Kittens in my home!

I love certain animals especially since I’ve had the privilege of being raised up with them as pets. Our family pets ranged from a Cat and a Monkey to Dogs, Chickens and finally Fishes – electric fish, catfish, goldfish, etc and yes all these pets had names. In my University days, a friend of mine, Jeme, was working on her final year optometry project which was about how effective the use of mushroom extracts were in curing cataracts. Her test subjects, three adorable cats which I named: Hopper, Stealth and Baby.

When she brought these kittens to my off campus apartment, my siblings and I fell in-love with them. I was particularly overjoyed because I felt our rat infestation issues would be solved. Since purchasing cat food is not an African thing, I decided to feed them with vegetable soup filled with pieces of smoked fish. For a while, it seemed like they enjoyed every morsel until a strange scent filled the air. We traced it and found our beloved kittens were stooling all over our apartment!

We tried to let them out but their ‘need to go’ was so frequent, we had to opt for getting them a sand filled kitty litter box. At the end of the day, Baby who had eaten the most had lost the most amount of weight. After that experience, I became a firm believer in the need for pets to have their own special kind of food packaged just for them. I know as a Nigerian, the concept of canned animal food is not popular because we believe they should eat what we eat. It’s important that we know that the pet foods are made with generic nutritional ingredients needed by your pet. If you really love your pet, you’ve got to do right by them because whatever affects them will invariably affect you.

Now that I’m married, my husband and I can’t agree on what pet to keep. He wants a cat, I want a dog but part of my reluctance to even come to an agreement on the subject comes from knowing that pets need a lot of special attention/care and can be pretty expensive to manage. If you are looking towards having a pet just know that you’ll have to feed them, bathe them, brush their teeth, immunize them, comb their hair/fur, take them for routine check-up at the vet’s when they're sick or having behavioural problems. if you must own pets, let your focus be on the benefits you’ll gain from having them healthy; which is a faithful companion. As for me, I look forward to having kittens in my home someday.

Sing with Joiy Live!

In Nigeria, especially in Edo State, Benin City to be precise, not everyone has a reason to have a great night out on the town. So you can imagine how delighted people were to see a star-studded program tagged ‘Sing with Joiy’ Live! By my friend, Joy Okobi. It was the combination of music and discussions on the issue of abuse and abandonment of the girl child.

When I first heard musicians such as J’odie, Liora, Big Splash, Dr. Foy. Kemkedis (my friend Mrs Fidelia Uyi), my girl Annivon (Ann Eguavon), my buddy Freon (Barr Frank Ohikhuare); comedians like Efex, Paul and Zina; last but not least, my pastor, Mrs Osamen Arheghan would be performing, I knew it was a musical night not to miss. But beyond the ‘Cause’ and star studded appearances a few behind the scene activities made this program irresistible to me. One of which was the calibre of people working to make this program a success – the likes of the great sound engineer Uzo Nwabudike, Sunny Snares on the Drums, Eze Osisiogu and Kelvin Brave on the guitar, my church Choir members as the backup singers, Philip Asaya and Teajay Chunu (CEO, Imaginit & DOTBOB publishing) as organizers, the list is endless. Also, from the sound check the day before, I couldn’t wait to attend the program. Then there was Joy’s articulate and professional interview published in Vanguard Mobile [http://www.vanguardngr/2012/06/i-like-giving-without-holding-back-joy-okobi] on the 9th of June.

Although I arrived ‘fashionably’ late, I was able to enjoy most of the great performances of the night. The speakers of the day were eloquent and surprising brief, the talk show was partly interactive and the guests on the show included Miss Uniben 2012 (Lillian Unabu), award winning designer for Niger-Delta 2010 Joan Edwards and Dr. Osa Tosan. Turnout was impressive with a few dignitaries in attendance like the representative for the Honorable Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Dev. in Edo State, Mrs Comfort and the State Head of Standard organization of Nigeria (SON) Benin Office, Mr Akogun. The audience were so responsive especially when Jodie climbed the stage and sang ‘Under the mango tree’ and her hit single ‘Oh Baby (Kuchi kuchi)’. When Joan Paul & Annivon gave soulful renditions of their songs, the audience erupted in screams. Even when called upon to make contributions for everyday people (Miss Lizzy Onouha & Mrs Ada Peters) doing extra ordinary things through their upcoming NGOs (total Girl International and Success Youth Foundation respectively), the audience were ever supportive.

It was a great event and I had a blast! I hear the next edition of the program would be coming up soon, who knows, it might just be where you live. One of the things that amazed me was that it was pulled together by people that I know personally. Right now I feel so blessed to even be known by such talented individuals and I’m inspired to dare for the seemingly impossible feat because greatness is achieved in essence by ordinary people following their passions. You too can achieve great feats of monumental proportions if you put your heart to it. So go on and Soar.

With so much grief and sadness in Nigeria at the moment, I found it hard to write about anything else without being considered insensitive. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, don’t despair. When the speculations and heated emotions faced by Nigerians about the multiple church bombings of Boko Haram in Bauchi state which coincided with the June 3rd Dana Air crash in Lagos state blows over, I’ll give you my take on the issue. In the meantime, I’d like to share with you a little bit of sunshine on such a cloudy week.