May Day

[pegkerr]

Because I am a giant nerd, I went out to wash my face with the May Day dew this morning. You may not need it, but at my advanced age, I need all the magical help I can get.

Happy May Day, everyone.

Man, I am going to miss the May Day Parade SO MUCH this year.

Comments

[pameladean]

I don't even go to the parade every year, but the thought that it isn't happening is very hard to take.

P.

[princessofgeeks]

I did not know that was a tradition! Thanks for the info.

[aome]

I always think of you on May Day, and your morning dew tradition. :)

I remember you said the May Day parade was possibly going to be permanently cancelled due to lack of funds. Is this year's parade cancelled due to that, or due to the virus? I had always hoped to one day come out and see it.

[pegkerr]

It was canceled this year, with the idea that they were going to do some investigations about funding and grants and try to bring it back next year. So it's not due to the pandemic--but it would probably have been canceled due to that if it had been financially solvent.

It's just really, really hard.

[pegkerr]

I think the tradition is that you are supposed to do it before sunrise, before the sun touches the dew.

I rarely manage to get out there that early.

[pegkerr]

Oh! And you should read this. My very close friend naomikritzer wrote a story called "So Much Cooking," written from the point of view of a food blogger living in St. Paul, Minnesota during a pandemic. It came out in 2015, and it's amazingly prescient.

As she says in the first link above, she worked for a bit on a sequel (unfinished) about what happens when the pandemic ends, imagining what the first May Day parade would be like.

I do want to go to that May Day parade.

Read it (both "So Much Cooking" and this excerpt from the sequel, and let me know what you think.

Have you read her book Catfishing on Catnet? (link to her books here). It's doing REALLY well. It's been reviewed on NPR, it's won the Young Adult Minnesota Book Award and the Edgar Award in just the last week, and it's up for about three other awards and is certainly a strong contender. The book is a further fleshing out of her Hugo-award winning short story "Cat Pictures Please" (a short and very delightful read).

[aome]

The "So Much Cooking" (and the sequel snippet) story felt so incredibly real, I was absolutely convinced I was reading a real blog, and that these things had really happened to Naomi. That is scarily prescient. I am thankful that so far we have not been in straits that dire, as far as the food supply goes, but I won't lie - I'm afraid about what's coming, with more processing plants closing after employees fall ill.

(As a side note: I had to laugh at the antibiotic featured in "So Much Cooking" - Augmentin. It's the only medication (so far) that Two is allergic to. I'm constantly trying to drill it into his brain so that he will remember to mention it when he's adult enough to go to doctors by himself.)