"Pin The Tail on The Donkey" Genre of Homemade Games

Way back in the middle of the previous century, when I was a kid, "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" was a standard party game. My mother bought us some for my kids and their friends to play, too. It was a regular feature in the birthday parties I organized along with unattractive and unfashionably "healthy" birthday cakes.

As a savta, grandma, I reprised the genre as our traditional Family Chanuka Party Game by taking a large piece of oak-tag and drawing a chanukiya Chanuka Menorah sans candles or flames. Then I'd cut out candles/flames, and get the whole family to join in playing a version of "Pin The Tail on The Donkey."

Recently my daughter created a new version of the famous classic "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" for a birthday by drawing a birthday cake with candles sans flames. I cut out flames, and the children, blindfolded of course, had to try to stick the flame on the candles.

For some strange reason, most likely the result of the "Children Shouldn't Feel Like Failures" culture, instead of laughing at badly placed flames, they coached each other:

"A bit higher"
"To the right"
"To the left"
"Lower"
"That's perfect"

The kids had fun, but they didn't learn to plan and calculate in the dark to develop survival skills, which is the real purpose of the game.

You can take the basic idea and make up a game for children, teens or adults. It could be a lot of fun and very low tech, too.

Low-Tech "Blended" Vegetable Soup

I don't have a stick blender. I did have one many years ago, and since I didn't use it, I passed it on to one of my daughters. She loves it, and I'm pretty sure that by now, that cheap one I got as a bonus, when buying something else, has been replaced at least once.


To be honest, I can't even remember when I last used the potato-masher. It may have been decades ago.

Yesterday's Vegetable Soup was very easy to make. It's my basic one-pot recipe, which I've made before. I don't measure; there's no need to.

Ingredients

• dried peas
• onion
• garlic
• carrot
• squash
• pumpkin
• dehydrated parsley
• whatever vegetable oil you like
• coarse salt and pepper to taste
• boiling water, time-saver rather than tap

Directions

1. Check peas, put in pot, add boiling water to cover plus.
2. Cover and leave for at least an hour.
3. Cut vegetables.
4. Add vegetables and oil to pot.
5. Start cooking on high flame/heat until boiling, then lower to simmer
6. Add more boiling water, no higher than 2", two inches from top of pot. 
7. After half an hour add parsley, salt and pepper. 
8. Cook for at least 10 minutes more. Turn off flame, and let it "sit" for another 10 minutes.
9. Mash optional, and serve.

PS You can always add more vegetables or leave out the pumpkin or squash. And of course you can cook with fresh parsley. I almost added some sweet potato but wanted to cut our the carbohydrates, so added an additional squash. If you want a heartier soup, then add barley or rice to the peas.

Pool Exercise Fitness

I'm pretty low tech when it comes to my fitness routine. I walk all year round, and during our short three month pool season I exercise in the water. To be perfectly honest, I'm not a swimmer, never was.

Somehow the basic "crawl" stroke was never a success with me. I don't suffer fear of water, and even though I don't "swim" properly, I can go from one end of the pool to the other endlessly using my own "strokes."

In recently years I developed techniques using two of these floating things to exercise my upper body reasonably well. In the water, they are like weights when you hold them and try to push them into the water.  The thicker they are the better, and you should make sure you're using the same length and thickness in each hand for an even workout.

Our Shiloh pool has them available for our use during Women's Hours and Water Aerobics classes.