The new gold.

Auntie H. stand at we gate, telling me and ma how many bags of it she buy. She describe it so well, shiverrrrs of envy run through me. We decide immediately to buy plenty, plenty bags of it too, instead of the odd bag now and then.

Look at this, eh, I marvel, it used to be a lowly thing that people scoff at, turn up they nose when they see it on we streets. Now, high demand make it disappear quicker than if Sir Walter Raleigh did find gold in El Dorado.

The real value of it come to me thanks to the experience four months ago.

I spot it one afternoon, fresh, new, on the driveway of a house we had for rent. Nobody ain’t gon want it, I say. When it dry, I gon take it.

I wait.

Kids’ nation move in two houses across the road - don’t see no grown-ups, only two little boys, about nine and ten years old, raking and sweeping cut grass on the parapet, wheeling a barrow. Next day there they been again, rakin’ an’ sweepin’ another section of the parapet. Supervising them, in a li'l pram nearby, was a li’l baby with he hair do-up in tiny cane-row plaits.

Some days later I decide the time was right. I go with bucket, spade and gloves and…

…gone!

The thing gone.

Cow dung is the new gold!

I wonder what the value is on Wall Street, what with people going green, eco- and trying to save dollars not buying toxic no more.

Ain't never too late to learn...

Cousin Lis send me this link so that I can keep on hoping wayyyyy into me nineties…

Well! Live and learn. I never know that writer’s C.V. is different.

Something to think about too, I read it about four or so years ago, and it stick with me:

"We have to accept that most people spend their lives doing jobs that they do not enjoy and that are often dangerous or unhealthy, badly paid and insecure. The world does not owe us a good living just because we want to be writers." Ken Methold in Writing as a Business.

ATTENTION!!!

Flitting...

flitting....

from channel to channel...

I light upon this little ad last night on

local tee vee:


ATTENTION!!!

All beekeepers for sale.


Couldn’t follow the rest of the ad below,

the writing been a tad pale and small and

fuzzy...something about ‘standerd hives'

and other ‘standerd’ beekeeping

things for sale...beesides, I been too buzzzily

drinking in that one li'l line, thinking,

what kinda beekeeper I would buy...


What kind you would buy, dear readers?

Merrily, merrily shall I leave now (oops, sorry Shakespeare...)

Little lizard...

...on the floor, please don’t bite me toe.

Little grey lizard, two inches, you look so scary at night with you stripy black tail.

Shoo, g’wan, go on, go ‘way. When me was a li’l gyal, people say that if a lizard bite me, it ain’t letting go ‘til thunder roll.

But the way things goin’ with this weather, it don’t look like no boomin’ and rollin’ in the sky gon happen soon…so go on, find you own home, leave me alone.

Ha, I know, I know, I can squash you with one toe. But fears, me dear, ain’t that easy to un-learn, and in one weak second can return quick and burn.

Psst, little grey lizzie, I ain’t really scared o’ you, was just the memory of fear trying to come back, taunting me...but if you want the truth, I rather be nervous around you than be afraid of things like...



...awk...go awayyyy...

Ladies living in proper places.

Ladies living in proper places don’t weed or trim plants and dig earth at 6:30 a.m. They especially don’t dig outside the garden wall, facing the road where every soul - security guards, gardeners and maids - traversing through can see and reveal shock on they faces, Yahhh, look at she working like a common labourer.

And ladies living in proper places most definitely don’t stop to gyaff…chat…with the fella come to town to work for Boss. How me Boss mean. He does rent plenty houses and he got business in town too, yet he always ah cry for money, he never got any, he always owe me. He say how things hard and he wife always want things, she want this, she want that. Them rich people nah got conscience, me got two children to mind.

The Boss does live with he wife in a proper place. Bet you she don’t sweep yard with coconut broom, wearing raggedy dress so ole that people passing in they proper cars think she is a beggar gyal who get a li’l job for the day.

Job? Oooh, filthy, shush you mouth gyal. Ladies living in proper places don’t do such things, they don’t teach, do nursing or other such dirty deeds. They sole purpose in life is to cater to they husbands needs, run the house, keep it pretty, provide the meals…some ladies got a troop to follow they orders if they husbands rich enough.

Ladies and they husbands in proper places absolutely do not paint they outdoor house walls themselves like what Neighbour and she hubby do. Ladies in proper places can’t say, like what Neighbour does say, I really don’t care about what people think. (Neighbour say if she had to drive a’ ice-cream van to support she self, she would).

I mostly only know what ladies in proper places don’t do. I really ain’t sure what they do all day to fill the gaps. Maybe they visit beauty salons to manicure they nails so that when they yawn, friends can admire.

Business as usual?

“Which one of you made my mother angry the other day?” I ask.

