Desperately Seeking....Someone??? Anyone???

Well, it's been a while since I've thought of anything blog-worthy to put up on this old screen but something weird happened to me this week that I just had to share.

Out of the blue, from a 905 area code, which means it's quite a trek from where I live in downtown Toronto, an African dude calls me up (interrupting the intellectual conversation I was having with my son), says he's a friend of a woman I know who lived in my old neighbourhood (still don't know why she gave out my cell # without asking me) said he'd heard so many nice things about me, wondered if I would like to get to know him, and wanted to know if I was in the market for a boyfriend?

Now usually this would be a god-send to most women going through dry spells and would have made a perfect episode on Sex in the City, but I'm not in the market for a man at the moment and definitely not one who just calls me up out of the blue looking for a relationship. That's like getting a blind date out of the White Pages. Geez!!!

Needless to say, I put him off completely but he still had the gall to ask me if he could call back. Duh!!!! I immediately put in a call to our mutual friend and asked her who the hell this guy was and why she set him up to call me? She and I had never discussed my domestic affairs or love life and so she was completely oblivious to what was actually going on in my life. She didn't even know I had moved out of the neighbourhood. Her reaction was that I was over-reacting. She didn't see the need for my alarm. I asked her how she knew I wasn't in a relationship and she adamantly said SHE KNEW I WAS NOT. Well, she must be psychic. She then excused herself saying she had company and promised to call me back. That was two days ago and I'm still waiting for a phone call explaining why she did what she did. I have nothing against Africans (I've dated a couple of Nigerian in the past) but low-down-and-dirty will always be that way. Guess they and I will just have to walk on opposite sides of the street.

Downtown Zanta's larger than life...hmmm...

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this dude on a billboard. My first thought: who in the world put their money behind this? My second thought: why???
Yes, he is sort of funny in a shake-your-head-feel- sorry-for-the-poor- dude kinda way. And he's not homeless, by the way. He's got a place in Etobicoke. I last saw him in Yorkville right in front of Sassafraz (now burned down) during the Toronto international film festival doing pushups for a crowd that was like five people deep. JA Firebrand can back me up on this. Incredible! Now he's looming above one of the busiest corners in Parkdale. Is this what it takes to get yourself up above the crowd? I know of a lot more people who really deserve to be put up on a billboard. Some commenters love it and others don't but it seems this was done all in the name of liberated art. I've dined on patios where he comes around, shirtless as always, flexing his muscles and acting the fool. He may not be deemed dangerous, but I think he's just plain old nasty. I vote for "Mark Clarke" (the self-named "mayor" of Parkdale) to be next in line to get up on a billboard. He, too, may be a bit on the nasty side, but he rollerblades, makes chalk drawings of hearts on the sidewalks, preaches from his fire hydrant pulpit or street corners and has become quite the character of my little village. I heard he used to be a professor at one time. Even the folks over at the Drake don't shoo him away when he hangs outside their toney Queen West establishment. So that's my rant on the billboard thing. You've started the artistic billboard ball rolling Fauxreel!

There goes the neighbourhood...

well, it looks as if all the pleading in the world can't stop "progress". isle a quatre just off of bequia, st vincent (seen smack dab in the middle of the photo) is going to be developed into a luxury resort by the St Vincent government and the family of former PM Sir James "Son" Mitchell. the cost will be about 100 million big ones. i remember (and actually have a pic of myself) being on isle a quatre for a boxing day picnic back in 1991. we got there via my cousin's husband's speedboat and we ate fresh roasted fish and had a ton of other food. it was blazing hot and as I and my cousins darted off to discover more of the beach and surrounding area, i gingerly crept in my soft bare feet over huge black rocks only to get an eyeful of a couple of folks (europeans probably) taking a walk buck naked on a different piece of beach. guess they thought they'd be all alone on boxing day. oh well, 15 years makes a difference and soon no one will be alone here. according to an article on www.cananews.net,

"the [St Vincent] government signed the agreement with Louise Mitchell of the Isle de Quartre Development Company, based in Port Elizabeth Bequia, and the agreement will see a joint group of investors constructing the international resort over a 20-year period.
The project will be done in three phases, with the first phase seeing the development of infrastructure on the island; the second the construction of a hotel, spa, marina and sporting facility; and the final stage will be the sale of lots."

