Dear Tommy Hilfiger

You suck.

Before I go on, I must make it clear that I am not referring to Mr Hilfiger the person. This is directed solely at Tommy Hilfiger’s US website. From the first line, you might have inferred that I am not pleased with this website or its administrators. You are right. I am totally cheesed off, and I’ll tell you why.

I like shopping, especially if I can do it from the comfort of my own home. Once a year, when we can afford it, we leave these shores, cross the pond, and head to New Jersey. And I shop, till I’m almost dropping. Literally. This year, we couldn’t make it. Not because of Ebaby, her ticket would not have cost that much extra. But by the time we had decided we did want to go, it did not make any financial sense to pay what the airlines were asking for. So I decided I’ll shop at my erstwhile favourite store. Online.

You might wonder why I make purchases from a US website when I don’t live there. It’s because it works out a whole lot cheaper for me. I have friends/family in the States, they get the deliveries, and my goods end up here. Eventually.

Back to my letter.

I have been a customer of yours for many years. You name it, I’ve probably bought it. Jackets, jumpers, socks, bags, trousers, dressing gowns etc. Most times in store, otherwise, online.

Since I was not able to come to the States for Thanksgiving as I’d originally intended, I thought I’d shop online. So I headed over to your website, selected the Girly Mini Polo from the 2T-4T category and then tried to get one in size 3T. To my utter confusion, I was then confronted with a size drop down list as follows. 98,74,80,86,92. I thought to myself, no worries, I’ll just click on the size guide to see which of these sizes equates to 3T. Alas, the size guide is only for adult men and women. Undaunted, I emailed your customer services at tommyhelp@filltek.com for further information. The first email was sent on the 18th , the second on the 20th of November. To date, I  have not even gotten  an acknowledgement of my emails, talk less of a response.

I emailed Filltek.com on the 30th of November to see if someone there could help. No acknowledgement, no response. So they suck too.

I have no interest in rugby, or in polo. Their sizes however, are clear and unambiguous. So I took my custom over to RL. And shopped to my heart’s delight.

Right now Tommy, I couldn’t give 8E3ASMCUN2E3 about you.

Your loss.

Thoroughly dissatisfied,

Justjoxy

Our Father

We live in interesting times. New fangled inventions emerge daily. And that in itself is not a bad thing. I am writing this on my phone as we head back home. We have come a long way from the days of the word processor. Indeed a long way from the bush telegraph and carrier pigeons. Some changes are good. Certain other things that have evolved though, that are not necessarily so. I don’t know how or when, but they are now as firmly entrenched as though they have always been.

Before I continue, I must remind you that this is all about life as I see it. So relax, and come with me if you please.

He said what he meant. He meant what he said. He was quite an orator. He spoke at length because he knew his time was limited. He is still with us, only not in the form he once was. He spoke about many things, and importantly, taught us how to pray. The first line of the prayer is  ’Our Father, who art in heaven’

In some parts of Christiandom today, there is this term known as ’spiritual father’. It is usually used to refer to a pastor whose teachings are so inspirational that the ’spiritual child’ has decided to closely follow said pastor’s ministry. And so you hear people saying ‘So and so is my spiritual father, I have all his books etc’. This might be a very simplistic way of putting my point across, but I hope you catch my drift.

So where did it all start from? And how did it become such an integral part of the Christianese vocabulary?

I do not profess to be a Bible scholar. Far from it. I read it though, as regularly as I am able to, but am yet to come across any part that says we are to appoint our fellow human beings as our spiritual fathers. If perchance, it is written in there, I would appreciate it if you my reader can point it out, so I can go back, read it, and update this post with my findings accordingly.

I know that in these interesting times that we live in, it is now a fairly straightforward process to divorce one’s parents. The process of doing this is called emancipation. Children do it for various reasons, some justifiable, others not so much. But how do you divorce a spiritual father? If somewhere along your journey you discover that the humble, tongue speaking charismatic preacher that you have admired for so many years has fallen headlong into sin, what would you do?  Disown him? Declare that he is no longer your father? In which court?

