Rare, medium or well done

I was in the supermarket this evening after work to get some supplies and I decided to get some meat. Normally I just get lamb, and its usually available packaged and/or deep frozen. In the particular supermarket that I went to, they had no frozen meat section, and the fresh lamb looked a bit suspect to me, so I decided to get some beef for a change. The butcher asked what I wanted to use the meat for in order to advice me on what to get. Just as I was about to say beef stew, I caught myself. No need to get myself entangled in explaining what that is. I said "steak". I got my meat and headed home.

Chuckling to myself, I thought about steaks. My husband likes his steak rare, I like mine of course, like a typical Nigerian, well done. We have worked out a compromise, I take out his steak first and cook mine until I'm sure its well done. My husband likes to make a joke about this. Often when we are in a restaurant, and I order a well done steak, he says jokingly to the waiter "first make sure its dead, then fry/grill it till its dead again and then hit it just to make sure". Na im sabi. Don't mind him, when I cook stew, if I'm lucky, the pot lasts the day with him picking out the pieces of meat to snack on everytime he walks around the kitchen. Meanwhile when he buys me lamb, he always complains good naturedly that making stew with it is waste of perfectly good meat.

Talking of steaks, for some reason, I have never managed to get well done steaks in the Netherlands. On the occasions when I was lucky, I got a medium steak. Mostly, it was just rare. In fact the last time, when I finally decided to swear off eating meat in Holland, the meat was so rare I kept expecting a "Moo" anytime. And even my oyinbo colleague admited that it was way too raw, even for her who liked rare meat. My aversion to raw meat is I guess funny, because I love Sushi so so much.

By the way(and completely off topic, but anyway, thats me), if anyone reading this knows where one can get nice suya in London please tell me. I had suya from somewhere in Peckham about 4 years ago and I must confess that I was quite disappointed.

Be safe.

Coo coo

It has been a hectic time since I last posted here. April was a hectic month at work; May has so far been busy as well. I have missed blogging, but was so fagged out that I could not put hand to keyboard. I have been worked really hard... all sorts of unholy hours, weekends as well... but I am really enjoying my job. I feel my confidence in my abilities rising. That is not a bad thing at all.....

Here's a happy birthday to all fellow Taureans, out there. I'm also a May girl, turned 29 at the beginning of the month. Had a nice get-together with several friends. I had not celebrated my birthday in several years, but I decided to see out my twenties with a bang lol. Got a huge bunch of 29 red roses from my hubby, I got so many flowers from people - I had not received so many flowers since my wedding day! My red roses are currently hanging upside down on my toilet ceiling - hoping they dry properly as a momento of the day. I really do not feel 29 - I always thought I'd feel older......A lot has definitely happened, grateful to be alive..

Spoke with many classmates from secondary school in Nig, several weeks ago. It was really great to speak with people after 5, 6, 7, 10 years and still instantly feel the connection. I have always gotten easily attached to people - sometimes even when I have not had any conversation with them. I remember after leaving Nigeria, feeling nostalgic for a guy who used to attend lectures with me, (and it was nothing romantic at all).
This issue of me getting deeply attached to my friends has always made it difficult to make new friends - because the older you get, the more difficult it is to become intimate with someone. It can also be a disadvantage because I feel things concerning my friends sometimes too deeply – as my mum liked to say “alara lara o ro un, olo ku arun…(lit. the owner of the body doesn’t say its aching, but you are saying sorry). One day I'll write about Adeola O. and the first time I got into hot water at eleven for taking someone's problems too much to heart, and for trusting them too much.

Started learning Dutch. Somehow I know deep down inside me that I'll probably never become good at this language, but I feel really mentally relaxed during the lessons, that I'll just keep on at it.

Met some Indian colleagues at a conference recently. It was really interesting to listen to the new generation still talk about arranged marriage like it was perfectly normal. Still I have to say, I think that Nigerians and Indians have a lot in common culturally -although we also differ in many ways. Anyways, I'm rooting for M, who is hoping to convince her parents to allow a love match(in India talk, that is when you get to marry the person you love and chose yourself as opposed to having an arranged marriage).

My best friend is pregnant. I am so excited, we've known each other for ever, she is like my sister, and even when we have not talked for ages cos she lives in Lagos, we are always comfortable with each other. We have taken most of our major steps in life at the same time, and she said "hurry up and get pregnant now". I can't admit to anyone that I'm scared of becoming a mother. I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone, but I love children so much and have always wanted to have a child so much that I'm afraid reality won't match all my daydreams. What if I can't be a good mother? What if I'm too strict? What if my child doesn't like me?..... I know totally stupid, most children love their mothers. Since my parents prayers are probably sounding with a hysterical frenzy now, I am hoping God waits a bit before answering them. Meanwhile, C.K. and I had a near miss in March. It was not funny at all. I only allowed myself nostalgic feelings after I was certain it was a miss.

I can't believe I have written so much, considering the fact that I have been having a blogger's block the last few weeks.
That's all for now folks.

Hair issues

I finally got my weave on out last week after having it in for a record period of 3 months. I just had to wash it in between, because I kept imagining that my colleague had changed departments and subsequently moved out from the office I shared with him, because he could no longer stand the smell from all the hair products and sweat emanating from across the room.

Speaking of which, why do I always get the guys who are hygienically challenged in my office? The guy who moved out loved to poke his nose,and he had a perpetual cold- the type you can smell several feet away(sorry to gross you out). He sometimes used my phone or touched my computer - my skin positively crawled, and I had been debating a polite way of telling him not to use my phone before he had the good sense to move. Just as I was sighing with relief, he was replaced, and his replacement not only pokes his nose, but also picks it and puts the stuff straight into his mouth. EEEWWW. I must urgently tell him to try and limit that to when I'm away from my desk. I do not need to see that after lunch!

Anyway, I digress from my topic, so I finally had my hair relaxed and it reaches just below my shoulders now. The reason for my jubilation over this perhaps to you not necessarily long hair was that one and half years ago, one preoccupied Jamaican hairdresser in London decided "everytin 's bad, ei trim it for you". As she was more intent on discussing the latest misdemeanours of her baby father with her friend than listening to my objections about cutting off all my hair because it had some minor split ends, I ended up with a cut that looked like this: as in not nice looking at all, more like some rat had gotten to the back of my head. I am almost sure the fact that my dad and I had an argument later that evening had to do with the fact that I came back from the hairdresser’s with my head round as a ball and shiny with my hair funnily plastered around my face.
Seriously the hair looked quite nice enough when I left the salon, but trying to maintain a sane look with that 1/2-inch of hair at the lower half of my head was very difficult.
That is why I have been jubilating at my regained hair length and have spent my whole weekend perusing http://www.growafrohairlong.com/ trying to find out ways of ensuring that I never return to that state where I cannot pack all my hair in one again.

I have had a very good experience with using dark and lovely’s oil moisturiser spray for several months now. That has ensured much better moisturization for my very dry hair. I have also been steaming my hair with several concoctions at my hairdressers fairly regularly consisting of motions and fantasia products. In fact, I think a substantial part of my paycheck lastyear went toward financing her new house. My dh does not understand why I cannot relax my hair at home myself- I can and have done that in the past, but since I did not study hairdressing in the university, I decided to give myself over to the experts - not the crazy scissors wielding type, thank you very much. Leave my split ends alone, na me get am!
By the way, if anybody reading this has any tips about re-growing the hairline, I would be very grateful if you shared that with me.