A day of flat tires
I didn't go to work today. Thus, I didn't get a free dinner at Claim Jumper.
There was a rash of flat tires in the Walking Bull family yesterday/today.
Last night, my brother's Impala had a flat [we know this because he drove us back home after the minivan's battery died yesterday morning and went back to Reno] and then today, while he was in Nixon, he had another.
Also, he was drunk. But I've learned to stop getting outraged about it so much and let it wash over me.
So, instead of going into work, I was called upon to tool the minivan out to Nixon [about 40 good miles out or so] and drive he and his girlfriend and her youngest daughter back into town to buy a new tire [they were already using the doughnut spare] and truck it back out there.
Then we got back to town, delivered Kerry to work.
I stopped in at my shop and explained the situation to James. He was kind of snippy about it, but didn't document it [Lord, I love working with Natives, in my experience, the whole "my family is in need of me"-reasoning hasn't ever worked with white employers in any situation other than death].
Apparently, James also drew my name for Secret Santa. Odd.
In a mood I've come to regret, I hurridly and growlly plopped his gift back onto his desk and said, "Here's your 'Secret' Santa."
So, he gave me a jar of gourmet hard candies [???] and a Barnes & Noble giftcard for $35. Score!
Then, on the way to buy said tire, the minivan's tire also had a flat.
By this point in the day, I'd acknowledged that things were somehow, not quite right. So I basically let this wash over me as my brother flipped his lid and called Kerry [on his cell phone with a dying battery, no less] to get her father to come and give him a ride to a tire store.
I stayed with Baby Cate and we had a strange conversation that involved me lip-syncing Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." She's just now getting comfortable with talking [still only mildly resembling English] so I just went with I thought she said. It worked.
How can I say this, saying that I'm good with kids is like saying that I'm excellent at making Epsilon equal 244 [an esoteric math joke from Tony]. The two are so completely unrelated to me in this recent edition of my human experience that I'm surprised that Baby Cate didn't bawl her head off the entire time we were left alone together.
She's done it before.
Once, she slapped me and dug her little nails into my face in frustration of having no one with a familiar face around. My mom lucks out because despite the whole fact that she's the "new" grandmother, she still has the grandma-thang working for her, her countenance is as divine as her apple pies are made-from-scratch.
I mean really, who thinks fondly of an uncle? Much less a "new," distant, gay, Emo uncle?
I remember being terrified of most my uncles, especially Uncle Francis who became my hunka ate at my 14th birthday/honoring ceremony [the Lakota equivalent of godfather and baptism]. But I suppose that was because he explained to his white friends who visited at the Corn Creek pow wow that distinction gave him, traditionally, purview on the woman I would marry. To combat this anxiety, I should have asked him if he would consider boys as well as girls?
But maybe that's just my family.
To top it all off, I spent my very last ten dollars on gas to get to Nixon in the first place. So, logically, we ended up with the Impala?
Oh well, I get to drive the family's "cool car" tomorrow morning.
So there's that.
There was a rash of flat tires in the Walking Bull family yesterday/today.
Last night, my brother's Impala had a flat [we know this because he drove us back home after the minivan's battery died yesterday morning and went back to Reno] and then today, while he was in Nixon, he had another.
Also, he was drunk. But I've learned to stop getting outraged about it so much and let it wash over me.
So, instead of going into work, I was called upon to tool the minivan out to Nixon [about 40 good miles out or so] and drive he and his girlfriend and her youngest daughter back into town to buy a new tire [they were already using the doughnut spare] and truck it back out there.
Then we got back to town, delivered Kerry to work.
I stopped in at my shop and explained the situation to James. He was kind of snippy about it, but didn't document it [Lord, I love working with Natives, in my experience, the whole "my family is in need of me"-reasoning hasn't ever worked with white employers in any situation other than death].
Apparently, James also drew my name for Secret Santa. Odd.
In a mood I've come to regret, I hurridly and growlly plopped his gift back onto his desk and said, "Here's your 'Secret' Santa."
So, he gave me a jar of gourmet hard candies [???] and a Barnes & Noble giftcard for $35. Score!
Then, on the way to buy said tire, the minivan's tire also had a flat.
By this point in the day, I'd acknowledged that things were somehow, not quite right. So I basically let this wash over me as my brother flipped his lid and called Kerry [on his cell phone with a dying battery, no less] to get her father to come and give him a ride to a tire store.
I stayed with Baby Cate and we had a strange conversation that involved me lip-syncing Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." She's just now getting comfortable with talking [still only mildly resembling English] so I just went with I thought she said. It worked.
How can I say this, saying that I'm good with kids is like saying that I'm excellent at making Epsilon equal 244 [an esoteric math joke from Tony]. The two are so completely unrelated to me in this recent edition of my human experience that I'm surprised that Baby Cate didn't bawl her head off the entire time we were left alone together.
She's done it before.
Once, she slapped me and dug her little nails into my face in frustration of having no one with a familiar face around. My mom lucks out because despite the whole fact that she's the "new" grandmother, she still has the grandma-thang working for her, her countenance is as divine as her apple pies are made-from-scratch.
I mean really, who thinks fondly of an uncle? Much less a "new," distant, gay, Emo uncle?
I remember being terrified of most my uncles, especially Uncle Francis who became my hunka ate at my 14th birthday/honoring ceremony [the Lakota equivalent of godfather and baptism]. But I suppose that was because he explained to his white friends who visited at the Corn Creek pow wow that distinction gave him, traditionally, purview on the woman I would marry. To combat this anxiety, I should have asked him if he would consider boys as well as girls?
But maybe that's just my family.
To top it all off, I spent my very last ten dollars on gas to get to Nixon in the first place. So, logically, we ended up with the Impala?
Oh well, I get to drive the family's "cool car" tomorrow morning.
So there's that.