FIGHTING CANCER

Everybody is used to the news reports saying 'so and so' is FIGHTING cancer, as if saying that they are fighting will make it alright.............why wouldn`t Ted Kennedy go sailing ? Isn`t that what he loves to do ? Why shouldn`t the guy from this year's american idol Luke Menard who we heard was diagnosed after he was sent off continue to sing ? isn`t that why he tried out for Idol?
Is getting on with your life fighting ? Or is it a game face ? Is the pressure to keep positive a burden ? These are some of the questions raised in the New York Times article When Thumbs up is no Comfort .
Life has to go on quicker and better as u don`t know when u won`t be around or are unable to enjoy it, so u need to get on with it, it's no big achievement to fight. I think u instinctively fight. I think people who don`t fight are in such deep shock they just succumb , then depression takes over and makes u unable to fight.
Getting on with your life while making adjustments to mind and body is what is needed.
U just take what u know and go with your gut (especially with food where your gut is at stake. ) The conditions of our individual lives determine the translation of information on a very personal level. There is no magic word or miracle pill that will bring good health to everyone on the planet. It is with regular, steady search for information combined with our experiences and gut feelings(our intuition) that we will arrive at a formula to help us win the fight we have embarked on ........Some of us are not willing to do the work as i have found out these past 2years. But i have to tell u knowledge is power.
No matter how we twist and turn it my investigation shows that it always comes back to the importance of food in relationship to health. One cannot happen without the other.
If u even get away for a while...... it catches up with u one way or the other.
The more aware we become of our bodies the more aware our bodies become.
There are more than a trillion cells in our bodies communicating with each other. Cells are dividing and growing every moment, our bodies are able to rebuild more than 90 percent of their cells every two years. When my holistic practitioner told me that 2 years ago i thought he was quite mad BUT as i approach the 2 year mark i now know what he was saying is true.
Chemo burns out ALL cells good and bad so when your cells are growing back they need a healthy environment so they can thrive. So along with eating right we also need something like glyconutrients in mega doses which gives us the 8 simple sugars that we need for our immune system and that has been depleted from our food over the years, it is taken from fruits and vegetables and put in tablet and powder form.
From the glyconutrients reference:
"Scientists have recently discovered a new class of neccessary nutrients-certain monosaccarides or carbohydrates that are neccessary for maintaining health. These monosaccarides are called glyconutrients and there are 8 glyconutrients essential for each cell in our body to communicate correctly with the next cell or organism "- People ask me all the time what do i do to have such a good quality of life being a threepeater (three time cancer survivor) - it's because i try to eat right and I take glyconutrients everyday of life....
People say it's too pricey.
When i compare the costs with the MRI and the CTSCAN and the SIGMOIDOSCOPY etc. then there are the umpteen rounds of chemo and the things to take to combat that......it becomes very cheap.....Not to talk about the pain, the poking, the prodding and pulling, in general everyday just plain feeling bad, and we won`t even mention the hospital stays.....
So remember u cancer patients out there, we only need 4% protein daily,( i used to eat 80% protein, no wonder i`m a threepeater.) We can get enough protein from our vegetables.....
We need to ban sugar from our diet - remember cancer follows sugar -
The green juice and eating greens daily that they tell us to do is not a joke....it works....
Try it!

spirituality/tatoos

INTIMACY
in-to-me-see
u r into me so u are intimate with me....I love it!
I learnt this new expression from of all people mark myers who uses jokes to counter just how spiritual he is.....he just did a movie on the subject and Deepak Chopra was a big part of it and he said on meeting him he thought Deepak was going to be boring as he speaks so slowly, but he found Deepak to be one of the most full of fun people he had ever met. Why do we think that spiritual has to mean boring ?
- movie is rubbish though, sorry.......

