Makina Loca. pt 1

Last night I went to see one of my favorite bands - Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca. It was amazing.


They did 2 sets. The first was on the big main stage. Of course I couldn't sit still, so I was up dancing around. There was a woman sitting near me who was boppin' in her seat...next thing I know, she was up dancing with me. She and I became fast friends and we danced the mess out of that set. I did it up so hard that I had to buy a dry t-shirt for the next set.

The second set was in a more intimate setting. Before the second set, the trombonist came over to us and introduced himself. Once again, the band was on point and we ended up dancing for two hours straight.

By the time I got home, my body felt like someone had beat it with a bat. It was worth it.

This is a limited recap as it's early in the morning and I am still tired. More details - and pictures will be posted later.

The NMF are coming in this afternoon, if I don't post before then, I'll post next week.

Reality

I got my severance check today. Paid off three credit cards. Set aside rent for the next few months. Paid back some relatives. Now it's living lean until the next big thing kicks off.

I've lived lean before and can do so now. Lots of lentils and brown rice.

The truth is that this is part of the adventure. Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Etiquette

As this was a gym related incident, I was tempted to blog about it only on my weight loss blog. However, etiquette is an utterly fab topic...so here goes:

Gym Etiquette:

If you choose to go the gym first thing in the morning, do us all a favor and hit your pits and crevices with some soap and water before you workout. Night funk combined with gym funk is not fair.

This morning, I got on the elliptical trainer and began my workout. I purposely decided not to workout next to the chick who looked like she swam in her own sweat. Besides my fear of being sprinkled with residual moisture, she just looked like she had that good workout smell.

Instead, I picked a machine next to the dry sistah who was barely doing anything because she was too distracted by her book and the TV. About a minute into the workout, this wave of funk hit me like Mike Tyson did Robin Givens. Nasty butt stinky funk that caused my gag reflexes to kick in. It was coming from the dry sistah on the machine next to me. It was so bad that I had to leave her vicinity with the quickness. I ended up working out on another floor.

Nasty ass woman!

Moral of the story: There's always time for a ho bath.

But I guess that this is payback for what I did to that kid on the L.

True story....
About 5 years ago, I was on the L headed home. I had just started a new diet that increased my fiber input and my gas output. On a crowded train, my stomach started rumbling. I tried as hard as I could to hold it in until I got off. One stop before mine, nature took its course and I let out a silent but deadly. I thought I was safe because the train had pretty much emptied out. Little did I know that there was a kid standing right behind me.

He didn't scream or yell. He just walked around me and looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "Why lady? Why?".

WHY?

House of Payne is still on the air...just a hop skip and jump to "Mantan the New Millenium Minstrel Show"

Choices

I have to tell the NMF that I'm not going to Hilton Head with them for the resort vacay. In the grand scheme of things, it's too expensive from a time and money perspective. I will get to see them when they come this weekend. We'll have a great time.

Today's to do list:
Meet with my former manager today to check in with him and talk about Peace Corps
Complete draft of one essay
Find my volunteer reco
Clean the house for the NMF
Have a good day

The really reals...

Yeah, so I've still retained some of the corporate vernacular. What's a girl to do?

Today is the day that I officially begin heading towards the next horizon and I've made some decisions:

1. Want to leave the US
2. Want to help people
3. Willing to do 1&2 while speaking a foreign language

So how does a most fab chick make this happen? That's still in the works. However, my benevolent former employer has given me "retraining" money. I'm going to head over to Berlitz and bone up on my Spanish and my French....if there's enough dough left over, I'm also going to look at going to some conferences and learing Portuguese.

Right now I am at a most awesome independet coffee shop trying to intelligently articulate my pimp job on my resume. Not only does this place have free WiFi, they have an addictive drink called a Mexican Latte - chocolate, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Those who know me well know that I like a little caliente kick to go with my chocolate (double entrendre intended). If I were going to stay in this burg and were going to buy a house, I would do so in the neighborhood where this coffee shop calls home, but that's another story for another day....

Back to making it happen. I have a meeting with my old manager tomorrow to talk about a reco for the Peace Corps. Don't freak out, the Peace Corps is recruitng MBAs to do NGO advising and business development assignments. Although a fab chick is not opposed to digging the occasional ditch, she knows that her strenghs lie elsewhere.

Getting down to business

It's been about a month since I left the pimp job...so it's time to really dig into the work needed to get on with the new path. Little things, like getting dressed, make a big difference in my productivity.

