We did the tourist thing last weekend. We went to Branson, Missouri. For those of you not familiar with Branson, it is (for reasons I’ve never understood) one of the live entertainment capitals of the world, outside of Las Vegas and Nashville, Tennessee. You can see shows ranging from Shoji Tabuchi to Titanic exhibits to Pasty Cline retrospectives. Heck, King Kong was even climbing a building, all from the rolling Ozark mountains in the middle of nowhere.

We didn’t see any of that stuff. We saw Brule.

There’s supposed to be an accent mark over the ‘e’ but I’m not good with this sort of thing.

The theater was probably the only place in Branson where you could just pop into a tipi. So we did.

Notice The Kid is showing Pooh Bear the sights. I would like to state for the record that Pooh Bear was a well-behaved bear on this vacation. He watched the show with great interest, right until The Kid fell asleep during the flute duet number and used Pooh as a pillow.

Also notice the foggy quality of the camera work? It POURED for most of the first half of the show–like so much, it almost drown out the drumming–and those were big drums! But at intermission, the sun had come out, so we made a break for the tipi. And the camera fogged up. Le Sigh.

Back to the point, which was the show. What is Brule? Brule is a contemporary Native American Indian music show. It’s the brainchild of Paul LaRoche, a Lakota Indian who was raised in a white household.

Ironically, Paul’s life story is remarkably similar to a hero character I’m working on. Because he’s a cool guy, he said that I could model as many romance heroes off of him as I wanted. I kind of got the feeling that romance authors don’t just pop up every day at the RFD-TV theater and discuss why everyone there would be a great hero or heroine.

The show has the traditional American Indian drums, flutes, and rattles, but it also has a contemporary rock backbeat, being as Paul played in a whole lot of rock bands back in the 60s and 70s. I thought the fusion of the two styles was not only cool, but eminently listenable. I can’t handle a whole CD of drums and flute. But throw in a guitar and piano? Much better.

Anyway, the show was good. The Husband was a little worried about the hokey factor after the opening number featured eagle dancers, but then the dancers settled in to a good rhythm. The Husband had never been to a powow or anything real and traditional like this, so he was doubly impressed when the fancy dancers and the hoop dancer came out. If you ever get the chance to see a traditional American Indian hoop dancer, go. You won’t be sorry. The hoop dancer in Brule is Lowery Begay.

I got a little dizzy watching him spin, but he was great. World-Champion great. The guy was good.

Garan Coons was the M.C. He was in jeans for most of the show, but for the big dance numbers, he broke out the fancy dance outfit. Betcha can’t guess why they call it a fancy dance, can you?

The fanciest of the fancy dancers was Douglas Scholfield. I don’t want to embarrass him, but there were a few ladies of a certain age sitting in front of us in the audience who let everyone in the building, town, and surrounding county know that they thought he was a good-looking man. Perhaps that’s why my husband failed to snap his picture. Makes a girl wonder . . .

Anyway, the only female dancer that day was Josette Wahwasuck.

Josette, I’m sorry about this photo. Just remember, I didn’t take it. My husband did.

I bought earrings that Josette made, but it’s hard to autograph earrings, so she signed the CD instead. We did discuss her outfit, though.

Note: I took this picture. Are those boots awesome or what? You should have seen Josette spin in them, too. Beautiful. Her main dance was basically a progression from the original women’s dance–a slow, steady pacing–to the contemporary women’s fancy dance. Fancy dance, if you didn’t know, is the original aerobics. I was whipped just watching her.

The other woman in the show was Nicole LaRoche, Paul’s daughter. She plays the kind of flute I played in fifth grade, but she plays it in a distinctive way that mimics the traditional Lakota flute, only with more tonal depth. Although The Kid fell asleep during her flute duet with Garan, I thought it was one of the sweeter melodies I’ve heard in a while. Music clearly runs in the family.

This guy was the grass dancer.

Grass dancers are my favorite. He was The Kid’s favorite, too, because he was one of the warriors for the Buffalo Dance and the Warrior Dance. However, he’s victim of the dreaded ‘unreadable autograph’ syndrome, so we’ll all just have to be satisfied with his photo. He tried to fist-bump The Kid, but the boy was still groggy from sleeping through a thunderous standing ovation, and just glared at the poor guy.

