Picneral

Everyone should grill raw meat over a charcoal pit outdoors at least once a year with their family.

If every family did this, I think we could end wars. And I think you should have to invite people you don't necessarily want to see, maybe even people who aren't in your family anymore. This way, everything is out in the open...literally. You are faced to be with your kin and make a choice, "do I forgive, forget...do I even care..." And you are faced to look at yourself, "do I forgive, forget...care?" It almost makes things that everyone makes such a big stink about become as dark as a cartoon in a free newspaper.

What really matters is that moment, outside, in nature...staring at the lineage and seeing where your small small world came from and where it might go. The kids can watch, listen and learn. Grandma might give strange advice about caterpillar bites, they might watch their grumbly Dad actually hug his estranged brother, Uncle Calvin may have certain secrets to life only someone like he could share...having just gotten out of prison for the fourth time.

Then, of course, there are the babies. All of the adults huddle and smile, giggle and wave for Baby Ashley's attention. When she picks you out of the paparazzi circle, hands you her little pink sunglasses and waddles away clapping her hands, your heart turns to mashed potatoes and you are Queen for a moment. Then you go stuff more brownies in your mouth. Life is good.

I used to work in the funeral industry at a cemetery in Los Angeles. People used to ask me how I could stand working in such a depressing environment. Well.... 1. Thanks to my awesomely strange parents, I love cemeteries. We used to visit them as often as we could. I have great memories of walking around and reading the tombstones and wondering about how Mrs. Marion Laughly made it to 89 during the depression and if she had a good sense of humor...and isn't that what cemeteries are about?...2. Good memories. Rarely do you attend a funeral and sit around and bitch about the dead guy. He's dead. That is as bad as it can get, so everyone agrees to talk about his good points. Even if he was a Crip. 3. Friends and Families come together to forgive and forget...sure to gossip too...but they are all face-to-face with the fact that there is only so much time on this earth so they better get their stuff together...including getting over the fact Janie wasn't a bridesmaid in Erin's wedding...she's divorced now anyway. Funerals are such an everyday thing in life - we die, we do - and funerals are a big going-out party. How honorable is that? Plus the food and the occasional kooky happening...the delayed viewing 'cause the wig was missing, the voodoo doctor that insisted on sacrificing 'something' (it was Los Angeles), the mocking bird that wouldn't stop circling and chirping over "Birdy's" casket. Cool stuff, man.

Family picnics are like funerals with out the dead guy. We should do them more often.