Then why are these young people uglying up themselves with all these tattoos? Bad enough the 'old' people like Whoopi Goldberg are disfiguring themselves. But when gorgeous young girls like Rhianna has stars from the nape of her neck going down her back and then IN her ears and ON her ear lobe and then has just done roman numerals on her shoulder i have to ask what for?
The last time i arrived at my son`s house i found he had 2 half 'sleeves' as they are called. I nearly needed a chair ........ Good thing i had a strong heart i would have died on the spot.....Why?
When i asked him did he think of what he would look like when he got older, he said they are using special inks now that prevent them from wrinkling up . I sincerely hope so as i have a friend who has a garden on her entire back and the lizards getting very strange looking with every passing year.
Another one of my children had the most gorgeous toes till - I HEAR ITS A ROSE BUT U CANNOT TELL WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE - appeared on the big one.
I also understand that u cannot give blood once u r tattooed....is this true? Suppose u needed to save your child`s life, as both of u are the same blood type and they say they can`t use your blood because u r tattooed ? How would u feel?
U need to come to the hotel where i work to really get a fix on tatoos, sometimes there are more tattoos than plain skin........I also knew that Mike Tyson was finished when he tattooed his face......please even the tattoo artists tell u not to do your face.
I'm sorry all the tattooing, the tongue piercings, eyebrow piercings etc. take me back to the stone age and i do not wish to be there.
There is a reason why the bone came out my ancestor's nose , i don`t need to put it back.

FRIENDS

I have grown up with the saying..... GOOD FRIENDS BETTER THAN POCKET MONEY.....We in Jamaica would say GOOD FREN BETTA DAN POCKET MONEY.
All the same.
And on seeing the movie 'sex and the city 'it made me miss time spent with my ' GOOD FRIENDS '.
We are all over the place Kingston, Mobay ,and i`m in Ocho Rios, and before we start dwindling, since we know how short life is, i find we really need to make the effort to see each other more regularly.
If u note in the movie, miles made no difference when there was anything going on that support was needed....plus no family came in the way. They were there for each other no matter what and although we laughed , which of us didn`t feel it to our gut when Carrie hit Big over his head with her flowers and Charlotte took her in her arms and told Big without saying anything besides NO , not to come near......U just knew that HE KNEW that he shouldn`t come near.......mama bear was protecting her cub.
U felt the love and the protection and u felt that these women would have died for each other. New Year's Eve i get out my bed to stay with u ........Valentine's we keep each others company at dinner ......We may hurt each other unintentionally but it's always forgiven. I got so many lessons from that movie and although i know the powers that be might not look at it because they feel it was a 2 hour fashion show -that too - some of the acting could win any oscar .
The internet might have made us think that sending e-mails is keeping in touch, but it's not what good friends do...good friends get in their car and drive or we fly or we take trains but we do more than touch base....... we visit!
And unless your friends are in Australia or Pakistan and u can`t visit regularly , this is the age of vonage.....U call once a week.
I do not want us using that other Jamaican saying
IF AH DID KNOW
(If I knew)

PREGNANCY PACT

Has the world gone completely mad ???
Girls making a pact to be pregnant. U mean 17 more dysfunctional children coming into this world?
I can`t believe it!
WHERE ARE THESE PARENTS?
I don`t care what anybody says . It is because of all these young celebrities that we have our children worshiping that is causing this.
It's now the in thing to be pregnant.....
If Angelina Jolie wants to have 50 children that's her issue as she and her partner pocket $20 million per picture and that's US dollars( besides they are adults)and can u imagine how much help Angelina has ? If Jamie Lyn Spears wants to have a baby at 17 - she has a TV show and her sister is worth $200 million so she buys a house to bring home the baby ...
These children are fooling themselves if they think their lives will be the same.
Giving birth is the least of it.....it's a life long project...... ask me? I not only had one, i also adopted one and trust me it has been a wild ride trying to stay sane through it.
I wonder how people just arbitrarily have a child without even thinking about it ?
One of my 'daughters' have 2 under 2 and i am soooooooo sorry for her and she and her husband manage fine as he`s a hands on father and she has an extended family that jumps in at a moments notice and ask her.... its hard!
How do u do one without help ?
Much less have a baby with a homeless man ?
They must really be sick , or we have heard the story wrongly.
Didn`t they watch the television show that showed teenagers borrowing babies for a week and nearly all of them flipping out ?
I see where the principal is now saying he doesn`t think all 17 of them made a pact.He may have been wrong. Sir, 17 underage girls are pregnant in your school ..... Something is very wrong........Who cares whether they made a pact or not!
Jamaica just released their figures and it shows we have less teenage pregnancies this year. Thank God !!!
Trouble is it's the communities that have to suffer with these dysfunctional children and in the long run everyone has to pay.

