Our dog–a 14-year-old black lab–was very much part of our routine. Ivy slept in with us and was content to hang out with us, more person than dog. Then, we took on Zuzu and Tina Turner. They had come from a home where the schedule really revolved around them. So, now, instead of the dogs sleeping in until I get up, they get me up, usually somewhere around 6:30 or so. I pull on some clothes and shoes and we head down my neighbor’s dirt road. We had big thunderstorms last night so it was very wet this morning as we turned onto the edge of the clover field. Then, it’s breakfast, which requires a little policing since Tina Turner, the smallest one and my ADD child, takes awhile to finish hers and if I’m not watching, the big dogs finish their food then push her out of the way and eat hers, too. Now, we have all settled back down: Ivy in bed with my husband, Tina next to me on her blanket, and Zuzu with his bear in the “man cave” in the office. And, it’s only 7:30!
Yesterday, I got started early and by noon time had most of a PhotoStory done. Today is all about movie maker and then I’m about done with the digital storytelling workshop. I even had time to sit on the swing with a cup of coffee and a book yesterday. How lovely. the chickens flock around and the dogs find their spots, noses to the air, as we all welcome the early signs of Spring.
My colleague has been looking for work since our grant is ending and he found a request for consulting in South Korea. Cool…we’re going to see each other tonight and tomorrow for a meeting and we can strategize. There’s also a call for doing online stuff for Texas. I haven’t gone out looking. Right now, I have enough work but maybe by fall when my dissertation is about done, I can start looking around. I very much like my lifestyle: mostly working from home but enough travel to keep it interesting and enough changes to get into schools. One of my clients may be doing some work with DC; I would love to be part of that!
Keith Phipps at the AV Club has been reading through a box of vintage paperbacks and then writing about them. In that spirit, I pulled books off my shelf that I’ve bought, looked at, but not seemed to find time to read. I put them in a basket in the bedroom and am now working my way through them. They are, by all means, not all the unread books on my shelf, but just the 15 or so that fit in the basket. It makes it seems less daunting, I suppose.
I had started In the Shadow of Wounded Knee by Roger L. Di Silvestro some time ago but only made it through the first few pages. Then, for some reason, it ended up under the clock radio on my night stand and that was the end of it. The books under the clock radio ended up in the basket, mostly because the pile had gotten precipitously tall and the clock radio looked in danger of plummeting onto my head if things even got too out of hand in the bed, if you know what I mean. So, they went into the basket and as I decided what to read first, I figured I’d start with Di Silvestro since I had already invested some time in the book.
It is excellent. The premise of the book is that the Indian Wars didn’t really end until after Wounded Knee in January 1891 when Plenty Horses killed Edward Casey and then several ranchers ambushed Lakota Hunters. So far, much of it has been a review of history with which I am already very much familiar. Yet, Di Silvestro makes it fresh as he shows the nuances of how both whites and Native Americans felt and acted during the time. His story also reminds us that the Native Americans really never had a chance. Even when they tried to follow the rules, they were often massacred.
One point that Di Silvestro made that I don’t remember thinking about before was that those Native Americans who did come into the reservation seemed to be treated more harshly, despite their cooperation, than those chiefs like Sitting Bull who chose to stay out. That made it difficult for the cooperating chiefs to convince their young warriors that they had done the right thing by surrendering to the white man. I have been to Wounded Knee and I can picture those lonely wind-swept plains and the small church. We could almost hear the voices of the dead as we stood and looked over the site of the massacre more than 100 years before. It still haunts the landscape.
uld be a long driving day but planned a few stops, including the various potteries in Stoke-on-Trent. We hit up Wedgwood and Royal Doulton for deals on china. Once we got past the bigger cities like Manchester and Liverpool, we stopped for a late lunch along the Lancaster Canal. We saw houseboats just like those on the Avon River in Stratford.
Our last stop of the day was Dove Cottage in Grasmere, the home of William Wordsworth, and the place he wrote many of his most famous works. He was visited by all his friends here including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas DeQuincey. The house is furnished with original furniture and cases are filled with memorabilia like his ice skates, dishes, and spectacles. Excerpts from his sister Dorothy’s diary for the dates of our visit were lying on the table in the entry room, which originally served as the kitchen. I don’t want to gush too much but it was pretty amazing to be standing in his study, imagining him writing Daffodils after coming in from the garden.