Isle a Quatre (pronounced as "ilycot" by most Bequians) is the biggest isle in the middle of the photo

some of my family members thought all along that since the mitchells are selling it off that the whole bequia crown lands protest was just concocted to stymy tourist competition. however, i don't believe that. one doesn't really have anything to do with the other. isle a quatre is private land as opposed to my support of the bequia crown lands cause because i did and still do believe that selling off a huge chunk of bequia's heritage in a bid to raise money to build an airport on st vincent really isn't the right thing to do. a new airport on the mainland won't create access for the isle a quatre resort anyway since as you can see, you're going to need a speedboat or a water taxi to get out there. build all the resorts you want, and i support development, but giving away your heritage to accomplish this just doesn't sit well with a lot of people including me. Louise Mitchell, daughter of Sir James feels that,

"The project is expected to bring a financial injection into the island of Bequia and Mitchell said that she expects the resort, when it is completed to be one of the main stays of the Vincentian tourism economy."

(Let's hope that Vincentians and Bequians will get jobs from this.)

"The Isle A Quatre project will be executed by the investment firm Dexior of Canada. The island is located south East of Paget Farm and has been in the Mitchell family for over 100 years."

Check out this link to see some photos of the mundane but fun happenings on this piece of Grenadine rock which may eventually become a thing of the past if the public (meaning locals)are kept out as is the case with most private resorts. I like mundane at times. http://www.becouya.com/Bequia/TheSea/iaq.htm

Power Vitamin!!!

My brother is involved with a business venture in which he truly believes. Check out this all powerful vitamin(s) in one little pill on his website:
http://www.dontforgettotakeyourvitamins.com/hazell3532

I should post a pic of him so you can see he's as healthy as a horse and means to stay that way, but I don't have one on hand. Maybe he'll supply a photo soon.

Ciao for now!

The African Slave Trade wasn't all that bad...

Not my words, but those of one of Vat City's top dogs. Yeah, you know, the seat of the papal papa. Just recently I read an article entitled "Human trafficking worse than African slave trade:Vatican official", written by an Associated Press reporter. Who knew? I mean, after reading up all those history books, perusing websites dedicated to the African holocaust, who the hell knew that modern day slavery would even begin to touch, no, be on par with the horrors that went on for four centuries? And who gave Mr.-Cardinal-Renato-Martino-former-longtime-Vatican-envoy-to-the-United-Nations-and-current head-of-the-Holy-See's-office the right to have the official say-so? Isn't it the Vatican peeps who constantly keep making apologies for their sins against humanity whether for aboriginal annihilations, homophobic attitudes, crimes against children, or for their racist ways? After reading the article, if the whole purpose was to highlight the atrocities that are being committed in the present with so little regard for the multitude of lessons we SHOULD HAVE LEARNED from the past, then why even mention or compare this "modern-day slavery" to 400 years of horrific free labour upon which Western society was built? Actually, what's happening could be a work in our favour all over again but then again maybe not. We're already industrialized and capitalist to the bone. You'll never be able to compare a so-called “third world” modern-day girl forced into prostitution (which also happens on the streets of North America) to thousands of black souls chained together and tossed off slaveships in the middle of the Atlantic ocean; or modern-day children forced into labour/militia to generations of grown men and women who were treated like beasts, and humiliated at every waking moment of their lives while well-meaning “civilized” folk turned their heads the other way. Please! Keep these times in history separate!!! Yes, we should learn to not make the same mistakes, but for God's and Goddess' sake, don't call up the name of the dreaded African slavery legacy and compare it to anything that is going on in the world today. As a matter of fact, this dark legacy (no pun intended) could probably, maybe, possibly, be equal to ALL of the atrocities put together that are going on in the world today. I'm taking a chance on saying that but this just goes to show how little mankind really cares about the atrocities that happened to Blacks. It's almost as if he's saying that the slave trade wasn't all that bad and that there could actually be something else with which to compare it. There will never be anything with which to compare it. None of what went on in the past or what’s happening in the present is right or conscious. The African slave trade was incomparable and has left an indelible mark on mankind that has yet to heal.

And by the way, all those years ago, I’m sure those poor victims also regarded their plight as “modern slavery”.

