Oneida Powwow, 2013

Our yearly 4th of July adventure is the Oneida Powwow.  Gary came home from Illinois to share it with me.

We enjoy the craft displays. There are satin quilts with brightly colored tribal motifs made by a family in Denver. Seamstresses show off tribal costumes, some for jingle dancers, the women who dance with bells on their dresses.  Gary spends some time looking at the silver jewelry, not for me though.  I don't wear jewelry so he looks for himself.

We try to eat sensibly all year, but at the powwow, we splurge on Indian tacos: taco fixings on top of fry bread that can kill with tastiness. Lately, we've shared one taco between us. We always get it from the Cornelius family.  We top it off the meal with fresh squeezed lemonade, so welcome in the hot sun.

What we are waiting for is the grand entry as we listen to drummers sing around their big drums. There are two or three sets of singers from different tribes who take turns to rest their voices. I stop by their shaded canopy to listen and smell the sweet grass they burn to welcome good spirits.

The drummers stop suddenly.  The prayer/invocation is spoken by a tribal leader from another part of the state, both in English and in his native tongue.

The drums begin again and the honor guard arrives with flags, banners and tribal insignia carried by veterans of America's wars.

This is the point where I tear up. No Memorial Day service I've ever been to is equal to the reverence shown to Oneida warriors. Here, the veterans of unpopular wars march proudly.

They are followed by the swirling colors of dancers from around North America, all dancing to the beating of the drum and the soaring singers.

The drums pound.  The grounds fill with more and more dancers, over six hundred of them.

This is what could have been lost through the Indian wars, disease and attrition.  This is what can be lost if mining corporations destroy the reservations and their water supplies. The tribes continue to send their warriors to fight our wars. How can we not support their struggles to defend their nations?  

Come winter, I will cherish the memory of hot summer days and the time we spent at the Oneida Powwow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pZyJCdH_u8

Size 11

The pain in my foot is over but I had to face the fact that I had discovered the culprit.  My shoes were too small.

With age, my feet have gotten bigger.  In high school, my shoe size was 8.  By the time Chris was born, I was up to size 9.  As I became a senior citizen, I reached size 10.  I thought that would be the end of their growth so I kept investing in size 10's.

I never spent all that much.  I bought inexpensive shoes bought on sale, sometimes even at rummage sales.  I watched for bargains because this walker wears them out so quickly.  I figure six month a pair so I wanted some in reserve.

Last week, I wore my last 9-1/2 pair.  Even with thin socks, I wound up with a very sore foot.  After three days of rest, ice, compression and elevation, the problem was mostly solved...until I put on a pair of size 10's. The pain began again. I dug out a pair of size 11's that I wore with heavy wool socks in the winter. Heavenly relief.

I have three pairs of size 11 sports shoes but nothing dressy.  Before I leave on tour next week, I need to shop for some larger dress shoes.  This afternoon, Tisha got me a coupon for shoes that are already on sale.

I'm not vain.  Having big feet doesn't bother me at well.  But I am so loathe to pack up sixteen pairs of shoes and take them to Goodwill.

What must be done will be done.

*************

This afternoon, Wade posted the conclusion to his short story "Planned Obsolescence" at Black Coffee Fiction:   http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com/2013/07/planned-obsolescence-part-two.html

I know we all wanted to know how that one turned out!

My turn is next week.  I think it will be another of the Glen Valley Chronicles. I am very fond of that little community.

Maps and Directions

Today, I took time to print out the maps for the tour.

Gary installed a GPS in the car, but I doubt I will use it. I don't like taking my eyes off the road and the GPS voice is annoying. I've always wondered why men who object to a woman "backseat driving" let a computer tell them where to go.

Sometimes I get instructions from librarians or activity directors but if they leave out one little turn, I can be sent miles out of the way. A few years back I was sent on a "shortcut" and wound up tooling through a four way stop sign.  The sign was hidden by shrubbery until the last minute. I got into a fender bender but lucky for me, there was no performance that day.  Repairs were made and I was on my way.

Instead of instructions, I print out maps from Mapquest.com.  I've heard that the maps are not always accurate but then neither is GPS. I've never had a problem with the maps.

Before I set out each morning, I check the maps and plan out the day.  You would think that I wouldn't need maps for little towns like Pickford, Michigan, but I never am sure where the library will be. It might be in a shopping mall, in a city hall, or what looks like a private residence. No two libraries are alike.

The same is true of senior residences.  I've seen enormous structures that hold several hundred residents and homey little buildings that hold a dozen.  The maps take me where I want to go.

Finally, I made up an invoice for each performance.  Sometimes these aren't needed, but I have to be ready because sometimes I will have to move quickly between venues.  I don't want to be held up typing an invoice on the library's computer.

One order of books has arrived. Another should be here in a week.

All that's left to do is the final packing on Thursday and Friday next week.
     

Quiet Fourth

Gary and I don't go any place on most holidays.  Neither of us like a lot of noise and Independence Day is the noisiest of all but for some reason, the 4th of July is always quiet in Seymour. We have no fireworks display, no community picnic. Most Seymourites leave town, many for their cabins up north.  Tonight, I am the only person on this block.  

This year's 4th will be even quieter than most because Gary has been in Illinois working on the estate and clearing brush on the farm all week.  He did think of coming back late tomorrow but I convinced him that was a bad idea because the traffic would be terrible with people going to and coming back from fireworks displays.  There is usually a certain amount of drinking, too. He thought it over and decided to come back on Friday morning instead.