So, to sum up, Brule was amazing. If you find yourself in southwestern Missouri in the coming months, I highly recommend checking them out. We did a whole lot of other stuff in Branson, but you’ll have to come back next week for more crazy photos.

Before:

 That wide, flat spot where the shovel is resting? Leak central. The contractors found four measurable holes in the metal. The best option was to eliminate the need for two-foot wide gutters.
During:

Yes, I took this through the screen. Sorry. Trust me, it’s new rafters being fastened over the old ones.

During, part II:

Notice the lack of gutters prone to holes and leaks? Pretty snazzy!

Nice, smooth walls in everyone’s favorite shade, primer!

Look! A ceiling color! Believe it or not, that’s “Pineapple Sorbet.” Who comes up with these names?

I’d like to take a moment to offer a public service announcement: Do not stand on a ladder and hand your Kid a camera, unless, of course, you want twenty photos where your bottom is the prime focal point of the composition and you enjoy what few shots he did get of your head to include four or more chins. And no, you won’t be seeing any of those pictures.

The remodel is going as swimmingly as these things can. We’ll finish painting this week and the husband will install a ceiling fan, then the contractors will come back out to refinish the floor and refurbish the exterior windows. At some point, window seats with nifty storage will appear, and then all The Kid’s toys will migrate en masse to the sun room and I will shut the door.

Ah. I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.

It’s true. I’m not. I’m about as white as they come. My mom’s side is strictly German heritage (although, if you press my Gram, she will admit to the fact that part of her branch came from–brace yourselves–Lichtenstein); my dad is all sorts of European mutt, including whatever branch of the Welsh settled in the Missouri Ozarks a century and a half ago.

The family folklore is that, just like everyone else in this great nation, we’re part Cherokee. And, sure, you can look at pictures of my Pop and various uncles, tilt your head to one side, squint lightly, and say, “Yes, I think I see the Cherokee.”

Or they were just ‘swarthy.’ Hard to tell.

But the fact of the matter is that, for all practical purposes, I am as white as your everyday loaf of Wonder bread.

So what the hell am I doing writing about Lakota Indians?

Well, I was fascinated as a kid. Something about Indians and horses grabbed a hold of my imagination and never really let go. I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about any individual tribe, but I do know more than most middle class white women.

But here’s the trick. I know enough about various Native American Indian cultures to know that there are a lot of ways to screw up representing them, a lot of ways to feed into offensive stereotypes, and a whole hell of a lot of ways to piss off a group of people that really don’t need me adding insult to injury.

But I’m a big fan. So what to do? Some people might say, well, it’s not that different than J.K. Rowling–she’s not a boy wizard, after all. Which is true–but (depending on what you believe) wizards aren’t real. She got to make her world up. Lakota Indians are real people.

What can you do if you are writing for a different race?

First, do your best to keep it real. This involves research–you’ve got to put in your due diligence. Make contacts in your area of interest, and ask questions early and often. The first woman who replied to my oh-so-clueless questions, Stephanie Schwartz, was wonderful. She killed two ideas I had because they used two sacred topics. But she also made suggestions for revising my ideas to be more general.

Second, write what you know. And what I know is ‘clueless white woman.’ That’s why one of my characters is always a clueless white person. Technically, that makes my work ‘interracial.’ I don’t think I could write a really good novel between two American Indians who had always lived on a rez. That’s not what I know. But I can do ‘outsider trying to understand’ real well.

Third, know where the line is, and (this is important) do not cross it. I don’t write stories about the deeply religious rites the Lakota hold sacred. I don’t want to write a book about a white woman who is spiritually bereft and made whole only by undergoing a Ghostdance, because that crosses the line between ‘respectful’ and ‘exploitive.’ If I do that, I will get those things wrong; I will insult the Lakota tribe. Why would I want to piss off the people I respect and admire? Stephanie helped me see what that line was. Instead of specific rites, I focus on things common to everyone’s experience–falling in love, caring for children, and good-looking men on horseback. You can’t go wrong with good-looking men on horseback.

