Fat Tuesday

I woke up feeling very strange this morning. The first thought to pass through my semi-conscious mind was that today marks one year since my Dad passed away, and I felt sad. I remembered my sister in-law calling me on the phone, waking up on the sofa in my parents apartment in Tucson and hearing her grief stricken voice telling me that Dad had passed peacefully. Then I thought about going in to wake my Mom, laying down on the bed beside her cancer stricken body and telling her that her husband of 65 years had passed away. "I guess we should get up" she said to me. Then I thought, I can't let the sadness swallow me whole... I get to go to work today, I have to find a way to find some joy....

And then I remembered it is Fat Tuesday. I thought about the Flint tradition of paczkis. I never even heard of these until I moved to the Flint area where on every Fat Tuesday, thousand of these giant jelly doughnuts are purchased and consumed. I don't really know where this tradition came from, but my guess is that the Polish immigrants who came to work int he automotive industry brought them to Michigan. I wondered, briefly, if they have them in Kansas, but I doubt it.

And then I thought about the most fun I ever had on a Tuesday... it was at the Fasching parade in Cologne, Germany. (Koln for the purists.) The whole area has a huge party, thousands of people in costumes - whole families of cowboys, Indians or clowns - gather along the streets to watch the fun. Each little town has a section of the parade - which lasts for hours and hours. The village participants dress in matching costumes, bring their town band and huge ancient wagons filled with the town's favorites who toss flowers to the ladies lining the street and candy to everyone. Every town has its own candy which is wrapped for the event in papers which tout the town's name. I had been told about this so Larry, Nick and I went prepared to grab as much candy as we could. I was thinking probably little squares or maybe 'fun-size' bars of chocolate... which there were... I had not been expecting them to throw 3 pound boxes of chocolates at us! It was the most amazing parade I had ever seen - and I have seen a lot of parades! After about four hours, we were exhausted and ducked into a nearby cafe to sit and watch the rest of the parade go by while we had soup and something to drink.

Now I realize that this parade was not as spectacular or glitzy as those in New Orleans or Rio, but it was the most fun I had ever had on a Tuesday. I have decided that I am going to focus on the Fasching parade today whenever I feel sad.