It's only 12:30 PM and I have worked out, worked on an application, gone to Costco, gone to the grocery store and fixed/ate lunch. This afternoon, I have to do some research.

On a slightly different topic, last night I dreamed that I got married. I was wearing a beautiful gown (ivory constructed bodice...couldn't really see the bottom). My groom was a guy that I met in college...we only knew each other one semester and then he transferred to another school. His brother was the best man and my mother walked me down the aisle. It was a beautiful wedding.

The groom waited until the day of the wedding to get his tux. As I was walking to the venue, I saw him coming out in jeans and a polo shirt. I asked him if everything was okay and he looked the other way and said he had to go see a man about a dog. That made me really worried.

When it was time to walk down the aisle, I was really nervous - part of me was wondering if he would be there. There were these beautiful white gossamer curtains that marked the entrance to the aisle. Once the curtains were pulled back, Mommy and I began to walk down the aisle (she gave me away). She was wearing a fab gold suit. Anyway, I saw my groom at the end of the aisle and my heart soared. He had the biggest Kool-Aid smile on his face. Not sure what happened at the rest of the wedding...the dream fast forwarded to a months later when I ran into someone I knew and showed her the wedding ring.

According to the dream dictionary, this dream signfies a few things:
1. Coming together of 2 different sides of my personality
2. Recognition of the strength and beauty of my femine side
3. Spiritual rewards, richness, refinement and enhancement of your surroundings.
4. The wholeness of the Self; finding clarity in matters that have been clouding me

Interestingly enough, the weakest theme to come across in the dream was my desire to get married.

Purge

Still moving towards my next great adventure.

Right now I am in purge mode. Old clothes and other stuff I don't use/need is being donated to charity. Exercise and good nutrition will take care of the excess fat. Positive reinforcement to deal with old habits.

On the road again...

Off to hang with the grandmother and then down South to chill with Mommy. I won't be posting until I get back.

Have a fab week!

Blazing my path in this world

This morning, I turned on the TV and there was a commercial on for the Peace Corps. The tagline was "What if this is your calling?". Interesting. I went online to look up Peace Corps info sessions - there's one in my part of the world next week...and the focus is mid-career professionals. Even more interesting. For the last few weeks, I've been praying for guidance and direction. Maybe this is divine direction. I'll definitely check it out.

Just got off the phone with J-dub. She's been living in Jo'burg for the past few years doing her thing. So much fun talk with her. She had some sage advice about what to research to help me find my path. Plus, she didn't balk when I said I would like to come visit her. The joke is that whenever there's an issue - people in the family think they can solve it by coming to South Africa. In my case, South Africa was my big international trip for the year (Italy was the little one). Even if I had stayed in my job, I planned to go hang out with her. Right now, I'm looking at August. As an added bonus, I can pick up my World Cup 2010 tickets before they get hella ridiculous. Right now, seats are going for < US$100 to US$300 for the really good seats.

J-dub asked what it was about the pimpin' that got to me - I can't verbalize it yet. That's probably a sign that I'm not quite ready for interviews. She was concerned that it was the stress/pressure level. It's not that I can't handle the stress/pressure...it's the trade off. If what I am doing is worth it, then the stress/pressure is just part of the package that I accept. When I was pimpin', too often I found myself asking "What the freak am I doing this for?" I want to do something where I can still look in the mirror and smile despite the stress/pressure.

Reason #15,245 we can get nowhere as a people

House of Payne

Pimpin' my place on the web

It's hot outside. I'm not feeling particularly motivated to go outside and actually do stuff...although I have a 2 PM appointment to work out.

Decided to mess around with the web and find ways to pimp my blog and my myspace page. So far, I've found a music player and not much else. So while I search the web for more cool stuff, enjoy some tunes on me. BTW - as cheesy as the post reads, it's not a pay for post.

The Makeover Chronicles

This makeover thing has taken a life of its own. So, I've started a weight loss blog. After some reading, I have decided to go back to the scale - not as seriously as before, but its part of the process. And yes, all of my weight ish is on blast for the world to see.

http://supafit.blogspot.com/

Career ish

It has finally hit me that I have no job - not in an "OMG, WTF have I done" way...but in a "Hmm, so this is it' way. I finally slept my way through the comatose feeling and awoke refreshed and ready to face the world. It's a gorgeous day outside and as soon as the cable guy leaves, I'm going out grocery shopping. If I didn't know better, I would swear it were Saturday.