I believe the reason why he started the prayer the way he did was because he knew the hearts of men. And he understood that no matter how anointed we are, we are still human. Subject to the same temptations and failings that the rest of the human race face daily. So he directed us to the only one who could nurture us perfectly.

Our Father, in heaven.

Much ado about Jedward

My laptop has died. I was running behind on updating my blog in the first place, and then my laptop went and died on me. Technically, the laptop’s not mine, it’s T’s, but since we publicly agreed to share everything all those years ago, I can claim it as mine too. Anyways, it gave up the ghost on Tuesday and refused to power on despite all my entreaties. The guys from Hewlett-Packard are coming to take it away today. Hopefully, they’ll be able to restore it to its former glory. I am currently using a netbook. Again, it’s T’s. I don’t like netbooks, I find them too fiddly and too dinky. However, I don’t have much of a choice. I can either sit in bed with netbook on my lap, Ebaby lying next to me, and Etoddler toddling about in my warm room, or I can haul myself into the much colder study, Ebaby on my lap and pound away at my keyboard while trying to hold a very wriggly baby. I am a firm believer in ease and comfort, hence the fiddly, dinky Samsung netbook. I hope it stays alive, at least till I finish writing this.

Anyways, I digress. As usual.

We have this televised competition here where I live. It is called the X Factor. It is a singing contest, with contestants or acts who are mentored by any of four judges. One of the judges is called Simon Cowell. He came up with the format for the show. Whichever act wins gets a recording contract, in the meantime, they are all under a contractual obligation to the X-Factor till April next year, win or lose.

Every week, the great British public cast their votes for the act they like the most. The two acts with the fewest votes have to sing for their survival. The judges then vote for the act they want to save. In the event of their votes being tied, or ending up in ‘deadlock’ as they term it, the decision reverts back to the public, the act that received the fewest public votes then leaves the competition.

Following me so far?  The contestants this year have been a mixed bunch. Some can sing, but don’t have the likeability factor. Some can sing, and dance, and have the likeability factor.  Some can sing, can’t dance, and have the likeability factor. And there is this act called John and Edward. Or Jedward. They are 18-year-old twins. Their voices are decent enough, but they don’t got rhythm i.e they can’t dance. What they lack in rhythm though, they make up in sheer enthusiasm. They bound about on the stage with reckless abandon, their only concession to choreography being their matching outfits. It is quite a spectacle to see twins mirroring each other so well in everything, except when they attempt to dance.

They are the Sanjaya (American Idol) of X-Factor, the act that remains week after week, against all odds. They caused an uproar this week, because for the first time since the start of this competition, they ended up in the bottom two. Simon had the deciding vote, he cast it in their favour, and the decision as to whether or not they stayed was passed back to the public vote. They hadn’t received the fewest votes, and so were saved, at least for another week.

And then the uproar began. People the length and breadth of England expressed their outrage. They were mad at Simon. Because he had dared leave it to the voting public to decide who should stay and who should go. They railed at him for daring to use his vote to save the lads, after having denigrated, reviled, castigated and grudgingly praised them in turn over the past few weeks. ‘X Factor is a scam and a sham’ they cried. ‘Simon Cowell is an idiot’ others raged. They were angry that he had not taken the opportunity to vote off Jedward when he’d had the chance to, after he had spent so much time talking about why they did not belong in the competition. Some went as far as to say they were not going to watch the show anymore.

Me, I looked and I laughed. I believe strongly that a lot of the complaints were from people who had never cast a in favour of any of the acts in the first place, yet they had taken umbrage at the decision of the voting viewers. These people had also forgotten that Simon held all the cards regardless of whether or not one of his acts won the competition. He gets to sign the winning act to his record label, regardless of whether or not he was their mentor. He also gets to keep a proportion of the advertising revenue, as well as income generated from the phone votes. All in all, Mr. Cowell’s laughing all the way to the bank, regardless of all his detractors.

I have a favourite, his name is Olly Murs. I’ll cheer if he wins, but won’t shed a tear if he doesn’t. I don’t vote, so won’t be complaining about the results. I’ll also keep watching the X Factor. Thanks for stopping by.

