Let the good times roll

Tomorrow, we’re going to celebrate Fat Tuesday with all the Crazy-Catholic-Creole-Polish-ness we can muster, because we’re three of those four things and that’s 75%, a solid C. We’ll take it.

Life is seasonally hard and perennially fragile, so when those goods times roll we like to seize them.

Laissez les bon temps rouler?

We say oui!

Even on a busy, bitter cold Tuesday 1,000 miles from Bourbon Street.

I admire people who dig deep into their souls to cultivate joy, especially those who battle all sorts of forces trying to squash it. Though it might seem frivolous in times of stress or sorrow, the opposite it true. Joy remains both a necessary feeling and a noble pursuit.

I think we should all strive to live like the guy who carries the umbrella in a Mardi Gras parade, or the second line in a New Orleans wedding.

Joy, like love, can be contagious and we need to spread both in this old world.

So, tomorrow, I’m going to whip up a pot of red beans and rice with andouille sausage and I’m going to serve it on a table decked out in purple, gold and green. I’m going to bring paczkis from Simple Simon Bakery to work, and fresh flowers to my home.

And I’m going to open my umbrella and jaunt merrily down the street (metaphorically. It’s still a leeetle icy out there for an actual parade.)

Here’s to Fat Tuesday and the joy and revelry it brings.

Let the good times roll.