Parades # 2 & 3 – Pontchartrain, then Druids and Nyx in the Rain

The day after Cleopatra, a Saturday, the Professor took the car to work.  This will become important later.

I promised the boys we’d do some parades that Saturday.  Pontchartrain rolled at 2pm, so I planned to put Liam to bed as normal, get him up at about 2, and then drive over to the part of the route nearest our house and watch.

You, perhaps, already see the problem.

When Liam woke at 2, I got the kids all set up to go, and then opened the front door to gaze upon our empty parking spot.  *forehead smack.*  Then I gave our double stroller the side eye.  The Pontchartrain route was only about a mile from our house, so I had no problem walking . . . but the parade was a short one (15 floats) and already rolling, so it was a race against time.  (Note – I was wearing high heeled knee high boots.  I did not change them.  MISTAKE.)

To make a long story short, I lost the race against time.  I made it to St. Charles and Napoleon just as hordes of people were streaming away, their bags full of plastic glitter, their bellies full of lite beer.  I could see the final float of Pontchartrain about 4 blocks away – so could the boys.  “Parade!” Jack screamed.  “PADE!” Liam yelled.  “Parade,” I sighed, and then picked up my pace to a trot.  I chased that damn thing for a mile before I finally caught it – it was moving fast, and I was trying to dodge huge tree roots and drunk people carrying enormous ladders.  By the time I pulled even with the tail end of Pontchartrain at the cross streets of St. Charles and Harmony, I cut a corner, hurled the kids up to the front lines just in time to catch one bead from the last rider of the last float, and then shouted “Wow!  That was so fun!  What a great parade!”  They totally bought it.  I’d jogged 2.1 miles in high heeled boots, over the pockmarked and sinkholed (and beer-doused) streets of New Orleans, so my kids could see one float of a parade.  And it was worth it.  Though the blister-footed limp home was kind of crummy.

We skipped the Sunday parades, so our next foray into Mardi Gras awesomeness wasn’t til last Wednesday, when the Professor’s parade rolled.  He left us early in the morning to do his party-in-the-Quarter thing, so that evening’s group was just me and the kids (and another wife-of-rider and her kid).  Angela and her daughter Sally (not their real names!) pulled up in their roofed wagon at about 5:30.  I pulled a couple of frozen pizzas out of the oven, roused a snoozing Jack, and brought our full-to-the-brim wagon out onto the porch.  As we left the safety of our porch overhang, we noted that it was drizzling.  As we pulled to our nearby spot under an enormous tree, the rain began to pour.  It poured buckets.  We shoved all three kids under the wagon roof and stood under the tree, which filtered out some of the worst of it, but our chairs, blankets, and hot pizza were all soaked in seconds.  Had our husbands not been riding in this parade – with special throws bought just for the kids – we would have turned right around.

As it turned out, though, it wasn’t too bad,  The rain came and went, came and went, and the kids didn’t seem to mind it.  We were once again standing in a shin-deep puddle, and I once again was thankful for my rubber rainboots, which allowed me to lift each child in turn up to the floats to beg for throws.  The rain had driven away most of the crowd, so the kids got tons of throws.  The plush was all soaked – catch one and you’d get a faceful of rainwater.  It was no matter.  Liam clutched his new soaking wet blue bear like it was going to take off and run from him, and Jack collected about seven different (wet) plush toys in his arms and wouldn’t put them down for anything.

The Professor was on float 16, sidewalk side.  I had made a neon green sign to hold up for the Professor, so he’d know where we were.  (He didn’t even see it!)  Though it was pretty soggy, I got a friend to hold it up, got another friend to hold Liam, I held Jack, and as #16 rounded the bend and came our way, I sought the Professor’s eyes – the only thing visible from behind his mask and costume.  He found me, and passed down our special treats – a red and yellow serpentine dragon for Jack, a long green snake for Liam, and a lovely plush red rose for me (Happy belated Valentine’s!)  Then the float went on, and my companion packed up her kid and left.

As we were already soaked, and my kids didn’t seem to mind it, we decided to stay for the all-women’s parade that followed Druids.  Muses is a huge women’s parade here in town – the biggest, and it costs 5 figures to be in Muses.  It’s very popular and hard to get a spot, and there is a waiting list for Muses that has 500 people on it.  One must pay a four figure fee just to be on the waiting list for Muses – that’s thousands of dollars just to keep your name in line.  Wowzers.  Anyways, all of the waiting list ladies got tired of waiting, so they formed their own krewe – the Mystic Krewe of Nyx.  Although many in the city vociferously objected, this krewe petitioned to be allowed to parade, designed and built their floats, purchased their costumes, and made plans to roll.  Their petition was approved just a month or two before parade season, so it was a near thing, but I’m so glad it was.  Nyx was awesome.

The big Muses throw is a decorated shoe – an actual shoe that a Muse decorated with glitter, beads, feathers, and the like.  Along the same vein, the women of Nyx made their signature throw a clutch purse.  (I caught a Muses shoe this year, though I didn’t catch a clutch!)  I made sure to get several cups and coozies with “Nyx 2012” on them, and I caught dozens of hot pink beads from the ladies of Nyx.  The boys made out, too – I think we have approximately fifty zillion footballs now.  The women were great, the floats were creative, the throws were awesome – Nyx is a definite keeper.  I’m not sure if those women will ditch Muses and just stick with their own parade, or if it will always be the Krewe for the Muses waitlist . . . one day it may eclipse Muses as the big all-female parade!  In any case, it was very cool to see an inaugural parade, even in the rain.

After Nyx, I piled stuff on top of boys on top of stuff, everything shoved in the wagon, and dragged that soggy mess home.  I put two dripping boys in a hot bath, hung our chairs and various items out to dry, and then we all had some milk and went to bed.  The next night would be Muses, after all, and we needed to keep our strength . . .

PS – all of the parades thus far have been at night, and my camera doesn’t take night pictures well.  I’ll have some pictures to post soon, so you can see the awesomeness for yourselves.