Okra pepper

My children have been requesting okra pepper for the past couple of days, I think today’s the day they’ll get to eat it. Okra pepper is the name Egirl coined when she was a toddler to describe all okele type food. Some of my country people call it hand food, others call it swallow. It is simply any dough like cooked meal that is traditionally eaten with the hands. It is formed into a small ball, dipped into a form of stew, and the chewed (or not) then swallowed. One of the many stews it is eaten with is okra stew, usually cooked with or served alongside a chili pepper stew. Hence the name okra pepper.

There are many forms of okele. Today however, I’m guessing we’ll go with gira aka ground rice. Rice that has been ground into a coarse powder is stirred into boiling water until it hardens and cooks, then is eaten with a stew as above.

I  soaked some saltfish a few days ago. I had intended to cook some ackee and saltfish. I hadn’t eaten it in ages but fancied me some. Only thing is, I forgot the fish in the water. You’re only meant to soak it overnight. I changed the water the night after the first soak, and promptly forgot all about the fish till I saw it this morning. I have drained it and put it in the fridge to be attended to later. No, I will not tell you how long it was soaking for. In my defence, the soaking has probably leached out all the salt, so will reduce the amount of time I’ll have to spend boiling it. It has probably leached out all the nutrients too, as T helpfully pointed out to me when he called me from work. This however, will not deter me from cooking and eating it. I have some bacon bits in the fridge, and a tin of ackee in the cupboard.

Talking about the fridge, there are some lamb chops in there just crying out for my attention. They need to be seasoned, then returned to the fridge to marinate. I’m guessing T & I will have them grilled for dinner, along with mashed potatoes, and some broccoli.

Egirl went back to school today after a  week half term break. I miss her. Egirl is not a boarder, she will be back home this afternoon. Etoddler is lying beside me in the bed, pinching my left hand. She has just asked me to leave my hand on her ear. So I will. Ebaby is fast asleep. I hope she is dreaming of me.

This is my life – as I see it. Thanks for stopping by.

Peppersoup

I’ve been craving peppersoup for a while. My friend had sent me some peppersoup spices from Nigeria, so I decided yesterday was the time to try them out. She hadn’t been able to get me the whole spices, so had sent me already blended ones, in powder form. I washed and salted my fish, blended my scotch bonnet pepper and onions, and then put it on to boil. I added a  Maggi crayfish stock cube, and a drop of vegetable oil, and waited for the raw heat of the chili to cook out. I eagerly undid the wrapped spice and emptied it into the boiling mixture, and was then quite puzzled as the smell of yaji wafted up to my nostrils. For those of you that don’t know, yaji is a distinct blend of spices used to season suya. Suya is grilled skewered meat. It is traditionally cooked by sticking the skewers round an open fire, and served with freshly sliced tomatoes and onions. It is seriously yummy.

Yaji and suya go along together like a hand in a glove. Yaji in peppersoup? That is another matter entirely. I asked T if he thought the boiling mixture smelt like peppersoup. ‘Definitely not’ was his response. My catfish went into the mix nevertheless until it was cooked. I was going to send my friend a text to ask if she was sure the spices were for peppersoup and not for suya, but I stopped mid-text as I realised it was about 11.30pm her time, and she would not have appreciated getting such a text so late at night.

I haven’t tasted it yet. I lifted the lid of the pot and gave a sniff this morning, but the jury is still out. I’ll try it later on today, once I’ve screwed up enough courage. And if it turns out not to taste the way it ought, I’ll fish out every piece of fish, and eat them. I don’t think it is fair that they suffer neglect due to an error that was not of their making.

I’ll let you know my findings. Thanks for stopping by to take a look at life – as I see it.

Facebook v Twitter

I watched a video on Facebook yesterday, warning about the perils of ‘friending’ people indiscriminately without really knowing them, and also of posting too much personal information on one’s profile. I’m talking information like one’s phone number, home address, date of birth etc.

Everything that was said made perfect sense, even though it was ever so slightly let down by the banner that appeared at intervals saying ‘Add people you only know’ which I thought kind of defeated the whole purpose of the video since it was in fact warning viewers to only add people they knew, but I’m digressing here, and being pedantic to boot.

