Fat Tuesday & Ash Wednesday

Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday equal spring.

Somehow in my mind, when I hear these two days being discussed or recognized or celebrated or anticipated or enjoyed or feared or loved - my mind begins to acknowledge that spring will actually roll around.

Winter feels like a vice grip, handcuffs around your soul. Winter feels like it is in complete control and that it will never relieve its grip.

That is why you contemplate suicide or relocation; that is why your capacity for drink doubles; that is why you gain 147 pounds between November and April.

These things happen because living in the dark, cold, harshness of winter feels like the end.

However......................spring does once again roll around and you get 20 or 30 days to actually live in peace and ease and warmth.

But I digress.

Fat Tuesday signifies the end of Mardi Gras.

I did not know this. I thought Fat Tuesday kicked off Mardi Gras.

I just don't pay attention.

Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday. They are inextricably linked.

On Fat Tuesday the theory is to consume richer, fatty foods before the sacrifice of the Lenten season begins on Ash Wednesday.  Serious partying accompanies the gluttony.

Fat Tuesday is the highlight of the Mardi Gras season.

I am built for Mardi Gras. I was born to experience it. I should have been born in New Orleans. I haven't made it there yet, but a simple twist of fate could correct that omission on my good times resume.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent. It is a day of fasting.

This is fairly ironic when you consider that those who partied hard on Fat Tuesday will wake up with a serious need for grease. McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and supper.

Fasting? On a day like that, it requires serious discipline, baby.

But that is what Lent is all about. Forty days of fasting. Inspired by the forty days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan.

Unfortunately for me I do not need to visit the desert to be tempted by Satan. The goddamn guy follows me wherever I go.

You get Sundays off during Lent. Don't have to fast on Sundays. You get a break there.

And actually I think fasting has been reduced to just giving something up for Lent.

I choose to give up poverty.

Ashes are spread on foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Ashes created from the burning of last year's Palm Sunday blessed palms, christened with Holy Water and scented by exposure to incense.

Could be a smudge, could be a cross, depending on the level of creativity of the priest you choose.

As the ashes are applied the priest says: "Remember, man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

Pretty humbling.

Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday are inextricably linked. Couldn't be two more diametrically opposed days on any calendar.

Someday I will experience Fat Tuesday in New Orleans in person.

Ash Wednesday I can do without.

My mind, because of the passing of these two days, is beginning to allow for the slightest possibility that Spring will once again come around.

I sit and wait and yearn.

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

(Editor's note: Listening to Mike Adams on Planet Mikey on 93.7 on Fat Tuesday. He devoted a lengthy segment to the discussion of fat athletes. It was hilarious.)