The Funnies, May Day, Floating and Silly Putty

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:08]Can you believe it's Friday?

[00:00:10]But can you believe it's May 1st? May 1st already. It's been snowing up until a few days ago.

[00:00:19]What is this? How can it possibly be May 1st?

[00:00:26]We've had April showers, bring May flowers. So May we kind of think of as kind of a renewal.

[00:00:37]And I was brought up in the Catholic tradition because I was I went to a parochial school. So, but the celebration of May began pre-Christianity and it was really a pagan celebration or just a celebration of the people to celebrate basically the fertility of the land and they would decorate. They would have this maple and they would decorate it with ribbons and flowers and they would dance around the maple with whatever their intentions were or whatever their request was. So it's celebrating like the changing of the seasons.

[00:01:24]And uh they when they danced around the maple they would wrap the ribbons in certain patterns.

[00:01:33]I find it hard to visualize but um the way they danced and they did intricate things and they they formed some kind of a pattern which for was a symbol. Um so that maple was a symbol of life, vitality and renewal and it was tied basically to the fertility of the land.

[00:01:59]The May altar traditionally honors the Virgin Mary in the Catholic practice.

[00:02:10]Now, when I was a child, and I don't know if any of others were brought up this way, but we would always make a May altar in our home for the month of May for Mary.

[00:02:26]And we would make it like out of a little cardboard box on its side, like kind of like a diarama that you would do for a school project. But remember cray paper? You used to be able to buy rolls and rolls of crepe paper and you'd twist it and you'd stick your thumb in it and you'd make a little design. [snorts] So, we would decorate the altar with um this box with cray paper, usually blue and white, and then we would have a statue of Mary, and then we would have a bouquet of flowers in front of Mary. That's what I remember. But I'd be really interested in hearing if anyone else did that. Um, what that tradition was like for you or if you had it or let's not get into I don't believe in that stuff because I don't want to get into any controversy and I know that Mayday has turned political and we're not talking about politics either. So just bear with me.

[00:03:31]So the the May altars, families would pray in front of the May altar, maybe pray the rosary, or they would use it like you would use an altar.

[00:03:42]So even though May poles and May altars are one is pagan and one is communal, the and [clears throat] communal and the other one is Christian and devotional.

[00:04:00]both celebrate life, fertility, and the changing of the seasons. So, the older traditions kind of blended with the newer traditions.

[00:04:11]And when we honor Mary, we talk about blending beauty and creation and beauty and abundance.

[00:04:20]So that's kind of like a very brief um explanation of the Maypole and May altars, but do you remember May baskets?

[00:04:33]I remember little May baskets. And the tradition was to put it on someone's door. And a little May basket was like a little Easter basket, but it was typically smaller. And it was typically made with that crepe paper that I was talking to. I wish I had some to trigger your memory, but I know you'll know.

[00:04:51]Storefronts used to use it to and they use it to decorate the parades and stuff, the floats on parades, but um the mapole actually, what am I trying to say? the May baskets.

[00:05:09]I I'm not sure what they symbolized except probably renewal and growth and um the change of seasons and being kind to somebody. I don't know.

[00:05:23]Does anyone know what the May baskets were for and why we we use them or we used to use them? But once again, I went to a Catholic school, so I don't know if that was a Catholic thing or it was just a thing that we did.

[00:05:44]This tea is so good. Did I tell you about that tea? Yeah, it's called Brmley tea, and I put it in my Amazon links in case you want to try it. I think it's it's really quite good. Of course, I only paid $2.39. If you order it through Amazon, it's $7, I think. Oh, well, it's worth it.

[00:06:08]Um, so, well, I told you the maple celebrates earthly vitality and the May altar celebrates spiritual vitality.

[00:06:25]So, When Christianity began to spread, they kind of incorporated these rituals and these celebrations.

[00:06:39]They kind of melded together and they became something else and they're they're continuing to change every year.

[00:06:47]They're going away. They're breaking away from the roots of what um Mayday and the was originally intended for.