Sheepish smile twitch-twitch on the pale, open and friendly face of the nice guy collecting me payment. Wasn’t he who been rude though.

I know who the rude one was, he been rude to me at one time too but embarrassment did make me let it slide. There he is standing, titivating at computer, back turned to we. Only nice thing about he is he sleek, straight blue-black hair, excuse for narcissism, I bet.

“Oh man, she went home fuuuuuming,” I continue. I shouldn’t tease the nice guy like this, he is friendly, polite. But mischief is me li’l dog with a wagging tail, following me everywhere.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he collect me money and try to hurry away politely, leave me grinning.

The whole joke start one Saturday morning after we been to market then to pay a bill. Too early, I say, let we wait in the car. El Nino sun make we skin feel like it melting. People waiting outside the office door. I leave the car, chat with them. They quarrel about the erratic opening times of this business. Nine a.m. now. Mummy, let we go home, I say.

Monday my mother return. “What sort of sloppy business are you boys running? You really need to shape up, be more professional. Quite a few customers were out here waiting on Saturday morning.”

She musta ruffle the ego of the sleek hair fella. “We work late the Friday night before so we come in late the next morning!” he say in a defiant tone.

Reenacting the encounter for me, my mother put on she angry elderly person speaking to rude young man voice. “When you’re running a business, you have to be considerate towards your customers, you can’t have them waiting like that...it’s not their fault that you worked late, you must make some sort of arrangement to meet their needs, people plan their day, they have other business to do.”

My mother talking fast-fast now. Awrite, calm down, take it easy, I say, but she too worked up. “You know what that arrogant wretch say to me? You can’t come here and tell people how to run their business. I say, listen to me young man, don't tell ME about business. I ran a business once, I know about running a business and working late. I used to work until midnight sometimes but I was up at dawn to make sure that the store was opened on time for customers. I couldn’t open whenever I chose and inconvenience them. Haven’t you heard of something called options? Customers can go elsewhere.”

She pause to get the timing just right. “Haven’t you heard that the customer is always right?"

“What he say?” I ask.

“He just back away, he ain’t say nothing. The nice one say, awright, awright, sorry about that…”

Shake It Baby.

Downstairs this mornin’, germinatin’ plant seeds, frettin’ quietly about this melt-down goin’ around, how it gon affect we the people in Guyana, who gon buy me craft, and so on and so forth and to and fro.

Kah-ching. Money, it’s a hit…thank you Pink Floyd, as if I never know that.

Mother in the laundry room, washin’ machine goin’, Ah-wekeh wekeh wekeh wekeh…

Walkin’ past, small shovel in me hand, dirt in me nails, oh man, get that washin’ machine riddim, Ah-wekeh wekeh wekeh wekeh…ah know ah heard it somewhere before…ah wekeh wekeh wekeh weh…yeah, yeah, John Lee Hooker…Shake it baby…

Y’know what, for now, this minute, ain’t goin’ to let them woes spread all over me head, down to me toes, freezing me with fear…

Shake it baby, wooooahhh yeah…

The thief-man business.

“Oh bleddy hell, now I know why some people prefer to steal,” I grumble to meself after digging up earth and mole-ing up plants in we garden. Leg muscles scream, hands and fingers complain. Though is just seven a.m. sweat pour from me like fountain...I swear I coulda just stand there and water we Amazon-jungle garden. “Thief-man work is so much easier, all you got to do is sit in the shade and watch while other people work, then you just tiptoe in and take what you want.”

Even though I know it is true, true story that some watch while you labour in the heat, then they sneak in cool, cool and reap, somewhere at the back o’ me mind I been thinking that nobody... nooooobady... gon be that brazen enough to admit that.

Heh.

Yesterday I get straightened out on that one.

Sitting at we dining table, drinking me cuppa tea, reading the papers, I come upon a piece that make me splutter.

“Wahaha, y’all hear this, y’all hear this…” My mother is in the verandah picking chaff from masala spices, Rehana cleaning we fridge.

“A man thief three carpets from a shop and when he go to court, he holler out, Oh God, I guilty, I guilty, I is a shoplifter. And when the judge ask he why he thief, he say he got plenty chil’ren to feed and people don’t hire he because he look like a Rasta. And one time, when he been working somewhere, some people who (according to he) look like priest steal but he get accused. What a lazy bum. Why he don’t cut he hair and get work to feed he chil’ren?”

“Work, he don’t want to work,” my mother say.

Rehana say, “G, last week I read this one in the papers…a man get ketch thiefing, and when the judge ask he why he do it, he say he got plenty, plenty chil’ren to feed…and he can’t do hard work.”

Ow. I wish a bowlful o’ cherry tomatoes would just fall into me lap…which is what one thief say happen when he get ketch with a bag o’ money……