One of the Family

Family means something to everyone--good, bad, warm, cold, complicated, fulfilling. But perhaps the most interesting and common feeling is that family is a loosely defined entity. Some blood relatives you may not even talk to and they are family; your neeighbor or best friend--well, they can be family as well. At Jennie and Patrick's wedding, I came to appreciate this loose definition, as I learned that Patrick's parents were both no longer living and yet he was surrounded by surrogate parents who offered tremendous support to him and his orphaned brothers.

I was also introduced to Ashley, a nine-year-old cousin who was family to Jennie in a rather confusing way. Ashley instantly loved me, as she was fascinated by the bride and groom sculpture I made for the wedding and was thrilled beyond belief when her cousin told her I would make her balloon animals at the wedding. It was nice to have a fan/date at the wedding; I must have made quite an impression because apparently when Jennie gathered all of her family for a photo, Ashley asked:

"Can the curly-haired balloon lady be in our family?"

Sometimes a loose definition of family means you can choose to be related to a balloon lady.

Balloon DNA is Just Not Fun

There is a remarkable misdistribution of wealth in the world and, as a balloon twister, I often see both ends. When I do a gig at a school where the parents can barely afford school supplies, I see one end. When I do a gig at the Premier Institute of Technology University's Welcome Class of 2009 Carnival, I see the other end.

I was a little worried about sustaining for the duration of the PIT Carnival gig because it started at 10PM and ended at 2AM, which is very late for someone who is no longer in college. But there was not a lot less pressure on me to perform seeing as students could also occupy themselves with the Bounce House, Sumo Wrestler Ring, Velcro Wall, or Dunk Tank or they could just feed themselves for the four hours with pizza, cotton candy, chips, soda, brownies, cookies...I laughed a little to myself recalling that I had TOTALLY been to that party before at my University, and that it was a thinly veiled way of saying, "Have fun now; study your ass off tomorrow."

The PIT Class of 2009 were remarkably uncreative (they said so themselves!) in their balloon requests (lots of beaver requests, the school mascot), but I did have a few students challenge me--one to make a millipede (with ALL 1000 legs) and the other to make DNA. I asked him why he wanted DNA, which I thought was a pretty unfun thing to have made out of balloons, and he proceeded to tell me how amazing it was that the assembling of proteins could map out every single thing we are made of....I got bored listening to him and especially because I felt like he thought I was maybe dumb and didn't know what DNA was because I was making balloon animals. Yes, kid, DNA is very cool, but asking for DNA made out of balloons: not so cool.

Shoeless and Balloonless

School is almost back in session. My friend Sara, a teacher at the Radnock School in Dorcester, thought it would be fun to get the kids and parents at her school excited about the coming year by having balloon twisting at the Radnock School Family Day. I gave her a discount because she's nice and the school (and the students) don't have a lot of money.

I was one of many activities--bracelet-making, jungle gym-playing, watermelon eating--that students could choose from. I set up under the shade of a tree by the swing set so I could stay a little bit out of the heat (I've noticed that my balloons pop a lot more in the sun. It's quite embarassing when I say "oh, they never pop....POP!!! Uggh.)

As I was clipping on my balloon belt, a Very Small Boy in a Michael Jordan basketball jersey and his afro hair tied up high in a ball on his head, pull on my skirt three times and asked me, "Can I take my shoes off?" I had never received a request like this before but assumed that shoe-taking-off was harmless so I said, "Ok."

I started twisting balloons--butterflies, swords, lady bugs, dogs, parrots, penguins, Tweety bird (a first)--and the faster I twisted, the longer the line of people waiting for balloons got. It was sunny out and there was a glare so I couldn't see the end of the line, but I swear it lasted for miles. My fingers started to get sore, and I secretly wished that I would just learn to compromise my creativity and make stupid easy one balloon animals rather than the fancy things I made. Kids would get crappy balloon animals but at least the line would move faster.

I noticed that the butterflies looked really nice when I made the body a dark blue and made the antennas orange or yellow. I was marvelling at this new color combination as I handed the creation to little Rosa, who promptly let out a well held-in, gooey, loud, splattering sneeze all over the balloon and all over my arm. I had to take a break to wipe myself free of this sudden germ onslaught.

I also overheard Sara asking that Very Small Boy, "Rory, where are your shoes?! Go find your shoes and put them on right now!" I felt kind of bad that I had ok-ed it....

As the sun set and the line seemed to have barely gotten shorter, I realized I was going to have to leave soon and not everyone was going to get a balloon. People were MAD when I cut the line off at the last four kids in front of me. "Lady! We've been here forever!!" So have I!, I wanted to say. I felt bad leaving on a bad note with them after what had been a very nice gig (aside from the sneeze) but sometimes balloon twisters have to lay down the law. And that means: no balloons for you.