I can understand teenagers not having been aware of the risks of putting ’too much information’ out there, but adults too? It’s not as bad when the information is restricted to a group of people who are actually your friends, and would have had this information already, but when the word friend is used to include people you don’t know, have never even seen, talk less of met, then it becomes a bit worrying. And yet grown ups who should know better were thanking the posters of these videos, as if they had  been unaware of how incongruous it was to allow strangers to  access all areas of their lives unreservedly.

I watched an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles recently, in which someone had reached a milestone in his life. Yes, he’d succeeded in adding his 1000^th friend on Facebook! He was duly congratulated by the rest of his team, including his boss, the director, who was himself, friend number 500.

I found it curious that this video had started making the rounds just as I had decided to prune my friends list. Some people are on there because we went to secondary school together, and we used to be friends. Apart from this singular fact, we have nothing in common. We hadn’t kept in touch over the years, and now we are FB friends, we’ve probably only just said ‘Hi’, if that. So why are we friends?

I nurse this dream of returning home one day. By home, I mean Nigeria. So I added or accepted some of these friends because I thought it’d be useful to have contact with people back home. Only thing is, there is no contact, we don’t ‘talk’, not even here in cyber world. So what makes me think my being back home would make any difference? Methinks it’s definitely time to do some humane culling. A friend of mine announced via her status update that she intended to remove some friends, and caused quite an uproar. Me, I’ll just do it ala Nike, I wonder how long it’ll take some of them to notice, or indeed, if they ever will.

And on to Twitter. I haven’t started tweeting yet. I haven’t even been on the Twitter website yet. Truth be told, don’t know if I ever will. What would I post on there?

10.15 Ebaby smiled at me.

10.16 I smiled back at Ebaby.

10.17 Ebaby did a posset all over my shoulder and I wiped her mouth with her burp cloth.

And so on. Until the day I finally become a millionaire and tweet that I have just finished eating in such and such place.

15.15 Just had the most delicious caviar ever at Beluga’s. Leaving right now to go back home.

15.20 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh! I’m being kidnapped as I tweet. Exact ransom amount to be tweeted once they let me know………….

Why on earth would I want to update the world at large about the minutiae of my day-to-day existence? By the minute?

In conclusion, I like Facebook. It serves my purposes for now. And it has a scrabulous Scrabble application. Thanks for reading about life – as I see it.

Now I know

I can meet a target if I set my mind to it. All I have to do is desire the outcome enough, and I will find a way to achieve it.  It’s funny the excuses we throw up for not doing things, but I think the bottom line is desire. Desire is  the fuel that feeds the flame of one’s determination. Or so. That phrase made perfect sense to  me when I was thinking about this piece. This is a realisation I have recently come to, however belatedly it might be. I’ve had a busy day, busier than most, yet here I am, writing.

The event on the 17th was absolutely beautiful, it was well planned and perfectly executed, and I am pleased to have been a small part of it, even if only by showing up. In my outfit.

Egirl is learning to play the piano. I have never had an interest in learning anything to do with music, but I now find myself determined to learn how to play the piano too. Not because I hope to give a performance one day, but because I want to be able to help her. I believe that as a mother, the best gift I can give my children is to assist and encourage them to be the best that they can be in everything that they do. I haven’t started learning yet, I told her I would though, so now each time she practices, she says ‘Mama, it’s your turn now’ and I smile and reply ‘If I come now, how will the dishes get washed? Or ‘who will cook your lunch?’ etc. I am not stalling though, I desire to know how to play, and learn I will. For now, I listen to her while I stand at the sink or the cooker, and I listen hard. And when I hear a note that doesn’t quite sound right, I ask her ‘Was that supposed to sound like that?’ and she grins at me and says ‘No, mama’ and then plays it again. Till she gets the note right, or gets tired of trying.

There are some things I won’t ever learn to do, not because I am unable to, but because my desire to do so will never be strong enough. I will never know how it feels to have a bungee strap attached to my ankle. For the simple reason that bungee jumping just ain’t for me.

