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Doing desultory research for a not-yet-imagined novel, T. ran across another fascinating tidbit of history, and had another moment of sighing and shaking her head, and asking, “Why don’t more people know this story???”

Now, you will.

The Choctaw, Native persons forced from their land in the 1838-39 by an expansion-happy American government, essentially lost everything – lives and property – on Oklahoma’s five hundred mile Trail of Tears. In terms of bait-and-switch jobs, this so-called treaty that ended with “and we’ll now make Oklahoma ‘Indian Territory, so all of you, go,'” was a doozy. T. remembers wincing through teaching this section of American history. The shock to her students was inevitable. What? The government did that? (Sorry, kids. This is why we study history – to prevent the recurrence of life and soul-destroying mistakes.)

What most people don’t know is that despite their horror and grief and loss, the Choctaw people were still a sovereign nation, and their elders behaved as statesmen. When they heard of others in trouble, they still helped.

By 1847, the Irish had a huge problem. To simplify the tale, they’d been pushed off decent pastureland by the British, so without grazing animals, potatoes were what they depended on to survive. We all learned in school about the potato blight that spread from the eastern U.S. to the UK and throughout Europe, which presaged a famine of such epic proportions in Ireland that approximately a million people died, and another million emigrated elsewhere. The Irish were in dire straits… so the Choctaw, impoverished, disenfranchised, herded onto reservations, and without much of their own — sent the Irish people aid.

…in the form of $710. Which was an immense amount of money in the 1800’s. Which, in 1847, so few years after their own forced diaspora, must have taken tremendous effort from a people who, in starkest appearance, at least, had nothing.

They had something, though. Something which the wisest of us should want.

Though T’s family has Caddo roots established from her mother’s side, the family has often suspected some small tributary on her father’s side wends through Choctaw veins. T. would like to think this kind of integrity and grace might be some small part of her birthright.

It’s probably not. But one can aspire.

So, our summer wedding plans – (well, not our wedding plans we fully intend to continue living in sin, thank-you.) (KIDDING.) – are continuing apace, with our friend A. finally getting engaged (at long last) and we’ve been invited to Wedding #4 – a Hindu wedding!

We could say that our experience with Hindu weddings is strictly confined to the wedding in Bend it Like Beckham, but that would be …well, too close to the truth. (Arguably, we could also include Monsoon Wedding in our vast array of experience. Pathetic, no? But, a really good movie.) Two of T’s girlfriends from grad school married in traditional Hindu ceremonies, but she wasn’t able to attend. She did get to see all the lovely henna patterns on their hands, and the yards and acres and metric tons of pictures afterward. And quite a long video. She expects being there in person will be better, but she’s already complaining that, compared with the finery displayed, sequins and gold lace and lovely orange mums, she has nothing to wear, really. (Since she really loathes shopping, this is not likely to change.)

It’s always cheering to see people of various cultures blending their lives and their fortunes and making a go of it in this world, with gorgeous handmade invitations and all. Glasgow doesn’t seem to have as many mixed relationships as we saw in London — it’s more common among the Uni set, as students perhaps don’t have as ossified prejudices as their elders — but this marriage will be especially culturally interesting, since both sides preferred capital ‘T’ tradition — a full Hindu-in-Hindi language service, one hour, a full priestly blessing, thirty minutes, a full vegetarian feast, three hours. Complete with toasts, blessings, and dances.

…And then, the next weekend: Full Scottish wedding – formal family tartan, kilts, pipes, processions, dances, toasts, and a country-club-golf-course reception, with big swoopy hats for the ladies.

T., who has the brief, happy memories of a skateboard park and a Justice of Peace on a Tuesday afternoon, gets hives at the thought of not one, but two wedding weekends in a row. D. knows the groom is already shaking in his Chucks, complaining that he doesn’t like the idea of being the center of attention.

