It Aint Easy Being Indian – October 2022

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By Ricey Wild

The end of each month is when I start shivering with anxiety that I won’t have enough essentials till I get paid again. Good thing is my Fuzz-Butts have everything they need, except this past late September they ran out of treats! So much drama. Purrince tore open a bag of dog treats while I was searching for the large container of cat treats I misplaced. I will make it up to him and the others.

Reminds me of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s song “First of the Month” speaks to me, but we usually make it work somehow and for that I am grateful. Here I am, living on disability and am only a few bucks above the limit to receive SNAP benefits, but oh well. Until recently I didn’t cook or eat much being alone, so I swigged protein shakes. Good stuff!

Ya well, we all have our trials and tribulations, ennit? I used to be homeless but not on the streets; I was lucky in that I have family and good friends who took me in. I pray for everyone who needs a hand up or offers one. My friend Mike F. in Minneapolis posted about tiny houses that will go up in the Southside, and being prone to be weepy, I wept. For the first time since before colonization some of the ghosted, ignored and dismissed indigenous people will have a home.

Home. For over three years now I have struggled mightily and did it alone because of the pandemic. I was further isolated after shattering my left ankle, and then rolling around in a wheelchair. I know that if you are a regular reader of this column, you’ve read all the above before. I don’t like whiners but this is relevant to the point. It began with me being unable to go outside, and then I became an emotionally anxious, mentally sniveling caricature of my former self. It’s difficult to share this with yooz, for real, but I am somehow compelled to right now.

Fo sho’, I ain’t the only person on this beautiful and bountiful blue orb but we all experienced the COVID pandemic differently, which btw has not yet been eliminated. Be careful, be safe, be responsible as my Son says.

Today I made it outside after months, after years now, of canceling medical appointments because of severe anxiety. I am very fearful of falling and breaking more bones and then facing surgery and hospital time. Oh ya, I know this sounds silly but for the record, I just ain’t right. Going outside is in itself is progress. Fer real. I’ve been alone for so long now all I do is think, and I try not to do that with all the idiocy and threats of nuclear war – which will end all of us.

Not that that’s a bad thing. My concerns are for the animals and all sentient life who did not contribute to toxic flatulence; I mean the ones who have no part of climate change except cattle. Science, people! We could just declare a global Beef BBQ and eat them all up! Pass the ‘Hut Sauce’. And the tortillas, cornbread and especially fry bread. Cheap white grocery label bread too, but you didn’t get that from me. I’m classy.

So anyhoo, I made it to my clinic appointment. NOT fake news, yo. I was literally shaking in me Granny Pannys at just the thought of leaving my home. I was tryna to remember when I was actually outside the last time and the only thing I could come up with was this yellow cryptic logo that appears to have a Mc and Dees, chunks of chicken parts, and it’s confusing.

Except for orange Hi-C I would not deign to consume their cheap, tacky, greezy menu. That I can do at home. My menu is much better. Just go get something out of the freezer and I will microwave to perfection.

The whole point around this raving rambling column is that I now have help to put my home back together, back into a warm, loving space for all of us. The entire house had to accommodate me rolling around and that meant chaos ensued. There were too many times I was unable to access necessities until everything was outta the way.

It is my beloved Son and his fiance who are visiting and have been working hard to help me. Well, I am finally getting the people I need. To the others in the past? Chii miigwech. Yooz are good people. And y’all are also welcome for my help.

I have never disputed the “circle of life”, take that however you interpret it, and skip or gallup with the reality of temporary existence.

I’m loving on y’all! The hot wheezy breath on yer neck? C’est moi.