Under her thumb

In December of 2013 Jay and I bought our food trailer, and started our business Garson Du Bayou.  It means Boys of the Bayou in French. We entered into a partnership with Jay’s BFF.  Paige could not stand him.  She basically hated anyone I loved. Paige was totally against the business.  She was not fond of Jay’s cooking.  Everyone loves Jay’s cooking.  I think Paige was just hell bent to destroy anything that was good in my life.  I wonder if her plan all along was to make me as miserable as she was?

We started cleaning out the food truck, and getting it ready.  We decided our first test run event would be Mardi Gras in February. The night before our first event Punka got sick.  She developed a huge bubble on the side of her face.  We took her into the Emergency Vet.  I pray you never have to go there.  After many hours they told us that they believed she had been bitten by something, and that is what had caused the swelling.  It was kind of odd, since she had not been outside that day.  She had been sleeping at my feet all day.  They told us if her condition changed to come in. 

The next day the swelling had moved to under her throat.  Paige offered to stay home with her, while we did our event.  The next morning I would move over Punka’s heart.  She could not drink water and she was having trouble breathing.  We rushed her back into the vet’s office.  We were told she was in congestive heart failure.  The bubble they thought was from a bit or sting, was actually fluid, and not it was impeding her heart function.  We left her there to see if her condition would improve.  In conversations with the Vet, we learned that this would be the end for Punka.  This problem would never go away and she might get a little better, but we would be coming back to this point again and again.  I could not let her live like that. 

I talked with the vet, with Paige, and with Jay, and we decided to put her down.  We went back to the Emergency Vet’s office and waited 3 hours, until we could be seen.  I almost lost my nerve several times.  Punka died in our arms on February 23^rd, 2014.  We buried her the next day in Holda’s Well.

I have a little sacred spot on my property right outside my bedroom.  When I raise up out of bed in the morning, it is the first thing I see.  We have a fountain and a bricked area. The old timers will tell you to make a spell strong you have to add a bit of yourself to it, so you use blood, spit or urine.  I had peed Punka at this spot one day and then me.  We had both given of ourselves, so it seemed like a good spot.  We used some scalloped edging corners to make a 2 x 2 square on the ground.  In the middle we put bricks with holes in them, so anything poured in this spot would go down to the ground.  We added dirt from a sacred Holda site in Pennsylvania.  I will go out and give Holda’s well offerings of alcohol, food, coffee, milk, whatever. Punka was my familure. When she died, I could think of no better offering to give Holda, then my fur child.  No better place for her to rest, but a place she and I had built together.  So we opened up Holda’s well, and laid Punka to rest in there.  Every morning her little grave is the first thing I see. 

 In early March 2014 Paige called me out.  She said, “Ten years ago you used to be feisty and vivacious!  What happened to you?”  I thought ten years ago I was in OA and working out.  I decided to go back.  I became abstinent very quickly, got off sugar, began to work out and lost 30lb.  I would gain it back as quickly as I lost it, and never lose another pound while I was in program.  I quit OA right before my one year anniversary.  After hearing one day in the rooms, the reason I was not losing weight was I was not close enough to my god.  If it works for you, that’s good.  I wish you luck.

Paige would get this attitude with me anytime I tried to go to a meeting or go workout.  She seemed to be jealousy of anything I did for myself.   She told me, don’t need to go work out at a gym.  You could lose weight by doing house work if you really tried. 

On my birthday Tami, and my friend Jenny held a birthday party for me.  Paige wanted me all to herself.  She was very jealous anytime I spent time with my other friends.  Tami and Jenny both offered to beat Paige up for me.  They were deadly serious.  They tried to convince me that Paige was controlling me.  My friends had told me, Jay had told me, but I was still fiercely loyal to her.  I felt she was helping me.  I was not listening to reason at that point.  I am blessed to have friends who so loved me and wanted what was best for me, even if I was under Paige’s thumb.  Tami said, “I just don’t like the way she talks to you.”

Tami was still living out here in Momma Muriel’s house at that time.  I told Paige that when Tami moved, she could move in.  Paige tried to convince me one day to give her the deed to Momma Muriel’s house, so that she could raise Tami’s rent to about $800 dollars.  I told her, “No.”  Oh Paige did not like that, but then she never liked it when I asserted myself to her.

Ilsa

 

 

Making Plans

Jay and I continued seeing each other, falling deeper and deeper in love.  He would steal away to my house whenever he could.  He would come for what we called, “sleepovers.”  I was not allowed to sleepover at his house.  While my mother in law loves me, she was not too keen on her unwed son having sex under her roof.  I had told my parents long ago at least if I have sex in the house, you know where I am.   I’m not out on a pipeline somewhere, or back in the woods where if something happens to me you can’t get to me.  My parents adored Jay, they still do.  When Mom would come to say goodnight to me, she would tuck Jay in bed first and then me.  I still think they like him better than me.  At some point my father told me, “If you ever decide to get a divorce from Jay, just walk right across the hall and take out a restraining order against me ‘cause I’m going to kill you.”

Now I had lost my job in the Summer of 2002 and I continued to look for work, any work for many months.  When you have a B.A. most people don’t want to hire you.  They think you will become bored with the job and leave as soon as they have invested all that time and money in training you, or your find something in your field.  They also don’t want to hire someone who has a lot of education and not as much work history.  Again a lot of men doing the hiring are intimidated by an intelligent woman. 