However, I have done a little "career" stuff - took the Birkman test to help my identify my ideal career. The results were predominantly bull-ish. There's a section in the test where you have to choose, all things being equal, which jobs you would prefer. However, the test is skewed. Instead of learning from your answers, it just presents random sets of choices. Mine were always like this "accountant, singer, songwriter, actuary". I always leaned towards the musical ones. Another set of choices were like this "surgeon, magazine editor, reporter, forester" - I leaned towards magazine editor and reporter. However, I never received a question that looked like this "singer, songwriter, magazine editor, reporter"....nor did I receive more than one question that had any marketing related jobs (i.e. marketing manager, advertising manager) and only once did it list actor. So, according to this test, I need to get my butt in line for the next American Idol auditions, because that's where my passion lies. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

What do I want to do with my life? In an ideal world, something like this - either in South Africa or in South America...not necessaarily with HIV/AIDs clinic, but you get the drift: http://www.vso.org.uk/Images/market_man_kenya_tcm8-10290.pdf

For extra good career ish, I found out that my company has given my $5K in retraining funds. This means I can go to Berlitz and polish up my Spanish so that I can flow like nobody's business and qualify for a job in Mexico, South America or Spain. Mira que cool!

NOLA

The wedding:
The wedding was the best one I've ever attended. It was truly a celebration of the couple. Both of their personalities were reflected in the wedding. It was in a gorgeous location on a beautiful night. At the end of the reception, the bride and groom were led out to their car by a NOLA brass band. The Philly born and bred bride danced her way down the steps of the venue as if she had always been in Louisiana...her husband was right there beside her as friends and family waved them on with white cloths. It was like something out of a movie.

If I had to describe the wedding in one word, it would be joy.

The city:
For the first time ever, I spent most of my time outside of the French Quarter. I never knew it was such a beautiful place. The wide boulevard of Canal - decorated with bright signs and vendors, the small narrow side streets whose tall office buildings offered shade on the winding routes, architecture that has stood the test of time...all reminded me of Harare or Santiago.

A trip out to Metarie took us along an evacuation route. During that same trip, we also came across a neighborhood where people were still living in FEMA trailers. I can't even put into words how it affected me. If I were alone in the car, I would have pulled over and started to cry.

The friends:
My friend who got married is a most awesome woman. She's mad cool, beautiful, intelligent and so much fun to be around. But at the end of the day, she, and her sister, are just good people. I didn't have to think twice about going to her wedding. On top of getting to see her again and being invited to be witness to this important day in her life - I also got to reunite with some other friends I haven't seen in a minute.

The cool thing was that a lot of us hadn't seen each other in a few (maybe 5 or more?) years or had heard about each other only through stories, but when we got together, it was like no time had passed. We cracked jokes, reflected on the past and got excited about the future. Everyone needs to have girlfriends like that.

Fun times all around...at the rehearsal dinner, we listened to old school rap from the 80s and some of us (not yours truly) showed off that they are still skilled in double dutch, while we were sitting in the hotel lobby eating breakfast on the day of the wedding, we were randomly serenaded by an up and coming R&B act, at the wedding, we fell in with the NOLA line dances and shook what our mama gave us, after the wedding, we kicked it at Whiskey Blue and re-enacted dancing scenes from the Jackson 5 cartoon and an 80s Madonna video.

The food:
My friend's husband is local to NOLA. We were fortunate enough to have his mother cook for the rehearsal dinner. She made (from scratch): jambalaya, fried chicken, mac and cheese, red beans and rice, ooey gooey toffee cake, and pound cake PLUS a boil with turkey neck, crawfish, crab, potato and corn. Let me tell you something, turkey neck is more than a seasoning. I tore that sucker up as if my life depended on it. I even did the crawfish thing, although I couldn't bring myself to suck the head. That woman put her big toe, complete with bunion, all up and in that food!

On the one trip I did make to the French Quarter, we went to the Market Cafe for po' boys. I had a shrimp po' boy. [Insert Homer Simpson impression here]

The NOLA Report - Part 1

Got back from NOLA last night. I'm tired, but it was well worth it.

The weekend was so much fun.

A short recap -

The secret to a good wedding is true joy and the freedom to express it.
True friendships stand the test of time and geography.
Philly is calling my name.
Turkey necks are not just for seasoning any more.
Much love to NOLA, despite the street signage.
Grace is officially in the same league as the nieces most fab.
A 30% return on your bet is a good day at Harrah's.
Am I really still in the States?