Sherman Alexie

I'm reading Sherman Alexie's newest novel. It is a YA novel called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. It is really a great read. If you're white and easily get offended by how miniorities see you then you probably don't want to read it. It is a book about race. Plain and simple.

I live in a state where African-Americans are treated better than the Native American people are. In fact in the Western part of the state if you are Native American and end up in a life threatening car accident forget about getting medical emergency help. Those folks will stand there and watch you die.

I know this to be true because when I dated a Native American boy in high school people went around telling my parents the biggest lies about him. Said he was some sort of druggie dude. I can vouch for him. He never did drugs. Alcohol was his choice but he wasn't any different from any other guy in our high school. By the way this guy wasn't from one of the 5 Tribes. The 5 Tribes people aren't looked down on as much as the Apache, Commanche, etc. This guy was an Apache.

Anyway, this book is a hoot! Junior is a 14 year old boy who ends up leaving the reservation to go to school in the white town. Actually he doesn't really leave the "rez", he just goes to school in town. His community sees this as an act of treason.

Sherman Alexie captures the Native American humor well. I first got interested in Alexie when I had to do original cataloging of video the college did of his visit. He is an entertaining speaker. I immediately checked out our copy of Smoke Signals and took it home to watch. This is one of the movies that lives in PF and my imagination. We alluded to it for months after watching it. When we took a trip to New Mexico we found ourselves saying, "Hey! Victor."

My experience is racism against Native Americans is far more accepted than racism against African Americans, Hispanics or Asians. Maybe it just matters about what part of the country you live in but I've seen things that aren't right. I know about more injustices perpetrated on the Native Americans than on any miniority. Our federal government thinks nothing of going in to reservations and eliminating the sources of income the Native people develop for themselves. During the '60s the Federal Marshalls exteriminated the sheep herds of the Navajos. Before Guantanamo we had political prisoners. In fact every time this particular person comes up for parole the parole hearing is denied. This is Native American man accused of killing an FBI agent in North Dakota. The courts were never able to prove that he killed the FBI agent but the government refuses give the man his freedom. It seems to me that as soon as the Native Americans become successful at something the US government steps in and throws a wrench into the works. You don't hear about these things. They don't make the 6 o'clock news or even the 10 o'clock news. Wanna read some good history on Native Americans and their treatment by the U.S. government? Read Angie Deboe's books. Here is something to think about Angie Deboe was denied her PhD. Why? Because she stood up against the treatment of Native Americans.

So if you read this book by Alexie and get offended by the things that are said in the book. Stop. Think. Read some history. The plight of the Native American is at our door step just as much as the plight of the African American peoples is. Our forefathers were rather good at creating situations that modelled what happened in Ireland. In fact one can say that Ireland was the prototype of the subjegation of people all over the world. The British just prefected it in other places.

Sickness abounds in our house lately. MI suffered a horrible head cold all weekend long. She continues have problems with her nose. Sometimes her head gets so congested that I know she has to be in agony. She's been a real trooper through all of this. Although, she did bite another child at school yesterday. DQ has had a cold too. Her's brought on a bit of larygnitis. It was fun to listen to her as she tried to talk. Oddly enough ST hasn't had anything abnormal. Just the normal allergy stuff.

Now PF is down. He's at home today. He's dizzy. I forgot to get the bed table out for him. I didn't want him walking around since he resembles a pin ball bouncing off the bumpers. I'm worried he's going to end up tilting.

Wondering about me? Well, I feel okay. As long as I don't bend down or roll over while laying down. It feels like it did when I had BPV. So I'm sure I'm having an inner ear issue. I'm just not sure whether it is caused by a virus or if it is BPV. If it is BPV it will last way to long and get progressively worse. Luckily if that happens I know what I will need to do, and I won't need to spend money at the doctor's office.

Another thing that is new is ST is getting an appliance to try to break the thumb sucking habit. The issue here is that her thumb is preventing her big teeth to come in properly. If we can break the habit then the teeth will come in well and perhaps we won't need to get her braces. I weighed the situation and decided it was worth a try. So ST has been going to the orthodontist for the last 2 weeks. Yesterday they made a mold of her mouth.

ST's appointment was too early to get DQ out of school, too. I spent the morning yesterday trying to figure out what to do with DQ. I finally decided to take advantage of the school's transportation system. DQ road the bus home. I'm now realizing I never got my house keyes back from her. I hope they are in the house or somewhere else that is safe. DQ felt so special riding the bus home from school. ST was so out of sorts about not getting to ride the bus home from school. I kept telling her that her time would come. Although I don't feel very comfortable about giving her the house keyes. I'm afraid she would loose them because she would keep showing them to the other kids. ST is such a flighty little thing.

The unimbraceable hugger

Hip huggers! When are they going to go away? I am so tired of looking at young women's midriff's hanging over these low riding pants. Have you noticed, too, that the back end of these pants makes these young women' bottoms look flat and unshapely? Backpockets hang so low that they kinda look like they are all carrying a load.