Cindy McCain vs Michele Obama

Cindy McCain
Cindy McCain is at it again - she was on GMA back with the same old "I am proud of my country" story. Now i have to take this personally , how come every newscast is on poor Michele Obama for nothing ? Absolutely nothing as it's obvious what she meant when she said she is proud of her country.....and not a peep about this drug addict Cindy McCain who is so petty that she takes recipes off the net and passes them off as her own and steals drugs (painkillers) from charities read more about the flawed Cindy . Isn`t that far worse than what Michele has done ? I have to feel its because Michele is black as it makes no sense to me why this coverage is so one sided.
Then i want you to read this article about the wife John McCain callously left for Cindy and tell me honestly if this is the man u want in the White House....compassion gave way to passion obviously.


Michele Obama
I thought Michele looked sensational on the View, her hair, makeup, clothes were spot on...She did wonderfully too and there went the Fox plant Elizabeth straight to Fox with negatives..Joy Behar on Larry King saying only positives and Elizabeth on Fox doing only negatives....
Why is everybody writing about the Michele Obama makeover ....Where did the Obama camp say they were making her over? Everyone wants to make her a negative influence because she is a strong black woman, so to show all her sides to the public has to be a makeover right? Well she doesn`t need a makeover,she is fine just as she is.
Guess what?
It's ordained - so fly high or fly low its PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
GET USED TO IT..........

Tim Russert's goodbye

I have to comment on that lovely service yesterday for Tim Russert.
I hope the NBC people will move on now....IT'S HARD BUT HUSH!
The double rainbows at the end of the memorial service said it all ...the skies cried, it also rained to wash away the pain and the rainbows came for everyone to know its alright, this too shall pass.
What an absolutely fabulous job that couple did on their child Luke, and he is very normal as we hear the story of the sheriff giving Tim the fake ID Luke had made to get into bars shortly after arriving on campus..... It was wonderful to see his wife coping as best she could. She greeted everybody at the wake along with Luke shaking every hand sometimes holding up friends who had come to give them support..... Then yesterday taking a deep breath as the casket came out of the hearse she proceeded to put her best foot forward. Luke, so eloquent in his eulogy, looking so much like his father complete with the unruly hair.
As friends spoke one by one, i was about to get worried wanting to know if Bruce Spingsteen wasn`t going to perform, then it happened...........
Maria Shriver has aged, is it too many sudden deaths ? That must take it's toll.
The playing of 'Somewhere over the rainbow' from Tim's Ipod as everyone filed out to see the double rainbows made it even more special. (Photo taken after memorial on cellphone camera by Colleen King MSNBC).
Wonderful remembrance. LOVE ALWAYS WINS OUT EVERYTIME.

ARE THE SIDE EFFECTS OF DRUGS CAUSING US HARM?

