Tag: Holiday

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Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick’s Day was the high holy day of holiday shenanigans in our house growing up. Sure, Christmas and Easter were the main event. But no day was more treasured for sheer silliness.

And there were competitors. Take Robbie Burns night, the holiday where Scots honour their great poet. On this solemn eve, my dad dimmed the lights and lit black votive candles on the dining room table. He then “piped in the haggis”, on a kazoo. The “haggis” being a balloon he pulled from the refrigerator filled with frozen jello and bits of fruit. He stood with carving knife in hand, speaking in a faux brogue, then “opened the haggis”. We kids were traumatized. Mom swooned in admiration.

On Saint Patrick’s Day things got even sillier. Green everything. Irish drinking songs blaring on the stereo from dawn until dusk. My parents dancing jigs in the kitchen while waiting for their coffee to percolate. Beef stew with Guinness. Oat cakes. Once again, we kids were traumatized.

Except my little brother.  He would dress himself in green and pretend to be a leprechaun. He would flit around the house trying not to be seen. When we spied him hiding under a table he would waddle off at speed to another room, giggling all the way. He cut up pieces of aluminum foil to make “gold coins” which he slipped under people’s doors and left on chairs. It was very cute. And kind of weird.

One Saint Patrick’s Day, when he was perhaps 6, he outdid himself. My parents were at the kitchen table. In walked my brother with dad’s prized bottle of single malt whisky, a surefire Irish tradition. Except the whisky had been turned electric, neon green. In honor of Saint Patrick, My brother had dumped an entire bottle of green food coloring into my dad’s prized whisky. To be a good sport, dad drank a bit. His lips turned green. I suspect it may also have discolored his urine.

My father kept the ruined bottle of whisky. He would serve it to guests in dark whisky glasses, then say nothing as their lips turned green. He only did this to guests with a good sense of humor. Or so I believe. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

Image Credit: Freaking News

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Grandparents

“At Church. Beer in fridge. Love, Grandma”.  The note was taped to the front door of my grandparent’s house. My college roommate and I had just rolled up after 10 hours on the road in my 1970’s camper van, “Chocolate Thunder”: orange shag carpet inside, tantalizing brown color outside.

Moments after we had let ourselves in to my grandparent’s house they burst through the door and smothered us in hugs and kisses.

I asked grandma how she was doing. “Busier than a fart in a hot skillet”, she replied. She really said that.

Grandpa went to the fridge and returned with cans of Miller Lite. He also brought out the small glass cups: refined people never drink their Miller Lite directly from the can. My roommate stared wide eyed.

Grandma broke out the Wonder Bread and bologna and invited us to make sandwiches. In an effort to be polite, my roommate cut a modest slice of bologna. Without asking, Grandma reached over and manhandled his sandwich. She slapped on a second chunk of bologna the size of Rhode Island and teased, “You polite Canadians and your anemic sandwiches!” My roommate dutifully choked it down, aided by gulps of Miller Lite.

We had just moved into the living room to watch the Cubs game when an old family friend arrived. Out came more Miller Lite and another small glass. He regaled us with stories about his time years before in seminary, where he routinely snuck into the kitchen for a late night snack. Once, when he heard the head priest coming, he was forced to hide under a table for 20 minutes to avoid being caught. He re-enacted the event by crawling under the coffee table in my grandparent’s living room. We all laughed so hard we cried.

My roommate and I retired to the guest room. We had separate little Bert and Ernie beds with knitted bed covers. Above my bed was a crocheted wall hanging of a Sioux warrior. Above his there hung a felt church banner that read “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” We turned off the lights.

Through the thin walls we could hear grandma humming the Beer Barrel Polka as she washed up the glasses. Grandpa was listening to his police scanner radio. In the dark my roommate quietly remarked, “My God, I wish I had your grandparents”.

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Belgian Chocolate

I was not thrilled with the prospect of having to dig a hole in my suburban back yard to do my business. But I had no choice.

