"Love Is In The Air"

That's the theme this year at Bacchus; pretty appropriate, given that it falls on Valentine's Day this year and all.

What is this "Bacchus" I speak of? Well! Glad you asked...(glad because you've given me an opportunity to show off all of my newly acquired Mardi Gras knowledge). Had you not asked I would have told you all about it anyway...it just would have been more presumptuous on my part. So thank you.

I've explained before the concept of the Mardi Gras krewes but what I may not have made clear is how extremely unique each of the krewes are or how much they vary in size. What I also failed to mention is that there are krewes and then there are super krewes (five I believe), which are the really, really big ones. The Mark-McGuire-Barry-Bonds-post-steroid-use version of the krewes. Bacchus is one of the five super krewes and not only is it huge (9000+ attending the ball!!!), I'm told its fairly exclusive.

And guess who gets to attend the Bacchus ball?

Can you believe it?? I can't!

My great aunt and uncle have been members of/attening Bacchus for the better part of the past two decades and as a "welcome to New Orleans" gift to me, they have very graciously invited me to join them this year. And yes, I am just beyond excited because how cool is that? Seriously. And Drew Brees is the King of Bacchus this year too; sign me up.

In all honesty I have no idea what to expect from Bacchus, much less Mardi Gras on the whole. From what people tell me the next week and a half is going to blow my mind and be like nothing I've ever seen or experienced before. My uncle tells me everything is going to be bigger and more grand and more outrageous than I can imagine without having seen it and that I should just be prepared for the city of New Orleans to literally shut down for a few days. Between all the streets that get closed for parades and the traffic from the influx of tourists into the city, there's no way most people could get to work even if they wanted. My uncle says you have to be pretty darned determined to be miserable in order to NOT have fun during Mardi Gras; otherwise its basically impossible he says. It sounds to me like this is going to be the epitome of "eat, drink, and be merry," and I can't wait to see what all that entails. You gotta love a city that can allow itself to have this much fun.