Just like in the movies.

My lovely Friends and Visitors passing through,

Long before I come here where my mother now live, I useta think that this Big International Country got skyscrapers and concrete pavement everywhere, parks and lawn and, well, y'know how they show them fancy places in movies. All swank and swish and stylish like in the Devil Wears Prada. Or colonial-style houses, huge like ten families coulda get lost in them.

And on Hallmark Channel, small town is flowers hanging in baskets on front porches. Little shops with bells at the doors. Wide-open farms, green like the grass on the other side. Even them cows look ready for Vogue Magazine. Romance in the air. Handsome man about to meet gorgeous gal who got she own business baking biscuits or cakes, something sweet. Or flowery. 

Yes, I would see films about small town with board-houses...houses make with wood only. But the truth is, and I bet plenty 3rd world people feel the same, I useta think down-trodden small town was a rare scene in big countries. 

The way them big-shot writers from high-class foreign magazines would write about my lovely native land when they visit, down-talking it, you would believe that small town images in they countries ain't a true-true thing. Paint peeling, window frame need fixing. Men wearing singlet, ladies in wash-out old tee-shirt. Lobster-coloured men sitting on doorsteps, cigrit hanging from the corner o' they mouth; they growling home-truths about life and pain or they cussin' up a stink; the wimmen...I don't remember what wimmen do in them kinda movies, I think they indoors cooking bacon that spattering and sputtering hot oil on the wall. 

This week gone, I pass through small town.

Sunny, blue sky, trees trimblin' in light wind, a bird call trillin' through. Plenty-plenty land with bush and trees with vine weaving everything together. 

I woulda been happy if I wasn't going to do routine blood test. Or as they say in these parts, blood work.

I woulda see more details if I wasn't worrying that I gon faint from fear and horror.

But I manage to set up a collage o' cliches in me headspace. Paint peeling, oh wait, what paint, the po' shack need paint. Planks on building slipping down. No business happening. Shops lock up, board up. A shell of a house so ole, the jumbies haunting the jumbies.

Then suddenly, there, apartments on a hilly slope, just like in Jamaica in the touristy areas, across from the water. You could feel the wealth and happiness like it was you' own. And in the middle of all this wealth, a dark blue bulk of a building with Van Gogh starry nights. For some reason, maybe cos I been going for blood test, it look a li'l gloomy.

I didn't see a single soul on the way to the clinic. Not one single singlet or bacon.

Another day, I gon tell you about the gyaff...conversation...with the taxi driver.

Watch this space. 

Have a lovely week, me friends. Wherever you go, no matter how simple, even if is just outside you' home, enjoy the view. Stare on the tall grass, check out the sky. 

Plenty lurve, neena.

Lovely things.

My dear Friends, visitors and anyone peeking in here,

The heatwave is hot and life been a li'l hot too. 

Words in me dry-up like flowers in extreme fire-temperature. 

I need a little bit o' water in me soul to refresh.

I gon go and listen to music, read blogs, maybe listen to a BBC radio drama with my mother.

Take care of you. Eat good food, drink plenty cool water and savour the blessings. Plenty love, neena xx

P.S. I been looking through pictures on me phone and spot some o' these goodies me cousins did bring for we. The Ottmar Liebert hoodie (merch which I promptly name Ottmerch) is mine! 

Insurance.

My dear lovely friends and all visitors,

Today,

This letter to you here today is blank.

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Want to know why?

The Mer'can health insurance system got me flummoxed. I don't cuss, but I feel the thoughts in me head creating ruckus like Jonathan Pie. 

I want to know who in the name o' Sam and Miss Mary-Ann down by the riverside (doing bad things) come up with this idea of insurance and terminology to caffuffle the citizens.

It is like paying to join a' exclusive club. If you in the right club, and doctors accept you, welcome, sweetie, please be seated, we will attend to you with all the love of money that we can muster. Unfortunately, me friends, if you in de boondocks, you can spend days, weeks, grow corn on you' tail-end searching for a doctor to accept you' type o' insurance. In the meantime, you can't get care til you find a physician to remove the corn that you grow on the said tail-end. If you lucky to stumble upon one o' these sacred healers, they gon embrace you like a lover 'cause they see dollars when they lay they eyes on you.

But honey-chile, if you ain't got no insurance, you's a piece o' cheese wash-up on the shores o' Katahar. In the language o' me lovely native land, even though katahar is a vegetable, it can also mean you ain't got nothing.

I's in the catogery o' them who got a nice li'l insurance, but in de boondocks I can't find a doctah who would accept me into they club and lavish me with love. 

When I do find one, I hope he or she is well worth the wait and is good-lookin' like Hugh You-Know-Who from Down Unda or Miss Nicole. And it is okay, they ain't got to hug me up, they can just give me medical care, I's a' easy-going gyal, I gon settle for small mercies.

To be honest, I ain't care if the doctah is Shrek self, as long as he can do he medical work.

So yeah, today, me email is blank.

Nothing to say.

Y'all take good care o' you, eat you' veggies and fruits and drink water, dance and sleep and read a nice book. Plenty love, neena maiya.

Born in Bollywood.

My lovely Friends and visitors passing through,

Y'know whaz more dramatical than a' offspring who don't believe the Parent? (Yes, thaz me, I admit without shame, thaz me, the offspring of all Offsprings.)

You know whaz more hyperbolly than that?

The Parent who wuz born in Bollywood.

No, wait, y'all don't call me Bad Daughter and cancel me and leave me in the woods, please *bear* with me. Whoa...this bear-pun fall nice-nice into place, you gon see later on.

Now, I don't know if y'all know this or not...my Parent can take a tale and stretch it mo' tall than Jack beanstalk. When she done with the tale, you ain't gon recognise one bean of truth. 

Like the time a streak o' breeze back home blow with the power of Category Half. According to the Parent, the wind lift a man up by he ankles, good thing he been holding on to a light post on the street corner.

Soon after, I hear she telling people that the wind hoist the man up from he knees.

Later, the wind raise he from he waist.

No, actually, the man been flying from he shoulders, hanging on to the post, flapping like a flag.

Y'see now, Friends? 

Y'all see why I does tell the Parent that she wuz born in Bollywood, home of hyper-drama and emotions?

See now why I does doubt the truth of observations she bring home?

Time and distance ain't change nothing.

Here me is with the Parent in this foreign land of Florider and...

...last Tuesday, the Parent return home from a gentle morning amble.

"Something wrong with Grey," she announce. "Grey on the lawn, cloak-up into heself, he look like he ain't want to talk to a soul. He hardly glance at me when I call he. He look one second and turn away so, quick-quick."

"Nothing ain't wrong with he," I scold. "You watch too much Bollywood. I swear you born there."

"I telling you, something wrong with Grey."

I dismiss the Parent concern for the Friendly Cat across the road and continue me Important Daughterly act of fixing breakfast. 

But that wasn't the end of that.

The next day, J, the owner of Grey the Friendly Cat, catch up on my Bollywood P. as she was strolling slow and merrily, tra-la-ee.

First thing that pop out from the Parent is: "J, what's wrong with Grey?"

J. say, "For days, he went missing. I couldn't find him anywhere, then I thought, he'll come home, he always does. But when he came home, he was behaving very strange. He'd just sit there, huddled, not eating. He looks as though something had scared him really badly."

"I wonder what happened," me mother say.

"I've been asking around," J. say. "I found out that there's a black bear in the area, and Grey had a tussle with it."

Oh dear.

Thaz all I got to say, dear Friends.

Have a wonderful week, look out for daughters with sheepish grins, plenty lurve, neena.