Ah, family. What we won’t do for you even when we don’t want to…

This latest engagement and wedding are especially sweet to T’s American sensibilities, since she’s been reminded to celebrate Loving Day on June 12th this year. For those who don’t know the history, Loving was the last name of a Caucasian American, Richard Loving, who wanted to marry an African American, Mildred Jeter… in 1958. In the state of Virginia. Where it was still illegal. (Yeah. “Virgina is for Lovers” has been the state tourism board motto since 1969. Back then, not so much.) Trying to get around the law, the couple married in Washington, D.C., and returned home — only to be yanked out of their beds in the middle of their wedding night, arrested, tried, and sentenced to three years in prison.

The judge was “merciful” and gave them the option of banishment from Virginia – for twenty-five years. They weighed the option of Richard surviving his jail term and took it, and left their families in Virginia behind to live in Washington. And D.C. was not a model of tolerance, either – they were racially targeted even worse than in Virginia, and without their families to turn to, they were miserable. They had trouble even finding a place to rent. Mildred sent a desperate letter to Robert Kennedy at the American Civil Liberties Union office. The ACLU took the case, and the Lovings took the state of Virginia to court.

It only took nine years, but in 1967 Loving v. The State of Virginia ruled against the last anti-miscegenation law. This was struck down after three months of argument in the Supreme Court, after being denied and dismissed in every other court. We celebrate that June 12th decision on Loving Day, which means that Americans of any culture or ethnicity can intermarry. Scot and South Asian. Romanian and Minnesotan. You and Yours. Someday, everybody who wants to.

Way better than Valentine’s Day, huh?

xoxo,

T&D

…from the perspective of the azalea in front of our flat.

Hope your weekend is restful and beautiful, and warmer than it will be here.

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged (at least in this hemisphere) that Spring has sprung. Of course, while our friends and family are hanging out in T-shirts and sandals and have been for weeks, around here, Spring keeps sprung-ing, and then taking gigantic leaps backwards. Fortunately, for the most part, despite the cooler temps which have worried our swim buddy, The Dragon Lady (so named for her tattoo), who just this weekend went and planted orchids (!) in her yard, we believe we have arrived safely in the new season. Even if it snows again, we’ll call it a Spring storm, so there’s no turning back.

One of the particular joys of this flat are the windows, and this time of year is prime-time for people watching. We eat our breakfast looking out the window and watching people wander by, walking their children or their …stoats or ferrets or whatever it is the guy down the street has on the tiny halter and leash. In the afternoons, after we return from errands, T. sometimes props her feet on the windowsill and knits and watches the blonde herd from across the street rip around the garden, climbing trees in costume. They’ve been known to be out there, even in the rain.

There are eleven shades of green in the crescent garden, and this weekend we had a day of sharp breezes, scudding clouds and brilliant sun and enjoyed watching the population of the neighborhood come out, being dragged by their dogs, pushing their little ones, and hefting their bottles of whatever and sun bathing.

All week long, any day with even a sliver of sun finds runaway office people in smart black suits, older folk in tweedy golf hats and young women with their charges stopping by our crescent park, finding a bit of uninhabited grass, and simply sitting down. Often visiting our park is an impulse stop; people walking up the long hill to the hostel simply need a breather, or young guys with their “shopping” – bags of potato chips and drinks – see it as a great place to open their cans and stay awhile (those particularly lacking in charm relieve themselves in a hedge before moving on). People bring incomprehensible craft projects out and put them together. Students lug books, then fall asleep over them. Veiled women strap their charges into their strollers, and sit chatting in a desultory fashion, probably making comments on the people watching them out of the window…

Peace – a rare commodity – being given away for free, in our crescent garden.

---

Politics have been a big deal here — for months, we’ve been getting pamphlets and ads slipped through the letterbox urging us to support so-and-so for MP, and Mrs. Someone for council. The campus paper aired views from various parties, and there’s been a long debate about Tories and …Whigs? No, wait, that’s historical. Labor. Yes. Labor and Tories and possibly Liberal Democrats and one other group, but it’s hard to keep track (much like throwing Libertarians and the Green Party into the American electoral process, any more than three choices, and most people get lost). Anyway – the vote has been cast, and the UK was quietly shocked to find they have essentially a tie between the two largest parties.

