Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Happy Mardi Gras!!!!

It's Fat Tuesday!!! When I was a teenager, I LOVED Mardi Gras. We would plan out our season of parades and where we would be for each one. Most people don't realize, but parades roll for two weeks before the actual day of Mardi Gras. My hometown of Houma has up to 9 krewes (clubs that sponsor parades). It's always great when you know people riding in the parades because they bombard you with beads and trinkets! Although most people outside of Louisiana think of Mardi Gras as a drunken hedonistic event, it's actually quite more than that.

Now, I won't try to kid you and say I haven't participated in that aspect of the holiday, but the Mardi Gras experience you get is very dependent upon where you go for a parade. If you go to downtown New Orleans, you'll get the stereotypical Mardi Gras experience you see on TV shows like Cops. If you go to the suberbs of New Orleans or to a town like Houma, you'll likely see lots of families sitting in the back or parked pickup trucks BBQing for the day and enjoying an afternoon of viewing floats and catching beads.

As I go about my work day today, my mood will be cloaked in purple, green & gold. HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Drunken Hedonistic Event" never thought of it in that way before. It's Just been Mardi Gras!

"Hedonistic"
Definition-seeking of pleasure: a devotion, especially a self-indulgent one, to pleasure and happiness as a way of life....

Sounds like a Cajun life stlye to me.

Paran and I knew we "Passed A Good Time" on Bourbon Street last weekend. We had a Balconey on Bourbon Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

A word to anyone who wants to par take in a "Drunken Hedonistic Event"

DON'T FORGET YOUR MASK!

Love you "K"
Aunt Ruth and Paran Wayne

Karen said...

Aunt Ruth,
It's so obvious were a good part of my personality came from!! I'm just so grateful that the internet wasn't around yet back in the days when I considered a feather boa and blue jeans enough clothes to stroll down Bourbon Street with a hurricane from Pat O'Brien's in my hand! Thank goodness I've matured since then huh? Oh wait, I did that as recently as the year 2000!!!