Key West and X-Men 3: The Last Stand

Over the weekend, the most likely final "X-Men" movie was released. Didn't make it to the opening night but even two days after the movie was opened, it was a sold out crowd in the cinema. Boy was it good! It was even better than the opening night of "The DaVinci Code!" this was one must-see, awesome, fantastic movie. or maybe i am an X-Men fanatic. yeah, i have seen all three of them plus the numerous cartoons they had in my teenage years. It's been almost ten years since those cartoon days and seeing the movie was surely refreshing. Hugh Jackman is a stud too. there was no better role for Wolverine. He was sexxxy! Even if the movie was bad, which it wasn't, Hugh Jackman would have aided in putting it to the very good list of 2006 movies. The only character i did not like was Rogue. Her character in the cartoons was more powerful than the movie. She seemed almost insignificant even though her role was suited in the light that there would be some that wanted to fit into human society. However, it was insignificant nontheless, because she played no part in the fight at the end.
Oh, and where was Gambit my boy??????? Missed him and his deck of cards. Beast was awesome! The makeup was fantastic. Famke Jansen did her best performance since the beginning as Jean Grey/The Phoenix. She really had me a little worried in the end. I guess i became engrossed in the movie. Maybe it is like that for everyone who watches a movie based on an action comic....you put yourself in the shoes of the superhero. Here, Jean Grey was the class 5 mutant and for a little while, i was drawn into the world of mutants and humans. Magneto and his cohorts rocked this time also. gotta give the bad guys props too. they put up a good fight with the X-Men. Oh and poor, poor Cyclops. he was so sexy to just die like that!=0(
On the whole, GREAT MOVIE!!!!!!!! Two thumbs and two big toes up too to the supercool action movie of the year! Last year, it happened to be "Kong."
Today, it was Memorial Day. Ami woke me up at 8:15am and asked me if i wanted to go to the Keys with him. I think i am addicted to traveling. Any mention of a road trip and i am packed and ready to go! wasn't too sure in the beginning though so i did not decide until about 9:00. i went online, printed out a map that led from my house to Duval street and called him back saying i had the map. we left at 10am. this time, only me and Ami went. The ride to go took almost 4 and 1/2 hours. This is longer than going to St. Augustine but the scenery on the way was a lot prettier. After passing Miami, we travelled on South US1 all the way through the larger Keys until we had reached Key West.
i can see why the residents are urged to leave when there is a hurricane approaching. It looks as if storm waters rise quickly in the Keys. All the houses are built on stilts and it does not look safe at all. some places were so isolated and it seemed as if they were built so close to the open ocean that a hurricane would obliterate it in a matter of minutes. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful sight. It is the Southernmost place in the Continental US.
Ami had never been there and i wanted to see the place again for the historic places. The buildings are old there. It did not seem as if we were in Florida anymore. There was a caribbean feel to the entire Keys and hence, we felt almost at home. I am used to seeing circa 1960 buildings in S.FL but this time, there were old Spanish-style and colonial style houses that dated back to the 1800s. We parked on Duval Street, the most famous street in Key West, and walked to the end of it. At the end, there is the Southernmost house in the US and the very final point of the US. A huge stone was put up marking the place and the number of miles to Cuba. It is 90 miles.
There was a tablet on the stones of the sea wall that paid homage to the many people who lost their lives trying to come to the US from Cuba. Ami and I took pictures there. He seemed more happy than I was. It was too hot for me.
Then we walked to Whitehead and Truman to where the Lighthouse was and we climbed the stairs there. Students get a discount...half the price off. this was so cool! I love being a student! We entered for $5 each!!!The lighthouse was not as fascinating nor as tall as the St. Augustine lighthouse but it was nevertheless beautiful. From there, we had a really beautiful view of the entire surroundings...No we did not see Cuba though! Inside the Lighthouse museum and keeper's house, there was some really old writings, paintings, magazines and even the wedding dress that the keeper's wife wore at her wedding. It was real hand woven lace! Then there was this room that seemed like a room from the early 1900s with an old sewing machine, some chairs, a glass cabinet and a piano. there were old records of the famous people who lived in the Keys at the time also. It was something that made me appreciate the history behind the buildings and places there. It definitely looked like a warmer and less shaded Savannah, Georgia.....with the beaches of course!
Obliquely opposite the lighthouse is Ernest Hemmingway's house. it is really big with a Caribbean flair to it. it is definitely tropical and it suits the Keys. On seeing his house and the land around it with all the trees, Ami said to me, " seriously, why would he kill himself if he had all this?" i guess it is the rich people who are most depressed....and to couple it with his writing and involvement in the Spanish civil war, i guess he must have had some problems. it is one of Key West's haunted houses i believe. while we were standing outside, looking in, I overheard a tour guide telling his passengers that it is one of the two houses in all of Key West that has a basement. Didn't get the name of the other house.
On the way to Key West, we passed many less famous Keys and we traveled over water and many bridges. There were places on the side of the road that people could stop off and swim in the water there. The beaches are all calm. Too calm, i think. My idea of a beach is a place where there is surf and sand....maybe i should be in California! Really, the only time there are waves really is when there is a hurricane approaching. But nevertheless, it did not stop us from wanting to be in the water rather than watching it. We are, after all, originally from an island too! I guess it is my weakness. we didn't walk with any extra clothes though. However, we went to one of the local Walgreens and i got some beach clothes and a towel. Was all excited but on the way back, i realized that it was going to rain soon and if it did, lightning would surely be striking the water. Opted to not be fried so we just drove back. Bummer! Ended up buying chinese which was really really good then took the FL turnpike all the way back until we got home. It cut the drive through Miami considerably.
In the end, Ami told me that he liked the trip a lot but we both agreed that we would rather drive North than drive through Miami. I guess we are used to Miami and we like seeing new things. For Ami, this was new. for me, it was something Ami needed to see to be able to understand what i talked about when i said i had been to the very last place in the continential US. I did have a lot of fun though...and we never stopped talking all the way and when we weren't talking, we were singing. for less than $100, we saw the very end of the US, including the historic as well as island parts of it. that included gas money at about $2.79/gallon. If we had taken our fishing rods, we could have caught a lot of fishes. don't quite know what i would do with that though....the Key's are a great place to fish. there's lots of game. Once again, i enjoyed myself and i have a beautiful tan to show for it!