I have come to realize that the best thing u can do for your child is to avoid giving him or her sweets and things that they will become addicted to in their early years, as trust me our processed foods are addictive.
I hear young girls complaining about discharges, because they eat too much mucous what could that be? i find out its white bread - they stop eating it, problems gone..........
Did u realize that a lot of the people with acne is due to drinking pasteurized milk ? This food thing is exciting......Even more amazing is the new and 'exciting' drugs on the market
PLAVIK, AVODART, RECLAST, EVISTA to name a few......Have u read or listened to the warnings on these things - it's more than the good they do and i quote 'EVISTA increases the risk of blood clots and should not be used by women who have or have had blood clots in the legs lungs or eyes . EVISTA may increase the risk of dying from stroke in women at high risk for heart disease or stroke'.
I don`t know if i have a clot lurking someplace, and after reading this i don`t even know what EVISTA is for and i`m not going to find out. RECLAST has a section labeled IMPORTANT INFORMATION that's downright scary. It even says tell your doctor if u have dental problems, dental problems????? come on who would associate dental problems with some thing u r taking for osteoporosis .Makes sense, bone anywhere is bone.
Sometimes i wonder if the drugs we take to help aren`t what is unwittingly killing us - a lot of us don`t even realize that Tylenol must NOT be taken with other products containing acetaminophen. Who knew?
Who knew that herb-based medicine or supplements musn`t be taken with chemicals ? Are we aware of these things ? Just like how certain foods don`t go together , certain vitamins cause the other not to work ,chemicals must be in that category.
As a hairdresser i can`t tell u how many times i had women sitting in my chair drinking coffee and me relaxing their hair and when it was all finished the hair didn`t take the relaxer. Years later after it happening a little too often i would find out that coffee blocks the relaxer on certain people , or was it the heat ,or was it tea too therefore the caffeine ? My rule was no one drink a hot drink while relaxing or colouring their hair.......I`m no chemist and didn`t want to become one.
On watching these ads recently and hearing the voices soberly warning us about the side effects of these drugs, i am now more aware so when i opened my monthly O magazine and saw that EVISTA had 3 pages of warnings and RECLAST had two , I know it's problematic what these drugs are doing to us and we are completely unaware.
I`m sure we are dying from the treatments and not the disease more than is being realized.

Heart disease?

Why is it that u eat pastry every day of life and i eat it once a year and yet i get cancer and u don`t?
Why is it that a virus, say chicken pox comes around and u catch it and i don`t although sleeping with u nightly..........
Is it genes? what is it?
My close friend's mother who is also my part-time mother, eats horribly and although always complaining of pain somewhere is sharp as a tack at age 82.
Take Tim Russert they have been telling us all morning about the plaque on the wall of his heart, and how it tore off and then there is a scab that is left on the wall of the artery which grows and grows till it blocks the artery and that's it!
Well i love the fact that they say drugs and exercise after the heart disease has taken hold (he had just started taking cholesterol medication and walking on the treadmill) is like covering a crack in the wall with paint. It doesn`t work!
U have to lay the foundation.
Didn`t i say he died so we might live.
All the programmes had it on this morning but my favourite doctor, Dr. Oz who was on everybody`s favourite morning show GOOD MORNING AMERICA ( it just won the Emmy second year in a row) said that we need to watch our waist size -that apple shape, is a sign that a disaster is waiting to happen .....He said we just have to come off the junk . Okay Dr. Oz what about my part-time mother ? She eats pastry non-stop and apple doesn`t begin to describe her shape. Large apple maybe, more like a barrel of apples according to her daughter.
Tim`s favourite foods seemed to have gotten his waist size out of hand and this morning on 'Morning Joe ' Mike Barnacle was talking about how badly they ate using the fact that they were Irish Americans as an excuse and saying how much they loved hotdogs, hamburgers and beer. Mike Barnacle is neither Tim Russert's shape or size, and as best friends sounds like they hung out a lot eating and doing the same things.
This is why people think they can get away with this bad eating, we see people doing it and we think they are having a great quality of life...check the heartburn in the nights, listen to the belching ,the bloat, check their digestive problems, popping a pill to soothe their stomach. My part-time mother would have a far better quality of life if she ate better, she wouldn`t be in constant pain, not all of us will be as lucky as her to eat badly and stay alive pain or not...looks like any game can play.
If this isn`t a wake up call nothing will be. Looks like some of us won`t be having quantity no matter how good or bad the quality, so let's go for quality. Let's face it the man was only 58 years old.
In this day and age that's a youngster.