We were taught in high school government classes that in U.S. politics, at least, it’s almost statistically impossible for there to be a tie about anything — one, because new parties proliferate like mold, and two, because if there is a tie, the law is in place to provide for a run-off vote, which is essentially a “do-over.” A “hung Parliament,” which is what the UK voting drama is being called here, is quite unprecedented, but there are laws in place to take care of it as well. Theoretically.

…of course, the laws for individual councils deciding on ties is much funnier than the weighty parliamentary procedures which will go on to fix all of the UK. Councils can flip a coin or cut a deck of cards to decide whose party is in control. Here’s hoping for a solution that simple for the British Isles.

Or, maybe everyone could just sit out in the garden and decide that politics are probably not that important after all.

We’re in danger of having our foodie license revoked.

Foodies are supposed to cook, supposed to experiment with food, and by virtue of the name, supposed to love food. We are! We do! However, we’ve kind of fallen down on the job in terms of blogging about it. Once D. dropped out of Daring Bakers and T. canceled the garden box, we took a giant step backwards from the whole food thing. After a sedentary term with deadlines and revisions, we realize we’re in dire need of fresh ideas and inspiration in order to get back into cooking and eating well. And we’re heading in a new direction — toward eating more vegetables.

Here’s a pathetic fact: many vegetarians actually don’t eat all that many vegetables. We OD on bread and starches, we get obsessed with cheese, and we become accustomed to being the people it’s a lot of trouble for omnivores to feed, and so we learn to make excuses. “Oh, no, I’ll just have some pasta,” and “Don’t worry about me, I’ll just have some bread.” Which is kind of sad. Sure – bread and pasta are awesome, and we can all eat cupcakes — it’s nice to have things that we can share. But vegetables are so good — why aren’t we celebrating their general awesomeness? Why aren’t we making veggie dishes and pushing them on unsuspecting friends?

After hearing the regrets of a friend who spent most of his life turning up his nose at the more “exotic” vegetables — in his case, exotic was practically anything that wasn’t peas and carrots — we have vowed to get past our childhood veg phobias (asparagus and Brussels sprouts, here we come) and experiment with new ways to prep and enjoy them. That’s why it was so exciting to see the savory cheesecake at eat me, delicious, the gorgeously orange sweet potato and red lentil soup at Crunchy Green Things, and the slew of soup offerings at Tinned Tomatoes (which shames us, as she manages to do all of this veg experimentation despite having a wee [teething already!!] bairn on her hip).

In our defense, everyone gets burned out over the winter — food becomes more a matter of comfort than experimentation. But Spring is coming — despite the windy, gray days — and our bodies crave a change.

One special food blogging effort is The Great VEGA’N VEGETARIAN Project. Our friend Cyn is a food writer for her hometown Barbados newspaper, and took up the challenge of fixing a vegan dinner for friends who confessed that they weren’t often invited over because they were considered “difficult” guests. Cynthia and her crew have an international feel to their site, as her contributors are from South America, India, the Caribbean, China, and the U.S. We gain a lot of inspiration and menu ideas from these foodies, who, although not necessarily vegetarian or vegan themselves, are nonetheless committed to unique flavors and fresh takes on vegetables.

It has been an incredibly long winter, and it’s still not quite resigned itself to moving on. However, we’re ignoring all of that, and moving forward ourselves. It’s raw out and windy, and we’re desperately seeking the fresh new flavors of the season to tempt us into eating well. We’re in need of challenge and inspiration — from you. What’s on the menu at your house these days?

Just a small pause to say a big thank you to the YA YA Sisterhood and our other blog readers who supported the Guys Lit Wire/Operation Teen Book Drop book drive to the reservation schools we mentioned a couple of weeks ago. As of the 24th, the last official day of the book drive, we’ve sold out. 772 books were bought for Ojo Encino Day School & Alchesay High, which is everything they wanted on their wish lists.

Everything. Reference books, basketball biographies, classics of the literary canon, and the regrettable inevitable Twilight books. Everything.