Chivalry or simply a nice gesture

I work alone for most of the day on Fridays. Today, i had a customer come in to buy something i really do not remember now. Anyway, about two hours after he returned and he asked me if i wanted to see something creative so i said, "okay." he went back to his car and then he came back in with a little bouquet of flowers all tied up with a green ribbon. they were so pretty. he said that when he came earlier, seeing me made his day so he thought he would return the gesture. let me tell it, these are really fragrant roses! there's a peach one, a red one, and white one and a bunch of red ixora flowers in the bouquet. my only problem now is ami.....he tends to get a little jealous;)

Moving on.....

There comes a time in every person's life that one realizes that the job one occupies no longer proves to be a challenge. When that time comes and the realization dawns, one must act quickly for the moment may become lost forever. life offers a person opportunties for growth and if they are not taken when the opportunity presents itself, it may very well be a long time before there is another such time. I think i am coming up to that point where i am realizing that i need to move on. I am seeing that if i do not act soon, i will remain where i am for a while to come. I cannot afford to do that so I've resolved to filling out my professional resume now and posting it on monster.com. it was actually furgie's advice but i was also thinking and i realized that i need to work in my field or in something that is not retail related. it's funny how one always ends up in a job one hates in the beginning of one's career. like me, i hated business. i understand it but the whole idea of getting rich off people didn't sit right with me. maybe, it's just my experience with the business field but it is enough for me to not want to be involved in the retail business anymore.
so, sometime at the beginning of june, i will post my resume and wait to be called for an interview.
there was one other thing that pushed me to compile my resume.
laila was my last reason for staying at my present job. i've worked there for almost four years now and it is a little accomplishment for me to know that i've stayed in the same job for that long time...especially since i was so young when i started there. at least i know i have tons of patience! laila was too quiet and i felt that she would have been overworked if i had left when furgie left. now, laila will leave in three weeks. she is going back to venezuela. i guess she reached the point where she could not take it anymore. she was not challenged by the job she was in and i understand that. her degree is one of venezuelan law and it is only applicable in venezuela. i know if she returns to her country, she will make it and live comfortably without having to work as hard as she does here.
initially, laila was supposed to leave in october but she's decided to leave sometime in the middle of june. i am very sad about the whole thing but i know it is for her and her family's best interest. i would want the best for her. she is like a second sister now. -----furgie will kill me for saying that. i know when laila leaves, it will take a monumental effort out of me to go back there. i know i will not stay much longer after her. i will miss her a lot. we have had some very interesting conversations together. not gossip, but conversations on rather intelligent topics. she is a very smart person.
my tutoring with the kid ended too. i am a little relieved. nah, i lied, i am very relieved. i sought advice from several people who were tutors themselves and they told me that if the kid was not showing interest then it made no sense to waste my time. i realized that i was doing that all along. in the end though, the kid did manage to raise his grade but i was not happy at all. i felt as if i were to give him an exam on all that i taught him, he would fail miserably. this depressed me further. but i learnt how valuable time was though...especially when it was not only my time involved but other people's time also.
i guess i cannot feel sorry for the bosses anymore. for all of us who have stayed there for more than a year, we know how they are. and i've reached the point where i am ready to tell them goodbye and good riddance. ami can tell anyone that the adjective i use the most when describing the job is "sucky." there are too many things that i am remembering that happened over the four years that i've spent there and i looked past them. now, they are coming back all at once....not only about my experiences but about all the other employees who i saw come and go there and now, i think it is my turn to watch myself leave...for my own sake.




