Papa’s Last Great Balloon Launch

Wooly Bully, Amen.

In true Rainbow Traveling Show style, there was much fireside sitting, heavy binge drinking, tearful goodbyes and storytelling belly-laughs at Papa Dollar’s Memorial and Wake in sunny Florida on Wednesday, February 25, 2009. With just about every one of the ‘usual suspects’ up to no good from start to finish.

Not the least of which was when the heir-apparent put my daughter Tash in charge of the blank-book in which we were all supposed to write something pithy about our old friend’s multi-storied life and times. She asked him what day it was so she could use her beautiful calligraphic skills to etch the title page, and he told her it was February 29, 2009. She (not paying attention to dates much) believed him. And now the precious family keepsake is forever dated Leap-Day in an Odd Year, something that’s never once actually occurred in the entire history of date-keeping!

But the best – better even than the formal Medicine Show eulogies – was the balloon launch, something Ras Papa was internationally infamous for. For this one it had been decided to launch Papa’s ratty old hat with the balloons. Which the 120 or so people present had to shuttle from his front porch helium tank to the mower polo field so they could be tied together into a freeform… thing. The animal balloons had sat in the sun too long, mostly exploded before they could be filled, but we did get a few. People drew or wrote things on the regular balloons with Sharpees before filling them, each with a personal note or charicature that related to Papa’s life.

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A Holiday Gift of Self

…that lasts throughout the year!

It’s getting closer to the Big Day, even as credit continues to dry up, jobs go away by the thousands, and ideas for alternative gift-giving are increasingly making the rounds. So today I’m going to promote an idea that will hopefully begin to catch on all over the country for Christmases present and future.

It’s called volunteering. Now, many families volunteer their services at Thanksgiving every year, preparing and serving T-day feasts to shut-ins via Meals On Wheels, at senior centers or at the city soup kitchen. Of course many others donate goods, like food and clothing, blankets and winter coats, etc. during the holidays. But not so much at Christmas, and I’ve always wondered why.

Sure, there’s not much call for volunteers at most charity operations on Christmas Day proper, but on most other days all year long there is a shortage of volunteers to do the work. Things like sorting and boxing donated food to be distributed to needy families and food banks, the preparation and serving of regular meals through all the agencies and charities that feed the hungry, manning the check-out at the church or secular thrift store, spending a few hours sitting with a disabled child or adult so their primary caregivers can have a much-needed time out, maintaining trails in parks and forests, even repairing and building homes with Habitat for Humanity. There are ongoing projects in most cities and counties all over the nation that would love nothing better than to have more volunteers than they need during day-to-day operations, at all times of year. I’ll include some source links at the bottom that should help readers in search of projects to volunteer for.

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Just in Time for Thanksgiving

How to Process that Turkey Carcass

Three of my kids who will not be here for Thanksgiving have called in the past week to ask me what to do with the turkey carcass once everybody’s done eating the Big Dinner. So while there are about a million things you can do with the leftover chunks and slices of turkey meat (turkey sandwiches, turkey & gravy on a shingle, etc.), not that many young people these days know what to do with all those bones and the gelled goo and the fat and skin and stray bits of possible meat that may cling, other than to put the whole mess into a plastic garbage bag and toss it into the dumpster. Or bury it in the back yard. Heck, even the cats won’t clean it off well enough to bleach any bones, and you sure shouldn’t feed it to the dogs!

So here’s the basics to brew yourself up some good turkey broth from this leftover yuck, which in turn can be used to make future gravy, future soups (any kind), or just poured over the dry dog food and mixed to give Fido a feeling that s/he has a feasting holiday too. It’s not hard, you just need a stock pot (or canner) big enough to hold all the ’stuff’ scraped off the platter and roasting pan.

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A Fun Family Do-It-Yourself Christmas!

It’s November already, the the world economic situation – or just the US economy – is dire. Many are wondering if there will be a Christmas at all this year, and that’s a shame. It means we’ve come to identify this wonderful holiday with the ugly consumer orgy it’s become over the years. Where credit cards get maxed out buying useless, cheap plastic junk or electronic gizmos that don’t last, and just about everything ends up in the landfill before next Christmas anyway.