Wonder when the last time was these kids got everything they wished for? Thank you, guys, for your help in making the world a beautiful place for someone else. (And psst, if you didn’t get your order in with Powell’s, you’ve still got their address, and you can send a book directly to their library!)

No matter what people tell us, we know — we know that we’re not getting Scottish accents.

If you’ve heard the accent, you know it’s not just a matter of putting on a Mike Meyers brogue and going with it. Especially the Glaswegian accent — it’s complex and nuanced, and really hard to imitate — not that we’re trying. Not just anybody can sound Scottish. We know that.

Or, rather, we did know... Last week in London, D. hailed a cab after he and T. had parted ways at Victoria Station. D. gave the driver the address to where he needed to go, and the man flicked a glance in the rearview mirror. “From Glasgow, then, are you?” the driver ask. Gobsmacked, D. said, “Yeah, I’m at the Uni there,” and the driver nodded in satisfaction. “Aye, thought so,” he said. “I’m from Kilmarnock.” (A city just South of Glasgow)

Okay, D. thought. This guy’s obviously been in London way too long.

He thought nothing more of it, until we finally got out of London two days later. Exhausted and glad to be heading for home, we hailed a cab from Queen Street, and flopped in. “Where to?” asked the driver, and D. gave the address. T. stared at the passing landscape while D. had a vigorous conversation with the driver about the perfidy of taking people to the airport when they wouldn’t be able to catch a flight (which another cabbie had just done, causing our cabbie to stop next to him at a light and harangue at him out of the window — always an adventure around here), then suddenly realized that we were getting on the freeway. “Wait! Where are we going!” he asked. D. and the driver had a brief discussion on the address again, and the driver smacked himself in the forehead. “I heard it wrong,” he admitted. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s the accent,” T. told him. “Sorry. The American accent will mess you up every time.”

The driver twisted around to peer at David. “American?” he asked. “Where’re you from?”

We did our usual California-by-way-of-San-Francisco talk, which helps people orient themselves to the inevitable conversation about “how-on-earth-did-you-leave-the-weather-there-for-here?” — but the driver skipped that. “Thought you were Glaswegian,” he said.

“WHAT!?” D. blurted.

“Just thought you were talking polite,” the man mused. “From California, huh?”

We did the “how do you like the weather” talk after that, but D. was still stunned. “He thought I was from Glasgow,” he mused. “I didn’t think you could just pick up that accent!”

T. is sure it’s not possible. But when her sister demanded, “Say London again,” when they were chatting on the phone last week, she winced from the accusation, “You sound Scottish!”

“You wouldn’t know what Scottish sounded like if it bit you,” T. told her sister smugly, but even she’s beginning to wonder…

…we took over the Tower.

Crazy, busy, ash-y town, that was London when we were there last week. The infamous London Fog was in full spate, made worse by the drift of ash-belch from Iceland. It was really cold! We’d left our gloves and wraps at home, for some bizarre reason, and while we didn’t need them (except on the top of a double-decker tour bus) it was fairly nippy when it got windy.

The city was surprisingly clean for being so large and crazybusy, but it must be strange to grow up alongside all of that iconic history — and ignore it, for the most part. T. wanted to be completely unimpressed with it, but she was taken by the huge lions in Trafalgar Square, and the fact that the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Field is …not in a field. Disappointing, that.

It was a madhouse getting out of there, and we’re still sort of halfway recovering from being shoved on a very hot train and having to stand for a good part of the train journey between London and Glasgow, packed cheek by jowl with our fellow man. We were grateful for each stop, as ten or twenty people left, and our congestion was eventually eased — but we were grateful to be allowed ON the train, and that, except for some burning eyes and a slight orangey smudge over the Clyde, Glasgow seems to have dodged the worst of the ash-cloud from Iceland.

After hearing wild tales of people spending thousands taking ferries, trains and automobiles across vast tracts of land in an effort to leave the island, the UK looks to be opening up the skies for air travel again tomorrow, unless conditions change radically overnight. This has been a real hardship for a lot of people — and it’s made us do some thinking about our own travel plans and consider always preparing for Plan B…. just in case.