Earlier that day the septic system in our century-old house in Belgium had backed up, filling our basement with ick. This was the fourth backup in as many months. Something was seriously amiss.

The landlady sent over a crew with a camera. They put the gear down the manhole. They turned it on. With cigarettes dangling from their mouths they uttered a single exclamation: “Catastrophe!” The landlady had a serious problem on her hands.

She sent a crew over to dig up the crumbling septic tank and the broken pipes running to the street. I imagine these materials had been installed in pre-Roman times. There was mostly nothing left to dig up, except for the soiled soil, care of 1,000 flushes directly into our yard. To describe the excavated pile as smelly and gross would be the understatement of the year. It was also a health hazard.

The crew finished for the day. The crew leader then casually mentioned to my wife that they would be back to recommence work…IN ONE MONTH. My wife asked him to repeat himself. She wanted to be sure she understood. Her French is not parfait.

He looked at her quizzically and explained that the official holiday period began the very next day. The company would be closing for one month. The entire Belgian septic industry would be closing for one month.

My wife gently pointed out that there was a mountain of dirt and raw sewage on our front lawn. She asked what happened for all other such septic emergencies during the holiday period. The septic worker puffed sympathetically on his cigarette. He shrugged and said, “meh”. Then he left on holiday.

Which left me that evening wearing my rubber boots, with toilet paper and trowel in hand, trudging towards our back yard in a light Belgian rain to respond to nature’s inconvenient call.

To add insult to injury, we had houseguests. As I dug the hole of shame near the backyard hedge, they looked on from the window and cheered. Then, mercifully for all involved, they closed the blinds.

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[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]

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Halloween – 06/11/2017

Things went bad one Halloween when my niece pooped in her lion costume. She was only two, so what are you going do? But the outfit is a one-piece, necessitating a messy and difficult extraction even for veteran parents. My sister-in-law was forced to do an emergency pit-stop in our living room to initiate the clean-up.

We were also joined by a dear family member who has dementia. In the face of this horrible disease, our family has treasured moments of levity as they come along. Such it was to be this Halloween.

When the doorbell rang the family member would instinctively open the door. She would then stand there silent, confused by the throngs of costumed children. But the moment someone yelled “trick or treat”, recognition would radiate across her face. Her eyes sparkled as she would exclaim with surprise and enthusiasm, “Why, it must be Halloween!”  Finding the candy bowl, she would dish out liberal portions to the kids, and then help herself to a chocolate bar.

This cycle repeated itself dozens of times throughout the evening. Each group of trick-or-treaters was a brand new experience for her: doorbell, confusion, recognition, an enthusiastic exclamation of “Why, it must be Halloween!”, and then another chocolate bar. She must have eaten 20 before the night was through.

At one point our pre-teen daughter arrived back from trick or treating, dragging with her a pack of pre-teen girls engaged in pre-teen drama. They had elected to go out together all dressed as pieces of fruit. Apparently the banana had teased the apple about some part of her costume. The apple began to cry. Then the banana felt guilty, so she began to cry. Then the grape blamed the cherry for not stepping into the fray. So the entire fruit bowl began to cry. All the while said family member was circulating in the midst of the weeping fruit, dishing out candy while gleefully consuming yet another chocolate bar.

As my niece slipped back into her lion costume her older brother, dressed as the Pope, managed to catch his finger in our screen door. So at one moment in time our living room boasted a screaming pope, my sister-in-law trying to contain the fallout, weeping tween-age fruit, my beleaguered wife, a niece dressed as a lion who smelled like some unholy combination of stale poop and sugar, and a family member with dementia and an ear-to-ear grin, vibrating from excess chocolate consumption.

The very next batch of kids to ring the doorbell saw the chaotic throng in our living room. They decided the party must be inside, so in they came! I hope that everyone had a great Halloween this year!

 

[If you know others who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, please feel free to forward them the link to WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier!]