decide within me if this silliness of yours should be classified silliness, pretence, attention seeking or pure ignorance! It doesn't even look like ash...what is ash? It is ash wedneday, you know this and you ask and you expect an answer that isn't in the line of GROW UP BRANDON!!!! I cringe and hope you've changed religions, hopefully your new religion won't believe in "ashy" substances on the forehead, because I cannot imagine the magnitude of curses that would be rained on your head if you ask what the "red looking" thing on people's foreheads are!!! HISS (You are still one of God's favorite children, although this is one of those moments I would really pull a Peter on you, 4 TIMES!!!!)

I would like...if I may...take you on a strange journey

When I was younger I called myself an entertainer, I loved to perform; my number 1 cousin and I used to stand in front of the stones – our audience, the metal poles our microphones and we just sang and entertained. It was our past time when everyone else went to lesson and till today, I smile when I recall those moments; I was the kid that got into trouble for over entertaining the class, but managed not to get punished with everyone else, I was in a bunch of school plays and a few folks can mention hearing me sing – that was my old life.
I love music and entertainment, as a matter of fact, when am not working on being a CEO, I think of alternative careers on stage, I know I’d be good at it if I took directions or maybe not, I can’t say.
Every now and then I hear music that lifts me up or puts me down (whatever the mood I’m trying to get to is) and it works, but then sometimes I hear a tune and I run to the bathroom to throw up, it’s like rape to my ears some things I hear and torture to my eyes the things I see. I just heard someone’s rendition of HALLELUJAH originally written by Leonard Cohen (you’ve heard it in Shrek and the girl that won X FACTOR Alexandra Burke sang it for her finale) and this particular version am talking about WAS FLAT! It had no life whatsoever, it wasn’t coming from anywhere it felt like the girl (I refuse to call her a singer/musician)just belched the song for lunch money….
Some songs are meant to be sung with passion; in fact all songs should be sung with some sort of passion, imagine if Pavarotti’s la donne mobile was sang while he was distracted, we would never have heard about the operetta RIGOLETTTO or even know the three tenors, or if Andrea Bocelli sang his songs without carefully and lovingly bringing birth to them with his vocal chords, he would have been just another man on the streets doing street opera (yes "doing") Or if Michael Jackson performed on stage with the thought of home life he was going to? If you can consider those things then you’ll see what I mean.
I believe that singing is part talent, part passion, look at all the lovely musicians you know, they put their whole body into it, they don’t just sing like they are being paid to do it, and then look at the crappy ones (I’d name names…but!)
When Brittany Spears danced on stage that time when she first divorced that guy Fred or what was his name? We all thought she sucked, boo’ed her off the stage, threw tomatoes at are and called her names girls didn’t like (ok maybe just in my head but you get the gist), there was no life in what she was doing and then she found her mojo again and now we all seek Amy *raises brow*
Now am not saying that I’m the world’s best singer/performer but am saying people should put a little bit of life in what they are doing, if you must sing a good song, feel the song, gyrate your hips to it, think of yourself in love with the song and you are slowly letting it take you, just feel it take over you, don’t let go like you are shy feel it, who knows you just might reach an heightened state of satisfaction and if you are preorgasmic….QUIT AND GO HOME!!!


Am off…

Soundtrack: Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show

TUESDAYS WITH MAMARITA

Ok so I saw one of the worst things that one would consider a music video, it is worst than all those things I had seen in the past and wanted to take out my eyes over, it was bad. I mean there are songs you hear and you excitedly wait for the music video to come out, because there's a certain concept in your head and you're sure it will rock, and then you see the video and you suddenly hate the song.

And, and, and, if I remember correctly, weren't music videos meant to sell a song and not kill it? If you are not into the Nigerian music scene, I apologize in advance! Anyways, so the band of four, Styl Plus, yeah that's what they call themselves, had this lovely song, IMAGINE THAT, everywhere you went back in the day, a party wasn't a party till the song came on....It was just a lovely song, and I said I would never see the music video and that one should not be made, but NO, a year later after their record had sold the equivalent of a million copies (this is just from "pyration"!) they went and made a video for the song. IT WAS AWFUL to say the least. I saw the video and just spat out the really fine wine in my mouth, my food suddenly lost its taste and I broke out with hives, I swear it my body was swollen for days and I itched like a $#%#*#^&@&^@
(I still haven't forgiven styl plus till today, because how can you screw up a video like that, if they went to different clubs and just taped people dancing, it would have sufficed, what they did was just rubbish, and if you think otherwise, my fist has a message for your nose!)