[00:06:58]Eventually it get um adopted as a laborers union kind of celebration to celebrate the laborers which is a good thing. [snorts] But it's kind of focused more on that now than it is on the other things that um the thing is is the Mayflower and the maple, they have the same kind of imagery, the flowers, the ribbons, the well the may alters, the statue, but the flowers, the baskets, all that stuff. So they are kind of parallel in a way.

[00:07:36]But in the heart of the whole thing, the celebration, they express the same human impulse to celebrate the return of life, the fertility and beauty, getting rid of the cold and the darkness.

[00:08:04]So anyway, I thought it was kind of interesting to at least chat about it because after all, it's Mayday and [clears throat] I can't get over how fast how fast the time really go. I know I say it all the time. I just cannot get over it. It's scared. It's it's kind of scary, I think. So anyway, so what else have you been doing?

[00:08:34]Today I'll tell you what I did since I can't hear you because you know I talk very loud. I think I probably monopolize the conversation.

[00:08:44]But today I went to um Jud, my friend Jud. He's the person who formerly John Doe. We used to call him John Doe. He was um he had a below the knee amputation about five weeks ago, six weeks ago, and he had a home visit today. So, he went with his physical therapist and his occupational therapist. They took him by a van in his wheelchair to his home to see how how his home was set up and how he was going to navigate when he got in his home and some of the things that he would actually need to navigate in his home. And so it was really quite interesting because I told you my daughter Ericer is a physical therapist.

[00:09:42]My son-in-law Jim is an occupational therapist and I am a nurse.

[00:09:49]And you know me, I think I'm an authority on everything, but I tried to keep my mouth shut. I tried not to be bossy because it's his life. It's his house and all these things have to be done.

[00:10:06]So, he's got to have a ramp. He's got to have guardrails. But before he can even go home, he has to have a ramp.

[00:10:12]And he's probably not going to have his prosthesis for weeks and weeks and weeks. you know, it might turn into months or several months anyway. So, a lot of things to consider, but it was interesting to see how he did because I've never observed like a therapy session or anything and I think he did really well. He got tired very quickly, but I think that's probably pretty normal.

[00:10:38]Anyway, so that was that.

[00:10:43]Then I went to Ocean State. I didn't find much to spend my money on, which is a really good thing because I can't spend any more money. I don't want to because I want to get those windows and I want to what was the other thing that I wanted to do?

[00:11:01]Windows.

[00:11:04]I don't know. I can't remember.

[00:11:07]Cut tree. Have some trees cut down.

[00:11:13]Oh, and I wanted to do a floor. Oh, I have so many things, but I can only do one thing at a time. So, I think the windows are my priority. But anyway, that's today. That'll probably change tomorrow.

[00:11:28]And I haven't done anything about it because I've been out gallivanting and then now this is late afternoon, like really late afternoon. Um, it's kind of We had some sun today, but it's kind of overcast for the most part, but um, I talked to Gay. She says she's feeling better. Sandy says that Steve is doing a little bit better. I can't even imagine what he's going through, but I'm sure many of you have gone through it.

[00:12:02]Oh, did I try to? I was someplace. Oh, when I went to Ocean State, there was three elderly ladies in front of me. So, you know, I couldn't resist.

[00:12:13]I said, "Do you guys, you know, I'm like so cool. Do you guys watch YouTube?"

[00:12:20]One of them says, "I don't watch it all it all, but she does. She does." So, I said, "Well, I think you should turn in tune in to my channel because I think you'd really like it."

[00:12:31]>> [snorts] >> They were they were in their 60s and there were three of them.

[00:12:36]So anyway, so I gave it a little spiel, but I've toned that down a little bit.

[00:12:40]I've decided I think I'm going to make, you know, Debbie from Kentucky Life with Debbie.

[00:12:48]She has bookmarks that she's made and she's laminated and um she puts Bible verses on them and she hands them out. I think that I will make I've talked about doing business cards with senior insights on it.

[00:13:07]Uh but of course I've never done it because my excuse is I don't have any time.