Really when will the style change? Even Britney Spears no longer looks good in hip huggers. I saw that Britney is going to try and add more cute mistakes to this world. If that's the case then here's my advise Britney... go with the natural waist style pants because you are just a bit too soft these days to pull off the hip huggers. Plus, your plan to have more kids is only going to ruin your figure more so I hope you've prepared yourself for more mean comments from the media.

To be enlightened

After being on the market for approximately 8 to 9 months our house out by the lake sold. Anyone who's sold/bought a house knows there were snafus and snags. An inspection of the house proved that the house needed to be lifted a bit. The oven stopped working sometime during the last 3 years. But overall the house was in good condition. Once we figured out how to fix those issues so we could close relatively quickly the process went pretty smoothly.

We did get pretty close to the asking price. I was just gratefull that PF accepted the bid without any haggling. I remember the night that PF handed me the contract. We were in a restuarant. I jumped up and did a dance. People looked up from their meals to watch me. I didn't care. I was just so happy.

Now we have money. We no longer look at every purchase and wonder if it is essential to our living. Now we can go into Quiznos and get the kids a bag of chips and a drink and buy a children's meal at the competition next door. I've got big plans for that money that we spent on the morgtage. We are going to start saving for the kids education. We aren't going to have a seperate account for each of them. It's all going to go into one account. It will be our money-- not their's.

I'm also going to go out shopping for kitchen chairs, material to recover the dining room chairs and to make a valance for the dining room window. Our other expense we plan to do is put in a fence. I'm tired of the neighbor's dog's poop in our yard.

I feel lighter than I have for years. And I know that PF does to.

How's this for crazy

Last night I could not go to sleep. I laid in bed awake. My thoughts were running wild. I worried about my children. I worried about my house that we are trying to sell so we won't be bankrupt in 2008. I thought about those two baby boys in China. Can you believe it? I really, really thought about applying to adopt one of them. I mean these guys need a family, don't they? DQ needs someone in the family that looks like her in some way. (Last night she was upset. She finally realized that my hair color is not black but dark brown. Her words were, "Now I don't look like anyone in the family!")

As I laid awake, I thought about Adj. Queen. While I worked closely beside her low those many years ago and listened to her complain about her lack of sleep I often did not appreciate her the Cross she bore. Now I am TOTALLY sympathetic. Or is that empathetic? I walk in her shoes. It is horrible to lay in bed while your so lays there softly snoring, totally oblivious to the situation you are enduring. In fact PF started to have a nightmare. So I started to rub his belly and whisper that it's okay. PF awakes and apologizes for waking me. I told him not to worry. I was already awake and hadn't slept a wink yet.

This was a couple of hours after we had turned out the light. Here's something to giggle about. I don't know if you'll remember that I had a nightmare where I was screamming really, really loudly after watching the movie, Cars. Well PF had watched Dogs and Cats with the kids recently. His dream was inspired by something in that movie. I told him we really needed to stop watching these children's movies since we keep getting these nightmares. That got us to laughing pretty hard considering it had to be about 1:00 AM.

Well after the belly laugh PF falls quickly asleep again. I'm beginning to think he suffers from narcolepsy. Depending on how tired PF is he can fall asleep in the middle of talking to you. I'm serious. One minute he's saying, "Let's go buy..." You never know what it was he wanted to buy. The man is asleep. I digress. When PF falls back to sleep I continue to lay there waiting for the blessed event to happen to me. It finally does but I don't know how or why because my brain continue to go around and around. And I went back to thinking about adding to the family. I'm going to have to research about those tumors.

Love without boundaries

I have thousands of children that I love. I've never met them and probably never will. However, I am connected to them because my eldest daughter is their sister through their shared life experience.

I just wanted to do something for these kiddoes. Right now Facebook has a competion going on for charities. Love without Boundaries is in the lead. I would like for themm to win. I'm going to do my part but I wanted to do more. Back in the beginning of December Love without Boundaries had to close down their emergency response because they had run out of money in their general funds. They could no longer respond to the urgent needs of babies abandoned with major health problems. On Christmas morning the director found out about two baby boys with similiar medical issues that required IMMEDIATE medical attention. They had tumors on their backs that had ruptured. Without immediate surgery those two boys would die; the orphanages did not have the means to provide the medical care so they asked Love without Boundaries to help. I know the director of LWB personally and I have a feeling that she took her own personal money to help these two boys.

So if you want a chance to start the New Year out doing a good thing please check out: Facebook Challenge

If you are worried about how much of the money goes to the children they serve I can tell you that they only have a 3% overhead because the board of directors and the founder are all volunteers. Should they win this competition they will have the funds to help emergency cases again. I'm going to link their blog to mine so if you would like to read more you can.