Heading Toward Green

Valentine's Day with Cupid as its mascot has done its fly-by for this year. It now swings out into space on its way around the calendar orbit toward 2016 and its return. Fat Tuesday, Carnival or Mardi Gras, comes screeching  to a halt  at midnight to anything goes partying for another year. Already the multi-colored plastic eggs,  fake green grass, baskets and white stuffed bunnies are beginning to appear in the stores. It's another endless cycle in the marketing, advertising, and retail commerce world and I thought steel mill rolling schedules were odd in size rotations to even more odd when customers and billet stockpiles rearrange themselves almost over night.

 Besides, it's getting close to ice cream season. It was 78-degrees F on Saturday and I had to fight the steering wheel in the car as I drove by the two  neighborhood Braum Ice Cream stores on the way home. And Bill Gates said he is worried about machines taken over. I wonder if his car gets strong-headed in Redmond around ice cream stores? When I was a kid, my grandfather would take me in his wagon to the back of his farm when he missed a cow during  calving season. Never once, did I see him touch the reins on that wagon. All he did was to talk to his team of horses and they took us right back to the barn. Maybe my car already knows that Braum's is the place for ice cream runs. I should try that with my car when I'm out during ice cream runs this year. I'll get back with you on that.

That 78-degrees of yesterday is sinking pretty fast tonight as two separate cold fronts are bringing snow and ice dangerously close to me both tonight and tomorrow and Tuesday. While I still like snow, I don't like ice here in Texas. The thing about ice is that it takes down big trees and when they fall, they fall on power-lines and that takes out electricity. I heat with electricity, not gas. When you hear ice-talk here generally, people don't like to drive on ice. I'm pretty cool with driving on ice and snow has never been a problem. But, not having any heat becomes a health issue and that worries me. So I'm thinking about talking dance lessons on line to learn how to ward off the ice. It sure does not work for rain. Hopefully, it works for ice.

A long time ago, I was scheduled to fly out of Atlanta one morning for High Point, North Carolina. The problem that morning was that Hickory, North Carolina had gotten 2-inches of ice over night and nothing was going north that early morning." Maybe by 10", the airlines said. They were working on it. Long story short, they found a 4-prop that, " could probably get out of Hickory" one of the ticket agents said. "They will pick us up and take us back to High Point'', the agent again responded. The old plane had the familiar markings of Piedmont Airlines, the forerunner of US Air. First time I ever had to chip an inch of ice off a rental car,too, but I got to High Point that same day. I'm so glad that I don't have to do things like that any more. As it turned out, that plane in Hickory was a re-schedule of equipment. If that plane had not been in Hickory for what ever reason, I would have had to redo my entire schedule for that east coast run. I guess it was about then that I started not to like ice storms.

So, if I get a good report from the cardio guy that is coming up,clearing the way to St. Patty's Day weekend, I'll be a happy Irishman for sure. Don't need a dance for that one......we've got a few stored up for that weekend come rain or come shine.

Lower Greenville Avenue is one of the three largest parade routes in the US on St. Patrick's Day.

Encyclopedias, Compendiums, Complete Compendiums and Manuals on Fat Tuesday

Even though it will vary from year-to-year, it still has a way of sneaking up on you. But I have discovered a way to "not be so surprised". It's a lunar thing, basically. Or, at the least, follows a lunar calendar. It's still got that little Pagenistic twang to it, left over from the Romans invading the Celts and tearing down their alters and having the Celts build Roman alters. Of course, the Celts were really smart and built the Roman alters over their old torn down alters and went on like nothing ever happened.The Romans being non-the-wiser. There has been encyclopedias, compendiums, complete compendiums and manuals written about Mardi Gras.

It seems that the church calendar year is really tied to lunar cycles more than we think, but the one that resonates with many throughout the Christian world seems to be the one I can never remember.
That would be, of course, Fat Tuesday, Shove Tuesday or as the French still say today, Mardi Gras, which literally means, "Fat Tuesday".  It is, in fact, a 47 day stretch before Easter Sunday and since Easter is determined by--you got it-- lunar cycles, that is why the date moves forward or backwards from year-to-year.  As another indication of lunar cycles, Epiphany is the earliest that Carnival, Mardi Gras can occur and it must end by midnight on Fat Tuesday as Ash Wednesday begins Lent, the period of fasting before Easter.

Of course, it is highly ordained as a cultural event because Mardi Gras is the period when all the fat things and crazy things are done before confession or Shovetide or Shove Tuesday. Therefore, in various regions, celebrations will vary and the traditional celebrations will most always include a "King's Cake".

A couple of days ago I was in my friendly K-roger store and as I walked past the bakery tables, there were stacks and stacks of big colorful boxes of iced and sparkled King Cakes. The cakes only come out this time of year. The little plastic baby Jesus if usually hidden in the cake, but in today's age of  what ever it is--- the little baby Jesus is on top in plain sight so as not to offend or to cause a chocking hazard. Frankly, it was better when you grew up and you parents talked to you from early on about finding the baby Jesus in the cake and to be careful. Of course, that common sense thing does not exist today in parenting, Which I find to be so sad.

Mardi Gras Beads thrown on February 17th in 2015. 2016 will be on February 9th and 2017 will be on February 28th