how do you dress your starbucks?

That, my friends, is the question. Well, last night in honor of Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday, a group of us decided to head out to Clarendon for their annual Mardi Gras parade. I'd prefaced this with a warning to the Fashionista, who hails from Mobile, that this parade would be nothing like that of which she's accustomed to. Nothing close. And there would definitely (sadly) be no Moon Pies. Although, I must admit that sounds mighty fine 'round about now.

Sassy, the Fashionista, the Cajun, and JF met up at Harry's Tap Room, which unlike what hazy memory I had from my prior visit (which was before having moved to the city), was disappointingly pretentious. I don't think I'll be back anytime soon. When the Cajun got there, I warned her I highly doubted they'd have any Abita to pass her way. There were these creepy older men there who had clearly plotted in advance to bring some nice beads in hope of finding some tipsy and pathetic girl who would be willing to pull New Orleans-esque Mardi Gras antics to get their beads. When they stated we had to earn our beads, we promptly squelched that thought and made our exit. Perhaps the creepy-mc-creeps were limited to being in enclosed spaces, so we hoped leaving would be an upgrade.

We then meandered our way down to Starbucks to grab some hot beverages for the parade. I had to laugh at the sign in the bathroom that said "how do you dress your Starbucks?". Why the bathroom of all places? It was ironically appropriate though as we made our Irish coffees. Mmm. Good stuff. It helped to ease our sorrow as it began to rain, but we somehow made it to the end of the parade. Well, let's be honest... the parade wasn't that long. The highlight I thought was this guy who was freestyle rapping off of the back of a blue pick-up. The music was great and he was impressive. If I have one complaint, it would be there should have been a lot more music.


The original plan was to head to Tallulah's for the official post-party. Last year I remember their being something in the vein of hurricanes there, which in retrospect maybe it's good to not have access to that... and they also had king cake, which I was sad to miss. However, the long walk and the rain made Whitlow's seem like a strong sudden plan B. After waiting in the first ever line I've seen at Whitlow's and being forced to surrender our now empty Starbucks cups, we finally made it to dry land. The bar was cracking me up though, highlighted by the beautiful neon glowing PBR sign. I told the Fashionista that is soooo blog-worthy. And voila, here it is... I told Sassy I think I'm gearing up already for our next house party (white trash themed).

There was a live band at Whitlow's, but we were sadly on the opposite side of the bar. Okay, so I understand servers are probably frustrated by patrons spilling over into their "turf". There were a couple of tables back in the bar area where we were standing. But c'mon. There was nowhere to go... I could feel the glare from her even when my back was to her and could definitely feel the angst the few times she elbowed her way past us. Not feeling the love, that's for sure.

The random things though that become amusing that late in the evening... such as once again contemplating the fact that three of us have three different shades of pink cellphones. I used to hate pink. Such a girly girl color... perhaps I've waved the white flag there... as I now have a pink wallet, pink phone, etc. Oh well. The Fashionista's plays "Public Affair" by Jessica Simpson. Mine plays the Sex and the City Theme. We're such girls. Thankfully when we collectively pulled out our pink phones, unlike one other evening, my phone was not swiped. Much appreciated. Anyhow, the line-up was just too funny.

It wasn't a late evening though... we maxed out around 10:30 and Sassy and I trudged through the heavier rain to the metro. Fun evening though. Time for some downtime to save steam for the weekend. I'm going to need some energy to fight off the cold Chicago winds. Brrrrrr... but today, I'm decorating my office with my beads. Mounds of beads. Beads I showed no bare skin, mind you, to attain. Gross dirty old men.