PS: Calvin always has a face for every emotion....right now, my boy calvin and i share the same face.

St. Augustine, Fla, Da Vinci Code opening night, and sexual predators.....

On May 15th, Ami and I made it to three years together. We didn't really celebrate anything on the day in self because it was a Monday and we both had to work the next day. Laila was on vacation that week so i covered her shift. It meant that for four days out of the five i work, i opened the store. Not that i wanted to, but i figured that i wanted Laila to have fun with her family without having to worry about anything at work. I hope she did. I know for the first two days, she probably had a lot of rain....which is no fun at Disney=0). In the morning, i look forward to hearing all about her adventures.
maybe i get vacation happy too. whenever i hear other people are on vacation, i like taking little trips for myself. On our anniversary, I made up a little fib and I had Ami going along with it until the very last minute. I did not buy him a present because i know that jewelry would be something he would wear for a few days and then take off and put aside. I wanted him to have something to remember so i told him that i had gotten him tickets to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum in St. Augustine. where i found that idea that quickly, i still do not know. There's a little belief that circles around that when you do not plan something, you have a lot more fun. I've realized that. Very rarely, we will decide something more than a week before. Up until Friday night, ami wasn't sure that he was going to go because it was a long trip for only two people and we needed an extra person. we like having company on long trips....for the driver's sake. i really insisted though.
on saturday morning, i called ami around 7:15 am and he was just waking up. at 7:30 he called me back and said that we were leaving at 8:30. furgie woke up at 8:00 and said that she would go also so our trip was on. the museum was awesome! we spent almost two hours in there looking at really cool artifacts and freak-like "believe it or not" stuff. it was something to see! after, we went to the St. Augustine Lighthouse and we climbed all the 219 stairs to the top and beheld a really breathtaking view of the entire surroundings. it was a really hard climb though and i realized i was more afraid of falling down the stairs than falling from the top of the lighthouse! after, we took a cruise around the historic district. it lasted for about an hour and a half but ami and furgie were having a lot of fun. we went to the castillo de san marcos after, a spanish fort, and then finally we walked over to the st. augustine cathedral and took pictures on the grounds. mass was finished for the day so we ended up peeping through the door to get a look at inside the church. st. augustine is definitely a place i would visit again. it is a beautiful city; very old and well preserved. the architecture is amazing also.



