Good mardi gras to all. It is particularly welcome this time around as an excuse to stay blind drunk until the stock market settles its stomach and we get a new president. MJE and the OB&C have long since stopped walking the avenue mardi gras morning, although I do miss running into many of the neighborhood marching clubs that meander through the streets. And there is the occasional creative family lot who all dress as crawfish, or hotdogs or I suspect this year one of the conald’s wives, but sadly the tradition of dressing up is, like the louisiana marsh, slowly disappearing from the planet.
This mardi gras, as in years past, family and friends whom you rarely see and care about even less, appear out of nowhere suddenly dying to reconnect. This year the atlanta circus opted out of the annual visitation based on the lousy weather forecast. Just as well, feeling very old every time I look at the 3 ton wooden ladder and child’s parade seat, so glad not to be dragging that behemoth back and forth from parade routes. Not to mention the requirement to provide and keep ice cold (or piping hot), multiple beverage types (no light beer! lots of sauvignon blanc!), food items (no nuts! and no lucky dogs, decibelle is a vegetarian) and the attendant assorted paraphernalia required to feed a crowd on the run. Happy to hop to it when someone decides to pay me a caterer’s wage but this gratis (and generally unappreciated) business is definitely on its way out.
But we weren’t entirely solo, OB&C’s niece mike and her wife loosy along with their immaculately conceived toddler whom they call cheeto (truly) showed up with two other gals, the married margies plus another woman whose leanings remain obscure. The OB&C and I were definitely, and in his case literally, odd men out. Let me be perfectly clear, the sexual practices of my fellow human beings holds no interest whatsoever for me, in fact the less I can think about it the better. Turtles and giraffes okay but people, no.
So on we march toward tuesday’s bacchanalia of the fatted calf and even fatter population after the ceaseless eating and drinking involved. God I hate that. And apparently so does she because the hammer’s coming down hard on wednesday. Ashes, ashes, they all fall down, which is pretty much what most of the populace will be doing. The good news, and this is not fake I swear, there is a now a drive through option to get your forehead smeared with holy ashes to show off your piety. But if you never leave the car or hang up your cell phone are you truly redeemed?
Hmmmmm……….
my jaundiced eye 