So I’m going to advocate very strongly here for the kind of Christmas that whole families can enjoy together doing and making things that will surely become treasures to be cherished forever. Gift-giving really isn’t all about how much money you’ve got to waste, it’s about giving of one’s self and one’s thoughts and love and skills. Grandmothers are particularly adept at teaching these sort of things to the up and coming generation, and apart from some serious messes to clean up, these are wonderful projects for the holidays.

Our friends over at the blog Life on a Shoestring Budget have some very nifty ideas, a surprising number of them having to do with that ubiquitous dryer lint that mostly gets tossed these days. My favorites are dryer lint paper – for Christmas cards or handmade notebooks – dryer lint mache, and dryer lint clay. The recipes offered in links to Frugal Living and PlanetPal look to be easy and satisfying.

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A Good New Fangled Irish Wake

Well, we made it home in one piece from the funeral of our dear old friend Rick, but only because Grandma did the driving (everyone had been up all night at the wake, I was the only one in any shape to drive 8 hours home!). The funeral crowd overspilled the ample sanctuary of Rick’s Mom’s Catholic church, SRO inside (including the entire foyer) and others standing outside. The priest was a bit taken aback, and rightly suspected a lot of these people had probably never darkened a church door in their lives. But he did fine anyway, and all our hearts were broken – we were there for Mom, no one was going to cause any trouble.

In the immediate family circle are O’Sheas and Coins and O’Cains and O’Rourkes and other names so blatantly Irish nobody could confuse the issue by the number of Rastas and Buddhists and Presbyterians and atheists (and God-Knows-Whats) in the crowd. Even though we did outnumber them. After the mass there was a photo collage presented in the fellowship hall, probably 600 people stayed to see it.

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A Happy Family Holiday

…from the lake cabin!

One daughter, her annoying (and very loud) boyfriend, one niece and her not-annoying boyfriend, two semi-sons and their wives, one grandson and three old Navy buddies (plus 2 wives). It’s been a busy week here at the lake house for Mama and Papa Elf, who always stretch out Christmas over the entire length of the holidays. That’s a perk we give ourselves after a grueling season at the mall contributing to the Pagan trappings of the consumerist frenzy.

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The “Virtual Baby Shower”

An idea whose time has come!

With my younger daughter expecting to deliver in March and living far enough away that we can’t see her very often, I have been quite concerned about whether she’s got friends enough up there in Yankee-land to throw her the proper showers and make sure she’s got everything she needs in the way of ’stuff’ and sage mom advice about things that only moms can know. I’ve been stressing about how I was going to get up there both for at least one shower as well as for when the baby comes, so I can help out and get them started on the least stressful (I know, that’s a relative assessment) schedule for all baby all the time…

Her best friend lives here, where she went to high school. I’ve spoken with her about the whole shower thing and how this is to be managed with everybody living so far apart. Then, this past week my daughter’s best friend surprised and delighted me with the most wonderful idea!

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Family Projects for the Holidays

Getting the kids involved in making holiday gifts and decorations

Many, many moons ago when my children were actually little children (and we were quite poor), we all learned how much our extended family and friends loved to get presents from us that we’d made ourselves, however imperfect they might be. Because they represent some real thought, some hard work, and each comes with a little bit of ourselves mixed in.

That first year I’d decided that there would be no ornaments on our tree that we didn’t make. Got some construction paper, glue and glitter, and went to work. Daughter made some nice round ornaments with patterns of bright glitter on both sides that nicely reflected the lights. Son decided cutting glittered rounds into spirals worked nicely, and they certainly did! They hang with depth a little like icicles, but with personality. Then the next year they got together and made many more glittered paper ornaments with the names of loved ones written in puffy paint on top of the glitter, “so they can be here with us for Christmas,” my son explained. We still have a surprising number of these paper and glitter ornaments, and hang them still, every Christmas.

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The Strange History of Marriage

Taking a bit of a break from All Baby, All The Time, thought I’d do a little strolling through human history to see what there is to see about the institution of marriage. I’ve been wondering why some people want to cling to exclusive cultural frames at a time when about half of traditional marriages end in divorce and the benefits of marriage are being denied to whole segments of the population altogether. Maybe understanding something of the history and traditions associated with the institution could help our society to figure out what marriage is in the modern world and who may claim the right to *be* married.

I was inspired to go looking by an op-ed by Stephanie Coontz in the New York Times entitled Taking Marriage Private [Nov. 26]. She begins the article with a question, and a historical observation:

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

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