On Friday night, i stood in line and waited to get in the cinema to see "The Da Vinci Code." It was a very well made movie. followed very closely to the book. ami and nan really liked the movie also. i have never seen the cinema as packed as it was on that night. at the end of the movie, people applauded. i think i ruined the surprise by reading the book first. nan told me that she was genuinely surprised at the climax of the movie. that's when i knew i had ruined the surprise. well, at least furgie is reading the book now....and taking notes too. Earlier in the day, a lady gave me a book that disproved events and things in the original novel. i thought that it was a cheap response to the novel and the little book was a poor attempt at fighting something that was not meant to be fought. it was almost like taking offence where there was no offence. a catholic told me: "so what if Jesus had a wife? it would be more believable for me as a human." my opinion is a little bit different but it is definitely not a movie for narrow minded or indoctrinated people.
Finally, there was a trinidadian guy that was arrested for being a sexual predator about two weeks ago. Apparently, he thought that the "14 year old girl" he was chatting with was really a police officer. now, that is a serious criminal offence in the US. In other countries, these criminals get off easily but not here. it is a label that stays with one for life....very much like the scent of a skunk. sexual predators are arrested on an almost daily basis here but the thing that made this one stand out was that he showed up naked at the "girl's" house with a can of whipped cream....apart from the fact that he went to the same school as we did and he used to come in the store from time to time to buy books. Jeezum crow! i had a good laugh even though it was so serious. the newspaper described that he wanted her to do some kind of bizarre sexual act with her cat too. my cousin sent the story to me. now, my cousins play alot and in the title box, he wrote: "here kitty kitty kitty kitty." i guess if my cousin didn't do that, it would have been a rather embarrassing thing for our entire trini community here since we are so little in south fla. on top of being embarrassed, this guy is naked at the house and he sees a male police officer and he tells the officer to leave and not to interrupt him. i guess it took him a while to realize that he was being caught. so after all that, the officers took his mugshot with him nude. really, i feel no pity for him. of all the women that he could possibly find to talk to, he looks for a fourteen year old child! there is no excuse for that. they aren't even developed properly...physically or mentally! so i guess marvin lakhan will be branded with a new name for life.....sexual predator.

The Memorial Stone

In the north campus of Broward Community College, between the science and admissions building, there is a section of landscaping that has become part of what that little school is. Three years ago, there was a small tree planted there. the tree was not durable enough and died so in place, there was a series of concentric circles placed around a stone that bore the name "Darshit Patel" in English letters and in his native Gujrati letters. After tutoring on Saturday, i walked from the library towards the bookstore in BCC. on my way to the bookstore, i saw the admissions building where the clubs used to be. I remembered going in there for our meetings with our very own Desi SPICE club. Well the club dissolved and it seems as if everything around those two years pretty much dissolved. There is a bunch of people who went to school at that time who are only connected by the memories of Darsh. at times, we even forget that many of us got our associates degrees in the same year. whenever we meet, we know that we are only friends because Darsh was our friend and we all feel as if he was just as close to us as he was to the other. I looked at the stone and i thought to myself that the school, being a two-year college, will not have the students that were there three years ago. therefore, the new bunch of students will pass this stone everyday and not know the face that went along with this name. they will never know that a smile was such a valuable thing especially when it came from the face of Darsh. a smile on darsh started at his lips and it lit his whole face up. he was always so happy. these students in the school will never know why it was so necessary to have that stone placed there. many of us, especially the members of the various clubs at the time, were joined like family. when Darsh died, we felt it as if we had lost a member of our little family. I remember the fun times we had in those cubicles....trying to finish up some last minute homework and still partying at the same time with the other club members. having that stone there is very much like having a tombstone without a body buried below. it reminds us that Darsh's presence once lighted up our lives and even after he is gone, the stone still reminds us of his very contagious smile. i think of it and even now, i smile. the attached picture was the picture taken of him by his friends in the International Club. it was the picture used for his funeral and the one that reminded us the most of him and how he always looked.

Wonders of Old Friendships

I cannot remember the last time i spent two hours and a half on the phone talking to anyone. not even ami. usually, with ami, the conversations are short, five minute conversations that involve a little talk about how the day is going and what we are doing at the moment. and we do that anywhere between 15 and 20 times a day. i guess after people get married, that number dwindles down significantly. my excuse, i am still young and courting...if they still use that word! anyway, i spoke with my high school friend today. i've known him for 12 years now and we've been friends for about 10 out of those 12 years. really, it is a friendship that will last well into our lives. i can see that. since he moved to the US, i havent really spoken to him on the phone but today i was looking through my phone. i wanted to talk to someone who had known me for a long time but who wasn't related to me or someone other than ami. there are three people. two girls and him. ended up calling him because he was the only one i knew would be awake at 11:30.
I got off the phone sometime after two. it was a long talk and a much needed one. when i began the conversation, i was a little sad. i hung up feeling as if i were a desert traveller who was just given gatorade! i felt that we had drifted but when we spoke tonight, we spoke of things we never told each other when we lived in trinidad. we spoke of our childhoods and we remembered some of the things we did when we went to school. we discussed a photograph we had taken, one with him, my other friend and me, and how we were such geeks....we had a really good laugh. in the photograph, we are doing bunny ears over the girl's head but he is so tall that his entire hand showed up over her head and my fingers didn't reach over her head in time so i came out making the peace sign in the pic. it was hilarious. back then i used to wear a headband and my big forehead was really prominent too. he told me that he showed that picture to a friend and his friend could not stop laughing. tonight i could not stop laughing. i realized that even when you are in a relationship, you tend to neglect your closest friends while making the new interest closer to you. eventually, the new interest will know you best but it is ever so important to remember these old friends. they are the ones who knew you before. they will love you for everything and the only bonds are the bonds of friendship. there is no limit on friendship and what you can talk about with a good friend. that is what i needed. we talked about everything possible. he even helped me see eye to eye with the little problems i have with ami. see, a real friend will never leave you no matter how many phonecalls you fail to return or make, for that matter, but an acquaintance will leave. i guess i have a few real friends. i count my blessings. there are many people who have none.
with an old friend, a friend you meet in your early years, you have the opportunity to watch each other grow up mentally and physically. it is a really fun thing to do when you think back of the things you did, the games you played, when you used to hold each other's hands and walk around the school and no one thought anything of it. or as with the guy, how much fun things we did and skipping school, going to after school lessons, going to the movies, joking around, etc. in the process of looking at the "then" to the "now," we cannot help but realize that we have grown up also!

