The Trouble with Alarm Clocks, Mud, and Language
With Saturday's half-marathon completed in Katelin's record time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, Sunday sprang optimistically to the window in the form of gray clouds and slight sunshine. My eyes eeked open to the mental collapse of "WHY?!?!" screeching from my sleep addled brain. Blame fell menacinglly to the cause of my disquiet: the alarm clock.* Sweet revenge played itself in my mind as a Brain Stinking Ninja appeared suggesting a projectile clock through a closed window. I restrained myself to smashing it with the most lethal pillow I could find at such short notice until the time registered to meaning.
I had a to-do-list twice as large as any usual Sunday. Twice a month, I bring goodies for people to eat. Sunday's menu? Shortbread cookies. I LOVE these little pieces of heaven, so the promise of fresh baked delights extricated me from the shelter of sheets and launched me into the kitchen.
- . - . Baking Cookies, Getting Ready, Leaving for Church, and other Boring Stuff Time Lapse - . - . -
Mud. You do not know mud in the city. You do not know mud on dirt roads. You do not know mud till you drive through 12" or more of what used to be sand on an uphill incline. Hopi IS mud after rain. Hyliki is situated on a hill with the worst possible "road." Admittedly, it has been maintained more frequently over the last year than my first two years combined; however, the rain of Saturday and Sunday morning had rendered it impassable for two wheel drive vehicles.
My roommate was driving. She is a country girl who thinks all things mud are passable. I know better. Her two-wheel drive honda was up to it's belly in mud in seconds. It seemed like we would be yet another episode of Mud Titanic. I closed my eyes and held my cookies close (to protect them from the mud of course). In a moment, I felt a jerk, a slide, then an awful backwards motion. Roomie was delicately removing us from the danger by reversing to freedom of pavement. It took five minutes of mauevering before we were free to park on the shoulder of the road and walk up the hill.
Shoes were a problem, since I had left my galoshes outside to become standing puddles the night before. Adorning my feet were only a pair of keds. I giggled and knew; I was going to be a purple platypus at the top. By the time I reached safe harbor of the front porch, my feet were 2 feet wide with mud, I was waddling, and my shortbread cookies were safe. Platypus success!
Hopis are smarter than my Bahana (white girl) brain. They stayed home. The implications of such actions hit me as I entered an almost empty building:
Singing in Hopi is a job unlike any other. Normally, you would just sound out the words and fake it, but Hopi does not allow such short cuts. When K-u-r spells "gush," we have a problem. I thought my tongue was going to fall off. It kept getting caught in my teeth. At one point, I caught myself accidentally spitting on the hymn book! I am an alto when healthy, a tenor when I want to be, and a bass when sick. My voice actually cracked like a preteen boy's when I tried to make a high note. It was interesting in all the best ways.
Hopi is like family. They embarrass me, make me sing, make me laugh, and forgive my Porky Pig stuttering moments. Just in case you wanted to know, they liked my cookies too. :-)
*Agents of evil, alarm clocks have been allowed to rule life as we know it for far too long; however, the call for revolution must be delayed till another time like all my procrastinating world-helping instincts.
I had a to-do-list twice as large as any usual Sunday. Twice a month, I bring goodies for people to eat. Sunday's menu? Shortbread cookies. I LOVE these little pieces of heaven, so the promise of fresh baked delights extricated me from the shelter of sheets and launched me into the kitchen.
- . - . Baking Cookies, Getting Ready, Leaving for Church, and other Boring Stuff Time Lapse - . - . -
Mud. You do not know mud in the city. You do not know mud on dirt roads. You do not know mud till you drive through 12" or more of what used to be sand on an uphill incline. Hopi IS mud after rain. Hyliki is situated on a hill with the worst possible "road." Admittedly, it has been maintained more frequently over the last year than my first two years combined; however, the rain of Saturday and Sunday morning had rendered it impassable for two wheel drive vehicles.
My roommate was driving. She is a country girl who thinks all things mud are passable. I know better. Her two-wheel drive honda was up to it's belly in mud in seconds. It seemed like we would be yet another episode of Mud Titanic. I closed my eyes and held my cookies close (to protect them from the mud of course). In a moment, I felt a jerk, a slide, then an awful backwards motion. Roomie was delicately removing us from the danger by reversing to freedom of pavement. It took five minutes of mauevering before we were free to park on the shoulder of the road and walk up the hill.
Shoes were a problem, since I had left my galoshes outside to become standing puddles the night before. Adorning my feet were only a pair of keds. I giggled and knew; I was going to be a purple platypus at the top. By the time I reached safe harbor of the front porch, my feet were 2 feet wide with mud, I was waddling, and my shortbread cookies were safe. Platypus success!
Hopis are smarter than my Bahana (white girl) brain. They stayed home. The implications of such actions hit me as I entered an almost empty building:
- So much food for so few people... YES!
- Nobody to lead the songs except me.... NO!
Singing in Hopi is a job unlike any other. Normally, you would just sound out the words and fake it, but Hopi does not allow such short cuts. When K-u-r spells "gush," we have a problem. I thought my tongue was going to fall off. It kept getting caught in my teeth. At one point, I caught myself accidentally spitting on the hymn book! I am an alto when healthy, a tenor when I want to be, and a bass when sick. My voice actually cracked like a preteen boy's when I tried to make a high note. It was interesting in all the best ways.
Hopi is like family. They embarrass me, make me sing, make me laugh, and forgive my Porky Pig stuttering moments. Just in case you wanted to know, they liked my cookies too. :-)
*Agents of evil, alarm clocks have been allowed to rule life as we know it for far too long; however, the call for revolution must be delayed till another time like all my procrastinating world-helping instincts.
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