Mardi Gras cometh

So I'm planning another Mardi Gras party this year -- that'll be three in a row -- and this time around, I've enlisted help. I've formally established The Krewe of Portlandia, and things may get a little more "snazzy" (HGM's queer little word) around these parts.

For those who don't speak the lingo, a "krewe" is a social group formed solely for the purposes of putting on Mardi Gras events, including parades and parties. So the Krewe of Bacchus puts on the Bacchus parade in New Orleans, as well as a ball. These krewes are usually dues-paying organizations -- often very hefty dues -- but the members have the pleasure of riding on floats and tossing out beads and doubloons to the begging hoards and masses of people. (There is something to be said for that experience, as I learned personally a few times.)

I've not yet managed a Mardi Gras party where someone dares to get up on the table and bare her breasts while the rest of us pelt her with throw beads (but there's always a small hope of that). Nevertheless, I keep encouraging revelers to get into the spirit of things by wearing costumes and trying on, just for a moment or two, a touch of wild abandon. (People in the Northwest seem a bit stiff to me at times, but we're working on it.)

I thought it might be helpful to have multiple hosts, thus creating The Krewe of Portlandia.

The first person I enlisted was King Rex, who is a Katrina evacuee and hosted a Hurricane Katrina party at my place on the second anniversary of the storm this last summer. He so enjoyed cooking up a mess of New Orleans vittles and drinking Abita beer that he wanted to do it again. Well, let me tell ya: August is a bit hot to be cooking up a storm in my un-air-conditioned loft, so I said: Well, how about Mardi Gras instead? He's a good Southern boy, meaning he likes a gathering focused on food and drink, so King Rex readily agreed and started working up his menu. He's got shrimp on the brain by the sounds of all the recipes he's talking about cooking.

When I was telling HGM about our plan to cook Southern and drink, he snapped (the kind that would have had two circles up and a z-formation if he had let his inner gay flame up), and said, "You *are* planning to snazz it up a little this year, aren't you?"

I always have big dreams, but rarely do I have the follow through on these things. So I said, I *intend* to....

This was all HGM needed. "Because you know, you can't be throwing a party with a theme and telling people to come in costumes, and they walk in and see the same old place. In that case, you're just inviting people to come to your home and get drunk."

I know this.

"So what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

I got out my brand-new Therapist's Fix-It Ray Gun 2008 -- which can be used to de-escalate, stimulate, eradicate or motivate -- and set it to M-mode. I shot from the hip. The gun spoke these words: It sounds like you've got a strong opinion about that, HGM. I bet you have ideas. Would you care to be the Decadence Design Consultant? I can list you on the invitation.

BULLS EYE!

And so it came to pass that yesterday saw the collection of swaths of purple, green and gold (Mardi Gras colors) tulle, ribbons, masks, throw pillows and enough candles to send an SOS to the extra-terrestrials who keep abducting me lately. (I say it's an SOS because we have fun. It's not *all* anal probes.)

But I digress.

Suffice it to say, HGM's inner Martha Stewart came out. In the fabric store, he admitted that some fabric is so engaging to him that he wants to "eat it." I wasn't sure what he meant, but when I repeated this to S2 today, she replied, "Oh, I know exactly what he means." Somehow, I put what I know about HGM and S2 together, and it suddenly made sense. I feel the same way about certain hardwoods. (Cocobolo, how I love you and want to make you mine....)

Ooops. There I go again.

Back to the subject at hand. The fabric and the pillows and the masks and the candles and "lots and lots of Christmas lights" -- along with me supposedly replacing all white lightbulbs in my house with pink or blue ones -- is going to be assembled in my loft in some sort of decadent fashion. I believe we're going for that French damask-dripping, dark "Eyes Wide Shut" kind of voluptuousness. I'm not sure what will actually come to pass, but hey....

If you got your invite, you know the particulars. Two weeks hence, we will laissez les bon temps rouller!