Fourth, be a part of the community. Tony Hillerman wasn’t a Navajo; however, he treated the tribe with dignity and respect and contributed to the community; for this, they made him a Special Friend of the Dineh. Contribute to the schools; give to the charities that help the most, like Pathways to Spirit, who use contributions to help keep tribal elders from freezing to death every winter.

Fifth, and finally, realize that Abe Lincoln was right. You can’t please all the people all the time. No matter what you write, someone’s going to find fault with it. If you’re a woman writing male characters, someone’s going to complain. If you’re an adult writing kids, someone will find fault. I’m a white woman who writes Lakota Indians. I’m sure that there are going to be people inside and outside the tribe who are not going to be happy with me.

But to those critics, I say this: I write fiction. I write romance. I do the best I can with what I’ve got, and I like what I’m doing.

Mostly because of the good-looking men on horseback.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again, the time when the stars line up at the same time the house seriously begins to fall apart; the time when my husband moves some money around at the same time ‘our’ contractor has an opening.

REMODELING TIME!

To recap: our house was built between 1892 and 1895. In layman’s terms, it’s older than dirt. And like all good dirt, parts of it continue to crumble.

We hire Dan the Floor Man for about one project a year. I love Dan. He’s about 58 years old, and an old-school rural gentleman. Intelligent and soft-spoken, he’s the kind of contractor who calls if he’s going to be half an hour late from when he told you he’d be there. His true love is hardwood. We first hired him to do the hardwood floor in our kitchen, but he’s also a general contractor. He does such good work that this is the fourth job we’ve hired him to do for us. You last saw his work in the Office Remodel. If I had the money, I’d put Dan on permanent retainer.

What’s Dan doing for us this time around? Well, the sunroom.

It’s been doing this for most of the 4 1/2 years we’ve been living here. We’ve ignored this slow-build water damage.

But this winter, things hit critical mass. It began to rain indoors–through the windows. One March day, I was forced to break out the recip saw in a vain attempt to divert the water away from the windows. The results weren’t pretty.

The next day, I called Dan the Floor Man. We got on his schedule and then began the Home Remodeling Game of Chicken–would the whole sun room fall off the house before we could save it? We play this game a lot, and we usually win. This was by far the closest we’ve ever come to losing (that one time with the non-existent pipe notwithstanding).

So, Memorial Day weekend happened, and we decided to get a head start on Dan’s work. I mean, I love Dan, but I don’t want to pay him for ripping out a wall or a ceiling when I have a perfectly good five-year-old boy and husband who are just looking for something to destroy.

Tip: If you are looking for safety goggles for your young child to engage in some age-inappropriate home demolition, Home Depot had a pair that were ‘close-fitting.’ They weren’t the perfect fit, but the only other thing that would stay on his face were the chemistry-class style with the rubber band around the back of the head, which slid off his nose. ‘Close-fitting’ was okay for light demo. It said that on the label.

The Kid was in charge of knocking out those lower panels. In the course of an hour and a half on Friday night, he and I made this kind of progress.

He did good work. And then he put himself in charge of clean up. The husband and I were ready to kick back, but no, The Kid wanted to sweep.

Notice that gray stuff behind the wall I spent an hour carefully ripping down?

That, my friends, is the original clapboard siding on our house. The whole sunroom was originally a porch. The siding is in good shape, mostly because it’s been indoors for the last 80 years (we estimate the sunroom was 1920s), so we’re going to keep it.

Perhaps you noticed the mold that went with the water damage? And the drywall dust? And the rock wool insulation that’s covered in roof barf from the new roof we put on four years ago? You know what all that means?

Masks for everyone!

Home Remodeling: Not for the vain.

Mmm. Man with crowbar. And he knows how to use it! He got the rest of the ceiling down in less than half an hour. (What did you think I was talking about?)

This project is going to last us several more weeks. It’ll be weeks of agonizing decisions (Copper gutters? Or new roof?), heartbreak (Oh, s&*^, it’s raining!), and hope (Did we just agree on a paint color?), so stay tuned for the further misadventures of Remodeling, Anderson-Style!