I’ve gone jet skiing before, never mind the fact that I did it kneeling on the skis as I was too terrified to stand, and had to be rescued  by lifeguards afterwards from water that was only about 4 feet deep as I was convinced I was drowning, but the fact remains that I did it. Even though I couldn’t and still can’t swim.

I will now go away and have a think about the things I desire to do, and I’ll come back and tell you some of them. I’m not ready to make any promises yet, But I think one of them might be to give you a definite timescale in which you can expect to read an update on life - as I see it.

It’s been a while

I have been busy. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly that I’ve been doing, but I’ve been busy. I know I started out by saying I made no promises as to the regularity of my posting on here, but even I don’t understand how come it’s taken this long. There are so many things I’ve wanted to write about, but somehow I just haven’t found the time.

I was going to complain about the event taking place on the 17th of October. The one I’ve been trying to lose weight for so I could fit into this my one skirt. The complaint was not about the skirt or my thighs, but about the fact that I did not know the venue! Yes, here I was, undergoing all sorts of deprivations in order to fit into an outfit for a specific event, without even having the address. I had planned what I was going to write, how I was going to write it, and how I was going to send my friend a link to the page so she could see how I had reported her to the world wide web, when she suddenly upped and sent me the address. So I now know where I’m going on Saturday. And I don’t have any more cause to complain, hence the non-appearance of that particular post.

‘ What about the skirt?’ I hear you ask. ‘Does it fit now?’

Before I answer, let me tell you something you might not yet know. Changing one’s eating habit is very very hard. Once the clock struck 7, I began to desire to eat all sorts of things. For the most part, I resisted. save for giving in to the odd chocolate ice lolly here and there. And save for the night I was tempted with a bowl of custard and cake. I must reiterate that I had been minding my business, playing my scrabble, and watching telly when this bowl of temptation materialised in front of me. There were two different slices of cake in the custard. I’m not sure what the first slice was, but the second one was chocolate. And it appeared to have random chunks of chocolate in it that melted into several spoonfuls of custard. Long story short, I was scraping the bowl clean when I happened to glance at the clock and belatedly realise that it was way past 7. In fact, if I must be brutally honest, it was around 10pm or so, but it tasted oh so good.  My friend had mentioned brown alternatives in her comment on my preceding blog, but I am certain she wasn’t referring to chocolate. In my defence, I had already eaten the aforementioned meal before she clarified what brown alternatives were.

In spite of me though, the skirt now fits. Not only does it fit, I now have a choice between three different outfits. Or should I say two and a half? One of the skirts is still a bit tight. I’ll keep you updated though, the 17th is just round the corner. Oh, I also fit into a pair of pre-Ebaby jeans today. So I’m feeling quite chuffed.

I’ve been busy, but half term’s round the corner so hopefully I’ll be able to spend a little more time on here.

It must fit.

I have to lose weight.

Not that I want to, or even need to, but because I have to. I don’t go out much, mostly from choice, but there’s this event on the 17th of October that I want to attend. The notice I was given was very short, and ordinarily I would have seized upon this as an excuse not to go, but on this occasion, it happens that I really do want to go.

And there is this outfit I want to wear. But the skirt’s a bit too tight.  I reckon that if I hold my breath and suck in my thighs (if such a thing were humanly possible), I just might be able to pull up the zipper. But what then if I decide to move? Or dare sit down? I have no doubt that if I attempt to perform any of the aforementioned actions, I would immediately realise my posterior is being ventilated in a way not originally intended by the skirt’s tailor.

This tailor made me five beautiful outfits, skirts and tops, and they are unique. Unique in the sense that even though he used the exact same measurements (so I’d like to believe), every single one of them fits differently. Some tops are tighter than the others, ditto the skirts, and not correspondingly so. And since they are made from distinctly different pieces of African print fabric, there is no question of mixing and matching tops and skirts. Except if I wish to make an unscheduled appearance as the event’s entertainer.

Thanks to Ebaby, I know there is no way I will be able to fit into the tight tops, at least not till around July/August next year when she relinquishes her hold on me and moves on to the cows. So that narrows my choices down to the skirts whose tops fit. Or should that be skirt? For as I type, only one skirt fits the bill. Never mind that the top is completely impractical when it comes to Ebaby and her requirements, but that is neither here nor there.

