Get With It

Feeling my wannabe status about now: Mardi Gras is just too damn early this year! I didn't grow up down here so it's really throwing me for a loop: Groundhog's Day and the last weekend of the carnival season on the same day?! Not to mention it's cold enough for my furnace to still be kicking on.

True New Orleanians must take this in stride with a lifetime of festivals under their belts, falling early, late and everywhere in between. But for this wannabe-cajun, this just feels wrong.

But I quick got up and made some coffee and popped Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas on the CD player and got my decorations hung this morning. Living in Gulfport it's taken me this long to get my act together. It's hard to feel the spirit from way over here. I caught about a minute of a parade on TV the other night and that's been the extent of my participation this year--so far; someone invited me to a Mardi Gras party in the Quarter so if I can afford the gasoline, I'll drive over on Tuesday and catch an in-the-fray whiff before Mardi Gras 2008 passes me by completely.