Enjoy life while you can--that's the philosophy underlying Mardi Gras. Translated from the French, it's "Fat Tuesday," the night before Ash Wednesday, signaling the end of the traditional denial of pleasures great and small during the religious observation of Lent.

Mardi Gras is the culmination of carnival celebrations that began on Three Kings Day on Jan. 6. In Sweden, Fat Tuesday is called Fettisdagen; in Slovenia it's called Kurentovanje (and it's customary to eat doughnuts). The cities most famous for their Mardi Gras celebrations include New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Venice, Bahia and Mazatlán. Nowadays, it seems like more people celebrate carnival and Mardi Gras than observe Lent--but, hey, any excuse for a party. In the North Bay, Fat Tuesday takes on many guises, many of which have nothing to do with Tuesday at all.

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