TIM RUSSERT

IT HIT THE WORLD WITH THE SAME SHOCK OF JOHN KENNEDY`S DEATH. WHO ? WHAT? HOW?
Yes he was larger than life, an energy that you thought could never leave us........
But leave us he has and talking about dying with boots on that he did , doing what he loved and a really great death when u think about it, quick and easy no suffering......but selfish me, all i can think of is how could he die with this history-making elections ahead......He was my call , if he said so i knew it was so he told me Obama was the nominee and i believed him no one else. So i really needed him going into these elections how could he desert me?
NO MORE TIM RUSSERT ON 'MEET THE PRESS'? WE WHO LOVE POLITICS HAVE LOST BIG TIME WITH HIS DEATH.
We are hearing now he had heart disease caused by high cholestrol etc.
WE CERTAINLY KNOW HIS WEIGHT CONTRIBUTED, DID HIS WEIGHT CONTRIBUTE BECAUSE OF HOW HE ATE?
THEY SAID HE WAS TRULY AN ALL AMERICAN , DID HIS ALL AMERICAN DIET KILL HIM?
That is the question today .....was it too much stress? Can u imagine the level of stress he went through on a daily basis ?
The love for his father , how much did it upset him to finally put him in a home last week when he knew his father didn`t want to go.....I told a friend this morning if he was Jamaican his father would have just been part of the extended family, he would have been moved into Tim`s home whether his wife was upset or not.......
Instead of wondering why and how come let's look at our own lives, big names dying suddenly from natural causes make us take stock....TRUTH BE TOLD ,HE WAS NOT ONLY OVERWEIGHT,HE WAS BLOATED...... MAYBE HE HAS DIED SO OTHERS MIGHT LIVE.

FRUITARIAN VEGAN OR RAW FOODISTS?

I told u to soak your fruits and vegetables in water with peroxide or salt and a friend called me to say she can`t believe what the water looked like when she went to throw it away.......correct and that is what goes into us when we think we are eating healthily.
I know a ' food scientist' who peels every thing...I like the skins of my apples and some mangoes so i will soak.
I remember my mother never gave me an american apple without peeling it first. She felt all american fruits were suspect.
Now with all the third world fruits from Ecuador, Chili etc. u had better peel or soak as they use the strongest of the strong to make sure their fruits compete.
The backyard garden keeps looking better and better.
Another rule of thumb is if the birds and slugs are eating it that means its good, no pesticides. A tip for your garden is put crushed egg shells in the soil to keep the slugs away.
We have learnt that perfect is no longer great. We now know that those red meats and too pretty fruit are engineered to attract us. We need to stop falling for pretty.
In the 'live food' world we have learnt that too pretty a banana or plantain must not be eaten - just because it's not being cooked we can`t risk eating carbonized food, so we have to shop with an eagle eye.
There was a special on CNN on eating vegan and they went to a vegan chef in Brooklyn, New York who was talking about gone are the days of bland vegan food (why i couldn`t eat it) and he was serving the reporter a meal of cashew cheese in turnip ravioli(now u talking).
The movement is growing, I read where Oprah is now on the bandwagon. I`ve been looking at her for the past 2 years wondering how come with all her money she didn`t know that if she went to 'live food 'her weight problem would disappear. Then she came down with her thyroid problem and i said to myself, doesn`t she know or is it that she doesn`t want to know as she loves food so much , but watching the show where she committed to 21 days of eating this way i realized she didn`t know.
Well when u look at her food that her chef is preparing and she is eating daily she can`t miss her old way of eating for a minute, we should all be so lucky .
Half of the problem i understand is boredom but i ask u how come we get bored eating a cho cho salad twice a week if its fixed 2 different ways and we don`t get tired of chicken 5 days a week ? We also eat the same menu every week stew peas monday ,curry chicken wednesday and so on and every sunday we have fricassee chicken and rice and peas. We never get tired of that yet some of my children told me that fruit bores them eating it everyday.........how come ?
Fruits are even seasonal so now we are in mango season, we should eat mangoes as we soon won`t see them. If u eat fruits in season u cannot be bored.
Maybe i`m a fruitarian ,eating plums all day everyday can`t bore me. Give me 6 east indian mangoes with a dozen black mangoes and 6 bags of plums and my day is complete. Happier than me is hard to find.
I wonder if that's why i`m alive?

