#11 Breaks

Isn't it nice that I lead by example?
Here I was telling you all about Red people likes and I had yet to provide you with a prime example of which you could be an active participant. Then I had a brainchild...wouldn't it be an interesting experiment if I, a Red person, did something that I liked and all 7 of my readers could experience it via this blog? So after 18 long months, I give you post #11, BREAKS!!

Ever work in a band office? If yes, it's a wonder you have any sense of humor or even enough soul left to access this blog after that ordeal. If no, you should go work for one...it's great fun. *covers mouth and snickers*

I worked in the vicinity of a band office in 2005. And let me tell you, most of my experience with political, financial and caffeinated Red people comes from that 6 month stint. Here's my first day:
7:00 am wake up, drink coffee (break from sleeping), shower, coffee (break), get dressed, rock out to some Hollaback Girl (break...also don't judge me!)
8:45 am drive to office, sit in car and smoke (break)
9:00 am walk to office door, pull hard on door for several minutes, realize door is push door, push hard for several minutes, realize door is locked, sit on step (break)
9:30 am still waiting for someone with keys to arrive, smoke (break)
9:45 am someone arrives, they start talking about their hickie, or fight, or new snag or the pow wow they went to (break)
10:15 am make coffee in staff room, read paper, drink coffee (break)
11:00 am check voice mail and paper messages, go outside to smoke (break), eat apple (because it's important to be healthy)
12:00 LUNCH, food, coffee, smoke, talk (break)
repeat morning routine in the afternoon.

Okay, okay, okay. That's an exaggeration.

Most people in band offices are hard working folks trying to cut through the bureaucratic bullshit spoon fed to them on a daily basis for hundreds of years. Who wouldn't need a multitude of breaks when trying to deal with government directive and agenda pushing day in and day out? *jumps off soap box*

# 9 Visiting

Visiting is when Red people consume the most Rez coffee. If visiting was an Olympic sport it would be dominated by the Red people of the world but it would be an event in the summer games. Here's why I figure that...Historically, most Red people were semi-nomadic peoples, in the winter we broke up into our smaller family groups, but come summer we we're all together at our summer camps. That's why summer is prime time for visiting. And that's why we can visit all day, for days on end and never get sick of all our relations stopping in unannounced.

Why it works for us:
1. Our kids have someone to play with. They're out of our hair and not fighting each other all because our visitor brought their kids along.
2. You have someone who will share the load. Visitors will help you fold laundry while chit chatting, they'll appropriately discipline all the kids when they're being crazy and they'll catch you up on gossip, (or they'll make you feel important because you have all the gossip.)
3. They'll get their oldest to watch all the younger ones so you can go out for a couple hours.
4. They bring random people with them, which means you can get your nosey on! That's exciting! You get to meet people who you've either only heard about or seen at the Northern Store - and you can totally ask them all about their lives because they're in your house.

But visiting is not all fun and games, there is a certain etiquette.

Here's some guidelines:
1. Always have a pot of coffee ready to go - even if it's 40 above and the big plastic spoon on the wall is melting.
2. Have some food. At the very least have something for a sandwich like bologna and bannock. Hey! You've got a houseful of kids to feed.
3. Give the visitor's kids some sugar. Be warned, this means your kids will whine 'till you give them something sugary too. But now you have the perfect excuse to send them all outside until one of them cries.
4. Go tie up your dogs, you don't want to have to shoot one if it bites some kid.
5. Keep a mop pail full of clean water by the door just in case you hear someone getting out of their car. You can pretend you were just washing the floors....

# 8 Coffee

Yup, coffee. But not in the way other people like coffee.

First, Red people are not allowed to drink coffee until we're 18. You can't tell me that I'm the only who got a smack upside the head for sneaking a sip from my mom's cup "It'll stunt your growth, don't cha know!"

Second, we liked it the minute we tried it. The smell is what got us first THEN the taste. Third you may not want to see us before we've had our first cup of morning coffee, or our second, or our 10 am coffee, or our noon coffee, our afternoon break coffee our after work coffee, our 8 pm tv watching time coffee, the 10 pm (sometimes with a smoke) coffee and if it's the weekend our midnight and later coffee.

And finally, we don't care if it's from Starbucks, Second Cup, Tim Horton's, or heck even Chicken Chef...we'll drink it if it's coffee. And although fair trade, organic coffee is great, as is the expensive, frothy kind; we really just want some, so we'll take what we can get.

Basically coffee is like oxygen to us. We need it to live and because of that, we are immune to the caffeine (for the most part) and that's probably because Red people brew our coffee with more water than grounds, at home, on a $6.00 coffee machine from Walmart. Watered down coffee serves two purposes, 1. It's not as strong = less caffeine and 2. It lasts longer. And when you make it with 2% milk from a 4 gallon jug and white sugar from a soup bowl stirring with a big ass spoon, you have at cup of Rez coffee perfect for visiting...