I'm usually pretty tolerant when it comes to different religions but that holier-than-thou Catholic head-of-the-class nutcase needs to check himself (actually, they all need to do this and quit putting their feet in their mouths) and get educated about what's really going on before starting to even compare!
Here's a link to the article. I'm done. http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/15/news/nation/15_04_0711_14_06.txt

South Asian Eats

I'm off to the library to pick up Patak's Indian cooking book. Love it Love it!!! I renewed it thrice and was actually under the impression that it belonged to me. Believe me, it was almost a tug of war between me and the librarian over that book when I returned it. Then my blogbuddy JA Firebrand tells me that she saw it at Winners in Dufferin Mall!! Got to pick it up. Just have to. I have a pork tenderloin sitting on my counter just begging to be seasoned with cumin and coriander and cloves. Boy I can just taste it now with my basmati rice and a side salad. And I was lucky enough to come across a really cheap Thai cookbook the other night. I scooped that baby up. I'll be experimenting with banana fritters, curried pork with pickled garlic, fried fish with turmeric, and broiled chicken with sweet chili sauce just to name a few! Man, I've gonna have to balance off all of this with some light weights and a yogalates video.
Later on this evening, it's off to the Drake to listen to our friend Jude spin some neo-soul tunes. One bevvy is all I'm having. Can't seem to drink as much as I could in the past. Ordering cranberry juice at the bar seems to be in my destiny. Oh well, so be it. Patak's, here I come!!!

Love

We sometimes meet people who we think can satisfy us and then it turns out that they can't . We at times fall so hard for people not knowing if they have fallen equally hard for us in turn, or hardly caring. At the most unexpected times, we look love right in the face not knowing what we are seeing, and we continue to search for it...

Love usually does not come in the forms we dream of. I saw a TV show about a girl born with disfigured legs which had to be amputated. She grew intoa a legless woman who was fierce and lived life to the fullest as much as she could. She was surrounded by a loving family and when she grew into a woman, she found love (or love found her). A man with legs, fully functional with his full mental capacities saw the value in her and loved her for who she was inside, not what she looked like on the outside. This legless woman and her man were married and on top of everything she conceived and bore a son.

I asked myself how it is that I couldn't find a man, but this legless woman could? It came down to Love. I do have a love that has been in my face for the last four years but I have chosen to put him on hold in hopes that I would find a more "perfect" fit for me. Will I ever? Perhaps he is the "perfect" one and I'm ignoring this. I wonder if I've put my own love on hold while I hold out for something else. I want to be like that legless woman.

Glue sniffers & stank locations

First of all, my hats off to the TTC driver who decided to put his Queen streetcar out of service last Friday when a customer complained of a glue-sniffin' crony in the back of the car. And guess which building we pulled up in front of when all this went down? The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health right at Queen/Ossington. So we all had to get off of the streetcar because of this ass and of course mister sniffer disembarked with the rest of us - obviously a follower, not a leader. That's when the driver motioned for all of us to get back on and when the druggy tried to get back on with us, he was blocked by the driver (not a bad lookin' brother either) and hauled to the curb by a female passenger. Thank God! I was starving and was on the way to Harbourfront for dinner and drinks with my new acquaintance and Drake Hotel regular, Geoff. Do I count as a regular, I wonder, since I've been following DJ Jude at his Sunday night on the Drake's Sky Yard patio rooftop? I think I've missed maybe two or three Sundays since the start of the summer.

In any case, we made it to Harbourfront where I dined on smoked salmon with juicy capers, sweet red onions and a variety of bread with three different types of dip: sundried tomato pesto, hummus and olive tapenade. Yummmmm!!! I always wanted to be a food critic. Getting paid to eat? Let me know where and when!

Second of all, on Sunday just gone, at Flemingdon Park behind the mall where the Food Basics is just off of Don Mills, NBA player Jamaal Magloire had his 2nd annual community bbq and blocko. He had a band in this year's carnival and there were some of the larger costumes on site. At one point in the afternoon, my girl and I joined the mini carnival parade around the mall parking lot. We were having fun and it was fine until we came back round the back of the mall and encountered all these huge metal garbage bins. The stench was horrible and all I could think was that it wasn't right that the supporters of this NBA player's band should be breathing in the fumes of waste. I hope this bbq gets so big that they have it in a different location or that the next go round, the climax of our mini parade doesn't end by inhaling a stank stench.

Busy is nice

I've been going at it for the last couple of months with my new client, the award-winning actress d'bi.young www.dbiyoung.net
Her theatrical run of her award-winning play is coming up next week. See the flyer.
I'm sure I'll continue to meet many interesting and artistic people through working with her and I'm looking for a couple more clients. I find I really enjoy assisting ultra-hectic people in balancing their personal and professional lives. Sounds sadistic in a way, doesn't it? But seriously, every day brings new tasks, new challenges and new learning experiences. And I don't have anyone breathing down my neck supervising me. Nice.

I hope my business grows by leaps and bounds. I'm crossing my fingers for the stuntman who is interested in my services. Hope he also comes on board.

That's it for now. Just gearing up for tomorrow and an important interview I'm moderating with the Toronto Caribbean press.