Nature Abhores a Vacuum

I haven't seen word one about Mardi Gras today at my usual haunts. Was it cancelled? Did I miss the memo?

YIPS from Steve: Ummmm, yeah.

By the way, I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not the slightest bit ready for Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday or Lent. It's all waaaaay too early this year and has completely fouled my internal seasonal clock.

YIPS from Steve: Here's the problem: the Stupor Bowl was way too damn late. The Super Bowl is the event that's supposed to end January, as it is in effect the culminating event in our national sports calendar. We are supposed to have a nice, quiet 3 weeks where it is cold and nothing is happening---sure, you've got some hockey and NBA boxscores in the paper, but that's kind of like news from some long-running border war in Africa: you are aware of its existence, but it's not influencing the price of your Rice Crispies. Amidst this interlude of quiet you get yer Groundhog Day, which now thanks to Harold Ramis and Bill Murray has come to ascend to its proper place in our calendar as the "What? Hey, fuck yeah! Winter's half over" holiday. Then, after another week or two of relative quiet, the New Year's Day of our secular sports calendar begins: the Daytona 500 kicks off, and pitchers and catchers show up for spring training. Once you see fast-driving smiling rednecks in mullets popping up and seeing their shadows on the tee-vee you know you can go stick a fork in King Winter. He's done.

This year, it's all screwed up. Super Bowl after Groundhog Day? What is up with that? You see, this is where we could use a non-corrupt, humanitarian United Nations, to prevent tragedies like this.

The real sign, however, that Mardi Gras came so early this year is that the sudden visiting of the Angel of Death upon distant grandmothers and great-uncles that descends like the last Plague of Egypt on my students the Friday before Mardi Gras didn't happen: this is the first year in ages where I haven't had a whole bunch of students who've suddenly gone down with family emergencies that require their absence from campus during Mardi Gras week.

Me? I blame the liberals.