They're Creepy and They're Kooky

How sweet it is to out your family...........

The year was 1997, I had my 2 oldest boys then. We lived in the pretty little town of Red Wing. My mom lived in a huge 5 bedroom split level home. It looked even more monstrous because it was on the upper level of the neighborhood and sat on a hill. Her front yard and driveway were downhill. She would hire me occasionally to come over and stay with my 5 siblings, whenever her and my step dad went out of town.

She also had a Rottweiler named Jasmine that year. Jasmine was still a puppy, but you know that stage they hit, where they get real tall and clumsy. Right before they grow into thier paws. Jazz had a bad habit of climbing the deck in the back and the garage and then the roof. There she would bark for attention.

Well it was around Halloween when I had to go up to my moms with my 2 boys. They all wanted to play with the fog machine, that my mom purchased so they can have some sort of special effect when passing out candy. In the family room they built a "nightclub." With a strobe light, the fog machine, Christmas lights and the stereo. Ok I admit I helped them.

I was upstairs when the brood approched me again.

"Can we please just fog the whole house? We want to play hide and seek?"

"Yeah sure" I say, I retreat to my moms room because I know that will be the point of clarity.

After a half hour I hear various smoke alarms going off. I run out, can't see, they turned it off and are pulling batteries out of alarms in different rooms. I know this is highly illegal, but hey, anything to keep them quiet, sane and not fighting for a couple of hours.

Next thing I know they are calling me out again. I can't see. The strobe is red. I am questioning whether or not I can breathe in this red, flashing fog. I start to feel like, clausterphobic, for a second, then somebody grabs my leg. I let out a scream and began chasing rugrats at high speed. We are all running like maniacs...then the doorbell rings. They all run and hide. Dam, I hate being the adult sometimes.

I make my way down the stairs and open the door. As I open the door, a whole cloud of fog (it was cherry scented) follows me out and surrounds the Mormon family next door.

After a coughing fit, Bishop Lash asks "Are you all ok?"

"Sure" I say," my mom just bought the kids a fog machine and we were testing it out." I close the door behind me, because the fog won't quit and I don't want him to see the red flashing light.

"Ok" he says, looking at me doubtfully "You let us know if you need anything"

"Sure"

He starts walking away with his wife and kids, then turns back "Your dog is on the roof again."

Dam that Jasmine! I think, in all the chaos, we didn't hear her barking. I walk down to the lawn so I can see her and tell her to shut up, before I went to retrieve her. When I looked back, I noticed...OMG, how could I have forgotten, my mom took the drapes to the cleaners, because some little girl (who shall remain nameless) colord them with markers. The huge bay windows in the living room looked like damnation, fire and brimstone, the lake of fire...and on top of that you could hear the kids screaming. Thats when I also noticed, cars driving by real slow. Looking at the house. I wished I was 12 years old so I could flip them off. Instead I yell at Jazz to shut up, wave at the cars, and go to the back deck to get my dog.

She is going crazy when I get her down, she hears the kids screaming inside and wants in so bad. I slide open the deck door for her, she flies past me and proceeds to chase rugrats around like I was. OMG I think, they are having so much fun. I am sure people think we are witches, or worshippers, or the Adams Family. I watch my kids, siblings, and dog running in the fog laughing. Then I think "WHO GIVES A CRAP!" If we stop now, the damage has been done, already.

"Hey you rugrats!"

"What" they sound a little panicked, like I am going to turn off the fun.

"You better run, cuz I am going to get you!!"

They scream and run.

What I Do

This was a video I made for Yahoo 360. I sold almost all of the items on Ebay.


I made the above handbag for my mother for Christmas. She is obviously a huge Prince freak.


The front and back of another handbag.


A coin purse made of brown cut beads.


And lastly, a checkbook cover I made that is still, as of yet, unsold.







This is a variety of my work and two of my mother's barrettes-wolf eyes and white buffalo design

This is what I do all day and night when I get time. I need to be doing it more. I closed one blog on another site down because it took too much time away from my beading and took too much energy from me with all the negative energy that I over-react to. I have Myspace, mostly to be a "family patrol" to my kids and siblings. Blogspot is my niche.

