The living room is starting to resemble its previous state (or, at least, a clean version of its previous state). Tonight I was able to exercise and then did some more rearranging. The couch still needs to be tackled, but I have found important things, like my Dance, Dance Revolution game.

We’re keeping Christmas in mind as we put the room back together so we won’t have to do major rearranging when we bring the tree in. Hopefully once we get everything in order we will just need to do minor tidying before our tree-trimming party the first Sunday in December.

It’s been a lovely weekend. Yesterday, we went out to the Quaker craft sale where I did a little Christmas shopping (and a little me shopping, too) and then strolled down to Georgetown for a while. We spent a fun evening with Susan and phillip, who cooked us a yummy dinner of chicken, rice, and spinach.

Today after an hour-long stroll through a sunny farmers’ market, Rudi headed out to Virginia to stump for a House of Delegates candidate, while my bike and I hopped Metro to head up to Bethesda. I bought some new yarn (baby alpaca — so soft!), ate a pumpkin pie ice cream cone (yum!), and rode home through a yellow elm twilight.

Tonight we’re catching up on The West Wing, doing some cleaning (our apartment may all move back into the Burrow and I may find my couch again tonight!), and eating something yummy Rudi is going to cook.

All in all — a really nice weekend.

[Update: All our possessionas are back in the Burrow and the entertainment center has been reassembled. The couch hasn’t been cleared and I’m calling it a night. Tomorrow is soon enough for targeting other sections of the living room.]

Today is Friday, so it’s time to round up and start thinking about the weekend.

Things I will definitely do:
Go to the farmers’ market
Watch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Bring my belongings back in from the entryway
Do laundry
Find my couch
Watch two episodes of The West Wing (last week’s on tape and this week’s live episode)
Wash dishes
Go to the Quaker Fall Festival to look for Christmas presents

Things I would like to do:
Go to Eastern Market
Buy yarn
Make applesauce
Start a new knitting project
Go see the simulcast of the Kennedy Center’s production of Porgy and Bess on the Mall
Make bread
Spend time outside

Things I do not want to do, but may do anyway:
Go stump for a House of Delegates candidate in Virginia

Things I will not do:
Set the alarm
Go anywhere that’s more than an hour from my home

I was saddened to learn last night that Gladys Tantaquidgeon has died.

Of course the old medicine woman was 106, so it’s not like it was surprising or anything.

I met Gladys only once, through a grad class I took on Native Americans. She came to talk to us about how difficult it is to get tribal recognition because the ways tribes and the federal government keep records differ so drastically. What might have been considered a legitimate document by a tribe was dismissed by the government as unofficial. And so Gladys, as a trained anthropologist, was really an anomaly– and a blessing to her tribe — in her ability to work through fragments and documents and other ephemera.

You see, it was her boxes of names and dates and family trees that enabled the Mohegan tribe to be recognized by the U.S. government.

No matter your take on casinos, it is not unreasonable to expect that your ethnic heritage be honored. And very few people have to do more than make a statement saying, “I’m Irish,” for people to believe they are, in fact, Irish. In fact, a number of people had their racial background thrust upon them in the South where the terms octoroon and quadroon long outlasted slavery. But people who wanted to be federally recognized as a member of a tribe had to somehow prove their authenticity.

Gladys Tantaquidgeon made it possible for many Mohegans who had spread out over New England to reclaim their identity. She believed in the integrity of her people and her culture long before anyone thought to involve gambling with it. She moved back to the western Connecticut area to help remember the good parts of growing up Mohegan and to create a family museum celebrating all that came with that heritage.

So, Gladys, may your spirit live comfortably in the afterlife, knowing that your work — and your tribe — will carry on.

Just heard back from our landlord and we’ve been cleared to put our living room back together after all the flood-related construction. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.

I have always enjoyed Halloween as a holiday. Really it’s a hedonistic sort of celebration. It requires no reflection, no penance, no guilt. Just candy and costumes and mystery.

My first Halloween costume was a black cat (my only store-bought costume). Subsequently, I went as a clown, a fairy, a postal carrier, a hippie, a gypsy, a cowgirl, and as a sprite. The year I was a sprite was my sophomore year in college, the last year I actually went trick-or-treating. Three friends and I went out into the neighborhoods surrounding campus in the pouring rain. It was such fun — and when we returned to the dorm, we were absolutely drenched. A perfect way to conclude one’s trick-or-treating days, methinks.

But next year I’m dressing up again. I even know what I’m going to be. But I’m not telling…