It's Fat Tuesday Yall

Down in New Orleans
Where the blues was born
It takes a cool cat
To blow a horn
On LaSalle and Rampart Street
The combo's there with a mambo beat

The Mardi Gras, mambo, mambo, mambo
Party Gras, pambo, mambo, mambo
Mardi Gras, mambo-ooh
Down in New Orleans

Oh yes ladies and gentlemen...Fat Tuesday has rolled around for another year. It's time to wear the purple, green and gold!!!! Unfortunately I will not be in New Orleans to partake of the festivities....sigh. Now, I love holidays, and Christmas is my favorite hands down, but coming up for a close second is Mardi Gras!!! I think it is even better that when my #1 holiday ends on January 6th (aka little Christmas), my #2 holiday begins at midnight of January 7th...how great is it that my holiday celebration doesn't have to end? Now many of you may be wondering why I would pick Mardi Gras as my #2 holiday. Don't judge :) I know it has all these drunkin, naked rumors (well their not really rumors, they are truths) but that only takes part in the French Quarter and mostly on Bourbon Street and when I think Mardi Gras, I do not think there.

Now, I have attended Mardi Gras for as long as I remember, so I am pretty sure my whole entire life...well except for the last few years while I was off at school - however I did celebrate with KNEWBS and we had mask, king cake, and beads! Anyways, Mardi Gras is just a fun time of year. There are parades, balls (where you get to dress up like a princess), parties, KING CAKE (which by the way I have had NONE this year - ugh - I am really wanting one from Randazoo's), great music, and at the parades you jump up and down screaming "THROW ME SOMETHIN' MISTER!!!!"....really it's kinda silly to do this over some plastic beads and cups and an occasional moon pie. But boy oh boy is it FUN!!!!!!!! We have a local Mardi Gras parade at home - Nerieds. But I really like to go into New Orleans to watch Bacchus, Endymion, Orpheus, and Rex (the King of Mardi Gras). Now the parades really start rolling the weekend before Mardi Gras weekend (last weekend) and this past Friday through today (Fat Tuesday) is called Mardi Gras weekend.

All this writing has me ready to get my hanky out for a second line, drive on down to the Big Easy, get some Popeye's fried chicken and watch the floats roll by. Maybe I should call in sick today. hmmm it's a thought!

I once read that Mardi Gras is not something you can vicariously live through someone else...it is something you must experience for yourself. (I agree)
If you ever want to experience Mardi Gras, you know who to call. I am going to apply for teaching jobs in the New Orleans area so you will have a place to stay! (if I get a job there.... bonus with a teaching job in that area....a week off for Mardi Gras!) Oh and when I do Mardi Gras it is completely family friendly


So in the words of Al Johnson...

All because it's Carnival Time, oooooohhh, it's Carnival Time....!

Oh Well it's Carnival Time and, everybody's having Fun

Right Now, it's Carnival Time, oooooohhh, Carnival Time....!

Oh Well it's Carnival Time and, everybody's having Fun

Trying to catch the prized beads!!
a Mardi Gras Duke


2010 King of Mardi Rex (Right) meets the King of Zulu (left) - their meeting is a Mardi Gras tradition. The meet on Monday (Lundi Gras) to officially begin Mardi Gras (not that we haven't been celebrating for a over a month now)

Throw your hands up and yell THROW ME SOMETHIN MISTER!