No money to get your sweetie anything for Valentine's Day today? It might be because you spent all your money last weekend, seeing as it came with a double whammy of an early kickoff to Mardi Gras and then Super Bowl festivities.
Yes, the weekend was ushered in with a lot of hype and proved to be quite the whirlwind of sensory overload. Mardi Gras, which I puzzled over when reading about it in a book or two as a child, seems to be getting bigger and bigger in the Natural State. And nowadays, Super Bowl watchers are encouraged, via advertisements, to put as much thought, planning and shopping into their game-day food as they did their Christmas presents.
Hubby and I followed the herd: Saturday we dived for beads and candy thrown at the Mardi Gras parade in Little Rock's South Main District and treated ourselves to store-bought king cake. Sunday, we hollered at the TV while hoping the relative healthfulness of our baked-turkey mini sandwiches canceled out the calories generated by the not-so-healthful game-dinner dishes.
And, as I try to treat life like the learning experience it is, I came away from the weekend with some valuable lessons and observations, concrete and abstract. Here are just a few.
• If you're in an arena whose population is regularly run down for various reasons, it might be best to shine from the side of the road.
• God will occasionally allow us to fall on our keisters so that he can work something out of us -- or in us.
• If you're going to ask to be thrown a few things -- whether it's beads or a chance -- be prepared to catch them.
• And, ahem, don't overestimate what it might take to get those beads -- or that chance -- thrown at you.
• Sometimes, the best offense is a good defense.
• As in the case of the Steve Harvey Super Bowl commercial, it's possible to take a mistake and laugh all the way to the bank with it ... while broke people are still laughing at you.
• Social media has a lot in common with freedom, one of the biggest similarities being that they both represent a double-edged rope: You can hoist yourself, or you can hang yourself (a new way to state a warning common in Let's Talk columns).
• Politics -- and Super Bowl commercials -- make straaaaange bedfellows.
• Don't be late to the parade. It just might start on time.
• Losing a few feathers out of your finery as you traverse this life beats the heck out of losing your whole costume. (And it's a lot more G-rated.)
• It's OK to let the good times roll. We just have to keep them from rolling downhill, and taking us with them.
• Always wonder why you happened to be born in October or November? You might be either a Super Bowl baby or a Mardi Gras baby.
• It's best to watch what "krewe" you roll with.
• There are stupider things than "puppymonkeybaby" that get trapped in our heads. (It's just hard to think of them at the moment because now, a week after the Super Bowl, we're still mumbling or shouting "puppymonkeybaby" to ourselves over an imaginary beat.)
• To whom much is given, much is required. Or at least the next king cake, if you got the baby in your piece.
• It's OK to be authentic. Mask-wearing is required only on a float in a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade.
• Life ain't The Hunger Games. Whatever losses don't kill us are bound to make us stronger. Don't let your game face slip.
Laissez le football Americain rouler!
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 02/14/2016