Need Mardi Gras party ideas? Start with a simmering pot of etouffee, a big king cake, Cajun-inspired tunes and others tips on hosting your own Mardi Gras celebration:

Tonight at 7, music and art will merge at the Wadsworth Chamber Music Series. With the Columbia Museum of Art as its backdrop, the show will feature the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, as well as musicians Johnny Gandelsman, Colin Jacobsen, Nicholas Cords, Eric Jacobsen and Edward Arron. The museum is at Main and Hampton streets; $30 and $35; (803) 799-2810

A friend who worked at the Foxfire School in north Georgia many years ago remembers children who were sewn into their long underwear at the beginning of winter and not cut loose until spring. The school rooms and homes in that poor, remote part of the world were so cold that bathing wasn’t considered a necessity.

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A young female bald eagle is the first on display at the zoo since 1998.