I haven't forgotten about you, gentle reader. I promise I have not! I will return soon to regale you with witticisms and relevant subject matter. Or half-witticisms and total irrelevancy. Soon. Very soon.

Today is Fat Tuesday, or international WhollyRoaminCatholic awareness day. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, starting the penetential season of Lent. Tomorrow, we go carne-vale, or "goodbye, meat!", but today is time for bacon! Yay!

In the olden days, Catholics would go totally vegan during Lent. This practice is still observed in Orthodoxy. Mercifully, we Latin-rite Catholics (the proper term for Roman Catholics) are not required to give up eggs and milk. We are still instructed to fast and abstain on prescribed days... traditionalist cranks like myself give up meat during the whole of Lent, so that's what I'll be doing. But in those olden days, Fat Tuesday was the time to use up all the eggs and milk in your house... thus the celebration with rich rich rich pancakes on Mardi Gras day. In today's world, pancakes seem like silly distraction from the otherwise decadent sausage-and-baconfest by which Fat Tuesday should be observed (in my gastronomical opinion).

In any manner, enjoy your today. Tomorrow begins penance.

Note: Ash Wednesday is not a Holy Day of Obligation in the USA. But it should be. Go! Most parishes have a nooner Mass, many have before and after work Masses as well. I'm going to catch the 12:00 Lunchtime Express at Prince of Peace in Olathe, Kansas. But that's tomorrow. Today: beef stuffed pork in a chicken-crusted bacon roll. Let the good times roll!

*burp*