Signs from Above- Rainbows; Keep on Striving

 Woke up this morning to a beautiful and once again familiar sight. For there was a rainbow on my bedroom floor.

I always thought of rainbows as symbolizing that everything will be alright. Communications from guardian angels. Perhaps those who've departed long before. Rainbows to me are little, just keep striving motivations. Signs from above. The universe's way of saying Hey I see you trying, working hard toward your goals. Here's to you. There's light at the end of the tunnel and all your hard work is gonna pay off. If not right now then someday, definitely someday.

Reminders. Signs, signals that someone up there is always listening even when you least expect it.
At first I thought that rainbows were shown exclusively in the sky. However, I later discovered that rainbows can appear in various other .
places as well.  For instance in oil mixed with water. Hence the pictures below.

I mostly spotted them in pools of water on the gravel paved roads.

oil and water= rainbow

I can recall walking past vehicles that were leaking oil and gas and it would hit the ground recently wet from rain.
That would jump start a reaction that would create a swirl of rainbows. How amazing I thought.

One just can't deny the beauty of a rainbow.

Dream interpretations: Impostors plotting your downfall

What a lovely dream. I dreamt of this serene beautiful beautiful location. Heaps of sand, some dome of island. Beautiful reflecting waters, sand beneath my toes in between, on my feet, sun beaming down on me. I kept circling the sand heaps over and over on top of them, i saw the statue of liberty. I was with someone, a guy. I wanted him to make love to me on the beach.

Except he wasn't in tune with me, he was distant. His mind was elsewhere, he wanted to be elsewhere. He acted as if I was a bother. I kept following him around  the heaps of sand he kept trying to get away. It was a chase. And just then, i left the sand but was still on a beach, i found where my guy had went, he was with another woman, a group of them.

I was devastated. I was hidden out of sight, lurking, watching behind something. Then I left. I ended up near cats, then near giant seagulls and pelicans, they were human size with orange vibrant beaks. There were cats, everything seemed majestic but then up close looked injured. The eagles/ seagulls had injuries on their cheeks when they turned their faces, the smaller seagulls seemingly were feeding the large birds through their mouths but in actuality they were preying on the weaker birds.

What i thought was an act of kindness, a feeding. Was seagulls eating the birds faces, as i got closer the beaks of the other birds were withering away & then once the seagulls realized i was onto them, they completely began to eat the other birds beaks right off their faces, then it snapped, before it snapped the weaker bird looked at me for help, defenseless, but it was too late. It was quite ironic because the human size eagles were weaker than the small ones. The small birds in a pact worked better against the larger birds who were alone.

This dream means to me that I must be wary of who I trust. Those in my life who claim to have good intentions. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Waiting for me to have my guard down with the impression that they work in my favor. For my preservation but in actuality when you look closer they're working in favor of my demise, plotting it. Sometimes those who give you the impression that you need them, actually need you. The big birds being cannibalized by the small ones highlights their vulnerability although large, they were still humble, graceful. The smaller ones in pacts were able to work together in order to reach their ultimate goal of consuming the large birds.

On the surface it looked as if the seagulls were helping the others but when I looked closely I saw reality. One must pay attention and remain vigilant to avoid being victimized.
-AGC

Tales of a fatherless daughter, maybe I am my father. What's a real dad?

Is it worse to have a father that's deceased or one who's alive and virtually nonexistent. I'd say the one who's alive and never played a role in your life. I wonder if my father expresses any remorse, I think so but he's afraid to express it. He always manages to remember my birthdays for the past 23 years of my life. Always sent a card from prison, I luckily still have them. It hurts me to look at them. I used to be so ecstatic when i received them in the mail, then id cry cause it would always claim that daddy will see you again. Implying that perhaps his sentence was unfair, we were kept apart as daddy and daughter unfairly. Yet, it was for a reason.

