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.

As the old-timers and Jason built the construction, Odin the aero-engineer kept trying to tell them that they had to move to the other side of the field in order to launch, or they’d end up in the power lines. But NOOOOOO… mass of shape-shifting balloon sculpture and a ratty old hat finally was let loose, only to become hopelessly entangled in the power lines in record time. I was almost rolling on the grass with laughter, this was something Papa would have been absolutely livid about.

Not to be undone by grief-induced dumb-ness, the perps almost immediately decided to shoot it down so they could start over with fresh balloons from a more reliable vantage point. As we backed up in awe, they began setting off major fireworks right smack dab underneath the trapped balloons, missing them badly while causing the crowd to flee in panic (if they weren’t laughing too hard to move). Once it became apparent that the big boomers weren’t doing the trick, someone brought out the Roman candles. The sheer audacity of the cross-fire was amazing, considering nobody got hit!

More of us fell laughing to the ground, it was just too too funny. Eventually they managed to pop or deflate all but one of the balloons, but the mess was still firmly attached to the power line with a sad and ragged hat dangling forlornly underneath. It’ll be there for at least 20 years, I figure. Or until the next time the power company turns up. The face drawn on that last balloon standing was a tragic clown. Perfectly cosmically correct.

Back to the fire and more revelry, and everything went great until someone (who shall remain judiciously unnamed) set off a box of leftover fireworks on the bar of Papa’s Cantina. I figured it would burn down (and some of us were still sober enough to do a bucket brigade from the hot tub out front), but somehow it survived. The visual of major fireworks secondary boomers coming out from all directions as people were running and ducking is one that’ll stay with me forever. Not cosmically correct, but definitely cosmically incorrect enough to go down in history!

We’ll miss you being in the world every day for the rest of our lives, old friend. But you’ll never be far from our fond (and/or slightly singed) memories. Wooly Bully, Amen.

…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.

Even when there’s little money, the gift of self and time is worth a great deal. For Christmas gift-giving your family could produce some hand-made cards to exchange with each other, promising a certain amount of hours to a chosen charity, in the recipient’s name. For instance, a teenager could gift Grandma with 30 or 40 hours (or more) over the next year of volunteer work at her senior center, at her favorite nursing home, or at her church’s supported children’s home. A husband could gift a wife with X number of hours promised to help divvy up the food donations to the food bank, and deliveries for Meals on Wheels – in HER name.

All the gift-giver need do is choose a charity, find out when their need for volunteers is great (and coincides with when hours may be available), and request that the charity log the hours “in the name of” whoever the gift is given to. Most will readily accommodate this wish, and even include the in-name donations on their list included in the annual report.

There could be days when everyone in the family could be busily engaged in their chosen charities, arriving home to each other exhausted in the best and most satisfying of ways. Each appreciating anew – long after the holidays are over – the true value of the gifts. The giving of gifts is a display of selfless spirit (or, it’s supposed to be), so including needy strangers in the process just expands the selflessness. Plus, it does a lot of good for those many who are in need. But beware, volunteering can be addictive and lead to ever greater commitments of time and energy volunteered.

Links:

Volunteer USA Foundation
World Volunteer Web: Not just for Christmas
Volunteering your time this Christmas
Don’t wait till Christmas to volunteer
Food on Foot: Volunteers Wanted
VolunteerMatch: Find a Place

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.

1. Scrape the carcass, loose bones and leavings off the platter and roasting pan into the pot. Add enough water barely cover.

2. If you’ve leftover crudités (carrot and celery sticks, roasted garlic cloves, etc.) put them in the water too. If you’re planning future soup broth, chunk up an onion and put it in with the rest, along with ~2 teaspoons of salt. Also add 2 bay leaves, some rubbed (or fresh sage), rosemary if you like it, and 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper.

3. Let ‘er boil, turning the bones occasionally, for at least an hour. Add water if necessary.

4. Lift out the bones and bits, package for disposal. Strain the broth into jars and refrigerate. Use within a month or so, for whatever dishes need gravy or broth. This can include collards/kale, hopping john and other dishes you’re likely to cook for the rest of the holidays, make a white gravy with some broth for breakfast biscuits. If you’re just planning to use the broth to flavor up dry dog and cat food, leave out the salt, pepper, herbs and onion, but do include the carrots and celery.

See how easy that is? Sure, it’s a project, but worth it not to waste anything from your big feast. And don’t forget as we move into flu season that Mom’s Turkey Soup is every bit as soothing and phlem-clearing (this is true, look it up!) as Mom’s Chicken Soup. In fact, every time we get a whole chicken around here I do the same thing, and use the broth for soup.