CANCER SURVIVOR

There are 2 schools of thought, one is call cancer by it's name and get over it, another says don`t name it or u will claim it............I think that's rubbish as long as while u are naming it , u r not claiming it and feeling sorry for yourself...... U know some of us love the attention illness brings whether we admit to it or not.
When i was setting up this blog several of my friends said i shouldn`t name it 'Cancer Survivor' as cancer is not me and i am not the cancer..........words..... that's all that is, just as how the words cancer survivor are just that words..........If i did not name it with cancer in the title i would not get the people i need to reach as that is what people are looking for now in this technological age....support, as they plod their path to wellness. So when i say cancer survivor they know exactly who and what i am and tune in to read just how i`m doing my surviving and just maybe they can take a leaf out of my book and survive too..... Randy Pausch is showing us how to die with our boots on, he is still calling it cancer. I even notice that i get more hits depending on what the title of my blog is on any given day.....This link picks up this and another link picks up that. After all this is 2008 and the world IS a global village.
Maybe i should be like P.Diddy and talk instead of write on my blog, but i just love to write.
I know some of us think that giving it a name enables it and maybe that's why we are in an epidemic right now. We are in an epidemic right now because we eat too much processed food simple as that. We used to eat butter then they told us to eat margarine then when we all changed to margarine they told us that margarine is plastic and can`t come out of our system so we must go back to butter.......we were drinking milk that the milk man brought with the cream on top delivered fresh every morning then they said no, drink pasteurized now they telling us we must drink 'raw milk' what is that? Isn't that the same old milk we used to drink ? Then the sugar -we thought we were too nice to have brown sugar so we went to refined white sugar then they said no go to brown sugar then they said no, sugar is making us fat so u are to have Sweet and Low and Equal and even better the new boy on the block Splenda......now the panic......Aspartame is in them all and now they tell us its going to kill us. Laughable, but not funny.........people the easiest thing is, no bodder wid di sugar - cancer follows sugar - if u eating ripe fruit u getting enough sweet.
The best thing to do, read labels and when the word is too long and u can`t pronounce it, put it back on the shelf.
Shop in the market instead of the supermarket.
Soak all fruit and vegetables in water and 2 drops of peroxide or salt to get off the pesticide and insecticides.
Better yet grow your own food ,even if u live in an apt., a window box will yield vegetables if u give them love and care. Many a tomato came from a window box garden.
Another tip, lay off the Kentucky fry, the Starbucks coffee,the Campbells soup.... They taste so good because they have in too much MSG.
Maybe one day my blog will be 'how i survived' or 'survival of the fittest' but right now 'cancersurvivor' is fine with me as that's exactly what i am.

SECRETS

Why do we keep secrets ?
My mother always told me everything done in the dark will come into the light.........Isn`t it much easier to have it in the light in the first place ?
When i think how many people have committed suicide because they are gay . People who live unhappily for their entire lives because they are keeping secrets of one kind or the other and half of the time it's not a secret at all....it's only a secret in their own mind as nine times out of ten people know and help carry on the charade when u r around and talk freely about u when u r out of earshot.
I think when we say what is going on with our lives we get support and we know who loves us warts and all.
I remember when i got cancer for the first time in 1978 people treated u as if u had leprosy as they didn`t know what to make of it and just as how they treat aids now because of ignorance..... That's the same way they treated Cancer , wouldn`t even call the name , then it was the BIG C.
I would walk into a party and the room would clear or everybody found themselves pasted to the wall as i walked through. I remember going on our national airline once and one of the stewardesses who knew me well looked positively scared ,like she had seen a ghost. I went to her and asked her what had happened ? She said she thought i was dead as she heard i had cancer so i asked her why would she think because i had cancer i would be dead.......I didn`t see her for the rest of the flight, that was fine with me as i was as happy as a lark, glad to be soaring above the clouds giving thanks to be alive. She was the one in hiding ,not me.
Most people did not know what to say then , some still don`t, that's fine, lets discuss other things but know that I am NOT keeping a secret!

What a gwaan?