I have memories only of knowing him as being imprisoned. Kept away from my mother and I so that we could live. If he were out he'd surely finish the job he had started. We'd be dead. yet, there I was forced to visit him every weekend. Put on my best clothes, wake up at 4am. A seven yea old child who barely escaped his attempt at murdering me. Was made to go see him and "make amends" "he's your father they would say." then later, as I got older, my claims were shot down by "It was your mother he did that to not you." and "he had his reasons, you don't know, you're not remembering right cause you were so young."

They're in denial. They justify, all of this helps enable him, like he has been all his life, cause he had his family by his side. Shooting down my mother and I's accounts despite evidence to the contrary. I feel hatred for them, then pity. It switches a lot.

Growing up I had no choice but to do what adults said. That's one of the disadvantages of being a child. You have no voice. You must do what you're told even if you know it's bad or unfair. I can remember the dollhouses and the stage at the prison. All of us kids, there visiting our long lost fathers. Were made to feel normal again, like a real family. Even if for just a few measly hours. The correctional facility wanted to make it worthwhile.

There was a stage equipped with play ovens, paint, crafts, easels, balls, dolls, the works. We would play pretend, and make our dads come up on stage with us and join us. Daddy, look, look what I made. All things we should've been saying in real life. In life outside the prison perhaps as they visited our parent teacher conference nights where we showed off our best masterpieces. but instead, I was an oddball. I only had substitutions, good ones but still not biological dads. I was confused. Everyone at school thought my stepfather was my dad, I loved him dearly. But I was left conflicted every time I spoke to my "real" dad.

But here's a question that might be up for debate, and I want you readers to comment on it. What makes one a real dad? Does biology and genes make someone a real dad? Or is it in his actions. Because I don't categorize my father as being my real dad. I only spent time with him while he was behind bars. I had to be stripped of all my electronics, jewelry and dignity being pat down by corrections. I was petrified and now still am of law enforcement and people in uniform. Perhaps, because it brings back memories that every time I saw them although they were essentially saving me from him it was because my mom was near death or in a hostage situation with him. Due to this I associate police with me being in danger, not by police but by him.

Yes,it was certainly unfair to me,the child in this situation. But, his sentencing, HIS fate was fair to him. They say don't do the crime if you cant do the time. And there i was, seven and eight years old. Experiencing reoccurring flashbacks of the trauma i had endured and barely escaped with my life four years earlier. You see, my only memories really of my father are vey faint, very vague, blurry. The good ones that is. The times where he would teach me to walk by placing my feet on his, g me mimic his steps. One two, one, two, one two three.

Go yan yan. Id be smiling ear to ear. How do i restore the relationship i have with my father? Im an adult now. Will it begin with me going to guyana in an attempt to salvage this relationship?is there any hope in us? I still love him, but its been a difficult road. For through loving him i feel I'm betraying my own mother. Due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of him. I feel like a traitor. How could i love someone serving a sentence for attempting to murder my mom? But, lil ol me i had wanted to believe in the good in him. The good aspects.

My good father. But, it's hard when he never gave me any images of this goodness. Most of it is simply me hoping he's good, hoping he's capable of love. Loving me. And yet I crave for his love. I want my daddy. I'm still that same little girl inside waiting by the phone for him to call again. You have a collect call from orange county correctional facility One thing I commend my mother for is for her giving me the ability to make my own decisions when it came to communications with my father and fathers family. She never, ever kept me away from him, well from them and from speaking to him. I have this one memory of waking up in the morning to my mom and dad sleeping peacefully side by side. Me, being hungry, going in the fridge and finding gold coins, the chocolate ones in the fridge on the door. The Hanukkah kind.

But, perhaps, by only focusing on the good I am enabling or maybe justifying his destructive behavior. Most of my good memories in my mind are all sabotaged by bad because after every good event like trips to the Big Apple Circus were followed by the beatings. The delusions, the paranoia, hallucinations. Beatings to my mom fueled by paranoia and insecurities, trust issues, abandonment issues. He swore my mom always had a wandering eye.

Even if there were evidence to the contrary. At times I worry I'm him. I have the ability to become as sick mentally as he was or is. They say the gene for this disease is inherited and activates under the right conditions. In this case my exposure to the trauma inflicted by him are the perfect match along with his defective gene. So maybe I'm that small statistic the one they say was rare. I'm the one who inherits from her parents. they say there's a small chance but I have the chance.

