Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras – Wrapping Up the Best Mardi Gras EVER (with a lot of pictures)

Lundi Gras (Fat Monday) was another day of day parades.  We missed pretty much all of them, because they don’t run past my house and they DO run during naptime – ergo, inconvenient.  I have a friend who lives on the route, however, and he always throws a party (similarly to ours), inviting all to come and eat, drink, use their bathroom, etc.  After Liam’s nap, I wandered over there (it’s about a mile walk) while The Professor took Jack to speech therapy.  I ended up hanging out inside and chatting during the entirety of the parade – when I went out to watch, everyone else came in and said it was already over.  I was ok with this.  We had enough beads.

We were once again lucky enough to receive tickets to the Orpheus Ball for Lundi Gras night.  Each krewe has some sort of party, usually a formal ball.  Some of them are by invitation only (you gotta know somebody), some are open to the public to purchase tickets.  My brother-in-law’s family runs the ball and the parade, so they always get him and my sister-in-law into the party and have always been able to get us in as well.

This year’s ball promised to be a good one – Bret Michaels and Cyndi Lauper were lined up to perform.  As always, the parade was slated to roll through the convention center right past all of the tuxedo’d and ball-gown’d folks at their tables, tossing us whatever beads and baubles they had left.  Cyndi Lauper was my girl in the 80s . . . I have an early memory of cradling one of her records (an actual record, I’m THAT old) and trying to copy her crazy 80s outfit.  We all got dressed to the nines, gave the babysitter a list of instructions for her crew of three wild children (my two plus my niece), and then headed off to sit in traffic for an hour trying to get to the convention center (always a problem for us!)

The party was fun.  Cyndi didn’t go on until after 1am, so I heard about five minutes and then we had to rush home to relieve the sitter.  I heard she wasn’t super, anyhow – she did a lot of weird stuff, not her hits, and god knows we can’t allow an 80s icon to evolve!  GIVE US GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!!

Next day was Mardi Gras day – Fat Tuesday herself.  And Fat Tuesday was more amazing than I could ever have dreamed.  Here is why: typically on Fat Tuesday, we roll out of bed hungover from the ball and drag the children about a mile to the Rex parade.  This parade is your bog standard parade – fun, but not super unique.  We usually catch a few beads, guzzle Gatorade, and then go home and nap as much as the children allow.

There are other options for Fat Tuesday though.  And one of those options is the Saint Anne’s parade.  Saint Anne’s is a walking krewe that assembles in the Bywater neighborhood, and then follows a New Orleans brass band (the Storyville Stompers) through the Faubourg Marigny and the Quarter.  These are all unique and quirky discrete neighborhoods of a particularly unique and quirky city.  As the parade (really a loose collection of costumed walkers) meanders along, folks pour out of homes and businesses along the route and join up.  The group grows and grows.  It stops traffic (though the occasional brave car will attempt to inch through, burning our legs with its tailpipe, making zero headway, and furious about that).  It fills up bars and clubs, which allow all to enter and use their restrooms without paying a cover or proving they’re paying guests.  Children attend, pulled by their parents in wagons and carts.  I saw at least a dozen tiny babies, each wearing a costume of some kind.  The groups ambol along, pausing sometimes, passing and repassing one another – it is absolutely not about the destination, but about the journey.  Some groups end up walking all the way to the Rex parade – many, including my group, just end up coming to a stop in the Quarter and party with the rest of the revelers.

Saint Anne’s is amazing for a million reasons, but a big one is the costumes.  I’ve never been to Burning Man, but this is what I imagine Burning Man would be like.  I have seen Franklin Street Halloween in Chapel Hill – this was Franklin Street on steroids.  Franklin Street without fear of gangs with guns, or police issuing citations.  Franklin Street without any inhibitions.  It was a community of frolicking, dancing, openly pot-smoking (!), creative and committed artistic folk, wandering down the streets of one of the most amazing cities in America.  It was, in a word, mind-blowing.  Here are just a few of the groups we saw:

My upstairs neighbors have walked in Saint Anne’s for years, and the Professor snagged me an invite to join them.  We all decided to dress as the streets of New Orleans, and pushed a streetcar “float” that doubled as a bar (out of which we sold drinks to the crowd).  Our budget already overextended for this Mardi Gras, I decided to repurpose my French Maid costume and call myself “Desire.”  Thusly dressed, I joined my neighbors in the driveway at 8:30 am on Fat Tuesday, feeling surprisingly chipper after my late night at the ball, and we piled into their car and headed for the Bywater.

After picking up a few more, the driver dropped us off at the intersection of Burgundy and Piety, where the group was assembling around the streetcar float.  A man dressed as a Roman charioteer (Coliseum Street) and another in Bermuda shorts and a Colonial English General hat (Bermuda Street) were doing last minute alterations with the float.  Orange Street (in orange sequins and go-go boots), Spain Street and Frenchman Street (dressed as a stereotypical Spaniard and Frenchman, complete with baguette, which we ate along the route), Tchoupitoulas Street (in Native American garb) and I all hung around and gabbed and observed.

We also had a Market Street (wearing a hat full of groceries, a la Carmen Miranda), Maple Street (covered in maple leaves), Magnolia Street (ditto with magnolias, including a jaunty bonnet), and dozens of others.  Over the course of a couple of hours, everyone arrived, drank champagne, and set up the bar.  We even had a pothole join us.

Some time later the brass band began to play, and then began to walk, and the crowd collected together and began to move forward in a surprisingly coordinated fashion for such a disconnected rabble.  We followed a pair of distant ribbon banners – they looked like maypoles, and jauntily beckoned us down the street.  Below I have included a link to a youtube video that I’ve called “The Seduction of the Ribbons” – I hope it doesn’t lead to too many untoward links from people searching for something . . . else . . .

After many hours of walking, the neighborhood began to shift into the traditional French Quarter style for which the city is famous.  The crowd thickened.  There were more tourists, some observing and some participating in the revels.  We sold drinks from our streetcar float/bar, making some money to pay for next year’s idea.  (The float actually died a sad death at the end of the day, pushed onto its trailer too forcefully and broken into dozens of splintered pieces.)

I was lucky to have connections in my large group – we were able to use several bathrooms along the route, and never wanted for a latrine.  One of these places included the Quarter apartment of a friend’s aunt.  To get there, we opened a dank and dirty door and walked up a set of damp exterior stairs, and entered a large and beautifully apportioned courtyard.  Doors to various apartments opened off the lush and light-filled space, and streetside there perched a party patio that was filled with revelers watching the crazy folk below on the street.

Eventually, I had to go.  I was weary, having literally not sat once the entire day.  I would have to hike about two miles to the Westbank ferry in order to get out of the jammed up city center.  The further I walked from the Quarter, the fewer people wore costumes, until eventually I was wandering with a thigh skimming negligee (essentially – though I did wear my leotard underneath!) through crowds of fully dressed people.  I sat on the plastic chair of the Algiers Ferry, footsore, a little chilled, and utterly, incandescently happy.  We will be moving to Mobile this summer, so I may never have the opportunity to do Saint Anne’s again.  I can’t express to you enough how grateful I was to get to do it this year.  It was a reflection of all of the good of New Orleans – exuberance, friendliness, uninhibited creativity, and simple good times.  If you ever ponder visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras – consider joining in.  Don’t fear being an outsider – you will be folded into the crowd and immerse yourself in the effervescent joy of a New Orleans Fat Tuesday.  There is nothing like it.