Since when does GUACAMOLE CONTAIN PEAS?????

And double cream???? GAH!

Note to Sainsbury’s: People, some things ARE JUST WRONG. WRONG.

Guys Lit Wire is a book blog site aimed at providing suggestions and guidance to guys looking for good books – and help for their parents, teachers, advisers, et cetera. T. has the privilege to be peripherally involved with this group as a site organizer and occasional book reviewer and all-round cheerleader.

Last year, our successful Book Fair For Boys netted an astonishing 600+ books for the LA County Detention Center in just two weeks. This year, our book drive turns another direction – to two reservation schools: Ojo Encino Day School in the Navajo Nation, and Alchesay High School, on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Both schools have tons of willing readers and both schools have substandard libraries and rarely to never get brand new books of any kind.

No books at home. Books from the 60’s and 70’s at school. Yeah. So here’s the opportunity:

GLW and our partner, readergirlz, asked these two schools for a wishlist, and came up with an amazing amount of nonfiction requests, sports novel requests, and of course, fantasy — because sparkly vampires cross every culture and nation. (!!!) It’s been an experience for T’s friend Colleen (GLW Grand Diva) to create these wishlists. It was difficult to hear of the trouble she had contacting the school — she didn’t get a lot of responses to her emails at first because the people at the schools didn’t believe she was serious.

Free books? For us? SERIOUSLY?

And oh, the excitement, when the students realized that a wishlist means you can ask for anything you want.

What else is a wish for, after all?

“Books are still gold. The emails I have received in the past week or so from Alchesay as the kids realized they could ask for books to come their way have been great. And with their internet hookup (more reliable than Ojo Encino) they are going to check their wish list everyday to see what is coming. They are so excited – both schools are so incredibly excited. Yes, the ipad and kindle [sic] and whatever else are all wonderful and good but these are kids who do not own a book.

Think about that. Not one single book.”

– book drive organizer, Colleen Mondor, at Chasing Ray

If you’ve ever played with an old-fashioned Roberval Balance Scale in science lab, you know that even moving a few grains of sand, or a single weight from one pan to the other will make a change. A few inexpensive books — the cumulative price of making coffee at home for two weeks, or walking the few blocks to the library instead of driving — would be a huge step toward changing the world for these kids. I’m still so astounded by the power of story — the luxury of a book is that it is an inexpensive way to get away from where you are, and choose someplace else to be, whether through educating yourself away from where you are, or just briefly escaping. This is the gift you have the power to give, and even one book will make a difference.

Interested in shifting a few grains of sand? Here’s how, via Colleen:

First, hit the Powell’s site and on the upper right click on “wish list”. From there you will be prompted for the email address of the list owner. Type in “[email protected]”. You will then be given the choice to select either Ojo Encino or Alchesay. Once you are looking at the lists (which contain hundreds of titles) you can make your selection of a new, used, or sale copy. After your done and ready to make your purchase you will be asked to confirm that you are buying books for a certain wish list. Checking those boxes will keep the lists up to date and prevent books from appearing as unsold even after they were purchased. Now all you have to do is enter the mailing addresses, and here they are:

Mary Nickless
Ojo Encino Day School Librarian
HCR 79 Box 7
Cuba, NM 87013

Marilyn Hill
Alchesay High School
200 Falcon Way
Whiteriver, AZ 85941

CAUTION: Right now Powell’s is having trouble shifting from one wish list to the next. So if you want to buy for each school then go all the way through one order and complete it and then start the next one fresh. They’ve been contacted and hopefully this will be resolved.

Please leave a comment at GLW or send an email so Colleen can keep up a running tally during the two weeks of names and places where the book buyers are from. This will allow the students to see how far away we might be from them, but how close in heart, and will hopefully make them feel really special.

This book drive only lasts for two weeks, so please pass this along. No time to lose!

X-posted at [fiction, instead of lies].