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This rice is so wonderful. It was $8 at Costco and how could I say no to “riceberry rice?” Now I can’t stop eating it and I have 4 bags.

#rice #riceberry rice #Costco #food #grains #safe food

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A few months ago I stepped out of the car to pee and found the remnants of someone’s fine meal, someone else’s life.

I swear I’m not always this morbid but bones are just neat.

#bones #animal bones #nature #death

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Shayne never got to meet my grandparents, and I had never visited their gravesite. I figured today was the day to drive 67 miles north and rectify the situation, and what magical intuition I must possess because it SNOWED on the way up.

Do you know what I love more than a graveyard in the snow? Not much.

John and Joye Shaski are buried in a national cemetery for veterans, in which every grave is numbered and neat as a pin. The only variation between sites is in the stones themselves, how aged they are, how marbled, and whether they stand up or lie down. As a lover of systematic organization, it is beautiful to behold.

There are a lot of people buried here. Of the 29 Navajo Code Talkers, 14 of them reside at Santa Fe National Cemetery, just a few lots away from my grandparents. There are also a lot of people memorialized here that are decorated and honored for their roles in slaughtering Native Americans and defending slavery in the U.S. American South. It's a painful dissonance that I try to release as I look out at the quietly falling snow.

We couldn't visit all of the Code Talkers (the cemetery is huge!) but we wanted to pay our respects to a few.

Carl James Csinnjinni, Sam Morgan, and Ralph Morgan. I'm no fan of the military industrial complex, but you guys fought Nazis under the banner of a country that wiped out your people and you have nothing but my respect. I'm so glad visitors still cover your resting places with flowers.

Shayne knelt down and thanked John and Joye for their role in my existence 🥹. They would've loved him.

My grandma would've scoffed at my outfit (if you haven't worn a crop top in 34 degree wet snowfall, are you even from New England?) and most of my life choices, but my grandpa would've just been happy I was there. I miss them both.

I showed them my hoodie from their Alma Mater, the same college I graduated from this year. The logo is from their era in the 60s so I'm sure they recognize it.

I love a graveyard in the snow.

#graveyard #ancestry #snow #santa fe #military #navajo code talkers #veteran #i thought veteran and veterinarian was the same thing for a long time #me #my love #family