Fastnacht

Today was "Be a Househusband Day." The laundry has piled up enough that a dent needed to be made, so I started yesterday, and finished today. It's amazing how much there is when there's only two people. I shudder to think what it looks like when there's more folk around. I have a new-found respect for my parents, and families everywhere. Also tackled the dishes, the shelves, the file cabinet, and odds and ends. I still need to finish working on the file cabinet. I'm going through each file, cleaning it out, re-organizing and getting everything tidied up, and tossing out stuff that I/we no longer need to keep. It's partly out of the need to create more space, partly to get used to being less of a pack rat (something I've been my entire life), and partly to get ready for tax season. As I said, probably won't need to do much work with the forms this year, but at least we're all set. After all, the poor are more likely to get audited these days than the rich, so if the IRS ever comes knocking, I wanna be ready.

Today is Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday. It reminds me of one of the things I always wanted to do, but never got around to: going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Another possible travel locale this time of year is Rio, for Carnaval, but given my travel history and my pocketbook, it's more likely I'll make it to New Orleans first. College would have been the ideal time, but the festivities were never when spring break was scheduled, and it would have been cheeky of me to try to cut school and dash down to Louisiana from D.C. in the middle of the school week. Not to mention I had no one else game enough to want to go. It's more fun to go to these kinds of things when you're young and got buddies to keep you company.

I've gone to other places during holidays, and that's always been fun. One year I was in New York City on St. Patrick's Day, and got to see the famed St. Patrick's Day parade going down Fifth Avenue. Since I'm part Irish, I've never needed an excuse to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but it's always fun to see a parade. It's been so long since I did this that I can't remember a whole lot, but the bagpipes definitely do stand out! One year while living in D.C. I decided to brave the crowds and see the fireworks on the Fourth of July down on the mall. If you ever do this, I have one piece of advice: wear good shoes. I mean it. We got there not too early, but definitely way before sundown, and it was already crowded. We stood the entire time, and so did everyone else, with the exception of a few hapless tourists who were probably used to their hometown festivities and were plunked down on blankets and lawn chairs on the mall. I suppose that's fine for while you're waiting, but don't plan on seeing a whole lot when you've got the whole of D.C. standing around you, beside you, and most of all, in front of you. The fireworks were pretty, but they were just fireworks. A bit more spectacular than at other places, perhaps. The real excitement was being in the nation's capitol on the country's birthday. I wish I'd been living on the East Coast during the bicentennial, but I wasn't. I do remember the parades, and the hoopla, and everything, but California doesn't give one a real sense of colonial history, at least not English colonial history.

One Thanksgiving a motley lot of us were stuck in D.C. for the holiday weekend, and we decided to drive up to Pennsylvania for the day, and eat our dinner in the Amish country. Now, it doesn't have to be November, but if you ever want a good down-home meal, there's nothing like visiting an Amish eatery. We ate family-style at long tables, served by Amish waitresses bearing platters of food. I vividly remember the soft creaminess of the mashed potatoes. I don't think I've had better mashed potatoes since.

Visiting other countries during their holiday celebrations is something I'd like to be able to do someday, and a few years ago I got the chance to do this, sort of. I was in Victoria, and it happened to be British Columbia Day. We watched a great parade, and then fireworks over the Inner Harbour. Not terribly different from your average Fourth of July celebration, sure, but it was neat seeing how other nations celebrate their holidays.

Well, enough reminiscing for now. Back to folding laundry, so I can earn my househubby brownie points for today...