Fried Macaroni and Cheese

Certain things in life make you happy. Happy at that moment, happy to be alive and experiencing it.



Like giving birth to a child, a very painful journey in itself but I did it four times, know why. That moment they give you your beautiful baby makes it all worth it. Makes you feel happy to be alive, powerful as a woman that you have just given life, a living, breathing baby that will depend on you forever. Someone that will love you unconditionally and that you will protect fiercely.

Another moment is seeing you kids do something that is unselfish, something as simple as bringing you a dandelion, no matter how many times it happens it makes me tear up and be happy to be alive.

Or it could be something as simple as laying on a comfy couch with a quilt, while it is rainging and you are still kind of in the middle of what is a great book, one of those books that plays in your head like a movie as you read it, you have hot coffee on a table nearby and your cat purring on your lap.

Or it could be going to a bar with your friends and everyone laughs all night.

Or it could be waking up to a clean house, that smells like coffee.

These are all moments to live for...they make life worth it....like fried macaroni and cheese.

The Red Door

At one time this was a happening place. A gas station back in the day of full service, when 3 cute guys would come out at the ring of a bell and service your car before you and your family went down the turnpike to the beach for the day. Old men would go there and sit on their haunches and spit tobacco while talking to the owner about what was happening in their small town, they would talk about things like who won at bridge, who came over for dinner on Sunday, and how their grandkids were getting up there in age, soon being going off to that Bible college. The owner and his family prospered from this full service station. They prospered enough to have a big house that his wife polished every wood thing in it on a daily basis and cooked full meals from recipes handed down to her from her mom and mother in law. They ate meatloaf once a week and thought it was a sin that such a thing as TV dinners were invented and her peach pie was the best in 3 counties and had 2 blue ribbons to prove it. She hemmed clothes while watching their TV and mended socks. She even needlepointed their pillowcases and lovingly ironed everything in their house. She smoked cigarettes and drank vodka when no one was looking. Then one day she was gone, no one ever knew where she went or what happened to her. Rumors were that she ran off with a young man but in truth she ran off with her sisiter in law. Her husband stopped watching the full service garage, their children moved from town when the garage stoppped bringing in money, the woman was happy somewhere on the East Coast with her sister in law. The man drank himself to death and the garage became what it is now, just a red door in the midwest. But the woman, well she never mended another sock again in her life.



(OK that wasn't a true story but I like making things up to my sisters pictures. I call it a sisterly picture challenge.)

curdled dream

Everything I thought



never would be





yet



Everything I wanted

never came

yet

Someday I will be



and will have



but for now it is not

yet

i will still rise



sometimes

like a curdled dream

Now....I love penguins

See that pic of my daughter with my siblings. See my evil little sister in the middle. That penguin hater! Who likes taking pics with her broom because she's a little witch...anyway.



I can say that because I am older, smarter and more brilliant..and quite simply a bad ass...well anyway she hates penguins. I don't know why! I am obsessed with why anyone would hate any of God's little precious creatures but to hate penguins is just pure evil. They have hard lives, I watched MArch of the Penguins, Happy Feet...why oh why hate them???

So I been on messenger with her and sending her penguin factoids. I never been one of those chicks that was all weird and obsessed with dolphins or turtles or something but just because of her I THINK I NOW LOVE PENGUINS.



Did you know penguins don't jump...they bounce?

Amazing...I want a penguin.

I used to eat dirt

I did.

My brother who stole toys from the neighborhood and crapped his pants in front of half the neighborhood was considered normal. I ate dirt, when I wasn't eating sunflower seeds and had my nose constantly stuck in a book. When I wasn't writing wild stories about things that didn't really exist. When I wasn't running from monsters that didn't really chase me. When I wasn't talking to the rabbits in their house. When I wasn't walking way out in the country and pretending to get lost. When I wasn't looking for treasure that I was sure Jesse James buried back in they day. When I wasn't pretending to be Laura Ingalls not of the TV series but of the books.

