...she'll go on and on about the time she choked on her beads at Mardi Gras and was legally dead for five minutes.

As you may know that it's Carnival season here in Lousiana. Mardi Gras is alive and puking all over the streets of the greater New Orleans area! Weekly parades in the names of various gods and goddesses are held to celebrate the joys of diablerie and sin before giving up chocolate and booze for Lent. We actually went to a couple.

The ones here in Slidell are pretty family oriented. Though if you stick it out to the end, the float riders have had ample time to enough chug Miller Lites that they think throwing beads (full speed) directly to the baby in the stroller is a good idea. I got one in the eye early on and it hurt like a bitch. Dom and I just took the stance above Michael when it got rougher.

Here is an example of the caliber of crazy that the spectators like to bring to these events. Yes, that's a Mardi Gras port-a-potty and a guy grilling in a viking helmet. No, that's not a float in the parade.



That's what people do here. They bring out the campers and park on the grass for weeks just to watch parades and get free crap thrown at them. I have a trashbag full of plastic necklaces on my kitchen counter. That's just from attending 2 parades. And Michael now needs a stuffed animal hammock for all of the bears, footballs, crabs and crawfish that were chucked at him.

There's a picture of me with our friend Larry and a random person I met standing on the street.


There's Dom and Michael...
Here are...ghost cheerleaders?

So have a Phat Tuesday, everybody! Look, I made you a cake. Well, I made Dom a cake. Okay, I made Dom a cake for Valentine's day. But that's the present you're getting today.


Today's subject line quote is Maya Gallo, "Just Shoot Me!" (1997) {A & E Biography: Nina Van Horn (#4.23)}.