Hope you enjoy. My beadwork can be found on Ebay under the seller's name j9lonehill...along with my mother's beautiful barrettes. She does post new items everyday. Click here
Thanks for reading,

Ake.

Here

*above pic is Pine Ridge, where I live. Taken from the west.
My aunties were drinking at um , my uncles house the other day. Let me explain that. My mom has half-sisters by her mom that are twins and they are inseperable even at age 38. The guy's house they was at was my uncle (indian way) on my mom's dad's side. All very confusing, at any rate "We are all related." Anyway my aunties called me, they are some what gypsies so they asked if they can stay with me. Plus the place they were staying they packed all their food and had it with them.
I knew I could really use it, plus use their help, so I said yes. They asked me to come after the food because they didn't want to drive.
I walked in and the 3 of them were sitting at the table. My uncle gave me a hug and told me to have a beer with them. I told him just one because I ahd potatoes boiling at home. Through that one beer he told me different things about the reservation. We talked about how hard it was to live in "white society," but we also addressed that we wished the people here took care of this town.
We talked of how "Yes, we know and accept that we was booted from what was given to us. We was put here, some of the ugliest land here, but we still shouold appreciate it, take care of it."
This is something I felt a passion for for a long time. How some people don't care about how this town looks. They feel like it should be someone else cleaning it up. Because almost eveerything else in life is given to us....makes me wonder what soveriegnity is? I mean surely long time ago, we NEVER disrespected the land like we do now.
He said one thing to me that made sense "Dana, writing about something and doing something about it are different things." I mean I knew that but even though it is overwhelming I will make my kids pick trash.
I seen that when I was on my way to the casino one day. An elder unci (grandma) was on the side of the road picking trash and on the other side was a young couple. And they weren't picking recyclable stuff, just everything. How neat was that?

I have a few pictures I can post of the reservation just to show you. These are pictures I took back in January just north of town. Prett huh?



Now here are some pics I took in January in town.


This is a collasped trailer...just sitting there.

Don the street from me this is in a front yard.


This is the dump, I don't ever see them do anything with these bales of trash.


The reservation has it's share of problems. Statistically the county I live in has the lowest life expectancy in the US. Sometimes I wonder what the trahs around here contributes to that.
All I think is we are Lakota's...when did we lose respect for Mother Earth. Something has to be done, I just don't know what, but I will go pick the trash that blows in my yard.

Until next time...AKE. (pronounced ah-kay, meaning again. We don't have a word for good-bye)
Dana

The Indian Grandma

Let's hear it for them, huh?

How many of you have one in your family or know of one raising grandkids?

I am sure almost everyone does. They care for their young like lions...well female lions. They are over-protective, aged with that Indian sense of humor and always come to the rescue for their grandchildren. Thank god for grandmothers.

I have my maternal and paternal grandmother still and "Indian way" I have many more...I am so lucky. My kids have their great grandmother on their dad's side. What a rock she is. She is 77 years old, still works serving meals for the ederly, everyday. She is currently raising one grandkid and 5 great-grandkids.
You know she told me once, "I never had a life of my own, I always raised someone else's kids, but if I don't do it who will? They are unsica(pitiful.)"

She walks with her head held high, she demands respect, not in a way where she tells you straight out to respect her, but her presence and her aura demand respect. I know I did her wrong once when I was helping make potato salad for some holiday and I drained all her pickle juice out of the pickles. She didn't say anything but the looks she gave me, I knew I had to find some pickle juice ASAP. She is a strong woman, I don't know one of her grandkids that are not scared of her.
In fact one of her grandsons, and I witnessed this, once said "Gram, can I call you the Dalai Lama?"
She responded "What? Why would you call me that?"
"Because when you walk in a room, everyone bows down to you." he said smiling.
"You don't call me nothing but grandma!" she said with a curse word thrown in there. That wiped the smile off his face and he put his head down. As soon as she went out of the room, we all laughed at him.
He did use a word to describe her, Matriarch. I looked this term up and he's right. Wikipedia says The term is usually applied to the oldest female in an extended family, who by virtue of her position has a degree of granted authority because others have trust in her.

