September 30: Saint Marty's Day, Book Club, Classic Saint Marty

Most of my loyal disciples are probably wondering why I haven't been speaking of the big, upcoming holiday.  Well, it's because I've been too busy to give it even one thought.  Today, however, I intend to start my holiday preparations:  dragging out the decorations, putting up the tree, playing traditional carols, baking cookies, buying and wrapping presents. 

That's right.  Saint Marty's Day is almost upon us.  As of this moment, there are exactly four days, eight hours, and 21 minutes shopping days left.  So, it's time to deck the Saint Marty's Day halls.  And don't forget the traditional dessert for Saint Marty's Day:  tapioca pudding. 

I know what you're all thinking right now:  I forgot to send out my Saint Marty's Day cards.  That's alright.  You still have a couple days left.  Saint Marty's Day is Friday, so, if you get your cards in the mail by Tuesday, they should reach their destinations in plenty of time.

In case you are a Saint Marty's Day atheist, let me share a few pictures from Saint Marty's Day celebrations around the world.

Japan:

Greece:

Rome:

England:

North Korea:

As you can tell, everybody from all 'round the world is getting in the Saint Marty's Day spirit. 

Tonight, I'm hosting my book club.  It's our annual Saint Marty's Day meeting.  That's right, Saint Marty's Day nog will be consumed this evening.  At the end of the night, we will hold hands, stand in a circle, and sing old Saint Marty's Day carols like "We Wish You a Merry Saint Marty's Day" and the old English "In the Bleak Saint Marty's Day."  It will be a lovely time.

A year ago, I was contemplating time and Saint Marty's Day as well . . .

September 30, 2017:  Standing on Thin Air, Randazzo's Fruit Market, 50th Saint Marty's Day

Billy now moved about the party--outwardly normal.  Kilgore Trout was shadowing him, keen to know what Billy had suspected or seen.  Most of Trout's novels, after all, dealt with time warps and extrasensory perception and other unexpected things.  Trout believed in things like that, was greedy to have their existence proved.

"You ever put a full-length mirror on the floor, and then have a dog stand on it?" Trout asked Billy.

"No."

"The dog will look down, and all of a sudden he'll realize there's nothing under him.  He thinks he's standing on thin air.  He'll jump a mile."

"He will?"

"That's how you looked--as though you all of a sudden realized you were standing on thin air."

Standing on thin air.  I frequently experience that feeling.  I can be walking along, smell something like an orange or banana, and suddenly I'm walking through Randazzo's Fruit Market in Detroit with my mother when I was five or six.  I shell a peanut, put it in my mouth, and I'm sitting at the Shrine Circus, watching the tigers jump through a flaming hoop.  I'm in thin air, between now and then.

Billy knows a few things about becoming unstuck in time.  This week, as I approach my 50th Saint Marty's Day, I'm going to be a little unstuck, too.  You're going to have to forgive me if I wax nostalgic about my past.  I'm standing on a mirror, looking down and up on myself.

I have a daughter who's a junior in high school.  She was born in the first year of the new millennium.  She never knew the twentieth century.  Can't remember a time when iPods and iPhones didn't exist.  I have a son in the fourth grade.  He thinks that Barack Obama was and should have been President of the United States forever.  (He and I agree on this little point.)

I will be cleaning my house this afternoon.  Then I will go to church and play the pipe organ.  For dinner, pizza from Pizza Hut.  These are things that I have done on Saturdays, without too much variation, for years.  Not exactly traditions.  More like comfortable routines.  That's what I see in the mirror I'm standing on today.

Saint Marty is thankful for routines.


I feel all warm and fuzzy now.  Don't you? 

Saint Marty's Day is on the way!