But again I end this with what is your definition of a father? Can adopted fathers fill the void children face from the abandonment of their biological father? Comment below.
Thank you
-AGC

Childhood love, natural artist from young, looks can be deceiving

I can remember as a little girl, my mother would receive so many gifts from my stepfather. Mainly roses, i can smell the babysbreath oh so fresh in the air. I would nibble on those babysbreath, consuming the tops. The white small bulbs, resembling cotton.

I can vividly recall the vibrant appearance of the rose petals, bright red, so velvety so perfectly formed. Gods beautiful creation. What a masterpiece, a work of art, his universe is.he must be an artist i always would say to myself. The universe,his canvas.

The world's most famous artist, yet never really gets much credit. Better than Picasso, Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, because his work, God's work is real. It isn't duplications, replicas or mimics. He's the originator. Artists, even myself mimic and mirror what we see in the world, whereas God, he was the original trendsetter.

The roses my mom received, I would pick apart as they withered away. After everyone had admired their absolute, undeniable beauty and grace. And i would boil the petals. I was amazed that the colors would run off almost like dye into the bowl of water. Cause you see even in death these roses were capable of being beautiful.

The roses would become white, the color sucked out of them. Its like god had chosen a white mold and painted it for his roses. It was amazing. Again everything we do is an attempt to mimic god. We as humans have a natural admiration for him.


I although young being so inquisitive would take the petals and boil them in the microwave or on the stove. I figured that tea bags looked like shredded, dried flowers so roses would make for a good calming tea. They'd resemble the picture below.

But I soon came to the realization that all that glitters isn't really gold. And all that seems sweet actually could be bittersweet. Just as these flowers were. They were so very beautiful that I could not believe that they tasted so bad. After all, they had smelled nice, looked nice and should've tasted nice too. I felt confused and betrayed. These flowers are deceiving I thought.

But now, as I am older and I look back I realize that those roses symbolize many other encounters in my life. Mainly with people I held dear to me, loved like family, perhaps even more than my own self. I lived for them, pleasing them helped me live. But they were masters of deception. It was all a facade, similar to these flowers. Moral of the story is that, looks can be deceiving, people may not be who they appear to be. Story of my life. The people who were roses at first, beautiful & promising on the surface. Beneath that were bitter total opposites. 

-AGC

Morning's Have stayed the same throughout the years

It's morning. And the routine's the same, the exact same way. Almost, at least, except the only difference is that I'm much older, wiser. My body's undergone changes, yet somehow my mind frame has managed to stay the same. You know, it's like through living with a complete abuser and narcissist. I essentially almost lost myself entirely in the process. So this, all of this. This apartment, this neighborhood. Is me reborn, a new beginning.

Cutting, chop, chop, chop. Dicing, dice, dice, dice. Slicing, slice, slice slice. Those are the sounds that greet your ears when you wake up next to me. Except I'm not there babe, I'm in the kitchen, taking on the role of chef. The sounds of breakfast being prepared. Onions, peppers, garlic. Oil hits the pan, sizzling, then the veggies, they join them. One by one, group by group. The fragrance, the aroma overwhelms my space. Smells and scents that take me back, involuntarily to my childhood. It's amazing, the mind ain't it? The way it can help you escape, cope, remember? Ah-mazing The mind, it's known to some as having the capability of being your worse enemy, and yet, recently it has become my best friend again. So, my mind took me to my grandmother's house.

I was a child again, twists in my hair locked with multi-colored barrets and bows, bubbles. My shoes mimicking those that tap dancers wore. I'd always be clicking my heels, tapping my feet imagining I were a tap dancer. My shirt yellow, my badge from my elementary school PS.219, my bowtie adorned on my little neck. Gold shell earrings in my ears, hypoallergenic of course, 14 carat gold. I woke up every morning to the intoxicating almost overwhelming scent of garlic hitting the oiled pan. Sizzles as the oil heat up, popping as it got even hotter. These were the joys of having old-fashioned Caribbean grandparents.

