I'm on it!

So my landlord died suddenly and tragically. The Care Cottage was also shut down permanently. More on that later. For now I have been relocated to APU campus apartments. I'm so happy! 'Thank you so much Beth, and everyone in housing. I even got some bedsheets and towels loaned to me. Beth kindly lent me some blankets, dishes and utensils too.

Now I'm closer to all the good eats on Tudor (of course I'm closer to work, but food really matters). "Good eats" includes fellow FAI intern Josephine's house. Josephine, who is Yup'ik, usually goes by "Mussy," which in turn is derived from her Yup'ik name, "Mass’aluq."

By the way, this reinforces my little notion that Native people everywhere all seem to have two or more names (Mussy herself and Sherman Alexie can back me up on this one). Mine happens to be "Dis-Dis," which comes from ałk'ésdisí, the Navajo word for "candy." The word refers only to hard candy. "Like peppermints," my aunt explained over the phone, "Ałk'ésdisí comes wrapped and the plastic is twisted at both ends."

As a toddler, my paternal grandma used to babysit me. "Ayoo ałk'ésdisí ííyą," she said one day. "She eats so much candy." They began calling me "Disí." It soon evolved into "Dis-Dis," which is what everyone uses today. I will only allow family to call me that. I find I do not respond well when acquaintances use it; it is devoid of the familial love and affection.

I do not have a Navajo given name, but that's okay. I'm fine being "Dis-Dis," because I was raised as Dis-Dis.  To this day, when I enter the room, at least one person will shout "Dis-Dis!" and everyone will do welcome laughs.

My cousin Tyler also has a Navajo nickname. He's known as "Chxoosh" because of his hair, which sticks up everywhere.

Back on topic now... Let's see, I did struggle a bit with relocating, but anyway, last night's dinner of fish egg soup at Mussy's house set me right. We had freshly-made akutaq afterward for dessert.

While the soup simmered, Mussy mixed strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and handpicked salmon berries with several handfuls of shortening, water, and sugar. She'd already prepared akutaq using quagciq, or beach greens, and I tried some of that as well. That was delicious. It tasted like a mildly-sweet tea. (Those were the beach greens we'd picked the month before. She'd just frozen them since then.)

This is fish egg soup.

This is the akutaq containing the type of beach greens known as quaciq.

The newly-prepared akutaq with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and hand-picked salmon berries.