As the world financial situation looks to be bad and getting worse, there may not be much consumerist excess for Christmas this year. So the traditional feasting and other such food goodies are going to be even more appreciated than usual. My mother’s generation lived through the Great Depression by not wasting anything, and the better able our generations today are to do much the same things, the better we’ll survive intact. When you can’t just jump into the SUV and drive to the store for a single item, your best bet is to process your own items from what you’ve got, then USE them.

Turkey Broth and Other Leftover Turkey Recipes

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.

I really like the idea of handmade journals for budding writers and artists, kids can put so much of themselves into a project like this! My grandson learned to make leather bound journals in school, and cuts up old leather jackets and such from thrift shops and free bins to make patchwork covers. We’re just starting on the paper-making, which will probably go mostly for Christmas cards. I’ve plenty of scraps of material, lace, trim, sequins, beads, studs, jewels and buttons that can be glued on the paper to make winter or Christmas scenes. Just need good old Elmer’s and some scissors, your distant family and friends will keep these cards forever!

Check out the post at Shoestring Budget and get busy, time is slipping away! For great ideas, check out Casual Keystrokes, which has a fine list of cool journal and planner ideas. And don’t forget that the kids can also help Grandma with edible gifts. In a later post I’ll include some of my favorite cookie and candy recipes for just this purpose. If you are like me, you save all those Christmas cookie tins when the season’s over (mine are stored with the rest of the Christmas decorations). These can be filled with all sorts of yummy goodies that make great gifts. My extended family has grown so used to getting their Christmas cookie-candy assortment every year, I think they might riot if ever I were to miss a year!

The holiday season wasn’t invented to bolster free market Capitalism, you know. It’s a time for love and sharing and warmth between people. Children honestly need to know this, as the economy is very likely to be grim for the next few years, and people will be struggling hard just to survive. Teach your grandchildren how, and encourage them to enjoy. These are lessons they’ll carry forward through the rest of their lives, and will never be sorry to have learned.

Links:

Christmas in a Depressed Economy
Casual Keystrokes
‘Tis the Season: Gift Ideas
Making Paper from Dryer Lint
Lint Craft Recipes
Stuffed Toy Patterns

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.

The trip to Jamaica and those tough-looking Rastas who literally carried Rick for miles into the mountains to see a holy man. The Tibetan monks and their beautiful sand mandala who were so delighted by their host’s soaring spirit. The notable artists and musicians who never passed through without spending time with Rick. The children he’d taught through the years, now grown with children of their own old enough to go to college. The beautiful red-haired boy, the courageous and determined young man, the cultural guru, the thin and frail middle-aged man who looked an awful lot like Jesus if that holy man’s eyes twinkled nearly as brightly as Rick’s.

We cried buckets of tears, but were reunited in our grief. We had too often lost touch over the decades. All past petty tiffs forgotten, love of Rick uniting us all once again as if we’d never grown apart. Then, later that evening, came the wake…

It was in the city near Rick’s house, hosted by a wonderful couple with one of those Irish names and an acre of yard. All of it put to use for this event, and all the neighbors forewarned. There were two groups of fiddlers and harpists, a stage at the other end of the yard stacked with equipment. A couple dozen notable rock and reggae musicians jammed all night off and on. A drum circle filled in the breaks. There were children lined up for the tree swing and trampoline, guarded (and herded) by teenage volunteer sitters. There were rows of tables filled with food, watermelons galore, coolers of pop and water and more beer than anybody could keep track of, magically replenishing kegs of Guinness, and a picnick table bar on the deck stocked with more kinds of wine than I could identify as well as literal cases of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. Parking overflowed the vacant lot a few blocks away manned by volunteers with light sticks, a constant crowd of about 500 constantly shifted through the night. It was still going when we checked in, 8 hours after driving home through three states!

My friend Rick enjoyed the love of so very many people, each of whom claimed him as his/her BEST friend. He could make you feel that way even in a crowd. What we all received from him is important enough to last these generations for many generations more, and comes complete with the power to change the world. We are so blessed…

The greatest gift Rick gave to those of us who loved him is each other. Our charge now is to hang on to those ever-widening, ever-proliferating circles of love and friendship. My family’s all for it (though we won’t be moving back to the city). I think a lot of others are too.

Kiteriggers Memorial Site

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.

I’ve baked cookies and managed two batches of fudge that ended up as chocolate syrup on ice cream instead. I’ve cooked lots and lots of meals and done more dishes than should be allowed by law. I’ve attempted to lay down the gated community ‘law’ to the annoying boyfriend who apparently believes we’re all deaf because he is, and have so far managed to prevent any real damage to my sister’s nice new retirement home. I did fall down the steps from the loft on my way to the bathroom this morning, thereby breaking my foot.

