What Happens to a Dream Deferred...

What happens to a dream deferred? I can only tell you about my dream. Wow a ton of things have happened or not happened depending on how you look at it. The job that I was working faithfully, loyally, and on call for 24 hours a day - 7 days a week while dealing with racism, hostile working conditions, and hiding affairs - I was laid off with no severance. I didn't get unemployment for 3 months because of a problem with said company's reporting of my wages. Just like that 8 years of loyalty poured down the drain. I have learned a valuable lesson - trust no employer as a friend who will look out for you as much as you look out for them. 
I have not been pregnant since I started the blog or had a baby. My daughter is in college and I think she got her wish - my eggs may have dried up..
I will not be waking up 40 in Fiji. I will be going to Fiji two full days after my Birthday only after Maurice paid for me to still be able to afford the trip.  But guess what - I AM STILL GOING!


A Dream Deferred
By Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode? 

I am still very happy to be going to Fiji, happy to be just the cousin of a new born gorgeous baby boy, happy to have some money in my pocket, and happy to be alive!  

The Fijian Food

I have decided to get into the spirit of my Fortieth Birthday Love Explosion I need to sample some Fijian food.  I have scoured the internet looking for a Fijian restaurant in the Washington Metropolitan area.  Guess what? NADA! You can find recipes and pictures of Fijian dishes but not one restaurant in the area. So I guess I will have to try my hand at making some of the recipes... I am not the greatest cook or the most patient person.  I have been known to freestyle with recipe ingredients but I am going to really give this the discipline it calls for so that I may prepare my palette. Yes, I said palette.  Some of the dishes sound perfectly delicious.  They have bibingka (also a popular Filipino dish) which is a kind of bread made with cassava, coconut cream, sugar, egg, and cheese. These ingredients are mixed and topped with a little extra grated cheese then baked. The Fijians usually bake this at night and serve it for breakfast in the morning. Doesn't it sound scrumptious? They also have this topping or sauce for seafood that sounds yummy as well, it is called miti. Miti is thick coconut cream combined with onions, chillies, juice from a lemon, salt and pepper. I am salivating here. Some of the dishes sound like something that is more of an acquired taste but I am willing to give them a shot as well. Take coconut fish soup a soup made up of fish carcass&heads, coconut cream (of course,) chillies, lemon slices, and water.. sounds like something. Other dishes sound like meals I do not even want to try at all. Kokoda which is a Fijian spicy fish curry.  It is a served cold and the fish is raw. Not digging that at all.

I am going to start making the dishes that I am feeling this week and I will let you all know how they taste...but not the kokoda because I am NOT eating that dish. There is a dessert I am going to eat - coconut balls..