Their home was always comprised of scents varying from potpurri, to dettol, to food infused with lots of garlic. Garlic was a way of life for them, as it is for me now. Cause you see, I've been wondering do we ever at all really change. Perhaps we change physically but were still the same on the inside. Well, at least that's how it is for me. I believe we basically just progress, advance, mature but I'm still that same little girl. I still operate the same, think the same, have the same interests. I'm still me, I may look a tad bit different but at the end of the day I'm still me.

You know what's changed? the roles, have changed. Cause you see, now I'm that grandmother of mine. Overpowering the house with the smell of garlic fried, it greeting your nostrils, slapping you in the face so hard you can actually taste it. She is me now. There's a lot of things that I didn't really take heed to until after my grandmother passed. Growing up everyone said I was the splitting image of my paternal grandmother. I never saw it and would get annoyed because I swore everyone were delusional. It turns out, they weren't. After she passed I began to look at myself, and through me I swear I saw her staring back at me . It was as if she was still alive.

And in fact, maybe, just maybe she is. Except now it is through me. She lives through me. My uncle, her youngest son saw me one night when I was in distress. He said that when I got out of the car he could've sworn he saw his mother in pain and agony staring back at him. He said it pained him to see his mother suffering, except it weren't his mother, it was me, lil ol me. Sometimes I look in the mirror and speak to myself because I'm sure my grandmother is deep inside me. Her soul consumed me. My body, now a vessel for hers and mine. AT times I do what I call "channeling" her. Where I feel overwhelmed by her spirit, like she takes over me.

Sometimes when I laugh, I swear I hear her laugh, echoing back at me. Everyone in my family loves being around me, and I now realize why. By being with me they feel they're spending time with my grandmother. The same feeing I get when I look in the mirror at myself. I started noticing recently, putting two and two together. That I don't just resemble my grandmother in appearance, but in demeanor, personality and actions as well. I am humble, so humble it could kill me. My calm, collective, tolerant, patient demeanor. My desire to make people happy, even if that means putting myself last. My desire to always negotiate and put the other person's feelings into consideration. My "mother goose" mentality and way of handling problems.

The way she designed her home, her love of nature, flowers. Everything was in a way transferred into me. It's astonishing and shocking cause each day I find more similarities in myself, the older me and who my grandmother was.

Matt Groening & Seth Macfarlane two clever individuals Hidden Meanings within their shows

Sometimes those who play dumb are far from it. Literally. Hidden meanings from the mouths of "idiots"

I was was watching a Simpsons episode the other day when Marge Simpson asked her husband Homer "Homey, why is it that you always seem to focus on what you don't have?"  Homer with a joking tone replied with "Does anyone ever focus on that they do have?" But in actuality what he's saying is absolutely right. People are so busy focusing on what they lack that they forget to live in the moment and enjoy their blessings. Self-sabotage. You'll always be miserable if you're constantly too busy focusing on what you having accomplished foolishly forgetting how far you've come. So this year praise yourself when praise is do. Commend yourself, compliment yourself, enjoy the moment. Don't keep comparing yourself to others, cause in life there's always someone who will be ahead of you. Live for you not for others and their expectations.

When it comes to those playing dumb animated characters Homer Simpson and Family Guy's Peter Griffin are two of the first who come to mind. Their antics and shenanigans make them perfect candidates for seemingly idiots and dunces. After all one of the two things that these two shows have in common is that they're the main characters of the show. The show's popularity mainly stems from the humor viewers get watching the demise of either themselves or other's in the community primarily their own households and families caused by their less than wise actions. Their oblivion to the fact is almost painful to watch at times yet funny. (Take for instance) Could it be that mastermind creator's Matt Groening (The Simpsons) and Seth Macfarlane (Family Guy)

Homer Simpson is a quick tempered, abusive, alleged idiot who's coined the terms Doh! and Why you little! (right before brutally strangling his son Bart)
)