He should be able to see the Dixon fireworks from the farm but he could also go to some of the festivities of the annual Petunia Festival:  
http://www.petuniafestival.org/fireworks

Tomorrow is also Chris and Tisha's wedding anniversary, no forgetting the date for them!  But they will spend the day together and on Sunday morning, I will take them out for brunch.

Before that, Gary and I will go to the Oneida Powwow on Saturday, pig out on fry bread and watch the grand entry. We'll position ourselves near the big drums and let the vibrations roll through us. That is part of the 4th of July week for us.

Tomorrow, I'll be alone, yes, but that is fine with me.  I'll spend the day in the garden.

We celebrate in our own ways.

Second Farmers Market

The Seymour Farmers' Market grows as the season progresses and there is more produce.  Today there were fifteen vendors. As there are more vendors, more buyers come by to see what is going on.

A big draw is always the bake sale, an innovation I suggested back when we started the market five or six years ago.  All baked and canned goods have to be done in certified kitchens with one exception:  church bake sales which were exempt from state laws.  I suggested that we have one church bake sale a week, with a different denomination each week. It started slowly but in time it became the most popular part of the market. Besides being a moneymaker for a church, it brought the church members to the market.  It was the best advertising ever. Today it was Seymour's Emmanuel Lutheran Church. I came home with cinnamon muffins. I got biscotti and kohlrabi from Francine at Sissy's stand, asparagus and sugar snap peas from Hmong vendors.

There was a new addition, a kettle corn and smoothie stand.  I got pineapple, mango and strawberry smoothies for Susan Manzke and me.

Susan sat with me for part of the day to sell her books, too. Later Colette brought her books as well. Our understanding is that for each book sold, I will get one dollar to put toward the cost of our spot at the market.

We talked to people all day.  Friends stopped by, too.  I brought extra chairs so that people could come and sit with us to talk about writing.

One ongoing problem is wind which tries to whip our screen tent around.  I thought I had the problem solved but midway through the afternoon, a sudden gust threw a corner of the tent toward the next vendor.  I grabbed it just in time.  Next week Gary will have to devise something better.

In the end Susan, sold one book, I sold four. I could have sold another copy of Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises, but just in time I found out the buyer was a writer of Christian romances...and I warned her about the four sex scenes in the book. I want happy customers.

I've already had Wade order more copies of Black Coffee Fiction and tomorrow will have to order more of Decades of Love and Other Disasters.   

We'll have our Local Writers' Tent at the market again next week, then come back in August when I return from my Canadian tour.

Getting Better

I tried walking today but the pain in my foot was still there. I figured I would spend another day resting, but remembered I had to go to DePere to pick up a folding table for tomorrow's farmers' market.  Last week I only had a small card table to display my books.  I've wanted a larger table for decades and today I picked it up at a Menards sale.I was limping when I came back to the car.

I looked across the parking lot to the Dollar Tree and decided I needed two things: a pair of flip-flops, because shoes were simply too painful to wear,and an ankle support, which I thought I could put on the opposite way so it compressed the top of my foot.  I put them on right away and experienced immediate relief.

Back in Seymour, I managed to walk a mile and later worked in the garden.

The peonies are done now so I am deadheading the old flowers, converting the plants back to shrubs. It is now lily time. These are the first.

The hydrangea is in flower. It began with a little plant given to me by an old woman who was 93 at the time and very near the end of her time on earth. Gardens a form of immortality if we share our perennials. It is now huge, as tall as me and filling in the bed nicely.

Gary and I found a dying spirea bush in the city dump one a dozen or so years ago.  Its roots had become tangled in a burlap bag and wire. We carefully cut away the bag and wire until we loosened the roots.  I plopped it in the ground and it took off.

I have another spirea the same size that I found at the Shiocton citywide rummage sale. It was the size of a fist. I bought it at the end of the day for a quarter.   

I've never had much money for my garden but with a little ingenuity and sharing with friends, I've built an enormous collection.  The weeds are taking over with our spring rain but I will continue to fight them until I leave on July 13.  Then the gardens are on their own.  

Coping

It's a beautiful summer day, balmy breezes blowing in a just right temperature. I should be walking and gardening, but here I am with a foot elevated, iced and compressed. It is much improved, but I'm taking no chances since I am leaving on tour in two weeks. One more day and I'll try a short walk.  Meanwhile there was a limited yoga session for exercise.

On a day like this you re-discover that there is almost nothing worth watching on television, so I sat on the back deck to read Justice Sonja Sotomayer's memoir, My Beloved World.  I've read many autobiographies, but Sotomayer's is one of the most readable. Hers has been a remarkable life.  She rose from a Bronx walk up infested with cockroaches in a Puerto Rican neighborhood and went on to attend Princeton University.  Like Clarence Thomas, she was an affirmative action student.  Unlike Thomas, she acknowledges that and voted accordingly in this year's Supreme Court decision.  She went on to be an attorney and then a judge, which is where she ends the book.

Later, I caught up on office work, sending e-mails to various storytelling venues.

I took a nap.

I worked on texting for a while, learning how to punctuate.  I printed out eight pages of texting lingo and began trying out those shorthand phrases on Gary in Illinois.

Meanwhile, my BF Norma sent me a PIC from Chicago's Gay Pride Parade.

I wished I was there instead of here with my foot on the desk.