I used to eat dirt....and brown crayons.

What a cryin, low down, dirty shame

Isn’t it a Shame?

Imagine this, you are not from here but are gambling at the local casino. You hit a jackpot and take your honey to eat at the buffet. After stuffing your body and purse with food you make your way to the gift shop to buy your honey some of the beautiful local handmade artwork of the local tribe. When you get there you find that hardly ANY of the artwork in the gift shop is locally made. In fact most of it is from another tribe in the Southwest.
What a shame!
Did our tribe or our people that are employed at the local casino really make a trip to the southwest and buy all of their jewelry?
When I worked at The Heritage Center at Red Cloud School, many people came from many different tribes, from around the country, and the world even, to buy the local arts and crafts. As Lakota, we have a reputation for our art on every level, both traditional and contemporary. So it disappoints me to see the casino gift shop highlight the artwork of another tribe, that isn’t even local. It’s as if there are no artists among us when we all know there are.
How can we deny local artists and craftspeople of that sale? We have a plethora of local artists in many, many different mediums that there is no reason that any gift shop two days from this reservation should highlight the artwork of a tribe that is states away. There is no reason for a local gift shop to highlight the Southwest jewelry of a market that is already flooded.
I mean if we really think about it, and think of the many wonderful local artists who paint, carve, bead, quill, quilt, etc, why do we need to carry silverwork of another tribe? Why do most of the gift shops in the Black Hills carry southwest work? If we go to the Southwest, are we going to see our Lakota artwork featured?
The economy in this day and age is tough enough, but on this reservation it is always tough. I don’t need to go over statistics again for this reservation, don’t need to tell anyone how hard life is here. All you have to do to see how hard life is here for some people is step out your front door. Everyday is a struggle and a scheme for many.
So why is the featured art at our local casino from the Southwest? That is a slap in the face to all the local talent and creativity. All the money spent on that inventory could have been spent here on this reservation. Everyday someone here sits at their kitchen table beading, quilling, painting, carving, putting diamonds together for a starquilt, putting the ear hooks on a pair of earrings in the hopes that they can go out and sell whatever they made to buy diapers, a meal, put gas in their car, or propane in their tank for heat.
To all the local artists, I thank you for your creativity and heart you put into your work. Keep it up and speak out for what you believe in.

The Day of The Wino

There is this wine, I think it is called muscatel. And I heard it is a dessert wine from Spain. For years, maybe even decades, it was considered the worst thin g that could ever happen to this reservation. Winos were laughed at and looked down upon for drinking the muscatel. It was considered illegal, well it still is.

Any alcohol is illegal here. But back in the day, when my gramps was alive, he drank wine sometimes. Mostly he drank beer. But he would sit down on "bullshit corner" with the other vets and old guys and have a nip of thier vino while talking about life in general, rez gossip and grandkids. They were harmless people, gentle strangers to all and old buddies to each other that met up in the middle of town to sit and talk about life. Maybe thier lives on a reservation were so hard or as a veteran it was so stressful they had to nip. Or maybe they nipped because they wanted to.

But back then they (the winos) were accepted in this society. They didn't harm anyone, had great stories, and stayed out of the way of everyone.

Nowadays the cops took that part of our society away. They are full force in getting alcohol off the streets of the rez, that they actually helped the drug dealers profit. Cocaine is a major problem here, along with meth and taluu, which is paint thinner.

It is easier on this reservation to be a coke dealer than to be a wino. Which is why we are a mess here today in .

Here on this reservation, it is easier for cops to bust the person who will drink a beer rather than take on a coke dealer, who may or may not be a cop or related to a cop or related to someone on tribal council. The old vets and old guys can't sit in peace on the corner anymore and bullshit. They have to resort to drinking awful awful shit they never would have before.

As Lakota, we were proud warriors, are still a proud people, as a functioning society... we are fucked.
(Don't expect this in the paper, they don't print me anymore. *fuckers*)