Short Pump, Virginia

The Daily Grind

A family of Russian boys lines up on the stools in the window of the Daily Grind. Among them are students of the Richmond Piano Center, here to perform an informal recital ...*

`... and one lone guitarist. Adam has been playing less than a year and shows the promise of a talented musician.*

Maymas

Maymas takes a bit of explaining. It is Mother's Day and the birthdays of seven members and friends of the McLean family — all of which occur in and are celebrated on a Saturday in May. Amber greets us at the door and ushers us up the stairs to ...

... the Maymas tree, festooned with Maymas monkeys who bring gifts in ...

 ... stockings for everyone in the family who does either does not have a birthday this month or is not a mother ...

... for Lindsey, center, and Harper, left, it is an opportunity to encourage the adults to play a game of pass the baby until ...

... Price organizes everyone to sing that popular old song, "The Twelve Days of Maymas." Many know a knockoff version with different words focused on Christmas, but Price assures everyone the Maymas song predates that shameless copy by decades, if not hundreds of years ...

... so voices are raised in a lusty version celebrating parrots in a palm tree, squaking Macaws, five plastic leis, and ... you get the drift ...

... finally Harper gets to celebrate Maymas by digging into chocolate cake with all the gusto only a child can muster on her first birthday while musing over the crowd of oddball adults whirling about her singing silly songs, celebrating monkeys bearing gifts and generally being obnoxious ... in an exceedingly pleasant way ...the world needs more holidays like this!

*Photographed with an Apple iPhone

Others photographed with a Canon 5D Mark II