"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown

There has been much to talk about since this book was written. All of a sudden, everyone is talking about a big conspiracy and the Divine Feminine. Really now, Dan Brown only wrote on a topic that was lying out there for a long time. I guess as humans, we needed someone to cause a little confusion about the book before we took the time to read.
Well I bought this book at WalMart for less than $5 and it is one of the best $5 i have ever spent in my life! maybe they should quote that! Not often do we get presented the opportunity to buy something that we are able to soak up as much information from like i was able to from this book. Actually kept the book for a while on my desk before i was able to begin reading it. I was apprehensive at first because i did not know if i was ready to read a book that so many people had a problem with. maybe i was not curious enough. in trinidad, we would say, " i was not in a bacchanalist kinda mood." so anyway, i also told myself when i finally resolved to read the book that i was not going to form an opinion. little did i know that the book was based on my beliefs!
As a Hindu, I believe in the Divine Feminine. I believe that She is necessary to complete the Divine Masculine. It was not hard for me to agree with Dan Brown's ideas in The Da Vinci Code. In fact, for me, it will be easier for me to accept that Jesus was really married and that He did father a child. I believe that He existed and his soul was more spiritually advanced than mine. i do not believe in an original sin though. That will mean that we are tainted. I believe that our souls are Divine and we can attain perfection. To say that i am paying for a sin that was commmitted by the first man and woman is saying that in my life, there is no hope for me. that is something that i will not accept. what is part of the whole is considered the whole...and we may be part but that part is our chance at reaching perfection. and one other thing, if Jesus died for us and because of our sins, doesn't that include the Original sin? and if so, why do we still blame all our troubles and lack of attaining perfection on the Original Sin? are we just trying to say that we are humans and therefore, we are incapable of doing anything right, far less for reaching an advanced state for our souls?
now the book. it is a really intriguing novel. there is more fact than fiction in there. the only fiction is really the murder of jacques sauniere and the run from the police. otherwise, there is a lot of historical references and lots to learn. an art fanatic will have a fun time with this book. throw in a little love for cryptics and a head for a mystery story and you will defintely have a ball! I always remember a guy from high school saying, "Mary Magdalene was a whore!" the statement came from the kid with so much conviction and the only thing that went through my head was, "Look at this stupid idiot! wonder how he knew she was a whore!" always thought that there was something wrong there. it never fitted in right with the gospels. okay, we have a leper, we have a blind man and we have a whore. very fitting that we have a woman and on top of all that she is a whore too! kinda sends all women through the ground. especially when women are made to believe that they are unclean and unholy. I never really understood why it was such a big deal especially when men still pay a lot of money to be entertained. No one is damned. one cannot sell what is not theirs and our souls are not ours. we cannot damn what does not belong to us. by the way, i never think that i will forget that kid's name. he's a grown man now and he probably still thinks the same way he did back in high school. he's been indoctrinated real well!
so now, yes, i really think that the Holy Grail was more than just a cup. It will be really impractical to think that many a war was fought for a cup. or maybe that was just what happens when a world ruled by men is made to suffer for their boredom! And as for the book, it is not a book for the narrow minded ones. for someone open to learning, they will have much to learn from this book. it is worth the time and the money!