Now how many of us know women like that? Let's hear it for the uncis! (Unci= pronounced oon-chee means grandmother.) If they didn't raise us, they sure had a hand in raising us. They passed on all their virtues of respect, heart, hope, humor, and most important of all love. To all my dozen or so grandma's reading this, I love you all. (I really should have saved this for Mother's Day! *josh*)
As for you gacas, (grandpas) I will be writing in the paper about you soon.

A Day In The Life OF ME

November 9, 1997 ~age 25~







I woke up at 9 am Florida time. I had been in St. Pete’s Beach for over two weeks. I was staying at my boss’s beach side cottage and although I loved every minute of it, it was also lonely on my own. I shower, get dressed and go down to the beach one last time. I stare at the water, the seagulls, the big empty beach chairs at the Holiday Inn next door. I had worked every night I was there but one. I did get to see the sunset over the water. It was spectacular. I was living a dream right then and there and I knew it. I had never seen water so big that there was no other side. Even if it was “just the Gulf” it was spectacular.



Every morning I would walk that beach down to the big pink hotel, the Don Cesar. This was my last. I had a taxi coming to get me at 3 to catch a 5:15 flight back to Minneapolis. I went to the house, packed my bags. Left out my jacket and put on jeans and a new Bob Marley T-shirt I bought. I had to dress accordingly, as to the plane ride with a switch in St. Louis and flying into the Minnesota winter. I shivered as I thought of the cold.



I walked to the to the nearest souvenir shop to buy gifts for my family. All the shells I found on the beach were small. Plus my first day on the beach I saw a man on this huge looking bulldozer like contraption. He was gathering all the shells and crushing them into a path like pile. People jogged on that path. I was horrified that I had to get seashells in a store. Who knows where they came from? I made my purchases. Walked even further down the street and had another first time experience. I ate at IHop’s. OMG, it was exactly like in my dream and better than any Tremendous Twelve I ever ate at Perkins at 3 in the morning.



When the cab came after me I made a decision that had been bugging me for the last week. I had decided right then and there that I would not move to Florida and manage the bar for my boss. This decision came from one palm tree. It was decorated with Christmas lights and it just wasn’t right. All the Christmas décor just seemed out of place to me. That made me feel like I would be out of place, I thought.



The cab driver was nice. He talked up a storm on the history of the Howard Frankland Bridge. Most of which I forgot. I loved looking at the Bay. Then he pointed out a dolphin in the water, going along as we did. The cab driver was willing to stop at Yankee Stadium (Legends Field, ok Rala) so I can take a picture but my camera was packed away. So I said a little prayer to George Steinbrenner as we passed it.



At the airport I got hit on by the skycap. I was like “Dang must be all the Sun.”, then I checked in and was starving so thank god Tampa International had a KFC. I ate from the buffet. Then went to a lounge to relax, read, and wait for my flight as my nerves settled to some chardonnay.



Flying makes me nervous, I won’t lie. But once I can look out a window I am fine. I guess I get nervous about the landing part every since I seen that one flight in Iowa land in a fireball and people were lying all over the corn field. I was relieved to see that I got a window seat. A little short pudgy man had to get up to let me into my seat. He introduced himself but I don’t remember his name. He was going back to his home in Chicago, was originally from India, and worked as a nuclear engineer. He even gave me a business card, just in case you know...I ever need a nuclear engineer. When the flight attendant came around he asked if I would join him in a chardonnay, I was like suuuuuuuuuure. So he ordered us two each. Well, this should be interesting, I thought. We drank the chardonnay, talked about our lives and just things in general. We laughed a lot, but that’s just the type of person I am. I like to laugh whether I am tipsy or not. A sense of humor means everything to me. When we were over St. Louis the pilot announced that the runway traffic was backed up and we had to circle St Louis for a bit. I looked out to see if I could see the arches and the city was above us. At first in my chardonnay pickled mind I thought immediately ALIENS. You know like on the movie Independence Day where those big spaceships are like on top of the White house and stuff. Then I figured out we were flying at an angle and felt silly. I panic easy; I am a Pisces, ok. So I counted 13 other planes circling St Louis like sharks. I looked for the arches because I missed them on my flight over. I saw river boats but no damn arches. Now I like have to see it in person to believe it is there.



