Drifting on a memory

July 2012
I am eager to embark on a trip I recently booked to Tahiti. It's my birthday gift to me and I feel like I'm going to have a great time. I'm going solo. Yup, to the proclaimed "favored honeymoon destination on the planet", I'm going dolo. I'm not all that concerned because #1, I'm gonna be on a fab cruise ship in an equally fab stateroom.

June 2013
 Ia Ora na! That's "Hello" in Tahitian.  I'm updating this a year later...LOL! I completely forgot that I started this post. The cruise was cool. The various ports were gorgeous and included Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Tahaa and Raiatea. I was on a smaller ship with 400-500 max capacity though I could have that wrong considering it's been a year. I was the only black person on the ship, so I drew a lot of attention. Women flocked to me like crazy, wanting me to join them and their families for dinner. I hedged at times because, well, I was on a cruise solo for a reason! Plus, one of the women pissed me off by making some remark about how I didn't need a tan. Can white people go five seconds with referencing color??? Nope! And she got ditched as a result. One thing about it, my money was just as green as her husband's, since I know she didnt pay for ish, and I wasnt about to spend more time in the presence of some chick who makes the "You don't need to get any darker" quip...be gone!

Anywho, the ship was beautiful but too intimate... no real onboard nightlife, just real lowkey. Food was decent, several steps above the party cruiseline I've been on. The staterooms, with virtually full on sized bathtubs, were amazing. And the best part of the whole entire cruise((drumroll please))....the L'Occitane toiletries that were replenished twice per day! Im still rolling off those bad boys. Daily, I dumped the unused lotions, shampoos, shower gels and conditioners in my suitcase and my wonderful chamber maid would replace them. That, in and of itself, just about made the beaucoup bucks I paid for the trip worth it.

I booked rental cars on Raiatea and Bora Bora. Totally tranquil way to spend the day...loved it. I rented a beach cruiser bike on Moorea and got caught in a tropical downpour...sooo much fun! The bike chain popped and someone came out of their yard and helped put it back on which was super nice of them. I also booked an Underwater Safari...nice but not something I would do twice. I dont know what got into me but I did an island tour of Bora Bora on a jetski...never again. It's just not for me. That was one of the very few times in my life that I've been afraid, deathly afraid. First, I had never ridden a jetski before. Second, we were in the ocean! Arrggghhh...I tripped doing that.

As with most cruises, the islands start to look alike after a couple of days. It was a long flight there and back which for me means that I probably wouldn't do this again unless Idris insisted(Lol, I kid...sort of). If I think of more, I will edit and add it. But that was vacay 2012 in nutshell! Nana!(that's goodbye tahitian)

Prop up

This is an old post I wrote and never published, but I thought it was funny:

Have you ever unknowingly propped someone up? Whether it was a friendship or a relationship, you were the glue that pretty much held the other person together. Yeah, I don't know what it is but I seem to attract these types. I don't know why they're in need of propping up but when the alliance/association ends, these people fall all the way apart to the extent that they are unrecognizable.

In the course of the friendship or relationships, I merely make suggestions or really, just talk outloud about what the other person "might" want to consider doing or exploring. It's just talk. You don't have to do it, not for me anyway. I went out with one guy on maybe two dates. Two years later, he called to tell me that he enrolled in law school as the result of a conversation we had. Said guy, who ordered coffee as his beverage of choice with an In-n-Out burger on one of our dates, was not my type. Our encounter was so brief that its hard to believe that I had that much influence...I think he was calling to brag, like "Bish, look what you missed." But all I could recall was that he ordered coffee with an In-n-Out burger.

The Plunge

I took the plunge, or rather a couple of plunges....I ditched a "boyfriend" and got a puppy! Yea! for the former and double Yea! for the latter. The "boyfriend", and I use that term loosely hence the quotes, turned out to be so typical and un-unicorn-like that he had to go. Too messy, too much baggage that he wasn't trying to unpack. I have too much opportunity, too much potential, too many sunrises and sunsets to see to be bogged down in his garbage or to cosign on his need to maintain his status quo, as dysfunctional as it is/was. Yeah, I 'm venting but bear with me because I do have a point...I think. I think my point is good riddance to bad rubbish. Kick rocks, don't let the door hit ya, you can't have the best of me.

My big ol fluffy, black as coal Goldendoodle, Leo, can have all of me though. That's my dog and my dawg! Sometimes I look at his big ol black mass stretched out on my light colored carpet and just beam at his cuteness. Then I start picking up all the little blades of grass that he carried in on his curly "fro-ish" coat. He looks at me and I look at him and "we" know we've got each others back. He understands that I'm looking after him when I feed him, pick up his poop and wipe the junk out his eyes(that's that poodle side of him). I understand that he's looking after me when barks his puppyish yet gruff bark when he hears or sees something that doesn't fit. When I come home from work, he does this doggy talk thingy that I find so adorable but I bet he is somehow trying establishing some dominance...I'll let that slide for now though because he's my Leo, he's my dawg and he rocks!

What I don't want for Christmas...

I apologize in advance, because it is not in the spirit of Christmas to be ungrateful. However, there are some things that I just DON'T want for Christmas. I thought about doing a quirky offshoot of "12 Days of Christmas" by naming one thing per day 12 days prior to Christmas that I don't want. But then I realized that I have so many things on my list that I really could start now. I can't promise that I will post one thing per day, but it may end up being two or three things per week til Christmas. Here's what's on my "Don't Bother" list:

1) A festive candy/nut/cheese tower from Costco(or any other place).
2) A holiday snow globe or figurine.
3) A microwaveable rice/grain filled neck pillow.
4) Anything from those discount fragrance stores(that includes those box sets from Department stores too...J. Lo, Britney, Beyonce "Heat", or any other celebrity fragrance set).
5) Anything with your job logo on it(though I will take those any other time of year except my Bday and Valentine's Day)

Steppin

I've been taking a Chicago Step class. It's fun. What's more interesting is that there are alot of similarities between Steppin and relationships. With regard to the dance, the instructor frequently says things that can easily be applied to relationships. One night he said as he looked at my dance partner, "Just know that anytime you mess up, you can fix it." Most of the time the teacher is stressing the importance of allowing the man to lead and paying attention to the various signals/direction that the man wants to take you in. There are also constant reminders to the female students to just "relax" and not to fight the man's efforts to lead. I would say that it is more to this than meets the eye.

Baby and me makes....

I had a great conversation with one of my long time male buddies, Mike. As he was talking about how well his kids dance, he stopped and asked me if I intended to have kids. It's funny because I contacted my doctor a couple of weeks ago and asked what the unobvious steps were to getting pregnant, since I'm giving it some thought. My doctor advised me accordingly and I felt accomplished in that I took one step in the direction of having a baby by initiating the conversation with my doctor. Now, I've since moved onto other things(should I get a puppy?), but it's on my to do list.

Mike framed it so well for me and he really has me thinking about having a baby...I mean I was already thinking about it but it slipped down the list of priorities in the last couple of weeks. Mike said that this would be a great time for me to have a kid(s)...he recollected that when he had his first child at the age of 23 that he felt as if he would be raising kids his entire adult life. That gave me hope. Now that I'm ready to "sit it down", so to speak, I have all the time, energy, love and resources to devote to my baby(ies). Wow, you just don't know what day to day blessings are in store when you wake up each day and this conversation was one of them.

Vacation

Ive been gone for a while but I'm back. I read this page tonight and laughed out loud. I have to get back to this...