Don't even let me get on 9ice's case with his Gongo Aso and street credibility videos, did we need videos for the songs - maybe, after we stopped playing the songs did we need the videos then...MAYBE NOT. And if you will take your sweet time producing music videos for a song that has managed to sell itself without a supporting act, then you don't just go into a studio, cut and paste everything that looks nice in your head, you develop a concept and stick to it. I mean, MO HITS went to ILASHE one sunday after noon I'm presuming, and they were catching their fun and someone started playing their song MY GRIND and they shot a video guerrilla style and yes you might not have seen the video, but it had some form of structure to it, they were on their grind and they were in a pool and there was someone holding Don Jazzy's stick through out the video. It made a lot of sense

That being said, I just saw the video for FALL IN LOVE by D'banj; where do I start?
I've been a huge follower of the Mo hits' movement, I've gone on unauthorized tours with them, I've been a groupie/waited in line for autograph like everyone else, screamed OMG when they passed, threw their g-strings on stage, I think I even fainted one in concert (righttttttttttttttt............) Anyways, you get the gist I follow the Mo Hits' movement, am a huge fan, at one time I wanted to name my child kokolet but changed my mind (how am I suppose to explain having a child and naming it to my family members?!)

In my eyes D'banj could do no wrong, he sings, I dance, he spits, I swallow, he blinks I open your eyes, and even when I thought he wasn't making sense, I smiled all the same but can someone explain to me the meaning of the music video for FALL IN LOVE.


I just heard that he used the ladies from the face of Africa in the video, sure, but what was the concept, with such an idea GBELO GBEBO would have worked perfectly, or the song ENTERTAINER, the song was not meant to make sense, he said he was an entertainer and he could do anything and we would still be entertained if he used a video that made absolutely no sense, I'd have been all for that, but FALL IN LOVE and the stupid video...COME ON!!!
As I said to my friend, I think he needs to release a press release apologizing for the defamation of character and claim that bad people were trying to make him look bad by putting up the wrong video with him in it and disassociate himself from the video TOTALLY. As a fan, I would accept the apology and even attempt to track down the "scrupulous" persons that would have done such a bad thing. I don't know, I just don't know......SMH!

On love and other flavorless water :)

Before I go on I would like to offer an electronic round of applause to all those men and women who have loved and lost, been burnt by love, been touched by the hands of everlasting love and for some reason or the other lost grasp of it; you are the reason we skeptics still long for love and pretend to fall in love at the end of every romantic novel society forces down our throats.

That being said, I am writing to my young lady who thought she had her heart broken after playing hard to get for a month, I laugh! Love, you don’t know what heart break is;
Heart break is when you wake up in the morning and feel the urge to kill yourself and just lie in bed for fear of facing reality

Heart break is when you drink water to quench your thirst and it feels like stones going down your throat and the only thing that feels remotely normal is the tears that continually flow down your eyes

It is what you feel that makes you tell your neighbor to go and die just because they uttered the kind words “good morning”

It is when you hear the name of the one you love been uttered and your chest tightens and you struggle to breathe and you can’t stand, you can’t sit, your head feels light, and blood seizes to flow through your body

It is the point in time, the only point in time, you contemplate standing at the balcony of the CN tower, pretending to “fly” because secretly you wish the wind would blow you away and you seize to exist.

Heartbreak is when your heart literarily stops beating, your five senses cross, and you start to hear your smell and see noise and feel the saltiness, taste the softness of cashmere on your skin and nothing makes sense to you.

The world seizes to exist and each day feels like a thousand years because your heart seizes to leave the past.

The young man who once loved but lost, and went through heart break, upon seeing the object of his affection after recovering through his heartbreak, does not walk slowly away from her like in the movies, or yell at the top of his voice the words SHE DEVIL, no, he held his wife tightly and introduces her to you, the one that left him for death. But he has moved on, he is happily married with a beautiful daughter, and well you never got around to that, and upon seeing how good a man he is you want to go back to him?!!! COME ON sista!!!

Just because he cared for you, begged you to stay and share his bed with other men just to be close to you, THEN, does not mean that you have wrapped around your middle finger, BE IT AS IT MAY, he may love you and love you forever, somewhere deep inside, he cares more for his life and his wife and beautiful daughter, he loves them more than life itself because he plunged back in and realized that love was a two way street, not just muffled up emotions, ending in ecstatic cries of pleasure, wet foreheads and candied apples.

He’s gone, so yes he is your friend, and he cares for your well being, but sista, don’t wear that short black dress to his house pretending to be in the area just because his wife is out of town visiting relatives, because you think you can have him back if you want. He’s gone, you are only wasting your time; he’s cried, denied, accepted and refused you in his life, and the thin line between love and hate is what still keeps him cordial, if you cross that line with your selfishness, HE WILL HATE YOU and yell SHE DEVIL and write profanities on your house and call your employer to tell them you are a call girl just to get you fired and no one would blame him.

When all that love turns to hatred, he will make it his life’s mission to see to it that you never find true happiness, lose all that he has just to make sure you never have a smile on your face; YES, he will pay men to stalk you, to stop you on the street and sign autographs of naked girls and tell you that you look ugly in person. And have weird people call you to yell at you and hang up and don’t try to change the number or move countries, if his love turns to hatred he will find you and be angrier that you are actually making him work.

Apologize and walk away, you may hurt him twice