So now I’m ensconced on the wing chair in front of the fireplace with my foot on a pillow. I’m not cooking, not washing dishes, and not cleaning up after the barbarian hoards. They’re all leaving tomorrow, so hopefully I can get all the Christmas decorations packed and the sheets washed and the kitchen and bathrooms sanitized in time to make it home for dinner! The beautiful log McMansion no worse for wear and tear, myself a bit more battered (and gimpy) than I’d have liked. Pretty much par for the course.

I figured out awhile back that everybody’s family is dysfunctional to a certain extent, some more than others. A family as big as mine has more than its share of off-colored sheep, but I love ‘em all anyway. Did talk to younger daughter who couldn’t make it here for the holidays, and have been participating regularly in her “Virtual Baby Shower.” Our Marine warrant officer son called Christmas Day to tell us he’s transferring to North Carolina in May, which will put two more grandchildren within easy spoiling range!

I hope the holidays have been full of family, friends and fun for all my readers out there, and here’s hoping that 2008 will be a more hopeful year for everyone, all over the country and all over the world. Peace on Earth, good will to everyone regardless of age, sex, color, culture or beliefs!

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!

I got an invitation in my email to join my daughter’s “Virtual Baby Shower!” You, like me, may be wondering what the heck a virtual baby shower is, but the moment you get it, it makes tremendous sense for this modern world and the distance between people. It’s a nice, pink-themed (daughter loves pink and the baby’s a girl) site with links to the gift registry she’s signed up for, a guestbook, a whole ‘Names’ section (including one for names she’ll reject, such as CoolAssMojo and GuitarGreg), some puzzles, a page with a list of gifts already bought or given (and who from), and a message board with topics like “Mom Advice” and greetings, and ongoing conversation and even several cool games all us participants get to play while we’re at the Shower!

And the best thing of all is that it isn’t a party with a specific time and place, we all have to provide our own food, drinks and favors, and we can keep it going for weeks or months – follow the whole pregnancy and keep in touch every day. Now, why didn’t I think of this? If you can input the data to get a basic web page going you too can host a Virtual Baby Shower. This one’s on Freewebs.com, though I’m sure such a site could be hosted by any of a number of online web-hosting sites.

So if you have a friend or relative who is having a baby and lives far away from all the people who should definitely get in on the shower action, this seems the perfect way of doing it, and coordinating the gifts at the same time so she doesn’t end up with 4 strollers, 3 car seats, 2 play pens and no high chair!

Links:

Strollerderby Playdate: The Virtual Baby Shower Edition

Web Baby Shower

Long Distance Baby Shower

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.

As presents for others we started with some simple candlemaking, a kit with wax, dye and some plastic molds that I bought on sale. The kids made some extremely ugly monkey-face candles that my Mother-in-Law still cherishes. She’s never lit them, they come out for display every Christmas in her home. We still make all our own Christmas cards out of basic scrapbooking supplies and recycled cards from years before, and all the grandchildren started out making their own holiday gifts and decorations with whatever’s on hand. Someday I might collect all the great kid-ideas and write a craft book, since most of those type of books are written by Martha Stewart types instead of kids who have The Best Ideas On The Planet.

If you’ve got children old enough to wield a pair of scissors and use an Easy-Bake oven, there are some very good craft ideas out on the web this time of year that you might want to try. It’s good quality time to spend with your children, a fine mess to be made (and cleaned up) by all, and lots of laughs! It can become a tradition at your home too, and it honestly does impart a different sort of view of the “holy days” than what they get from television or the mayhem at the mall.

Deborah over at Simply Thrifty blog has a list of 50 Holiday Things You Can Make Yourself that has links to instructions for all 50 items. These include a wreath, an evergreen garland, greeting cards, popcorn and cranberry chains, a Menorah, a dreidle, traditional Kwanzaa decorations, and a bunch of good cookies, cake and candy your kids can help you whip up. Pine cone ornaments, stockings, bath salts and potpourri – there’s something here for every level of skill and every age range.

So if you’re sick of the consumerist frenzy and ‘Bah, Humbug!’ mood of what should be a joyful holiday season, set some time aside for your family. Amass some paper, glitter, old cards, toothpicks, felt and glue and get busy! You’ll never be sorry, and your children will learn something valuable about holidays and about their own abilities which will only be reinforced tenfold when the recipients of their gifts let them know how truly appreciated they are!

