Fat Tuesday.

And that's what today was-- Fat Tuesday. Translation-- Mardi Gras: the last party day before Lent begins tomorrow, if you're into following the rules of the Lenten season.

Our next-door neighbor V came by this afternoon with two plastic Mardi Gras cups filled with genuine New Orleans' Mardi Gras beads. Rather than going into Galveston for Mardi Gras, she and her husband drove to New Orleans "to see the real thing." I told her not to say that too loudly the next time they drive over the bridge into Galveston. If the Galveston residents hear her saying that, they will boot her back to the Mainland right quick.

V said the most celebrated parties in New Orleans are on Bourbon Street, but they didn't go to those. Too much drinking, too much celebrating, too many exposed body parts, according to V. Their favorite Mardi Gras parade was the parade of pets--- it has a different name, but I can't think of it just now. Pet owners dress up their pets (dogs mostly, but there have been cats, parrots, snakes, large lizards), then also dress themselves to match up with their pets and/or creatures. I've seen those parades on TV here-- the local city channels will show the entire Mardi Gras parades from Galveston. I would imagine that the television stations in New Orleans do the same with their own parades.

V also brought us two slices of King Cake-- a sweet coffee-cake, cinnamon, sugar confection which is sprinkled liberally with purple, green and gold sugar crystals-- those being the "official" colors of Mardi Gras. The cake is traditionally made in a wreath shape, and a tiny little plastic "Mardi Gras baby" is hidden somewhere in the cake before all the sugar crystals are sprinkled on. Whoever finds the little baby in their slice of cake has to buy (or bake) the King Cake for next year's Mardi Gras.

Well, wouldn't you know it... one of our slices had the tiny little baby inside of it. I don't know if V put that in there herself, or if it was really baked into the cake at the New Orleans bakery. We'll never know.... but I will have to make sure I get some King Cake to V for next year's Fat Tuesday.

I took all the Mardi Gras beads she gave us and arranged them on the wrought-iron sculpture on our front porch. On the top of the sculpture, I put one of my feathered Mardi Gras masks. I've got a bunch of those, all bought for pennies at yard sales. That sculpture has been decorated with something ever since Halloween, when I filled it with little pumpkins. Then I covered it with large red ornaments for Christmas. Then with pink and red hearts for Valentine's Day. Now it's wearing a mask and colored Mardi Gras beads.

I'm so glad I rescued that sculpture from our own trash after Hurricane Ike marched through here. And to think I had wanted to toss it away because I was tired of bringing it in out of the storm winds every summer when I had it standing in the backyard flowerbeds. I had visions of it flying across the yard and smashing through the screens of the back porch. It was just a "found treasure" from a yard sale years ago, but it's become a welcome fixture now on the front porch.