I know I’m in Alaska when the fourth of July finds me raising the walls to a barn in the rain.
First we tore down a fence for the siding, helped by a pair of six year old twins (you really know you’re in Alaska when the six year olds know how to swing a hammer). Moving the boards over to the barn I bent over and stood up with a stack of them… and felt a sudden gush between my legs. I looked down and there was a huge pool of blood under my skirt.
“Wow, you weren’t pregnant, were you?” the woman who had just picked up a stack of boards next to me said.
Luckily, no. I just bleed buckets. A few months ago I was visiting Shamana Flora and she made me a tincture and diet plan for my bleeding problems (fainting and bad cramps) and I’ve been much better since. If you’re in need of an herbal/nutritionalist consult I highly recommend her (there’s a link over there on the left).
By the time we finished moving the boards over there most of the walls were framed up so we started nailing them up. My friend had one of those air gun nailer thingies? It was kind of scary, but it was really fast. She could nail the boards faster than I could get the old nails out of them and hold them up for her.
Then the cramps kicked in and I accidentally took a wee bit too much lobelia tincture, and sat on the couch with the kids watching a movie about dancing penguins. It was strange, first the penguins were indoctrinating us to accept wage slavery, but then there was some tap dancing and it ended up with an endearing message about following your dreams, individuality, and saving the environment. It felt like an acid trip, with the lobelia.
I slept down by the river in town so I’d be here when I woke up to start running errands right away. Sitting by the river pre-sleep listening to it’s song and talking to monkey flowers someone set off fire crackers a little down river, over the water. They howled at their fire works and I howled back.
I’m not celebrating imperialism or western civilization or this thing called America. I’m just celebrating.
Happy fourth.
I understand completely what you say about celebrating. Americans declared independence from a king in England only to end up, more than 200 years later, almost needing another revolution to remove this current monarch of sorts.
Although I might say, as an Arab who lives in America… this country is worth celebrating in so many ways. Lets just hope going forward that this continues to be the case.
Just wanted to say I have been faithfully reading your blog & really enjoy it. Keep it up!
Thanks Ruby!
Sam, let’s get on with the revolution making. 🙂