My Giving Challenge: Culture and Flowers For A Friend

Day 17: Culture

If you don't live in Utah you may not be aware of the other holiday we celebrate, July 24th. It's yet another excuse to spend hundreds of dollars on fireworks, fight off crowds to watch mediocre parade floats and bail on work. I think the last one is the whole reason for this season. We celebrate this holiday in memory of the day the Mormon pioneers came to settle the area and steal land from the Native Americans. (Don't quote me on the details.)

Monday evening we headed Downtown to check out the Days of 47 rodeo, which my husband has wonderful memories of attending as a young child. There were horses clomping down main roads alongside compact cars and tepees set up around the enormous arena built to house our professional basketball team. We saw Native American dancers, cowboys, wagons and children on pony rides. It was an interesting mix of past and present.

From the time she was young, my daughter has been drawn to Native American dancing. When she was two years old, we attended a rock and gem show where we watched a group of Native Americans performing tribal dances and ceremonies. She was in love. She spent an entire hour standing in one spot watching intently and swaying to the music. That is quite a feat for toddler. We bought her a CD and it was played in our car for many months following, she would ask to hear "her drum people music". I think it's a previous life thing. As soon as she heard the drumming at the event, she dragged us all to the group of dancers performing out front. They were dressed in beautifully beaded outfits, moccasins and headdresses. As we sat and enjoyed their performance, I noticed the youngest dancer grab her father's hat, place it in front of the dancers, and put a dollar bill inside. She was grinning from ear to ear as she scanned the crowd for others who may drop money in the hat.

Our kids were mesmerized as they watched one male dancer perform. He used up to fifteen hoops wrapped around his body to recreate different animals, birds and even an alligator. It was breathtaking and as he finished up, I pulled a five dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to my son. When the dance concluded my little guy happily ran up and placed the money in the hat along with the other bills that were blowing precariously atop the brown cowboy hat. It was a small token of thanks to the wonderful dancers who shared their talent with us that evening.

Day 18: Flowers For A Friend

I don't remember birthdays. It's one of the qualities that I am not proud to admit to, along with forgetting the names of people who I have met numerous times. I'm a huge supporter of name tags that give me all the information I need to know when we run into each other so I don't feel like a fucking idiot every time. First name, last name, job title, birth date and how we know each other. There are exactly ten birthdays I do remember and they include the people I live with, the people I grew up with and my Grandpa Robertson's birthday, which happens to be the same day as my daughter's.

I know that my best friends' birthday is in July, but I can never remember if it's the 25, 26, 27, 28 or one of the other 31 days of the month. Last year, I sent a text to her husband to find out the exact day and a year before that I called her sister. I'm surprised they haven't turned me in for being the worst friend on the planet. Her birthday is coming up soon and once again I didn't know when to call and share my horrid rendition of Happy Birthday. Here is a little insight about my friend, she hates attention, doesn't like to get gifts and promises me that it's no big deal that I don't know the exact date of her birthday. That must be true, because she still takes my phone calls after eight years of this bullshit. Yesterday, I wanted to do something special for her, so when I did my grocery shopping, I picked up a large bouquet of wildflowers to bring to her that evening. She would never spend money on flowers for herself and in all the years I have known her, she has never had fresh flowers at her house. When we arrived for dinner, I placed the flowers on her counter.
"Who are those for?" she asked.
"You. Thanks for being such a great friend.." I said.
"Oh, they are beautiful, but you don't need to bring me flowers."

Nope I didn't need to, I wanted to.

Check out my newest article on mythirtyspot.com. It's all about being baby hungry and knowing it's too late.
http://www.mythirtyspot.com/2013/07/when-its-too-late-for-baby-number-three.html