The Kid is five now. Five is a good age for superheros. Some people might ease into this, but not us. Not when there’s a superhero costume contest/ice cream party going down. (You can read the official press release about it here.) All proceeds from the party went to PAGER, which is something I really wish I’d known about when The Kid was still The Baby.

Anyway, there was a party, and The Kid owns a variety of superhero-themed jammies–plus, ice cream was involved. The Husband was going to be out of town that day, so it was the perfect way to kill an afternoon.

I tried to get the party started Friday night by Tivo-ing Superman because The Kid had picked out his Superman jammies to wear. I thought it would be helpful for the boy to see what the fuss was about, and, frankly, I never get tired of watching Christopher Reeve in skin-tight anything. I didn’t remember the moving being hyper-violent, either, and, as I mentioned, The Kid is now five. Big boy movie time.

I was foiled in this grand plan, because the Tivo recorded a Star Trek movie (heavy on the borgs) instead. Okay. No biggie. We’re still going to rock jammies in broad daylight. I put a lot of mousse in his hair in an attempt to do a swirling-bangs thing. It didn’t necessarily work, but it didn’t hurt, either.

The Husband made an important contribution to the outfit. He saw fit to bend a piece of rebar for the Man of Steel. Foolish me, I didn’t think a five-year-old-boy swinging a piece of iron in public was a good idea. However, The Kid managed not to bop anyone on the head with it. I was impressed.

The party started at 1. In general, I hate to be late–even fashionably so–for anything (which is not the same thing as saying I’m never late. I frequently am–I just hate it when it happens), so we got there at 1. We walk in, and see this guy:

Yes. Spoon Man. He was there with his sidekick, Bone Boy (but you know about that long-standing no-kid-pictures-on-the-blog thing, right?). Apparently there’s a song about Spoon Man that references Bone Boy, but really, it was just a four year old in his red jammies, a beret, and a brown cape. That’s superhero enough for me!

Then, the TeaTotaler showed up.

His secret identity is really Alex Sanders, who organized the party, in part, for the Quincy Not-So-Fine-Arts Society. But on Saturday, he was the resident Villain, flinging tea bags at any adult who was paying attention. For the kids, though, he had bubbles. In the picture above, he’s giving bubbles to The Kid. Note that The Kid is wearing a Batman jammie cape with his Superman jammies. You make due with what you’ve got.

Ge showed up with her boy.

Ge is one of my former students. She’s also a photographer; I think she’s going to do a more professional author photo for me soon.

Ge also used to watch Land of the Lost in Brazil when she was a kid; she was a little weirded out by the Ice Scream’s full sized Sleestak. I was a little weirded out by the fact that Land of the Lost made it to Brazil.

Turned out that although we were there at one, the costume part of the party wasn’t until 3:30. We had a lot of time to kill. The Superheros spent a lot of time trying to prove their super-ness by climbing the light post.

Oh, and there was music! Brought to you by Camel Man:

Yes. We won’t go into the state of his camel humps. This is a family page.

So, finally, the costume contest. There were four entrants, Bone Boy, the Amazing Hailey, Superman, and Batman. Batman’s younger brother, Iron Man, was too shy to stand up in front of everyone. Voting was based on crowd noise, because, clearly, these people had never met me before.

Batman, who had shown up at about 2:45, got third place. Superman, my boy!, got second because we’d been there longest. Amazing Hailey got first, mostly because she was the only one there who wasn’t wearing jammies, but had, in fact, made her own costume.

The Kid got a superhero coloring book, a water squirter, and bragging rights.

Next time, though, he wants to be Iron Man.

I got older yesterday!

I know that a vast majority of women in my age range are all busy wailing and moaning about how everything has started to ‘fall’ and how they’re all getting older and how they’re all going to be 29 until they die..

I don’t have time for that. My Gram turned 95 this year, and she’ll proudly tell everyone exactly how old she is–often without any prompting. She’s really taught me that being old isn’t a thing to be feared–age makes you fearsome. (How fearsome? We won’t go into that.)