WEAK EYES ARE FONDEST OF GLITTERING OBJECTS
Thomas Carlyle

What is happening with the world? Someone told me this morning that America has caught up with us with youngsters using phone cameras to take pictures under girls skirts and send them around....Excuse me????I think its the other way around.I always said cable would be the ruination of Jamaica and i`ve seen it come to pass.
The lack of morals, the fact that so many young boys want to be thugs and young girls want to wear tight clothes and have pound hair, that is hair sold by the pound or known as OPH " other peoples hair ".Hair dressing now consists of bonding and sewing on hair,everyone wants 'tall' hair.Naturally long hair is looked on with amazment as if, how did u do that?
We just have the wrong values. We all want to be bling bling rich. We don`t notice that really rich people don`t flaunt their wealth.
I would have hoped wealth would be used to help hospitals and schools or give bright children a chance with scholarships, instead it's used for diamond cars, Hermes bags and manolo shoes.
As i said before,the economic crisis facing us is good, we will have to stop wasting. For sure we will go back to growing our food,so we might get healthy out of it.I tell u label nothing bad.
Every day I wonder if we had not turned back from socialism when a lot of us were wearing tie-dye calico,the rasta men were making our leather shoes and people like me left my salon in the evenings and went to Jose Marti to teach cosmetology, where would we be now? Everyone was doing something, we had lessened our dependence on imports and by now we would be so over FOREIGN GOODS.
Black people had come into their own and anybody with an idea was trying to fulfill their dream whether it was trying to make a car or an airconditioning unit.
Our standards today would be so high instead we have no standards.

I promised i wouldn`t say anything about Obama but since madam Hillary has decided to throw in the towel (although she waited till she had no towel to throw) i have to ask if anybody besides me has noticed the resemblance of Obama to Bobby Kennedy, his speeches, his mannerisms, the reaction of people to him - the same rock star description being used......This time as someone said this morning maybe we`ll be lucky.

TAMIKA

As i told u in the 'About me' section of my blog I have many children, gave birth to one but i am the proud auntie Pat to many, with some it's auntie Patricia, some it's plain old auntie Pat. Well one of those got married last evening and as i sat there listening to all the praise showered on me for helping this young lady know herself, I realized that although a lot of times it tires and stresses me out especially this particular girl child , it is so worth it when u see them like i witnessed on Saturday , come into womanhood.
She is a beauty to look at except when to auntie Pat's horror she eats herself into looking like a tub using pregnancy as an excuse, but her outside beauty is really just a small piece of her.
I met her when she came to study cosmetology at Christine Valmy International School, where i was teaching at the time....One day i was in the parking lot and heard a car come tearing in, i didn`t know such a small car could have such speed. Out walked this young lady and when i went inside and inquired who she was i got the knowing glance and answer "Tamika Nevers miss" as if how come u don`t know her miss ? problems...............I`m used to people always having an issue with anyone who looks good so i chalked it up to that until ms. lady arrived in my hairdressing class.
She had decided unknown to me that since her passion was hair and i taught hair i would be giving her all i know .
She did well and on finishing school followed me to Sunset Beach there she continued terrorising me.
Meanwhile she and i became close as i realized that what she had was a strong personality, her carrying on was just because she wanted love and attention and she WAS THE KINDEST MOST GENEROUS AND SWEETEST OF SPIRITS when she wasn`t terrorizing all and sundry.
She helped care my mother when she was dying, the same woman who on meeting her for the first time.....said "you are so pretty why don`t you have on any clothes?" Tamika was amazed as she thought she had on a lot of clothes for her,only thing was it started a little above the bust and ended just under the butt.
I have lived for years with the calls saying "You deal with Tamika I can`t manage her " well manage her i did as she had another trait which i appreciate greatly.
On telling her one day i was on my way to pick her up and saying i hoped she was ready she said "aunty Pat, I was born ready".......That thrilled me to no end, as i thought i was the only woman in life that took 10 mins to be ready except my friend Denise, but she doesn`t count as she is not like Tamika and myself who wear makeup etc. she should take 10 seconds:)
Any way we forged on with our relationship through all the misses which i thought her relationships were and through 2 steps forward and 9 steps backwards until the advent of Chris to whom she got married last evening.
QUIET but taking no CRAP from her.
YES OPPOSITES DO ATTRACT
She became a mother and went into it like she had been doing it all her life, her love of kids certainly helped with that as wherever there was a baby there was Tamika. So i`m sure she will be throwing herself full speed ahead into her marriage.
She is the proud owner of her own salon and has a good deal of my customers so it's as if the family continues.
Her love of auntie Pat is reciprocated tenfold as guess what? Strong personality, passionate about hair, putting friends first, making bad choices where men are concerned till lucking out - all traits of auntie Pat and yes, i forgot the final one. WE WERE BORN READY!!