Quote of the Day:

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.” –Douglas Adams, patron Saint of the TBU, who I like to believe, would truly appreciate the sensible randomness of Third Week

It’s Third Week Wednesday here in the TBU, the Third Year of Third Week too. TB is pretty suspicious that some of you may not take this hot new holiday quite as serious as you should, and by not as serious, I mean, completely un-serious. Seriously.

After all, the concept is not (completely) a gag.

After Third Week comes Thanksgiving week and then a short few weeks later is the Granddaddy of Them All, otherwise known as the BCS Championship Game held at the site of the Rose Bowl which will be played a few days previous. In between is a little thing we humans have celebrated for millenia with weekend cocktail parties, office Rotel surprises, and spending one day too many with our beloved extended families, the winter solstice feasting period. We call it Christmas. (A little time-out here–the previous sentence, if you are old enough, should be read in the voice of the old Mazola margarine girl–writing it with her voice in my head made me laugh).

The point is, holiday season is here. Don’t believe me? Go to Walmart.

And the holiday season, for all its hassles, is a happy time. More than at any other time of the year, I find it easy to focus on the positive, enjoy the little things, see through my daughter’s eyes, and live in the moment. This is a good thing for a man with a travellin’ mind.

When Third Week arrives, I unconsciously let slip the irrational fears of aging, the work concerns I cannot control, the hopelessness of American politics and all the other things that make keeping a Positive Mental Outlook such an ongoing challenge. It is a time to look forward to turkey and turkey sandwiches. To passing on the tradition of watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and its inane play-by-play hosts, something I wouldn’t normally do voluntarily in a thousand years, save that it’s what was inflicted upon me when I was young, and so I recall what that felt like, and so I pass on the ritual to my Little Scamp, so she can one day remember a little about how it felt to be three and surrounded by the people who love you best while the first batch of rolls burns in an unattended oven.

It is a time for knowing that Christmas is almost here. The time when, with all the great things associated with it–gifts given and received, attention to charity, quoting “A Christmas Story” as its repeats air (repeatedly), fighting the war to save it (Christmas, that is, not the movie) against–well, whoever is attacking it–or maybe I’m on the side fighting to kill it–I forget–at any rate, the greatest gift of all, to my way of thinking at Christmas is it gives us all a few hours, and some of us a few days to just stop. We stop driving for a day. We stop working. We turn off the news. We listen to music. If we are lucky enough to have children around, we sing–the fun songs, not the arias.

And then, when the peace has been more than we can stand and more than maybe even we deserve, we kick off the season of violence, gambling and gluttony upon gluttony that is college football bowl week with a spirited, ignorant, useless and irrelevant political argument with our goofy uncle after the second slice of dessert is served for dinner. Or if you are TB, we travel, which (in going) is the ultimate way for me to stop.

All of this makes me smile. For it is Third Week and I (the Anticipator) am happy with all I foresee.