I landed in St Louis ok, without the plane turning into a fireball or me flying in a cornfield. My flight to Minneapolis was announced as I was saying bye to Apoo, (OK, not his name but I jacked it from the Simpson’s.) I sat next to a lady that didn’t offer chardonnay but she liked to read, which was fine with me because I had brought Terry McMillan’s “Mama” with me to finish but Apoo never gave me a chance.



The pilot announced as we were getting close to land that it was a “sunny 3 degrees in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.” I put my jacket on and got off the plane. My mom and best friend was waiting for me. We found my luggage easy and I walked outside. The arctic blast hit me so hard when we opened the glass doors. I thought of the beach in Florida, of the palm trees, of the sunshine. Did it really matter to me that my Christmas lights hung in the right climate?



The answer was yes.

Happy easter....just being random

I'm not really sure about Easter this year. I know fosho there will be NO hard boiled egg fight again...like last year. Washing hard boiled egg out of your hair is horrible!

We are having it here at my house, 1st Easter here. We'll hide eggs for the younger ones, I'm sure the older boys will think they are "too old" for that. (But never too old to trick or treat!)

Makes me wish I was a kid sometimes....my kids do. Especially when I watch them play.

I even miss the sibling rivalry where Trav and I used to beat the crap out of each other so much my mom bought us boxing gloves. That worked for one night, until I realized it only gave him parental permission to beat the crap out of me and knock me punch drunk. Still it was fun. Especialy destroying the gloves.

I wished I could play agian until I was so cold, I had no idea I was so cold until my red cheeks hit the warmth of a house and all of a sudden I felt the cold as I warmed up.

I wished I could run around again until I was out of breath, sides aching and laughing from the fun.

I wished I could dye eggs and make a huge mess that pissed my mom off. Because now all I do is get pissed when I see the dye everywhere.

I wished I could enjoy a holiday meal I didn't have to stand on my feet all day to get ready.

I wished I could trick or treat and fill a bag up with candy...only because I was young and pretending to be someone else. and eat the candy until it was taken away from me...with a tummy ache.

I wished I could wake up to a tree surrounded by presents given to me from people that loved me.

I wished I could see an airplane flying above me and try and chase it. (That was my mom doing a fly-by ogf my grandma's house for real. My mom is amazing.)

I wished I could swing in a swing so high until I felt like I was flying in that small airplane like my mom.

I wished I could walk two miles into the prairie again, chasing the rainbow's end...never finding it but coming home with a fistful of wild flowers.

I guess I could still do some of the things, but dang I had a good childhood. As adults we tend to focus on the worst of our childhood because it scarred us, but we never think of how good we had it sometimes. I was blessed with some good times.

Have a good Easter peeps!

Computer Probs

My computer crashed last week....horribly. I thought my internet withdrawals would be worse, BUT I actually enjoyed it.

I so wanted to do an entry last week for the newspaper and I could have easily, but the computer problems prevented that. To be honest, I was happy I was no longer near a computer...it just put things in perspective for me. I postred a few things on 360 EVEN though I always say I won't. To me it is just harder and harder to be me there. I posted a blog tonight that said I was taking it easy....not a break but taking it easy from 360. I have met so many wonderful people there, but the childish drama that goes on there freaks me out. I came back and my friend had all his families pics stolen and horrible things said about his family...it was disgusting. How could a blog enviroment I so used to love just disgust me anymore? And how could other places like this just be so comforting, like a bowl of tomao soup on a rainy day?
I will not be taking a break from blogspot, because this is me.
I plan on writing everyday here and mostly reading on the other.
I just feel more myself here.
If you know me good enough, you know you can read me here. If I feel inspired enough I'll share it with 360. Like Dorid said..it would be nice to drag everyone here.
But I noticed many of you feel more comfy here anyway.
See you all tomorrow...of course it is after midnight here so later in the day.
I need some ideas for next weeks article, even though I am filled to the brim, aw...never mind...I got it. :D