Thursday, March 28, 2024

GAL FRIDAY: Celebrate what you are grateful for

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I was testing an Englishman’s listicles the other day, since the enamoured fellow apparently couldn’t contain himself. He was writing about Barbados and yes, he was in love . . . with this island.

He showed me a “top ten things to do in Barbados” list, a “top ten places to eat in Barbados” directory, and even a “top ten bars of Barbados” file. He had actually been to each of these places and was thrilled to tell me about them, one by one.

It then dawned on me that despite our macabre mosquito problem, in spite of the perpetual political divide and even in the midst of what Minister Stephen Lashley calls “isolated incidences” of crime, there is still much to celebrate and for which to be thankful.

What are you grateful for and what do you celebrate? Well, I could give you longer lists than the lads in the last paragraph. But there is one thing in particular that I love about Barbados.

There is not a parish that is devoid of a delightful karaoke session on a weekly basis. Last Saturday, I took some visiting friends around the island. I sang karaoke in six different parishes. I would bet my last Coke that there is no other island in the chain that can boast of the love affair Bajans have with karaoke. To top it off, when I turned on the television, there it was: the beloved Q In The Community. The singing session was in full swing, but the dancing? Lawdhavestmercy, the dancers were doing the dawg.

Before I go though, you saw Dylan? The guide dog is too adorably cute. I truly hope that those who have the gift of sight can see that there is no need to fear such well-trained animals. And oh yes, what a gift sight is, but some of us tend to take it for granted, don’t we?

Like a friend of mine who visited his 90-year-old uncle. “Son, you want some Coke?” Well, you know you simply don’t refuse your elders, especially when they’re almost a hundred. The Coke was brought in a dark-coloured mug.

As you know, we like to shake the goblets so we can mix the ice with the drink, diligently cooling the beverage while we blend. He said he had a feeling that the uncle had put too much ice in the mug, but this feeling was quickly dismissed when he saw what was being mixed with the Coke all this time.

His expression was one of teeth-chattering fear. And it was teeth chattering but not earth-shattering, although my friend freaked out in the most frantic of ways. He pelted the mug at the wall and exclaimed, “Uncle, yuh teeth was in this mug!?!”

If my friend had used his eyes, he would have observed that his uncle was denture-less, would have checked his “ice” more carefully; and would have averted such an experience. And me? Reader, I would have given my eye teeth to have seen all that!

Veoma Ali is an author, actor, broadcaster, advertising exec, and most important, a karaoke lover.

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