Fat Tuesday, indeed

I'm sort of a lapsed Catholic -- all the guilt, none of the church-going -- but old habits die hard, and for Lent I'm planning to give up chocolate and ice cream, which I managed to do successfully a few years ago, but in all subsequent attempts I have failed miserably (which is embarrassing, especially because the Smelmooo -- who was never any kind of Catholic -- consistently manages to give up many more, and many more difficult, temptations during this 46-day period. Yeah, you read it right, and it still pisses me off: Lent is so not 40 days. Grab your calendar and count it out). So anyway, here we go again, tomorrow.

But in the meantime, I've been celebrating an extended Mardi Gras, which included the purchase of a pint of Cherry Garcia (fro-yo, which according to my Lenten resolution falls under the "ice cream" category, as well as the chocolate category, of course) last night, to be consumed in its entirety before midnight tonight (I'm about halfway there right now).

I got an email the other day from Ben & Jerry's to alert me that they have a new pint flavor, Neopolitan Dynamite, which is half-Cherry Garcia and half-Chocolate Fudge Brownie, and believe me, if it'd been available in my grocer's freezer last night, I'd have devoured it in a heartbeat.

[I've probably written a thousand times about the time that Jenny and I in high school went to 7-11 during a free period and got (and finished) a pint of Mint Cookies-n-Cream, and poor Jenny was sick for like three days. Anyway, Jenny heads back to the States tomorrow from Africa (where she'll return sometime this summer...booo...), and I can't wait, and all this Ben & Jerry's talk reminded me of it, although I just now realized that when I see her in a couple of weeks I will be abstaining. Dammit.]

Anyway.

In addition to the half-pint of Cherry Garcia that I'll consume tonight, I have already eaten a giant chocolate-chip cookie along with a generous bowl of vanilla frozen yogurt, and a cup of hot chocolate, as well as a huge serving of turkey jumbalaya, which was super-awesome, except for the spots that were kind of raw. All this to say that I'm truly getting into the spirit of the holiday, although not to the extent of the handful of my co-workers who are sporting Mardi Gras beads. I'm wondering if I can fit in a Friendly's peanut butter cup sundae while I'm at it, but that might just be too gluttonous for me; again, lapsed or not, there's still that good old Catholic guilt.