So on to this weight, and how I intend to lose it. My dear friend has recently gained some weight, and is ecstatic. I wish I could say the same for myself. I digress. I can not diet, simply because I am solely responsible for Ebaby’s nutrition, and I want to ensure she has the best start ever as she begins to climb up the food ladder. Also, babies are very determined beings. If you do not meet their needs by eating properly, they literally leach the nutrients they need from your body. Yes o, they will suck and suck till your body converts something vital to your well being into milk, just so baby’s needs are met. Believe. So for that reason, dieting is out.

Exercise? Nay. The last time I was in a gym was almost 10 years ago, when I decided I wanted to be slim like Kate Moss for my wedding, and yes, I succeeded. Somehow, losing weight to get into a skirt for someone else’s big day just doesn’t carry enough conviction to get me back into a gym. I could go for walks abi? But have you seen this our weather? It’s been raining on and off since Monday. Plus by the time I get Ebaby into her buggy, and marshall Etoddler towards the door, I’ll be exhausted already, which would kind of defeat the purpose.

Which has led me to the reluctant conclusion that I must change my eating habits, which are very bad even if I say so myself. So I have now resolved not to eat anything after 7pm. In the past, eating dinner at 9.30, 10pm, was no big deal as there wasn’t a particular skirt I needed to fit into. T tends to eat late, and I feel it’s only right to keep him company by eating late too. The main difference between us is that he is very active. He cycles to and from the station every morning and evening. He is very fit, not an ounce of spare flesh on his frame. So he can afford to eat at whatever time he pleases. Me, I can’t. The new and improved me started down the life altering path of early dining on Monday, and it has been very very hard.

On Monday evening, I had dinner with the girls, we finished eating just before 7 or so. When T wad eating his dinner round about 9, it felt like I was being tortured as the aroma of home cooked lasagna wafted across to me from the dining room. Unable to bear it any longer, I dashed to the freezer and helped myself to a chocolate ice lolly

Yesterday, as he ate sweet potatoes and stew, it was time for another dash to the kitchen, this time for a bottle of supermalt.

Today, I just know I would have to eat a packet of plantain crisps. In fact, I will do so once I have posted this. I will not even wait for him to start eating. If that doesn’t fill me, then I will have an apple. Or another chocolate ice lolly. It doesn’t help that I am watching Masterchef The Professionals at the moment.

The skirt must fit.

It’s all about me

I love to have things around me just the way I want them.

It doesn’t matter to me if my demands are made at inopportune times, all that matters is that they are met. Promptly. I like my meals warm, not hot, not cold. And sometimes I decide I wasn’t even hungry in the first place. Someone else would clean up the mess.

When I say  ‘Jump’ , all I expect to hear in reply is ‘How high?’. I like to be comfortable at all times, and my requirements change on a daily, if not hourly basis. I know people stare at me sometimes, trying to figure me out. Others ask me what the matter is when I get really upset. As if I can bring myself to even begin to reply.

Maybe you will understand where I am coming from if you know how I became like this.

I maintain that it is all down to my upbringing, the way I started out. I was confined for days, weeks even. I was held in solitary confinement. I had no choice in the matter.  I wasn’t able to see anyone, all I heard were voices, filtered through the sound of ocean waves. I was never ill treated though, all my needs such as they were, were always met. And there was this relentless rhythmic drumbeat, that let me know  I was loved. Even if I could not comprehend how or why.

I got lulled into a sense of security, until suddenly, the world as I knew it was ripped apart, and I was released into the midst of noisy people. Eyes stared at me, hands grabbed at me, my modesty was ignored as I was examined from head to toe. My wails were ignored as I was poked and prodded until someone decided to have pity and gave me clothes to cover up my naked form. I was in a state of shock from all I had gone through, till I realised I could still hear the drumbeat. Not as near as it had been before my release, but near enough to know that I was still loved.

So now, I do as I please. I am living the life, living the dream. All around me are at my beck and call, and I’m loving it.

I am Ebaby, Justjoxy’s new kid on the block, 3 months old. Welcome to my world!