So I don’t mind getting older. Beats the heck out of the alternative.

However, I was a little under the weather for my 34th birthday, so I was unable to take my menfolk shopping for my presents. (Yeah, you read that right. No, I don’t mean I take them to a store, point out what I want, and order them to buy it for me. Remember the legally blind husband who doesn’t drive?)

They ordered things online, but they didn’t get here soon enough. So I had a semi-homemade birthday.

First, the ice cream birthday cake:

Can you spot the ‘homemade’ part? Honestly, we’d bought the little candy letters for the Kid’s birthday cake two weeks ago–and used all of several key letters in my name. This was the best my husband could come up with–thank God we play Scrabble!

I love the blog CakeWrecks, but the guys did a good job not getting me a wreck.

And my present from The Kid:

Semi-Homemade Original Art! If it had one of those little tags under it, this is what it would say:

A mixed media piece made from found objects (in this case, the packaging to a WALL*E toy). The Artist has made a bold use of common household items (“stickers”) to evoke the true nature of the character’s ability to remake himself in the face of difficulties. This piece, which projects strength and renewal, is available for purchase for $1,395. Please see the curator for more details.

Seriously, we were talking with The Kid during my birthday dinner, and asked if he’d want to do Karate. He said no. We said, well, you have to do something–something sporty, or musical, or arty. And he said, (and I quote), “Mommy, I’m an artist.” No word on if I have to start buying him all-black clothes yet.

So, despite Nell, the Sinus Infection from Hell, I had a great semi-homemade birthday with my guys.

Next year, I’m not inviting Nell.

Or, more specifically, What Counts as Research Around These Here Parts.

You see, I’ve been sick. For almost a week now, I’ve had the Sinus Infection from Hell, which I’ve come to call Nell. Nell has settled into my face and seems to be quite content with trying to push my teeth out of my head via sinus pressure. This has gone on for days.

I tried to get rid of Nell. I went to a medical professional; she gave me an antibiotic. I took it dutifully, trying to ignore Nell’s peals of mocking laughter. Finally, after five days, the antibiotic started working. Not on Nell, of course, but at least it was doing something. We won’t go into what. This is a family page.

So, I’ve been at home for almost a week. My chair has become permanently contoured to the shape of my backside; the dogs now consider my lap part of the furniture.

I’ve tried to write, but I think the snot ate my ideas. All I can do is stare at the television.

So I’m making the most of it. And I’m calling it Research!

What Counts as Research Around These Here Parts:
1. The Outlaw Josey Wales
2. Justified (multiple episodes)
3. 3:10 to Yuma (the Bale/Crowe version)
4. Unforgiven
5. The Apple Dumpling Gang (Come on, you know it was the first western you ever watched!)
6. The Man Called Horse
7. Return of the Man Called Horse
8. Randy Rides In (John Wayne, 1932)
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
10. Smoke Signals
11. Thunderheart (again, but always good!)
12. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
13. Little Big Man

My Tivo is tivoing nonstop these days. Heck, if I don’t get better soon, I may start talking with a permanent drawl.

Why does this count as research around these here parts? Because 93% of Americans (a statistic I totally made up) have never been on a horse, have only seen mountains from their car or airplane windows, and think all cowboys have six-shooters and all Indians have bows and arrows. That 93% of Americans learned everything they ‘know’ about cowboys and Indians and the Wild West from movies.

I don’t write about movie cowboys and Indians. My cowboys and cowgirls never shoot first, ask questions second. My American Indians never say ‘How’ and haven’t scalped a soul yet. (Although if someone wanted to make a movie out of my cowboys and cowgirls . . .)

But if an author is going to write against a stereotype, then that author better darn know what the stereotype is. Case in point: The reason Shrek is so danged funny is because they know and understand what’s at the heart of each and every fairy tale–and then they subvert it. Similarly, Justified’s Raylan would never work if everyone–both the people he meets on screen and the viewers at home–didn’t know and understand the concept of the lone gunslinger.

So there you have it. Research, Apple Dumpling Gang style.