The resemblance between Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin is uncanny. There's simply no denying the similarities between the two. Homer abusing his son Bart. Peter constantly bullying, harassing and abusing his daughter Meg(atron) Griffin. If you said after watching both programs that you didn't feel the familiarity between them you would be lying to yourself. Many times while watching Family Guy I felt like I had met his character before. Then I realized I kind of had in Homer Simpson. Some may say that Seth Macfarlane may have began as a huge Simpsons fan and thus created his spin off of the show known today as Family Guy. Perhaps, he created the show out of mere admiration for Groening's work. Matt honestly seems to be his inspiration, but to a certain extent. Of course Family Guy is way more raunchy and politically incorrect. While Matt Groening takes small jabs at attempts at political incorrectness. With stereotypical characters like Apu who has octoplets as children (a jab at the Hindu religion's goddess Vishu who has multiple arms thus Apu's having many identical children. Perhaps they represent her many arms.

Apu also conveniently works at a convenience store the Kwik-E-Mart similar outside of Springfield and in our real world to maybe a 7/11, On the run or similar gas stations. I'm sure we've seen our share of indians resembling sweet Apu working at our local convenience stores. (Thank you come again lol)

Before it was all smiles :)

 Afterward their similarities got the best of em lol

The Family Guy and The Simpsons crossover episode was one that just had to be done. In order to quiet those who accused Seth of basing his show off of The Simpsons. The Simpsons being created in 1989 and Family Guy ten years later in 1999. Perhaps both Matt and Seth were tired of people pointing out the obvious similarities between their shows. Maybe Seth wanted to prove that his shows were more than just him "stealing" from Matt. Maybe this collaboration was done in hopes that people would see that there were no hard feelings from Matt to Seth.

At the beginning of the show things started off great and the two of course as expected were inseparable.

WOO HOO!

 

 However, as time went on things naturally went south.


Matt Groening speaks the truth in his show all while covertly being offensive. He pokes fun at the obvious and that is why I have so much admiration for him myself. Matt Groening paved the way through The Simpsons for other adult animation. It's no coincidence that on the lineup for Animation Domination The Simpsons and Family Guy are both present. Could it be that both Matt and Seth cleverly and purposely place words of wisdom in the mouth's of those that viewers not on a conscious level will get and pick up on because we least expect anything wise to be uttered from these two seemingly idiots. Is it easier for them to hide important things in the mouths or actions of these two "kluts"? I think so. Do they both hide things within these two characters simply because no one will pay attention because weve already branded them as dumb therefore whatever they do will also be labeled as dumb? We will sweep everything they do that is intelligent under the rug, laugh and wrongfully categorize the action as dumb as well. But, are you really listening?

You see these cartoons are trying to expose truths. Shedding light through humor on very real situations that plague our society. Abuse is funny sadly. Within these shows abuse is the butt of almost every joke. With Homer Simpson's constant strangling of Bart over the years.
One can easily point out that although funny is this were occurring in the real world this wold surely be considered without a doubt abusive and neglectful parenting.
Just as the bias, bigotry, racism, stereotypes and political incorrectness is hilarious as well. Unfortunately. Sometimes the best way to take some of the edge off with touchy subjects is to laugh and poke fun at them. But how far is too far? Even those who enjoy raunchy shows like Family Guy label shows like South Park as taking it a bit to the extreme. But aren't they both offensive? Yes, but maybe it's all about how the creators go about putting the topic in their shows. Trey and Matt Parker are unapologetic and not afraid to cover subjects on their shows some would consider untouchable
When laughing at these things one can't help but feel like they're going to hell in a handbasket. (lol) It seems like all the adult cartoon creators recognize and acknowledge Matt groening as being the one who paved the way so that they could have shows. This is true in the episode of South Park Simpsons already did it. In this episode you can see Butters trying his hardest to come up with ways to get his alter ego Professor chaos recognized as being a tough villain. However, he soon comes to find out that everything he has planned the Simpsons already did. More specifically Bart Simpson. (pictured below in South Park animation form XD lol)