[00:13:13]Well, if I didn't do a coffee last night, I would have had a whole day.

[00:13:17][laughter] It doesn't take me a whole day. It only takes me an hour. Well, no, it takes me more than an [laughter] hour. Never mind. Never mind. Never mind.

[00:13:27]So there I go with the So I've been so [laughter] conscious of that now.

[00:13:46]I am so grateful for Carol from Plain Vanilla Grammar for talking about the Sunday newspaper [snorts] because it generated a lot of interest. A lot of people talked about the different comics that they that they enjoyed like I'll have to read them because I just wrote them down. Peanuts, Family Circus. Remember that with this didn't it have a circle and it was just like one picture, comic, whatever. Cats and Jammer kids.

[00:14:19]Um, Grin and Barrett. Beetle Bailey.

[00:14:25]Um, the other thing that somebody mentioned is you got the TV guide in the Sunday newspaper. Yeah, that's true.

[00:14:34]You got the coupons. Blondie Dagwood and someone said, "Remember Ann Landers?" Remember I did? We had a coffee chat on Annlanders and who's the other one? Dear Abby, they were sisters and they had a little rift. I'll look up that stuff and and maybe we can talk about it again because it's really quite interesting.

[00:14:59]Um, let me just Oh, and Carol from Plain Vanilla Grammar, she was a paper girl. I always wanted to be a paper girl, but my mother would say, "Well, what when you get sick? Who's going to deliver the paper?" [laughter] You know, all that stuff. What if? How come? [snorts] Um, so I never did, but I am so grateful for Carol from playing vanilla grandma for talking about the Sunday newspaper because it generated a lot of interest. Um we t a lot of people enjoyed just thinking of the comics that they used to see like peanuts family circus wasn't that family circus was in a square right with a circle in it. Um, Cats and Jammer Kids was one another one. Grin and Barrett. B A B E A R.

[00:15:54]Beetle Bailey, Dagwood and Blondie. Uh, and you got the TV guide. Yeah, you couldn't live without the TV guide in the And lots of times it came in a booklet. At least I'm I'm remembering that. like a whole not like the TV guide TV guide but like a TV guide that came in the newspaper.

[00:16:18]You know what I mean? Anyway, so someone else said, "Do you remember using silly putty on the funnies in the newspaper?"

[00:16:32]Yes, I do. Do you? Silly putty was this is a kneaded eraser but it's very similar to silly putty and you would make it nice and flat like this and then you would put it on the comt comic and it would come up and you would have the imprint.

[00:16:57]I don't have anything that I could imprint here.

[00:17:01]Oh yeah.

[00:17:09]Something wacky happened. But look, I just put it on my pencil and yeah, it does pick it up. Now I'm going to see if it can print with it.

[00:17:23]Nah, it didn't come out.

[00:17:26]Maybe a little bit, not enough. Anyway, so that was kind of fun because I haven't thought about silly putty in a long time. Do you remember how when you would do it like this, you would knead it and it would get air bubbles in it and the air bubbles would pop? Remember that?

[00:17:42]There's all kinds of things that we could remember that would trigger another remember and another remember.

[00:17:48]Then on the word search puzzles, a lot of people said uh use a ruler, straight line. Some people said use a marker.

[00:17:59]Everybody does it different. We're all unique. We're all special and we're all walking talking miracles. And if [clears throat] we do those words, [laughter] I know I've been talking about it for three days.

[00:18:10]I've only done three of them myself, but we're going to learn a lot. Look at we we even had a discussion about paintball fights. And there have been some people that have been in paintball paintball fights and you could get bruised. I wonder if they wear uh protective equipment. Does anybody know? I mean, who cares? you know, just trying to keep the conversation going. And [snorts] then somebody was upset with me because I talked about floating and how I love to float and somehow it got lost in the video. It must have been my fabulous editing skills. I'm surprised my editor didn't mention it though.