My Anthropology degree, while pretty on the wall, was not worth very much here.  North West Louisiana does not invest in science or preserving their history.  There were a few private museums here that were run by volunteers and only one was run by the state.  There are also no state historic sites here.  There was nothing here where one with my degree might make a living.  It’s kind of like having a marine biology degree while you are living in the middle of the desert.  My dreams of a higher degree had been dashed by my GRE results.  I was too stupid for graduate school, plus now I was in love and I did not want to leave him behind.  I took the civil service test and began to look for work with the state. 

About the time I meet Jay I had finally found a little job as a barista.  That job lasted a few weeks, before the owner told me they were having money trouble and would have to let me go.  They closed a few months later.  I had friend named Paige (who’s so twisted she deserves her own article and that I plan to write a little later) who’s father owned a convenience store.  I asked her to get me an interview with him.  She did and I was hired a few days later.  Even he was intimidated by the fact I came to the interview in business attire, with a resume in a nice folder for him, and had a degree.  He didn’t want to hire me at first because I had a degree.   He, like so many others, was afraid I would get bored and leave.  People like him sometimes forget that we all have to eat.  Paige had to explain I was just very professional.  I stayed almost 6 months, a lot longer than many of the people there. 

I got the word in September of 2003 that I would be a Park Ranger at Fort Jesup State Historic Site outside of Many, Louisiana. It was built in the 1820’s and had been used as a staging ground for troops in the Mexican American war. I was terrible excited that I would finally be able to put my degree to good use, and to make a living for myself.  It was an hour south of where I was living and an hour and half south of Jay.  For the first few weeks I commuted back and forth from Keatchie to Many.  But we knew this would never do.  I began to look for a place to live. 

I refused to leave Precious the first behind.  Would you leave your human children behind if they suddenly became inconvenient for you?  No she was my child, just because she had fur did not mean I got to cast her aside because a place to live would not allow pets.   

Precious the first had come to me in those years of writing the “Prodigal Daughter,” from a friend.  She was a beautiful black and tan Dachshund.  She had been rescued from the Bossier pound.  Her owner had been an elderly lady, who had died of a heart attack, a few weeks after Precious the first had delivered puppies.  The family had sold the puppies and took Precious the first to the pound.  The day my friend got her Precious the first was so engorged with milk that she had to ride home on a towel.  For years Precious the first would wake up screaming in her sleep.  I know she was dreaming of her pups.  Over the years she had become my trusted companion. No I was adamant she would come with me.  I would not leave her behind. After a few weeks I lamented to a co-worker the problem I was having trying to find a place for both of us.  He told me that he had a cousin who had a trailer that would allow pets.  I was overjoyed.

In October Precious the first and I moved into a little trailer in the tiny community of Belmont.  Jay came to visit when he could, but for the most part we were on our own.  It was the first time, other than living in the dorms in college I had ever lived on my own.  It could be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, especially at night. 

I did not want Precious the first to be lonely while I was gone to work, so I decided I should get her a playmate.  I put a call into the Shreveport Pound and told them if they came across a Dachshund to give me a call.  They called three days later.  They told me they had picked up three doxies knocking over garbage cans to stay alive.  I told them I would take all three.  I happened to be on a date with Jay when we got the call.  By the time I ran to the bank and got out the cash, they had already adopted out two.  On the way there we had already decided on the name, Pumpkin.  No matter the color or the sex of the dog.  It was October you know.  I was calling everybody Pumpkin about that time. 

When we get to the pound we are led back to the kennels.  There sat the most beautiful, scared, little red Dachshund on a green bed.  They opened the door and I crawled in and laid on my back in submissive position.    She began to give me kisses.  I picked her up, proclaimed her Pumpkin, and gave her to Jay.  And so we add Abigail Pumpkin Plaisance to our family.  Pumpkin and Precious the first fought a lot in the early days, but at least they were company for each other. 

Jay and I had been together for about 10 months at that time.  We were engaged but had not set a date as of yet.  Our families were getting pretty tired of the fact we were sleeping together, but not married yet.  We decided to set a date.  We would marry the week after my birthday in March when the flowers would be in bloom, my favorite time of year.  I figure that in the coming years he might remember one of the two dates, since they are so close together.  He has never forgotten either. 

Now at this time in my life I am Christian but I am also still very interested in Native American Spirituality and Native American culture.  Jay is and has always been interested in their different cultures.  At this time I have even danced in a Pow-Wow, and have my own regalia.  Although it might be cliché and not politically correct Jay and I feel we have spent many lifetimes among the tribes. 

I am talking on the phone one night with Mary, a friend of mine.  I mention to her how I wish we could be married by a Medicine Man.  She asks me, “Isn’t Jerry Fairbanks a Medicine Man?  Can’t he marry you?”  I said I will find out.  Indeed my friend, who I have talked about before, is an Ojibwa Medicine Man and can legally marry Jay and I.  We are delighted!  We begin to make plans for our Ojibwa wedding.

When our family hears of this, they are not pleased.  They do not consider such a thing to be “legal,” their way of saying they don’t consider it to be correct.  I tell them if they want us married in the church then they will have to pay for it.  They say they will.  So we begin to plan for a church wedding as well.

Ilsa