Links:

50 Holiday Things You Can Make Yourself

The Garden Granny [Holiday Food Gifts]

Discount Craft Supplies

Anything Crafts

1001 Full-Size Patterns, Projects & Ideas

365 Easy Projects for Every Occasion

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.

Now, marriage seems an odd institution if you look at it dispassionately. Almost as if it became an issue only when humans invented a patriarchal type of society where men claimed the power to make all relevant decisions about everything, probably testosterone talking (not to mention sheer size). I mean, everybody always knows who the mother of a particular baby is – who would dream of questioning who gets her stuff when she dies?

Deal is, confidence of paternity isn’t such a ‘Duh’. Unless that baby looks so much like Elmo that only Elmo could be his father, there’s no real way to know – before the advent of modern blood and DNA testing, that is. So various cultures all over the world developed all sorts of odd rules, regulations and customs related to marriage and responsibilities in private households and private families. Some were quite weird by modern estimation.

When Christianity took over the church (which was the state) decided it had the power to decide who was married and who was not. Suddenly the parents didn’t matter anymore – their approval was not required. Oddly enough, for much of the 1600 years of church rule, the priest didn’t count either! Any male-female couple could claim to be married so long as they both agreed that they’d exchanged vows of some sort.

In 1215, nearly a thousand years after taking over, the church defined a “licit” marriage as one where the exchanging of vows happened in the church in front of witnesses. This made their children “legitimate,” as if any child could be considered an “illegitimate” person, which is total hooey. Still, people who didn’t get married in a church had the same rights – their children were legitimate, the wife could inherit, and prohibitions against divorce applied to them too.

States didn’t get involved until the 1600s, mostly by requiring that marriages be registered by the government. It started out as a way to prevent couples whose parents disapproved of the match from getting married, but there was no way for states to stop couples from eloping regardless of what the parents thought. States also had to recognize cohabitation as “common law” marriage for the legal rights inherent.

In the US the government got particularly ambitious to regulate citizen’s rights to marry whom they chose during the last part of the 19th century and this unbridled power-grab continued through the 20th century (and now the 21st century). in the 1920s there were 38 states that prohibited interracial or intercultural marriages. 18 states prohibited remarriage after divorce. Most of these laws were stricken in the latter part of the 20th century, even as the government began relying more and more on the legal marriage license to mete out resources to couples and decide who is a dependent of whom and who could access official records deemed “private” (like medical records).

In some cultures people were not allowed to be married (by whatever definition the culture provided on the rights and responsibilities end) until they’d proven themselves fertile. In other words, the woman had to be pregnant. Pregnancy has traditionally been a good excuse for marriage, and it’s the one my husband and I used back in 1969 when we eloped. Our parents were dead set against the match, so we just showed my belly to a judge and he waived requirements for parental consent.

That was the last of the “good old days” way of doing things, apparently. In this first decade of the 21st century a full 40% of children are born to unmarried people. Half of marriages end in divorce, spreading dependency, responsibilities and rights over several households. Nearly half of fathers never provide any support for any of their children through women they don’t live with. And it’s not strange at all anymore for couples to divorce because one or the other of them decides s/he is gay. Which means that lots of children have two fathers or two mothers in at least one of their homes.

In fact, things on the marriage front are so weird lately that I think the government would do best to just get out of the business of deciding who “deserves” basic human rights or contractual rights. Why should they care who partners up to buy a house or start a business (or family)? Shouldn’t the testimony of the people involved, their families, friends and neighbors carry more weight with family and probate courts than a piece of paper? Shouldn’t people who can establish by basic means (mailing address, joint bank account, home ownership, etc.) their working partnership be eligible for rights of survivorship and dependency? Does it matter what sex they are, or even whether they have sex? Why?

Marriage as a rite and a party and a way of life isn’t going to go away any time soon. But no one else – and no institution of government or religion – can make a marriage. That’s up to the people who make the commitment to each other and any children they have (together or between them). Your religion may not approve of two men falling in love, or two women falling in love. So what? Why should that dictate what rights those lovers are entitled to as citizens of their town, state and nation, any more than it should matter that one of them is black and one is white?

I personally think it’s well past time for the religious to pay more attention to their own marriages. They might not be so prone to divorce if they did that. They wouldn’t have time to worry about their neighbors’ love lives if they paid more attention to their own. If and when religious people become perfect exemplars of marital bliss, they might have something pertinent to say about what makes people happy together for a lifetime. Until that happens, they should just butt out of everybody else’s business!

[/rant]

Links:

Taking Marriage Private

Wedding Traditions and Customs around the World

International Wedding Customs… Different Strokes for Different Folks

Discovering Wedding Customs and Traditions of the Past