[00:18:55]But I had given you a demonstration [laughter] on it, but it was gone and it I didn't intend to. What I mean by floating is relaxing, listening to some kind of music that's relaxing, maybe romantic, maybe a romance.

[00:19:18]And you just float and you float and you float and you can float by yourself or you can float with someone else and it can be very nice and you just float. Your eyes are closed and I'm doing just doing in a chair but you float all the way around the room and whatever. And then someone says, "I think you were talking about floating in the water." Well, I believe that being in the water is like going back to your mother's womb or mother earth or something. I love the water. I have to confess that I didn't go into my lake water last year at all. It's It's a hard It's hard to get into it. Um I love to [clears throat] float in the water. just float or just like stand up straight and close your eyes and just go with the the flow of the water. And then I have floats that you can float onto.

[00:20:22][laughter] Sometimes when you try to get on those floats, you fall off.

[00:20:28]Have you ever gotten pulled by a motorboat? You know how they do tubing and stuff? I've done that.

[00:20:37]Ah, I'm screaming the whole time.

[00:20:39]Everybody likes it when you scream and when you're an old lady. They like it.

[00:20:45]They think it's They think it's cool. So maybe this summer if you have a chance, go for it. You only live once.

[00:20:54][snorts] Oh my goodness.

[00:20:58]Did I talk about today? [laughter] I'm sorry.

[00:21:07]So now you know about the floating.

[00:21:12]I tried doing another painting.

[00:21:14]This painting is for the same person. I tried a different flower. It came out lousy. I had to throw it away.

[00:21:22]Something's happened to me. I've lost my painting brain. My brain kind of You know what it is? I'm trying to duplicate real images like a real picture of say a patunia.

[00:21:41]Well, I'm not that good of an artist. I recently did one of a cat. Oh my gosh.

[00:21:47][laughter] It was It was pretty bad, but I sent it anyway because I thought it Well, it's it's the thoughts. [laughter] But and and I know that Amarillus over there is bothering everybody. I'll take care of it tomorrow. Um because tomorrow is sort of my day off, so we'll see.

[00:22:11]And I put together some pictures of myself. I had a heck of a time getting the scanner to work so that I could put together a little bit of a video for you so you can see what I used to look like and what I look like now.

[00:22:32]So, that's coming up one of these days.

[00:22:34]One of these days when I figure out how to do it, but I'm I'm laying the groundwork for it. I also wanted to ask you, what do you think about those loans? Are you getting sick of those?

[00:22:43]Should I try something else? Like Gina has these beautiful intro videos and um I don't know where she gets them or how she makes them, but she's more skilled than I am with that stuff. And you know, I live on a lake and I like the looms, but I'm wondering if it's getting old and maybe I should try something new or if that should be my kind of logo or my part of my brand. I have to work on a brand.

[00:23:12]We already have Cherries in the Snow.

[00:23:15]So, but I got to talk about that because there's a lot of new people that don't even know about Cherries in the Snow. I don't know.

[00:23:25]Did I tell you I had to go to the grocery store to get my friend Jud candy?

[00:23:34]He wanted chocolate.

[00:23:37]I didn't give him enough chocolate. You know why I didn't give him enough chocolate? because I wasn't about to give him my chocolate that I had. So, I gave him a small bag. Any then he says to me, "Anything chocolate would be really great."

[00:23:52]So, I had to go and buy him some chocolate. I wasn't going to give him mine. I am generous for the most part, but chocolate is something that I'm not that keen on sharing, you know.

[00:24:10]So anyway, I got him his candy. And then he also needed Mrs. Dash because he says the food at the rehab place that he's at is so bland that he needs something to doctor it up. But I bought the original flavor. They're all no salt and I can't imagine using no salt. And I'm surprised that he's using no salt, but I got him some anyway. But I gave him some Tony Sasher's occasion seasoning, too, because that's what I think he should have. Anyway, I will see you at the next video.

[00:24:50]We'll go we're going to go through some more albums and stuff. And if you have any ideas of anything you want to talk about, just let me know in the comments and I'll figure something out. I love you all and thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me. I love it.