Wacky Wednesday #89—Maypole

May Day was two days ago, and I’m wearing a maypole today. But let’s not argue about dates, okay? My wackiness is a Wednesday thing and if May first has the audacity to arrive on a Monday, there’s only so much I can do.

Maypoles are not something we see all that often in Southern California. Apparently there are a few places in America where maypoles are decorated each spring, and some European countries set them up each May. In San Diego? Not so much.

Some people believe that the maypole has a pagan connection. There’s debate about why people decorate them. My costume has no pagan agenda or political message or anything like that. It’s just about being colorful and making something I’ve never made before.

For months now I’ve been thinking about how to make a maypole costume. I have a piece of bamboo for my pole, and six bright shades of ribbon. Apparently, I also need a handful of leprechauns or fairies to help me make one, since I have only two hands and there are many ribbons that need to be woven under and over one another simultaneously. Since all the leprechauns and fairies I know are at real maypole celebrations this week, I’ll have to do it myself. But as you may have noticed, I like a good challenge.

(Update: I tried twice to wrap the ribbons around the pole, under and over, with an alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise pattern. After two tries, my brain was in knots and the ribbons were not woven. So I did some ribbon arranging instead and I’m calling it good enough.)

And if my maypole falls down later, we’ll just start a limbo contest instead…