7th Annual Arti-Gras celebration!

I'm assuming if you're reading this blog, you know me.  If you know me, you know that my favorite holiday is my birthday.  That may sound arrogant or weird, but allow me to explain.  I'm Hindu, therefore all the cool holidays like Christmas and Easter, weren't really celebrated in our family to the same extent as others.  Instead, my parents went ALL OUT on birthdays.  My dad would refer to me as the birthday princess and everything was magical for that one day out of the year. 

Don't get me wrong...Hindus have their holidays as well.  There are so many gods, that pretty much everyday is some sort of religious holiday.  Sure, I got gifts at Krishnashtami...but they were useless things like gold bangles and saris or other indian clothes.  Compare that to my 9th birthday where I received a Pocket Rocker and mini cassettes of both Debbie Gibson and The Bangles, and you'll see...there really is no comparison.

Over the years, I've moved around a lot.  I have friends from High School, friends from Undergrad, friends from Kansas City, friends from NYC...this made it kind of hard to get together to celebrate birthdays.  What ended up happening was I'd celebrate with different groups at different times over the course of a week or two so it felt like the entire end of January was one blur of birthday cheer.  Hence, Arti-gras was born...a veritable festival of birthday debauchery.

I don't think it's any secret that I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the planet because I have stellar friends and family that I'd hang out with even if I wasn't contractually/legally/morally required to do so.  As such, I've had the pleasure of having some pretty kick-ass Arti-Gras celebrations.  I'm relatively certain that this year will most likely be the last year that I do something big for my birthday.  This is for a number of reasons, really:

1. I'm not that excited about getting older anymore.  Unfortunately, each year I celebrate is a year that I find a few more grey hairs, can handle significantly fewer drinks without feeling it, and I'm not gonna lie...my knees hurt :(
2. In the past, I've been really excited to go out and party and buy a cute sparkly top...that's acceptable in your 20s.  Now, I'm starting to fear that I'm gonna be that lady at the bar who's inappropriately dressed for her age and actin' a fool from a few too many malibu and cokes.
3. As I get older, my friends seem to be at different phases of their lives.  It's getting to be that the friends I have without a child, or even multiple kids are fewer and fewer.  The point of Arti-Gras is to be with the people I love and spend time with them.  That's starting to include the mini-me's of my closest pals.  Believe it or not, people actually frown upon babies in bars.  Go figure.

So there you have it, I have compelling reasons to not celebrate my birthday the same ways I used to in the past. In the spirit of the impending end of the tradition, I felt that it was probably worth revisiting highlights of Arti-Gras past...

2004: 

This was the 1st annual Arti-Gras. I had just moved to KC, made a bunch of new friends that quickly became like family, and we went to dinner at the Jazz (where I was presented with an AWESOME cake) and then we proceeded to take Westport by storm. That night was the night that I consider the beginning of my close friendship with Cec. She took such good care of me and made sure I got home safely. I think I remember stopping at Kelly's on the way to her car, just to warm up and get a birthday shot :)

2005: 

By this point, I'd moved into the penthouse on the Plaza with Sarah and Salena.  All of our birthdays were within 2 weeks of eachothers.  We aimed to have a joint celebration which included Tom Fooleries and some dancing at The Empire room. 

2006: 

At the end of 2005, I moved to NYC to be with Sudhir.  Moving there was hard for a lot of reasons.  Things weren't going to so great at the beginning of 2006 for a number of reasons.  That year, for my birthday, a group of 4 KC girls flew out and we had a crazy time.  We got tattoos, went to dinner at Bed (a place made famous by SATC), and went to a club.

2007:

I had a huge party in 2 places: NYC at Tutta Pasta and the Tikki Hut and KC at MG's house and Westport (Stabus cafe!) You can see that MG baked Sarah and I a cake and we celebrated Arti-Gras and Sarah-thon together :)

2008:

The last birthday of my 20's!  Friends flew in from Boston and Michigan and we had a blast!  We started out the evening at OddFellows (my favorite Cajun place in Hoboken) and went into the city to hit up a club called R-bar.  Think VIP, stripper poles, etc.  It was an awesome time!

2009: 

The big 3-0!  Since it was such a big birthday, we thought we'd make it real fancy by going to the Big Easy.  The best part of this birthday was the number of people who flew to NOLA from all different parts of my life that TOTALLY got along fantastically.  You'd think that they'd all known eachother FOREVER!  This will also go down as the birth place of a lot of awesome quotes:

"Get it iiiiiiin!"

"I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, do you know what that means??"

"NOTORIOUS!"

"It's RED, mother f*er!!"

"I spilled the bourbon in my hurricane!"

2010:

The final frontier.  The 10th anniversary of my 21st birthday...

The plan is to go to Angel's Rock Bar for bottle service and some head banging.  This never fails to be a good time.  I'm also extremely stoked that 3 of my very favorite people on the planet are flying in to attend to the festivities.  I'll be sure to blog about the celebration.  It promises to be a rockin' good time!  This really is gonna be the end of an era *tear*...