I have just fought with my computer for at least two hours to try to get my phone photos loaded on my Mac, and then up to this website. There were tears. In this age of modern conveniences, NOTHING IS EVER CONVENIENT. The lengths I go to, to keep my three or four loyal readers apprised of our doings . . .
Anyhow. Having done all of that, I’ve just about lost my momentum, and so I’m just going to dump a lot of photos and narrate our way through – as the title suggests – the rest of Mardi Gras, Easter, seeing the Tall Ships for New Orleans’ 300th anniversary celebration, and then hitting up our local BB&B for a pillow. Wow, way to end on a low note.
First up, the boys’ MG parade at school. The littles all parade, and the older kids all catch. I put Craig in his wagon and pulled, while he threw some of the beads and throws he’d caught this year. I was afraid there would be reluctance and tears when he was asked to part with these sticky plastic treasures, but instead he took to the job with the utmost seriousness, carefully de-tangling and tossing each bead to the crowd.
Our next official parade was Morpheus followed by D’Etat, both on Thursday night. Jack decided he wanted to use my eyebrow pencil to draw a skull on his own face, and then Craig wanted the same, so Jack obliged.
The Morpheus parade is based upon the mythological Morpheus, the God of Dreams, who was winged when he appeared in mortal form (i.e. not in your dreams, where I guess maybe he didn’t have wings?) So the Morpheus throws incorporate a lot of wing imagery, including lots of blinky light up wing headbands.
Morpheus’ theme this year was “Morpheus Goes Wild,” and it featured really lovely sculptures of wild animals and plants as figureheads of each parade. My pictures don’t do it justice, but some at the link above might, although it looks to be mostly photos from the D’Etat parade which rolled after.
After Morpheus rolled D’Etat, which is less lovely, but more clever/biting/satirical. This parade tends to get very political, but no politician is spared and they’re very good at punching up instead of down.
I took zero good pictures of this one, but you can look at the link above to see the floats, which were real zingers.
The next day (Saturday morning) was Tucks – it was a bit sloppy outside, and we stood in puddles and tried to keep throws from falling in the mud. We caught a ton of throws, as few people were out that day.
Tucks is famous for toilet brushes, plungers, and printed toilet paper that everyone tps the trees with (a crew comes immediately behind and cleans it all up). It’s weird, we know.
There are parades Saturday night (Endymion is the big one), but we never go. They aren’t walking distance and they tend to be MEGA crowded, so we skip those and rest up for the best day of Mardi Gras – Thoth Sunday.
Mid-City, Okeanos, and Thoth all roll right by our house, so we usually host an open house and let people come and go. I make egg sandwiches and mimosas and people bring king cake and crab dip and a whole pile of delicious food, and usually start drinking at 10 am. After all of this indulgence and abundance and excess, all of us are excited for Ash Wednesday’s scarcity, by the time it rolls around.
Thoth Sunday this year was by turns lovely and sunny and cool, and then all of a sudden raging thunderstorms poured. This weather related uncertainty meant we had fewer guests than normal, but that was fine. It was still a great time.
Next night (Monday) was Orpheus. The boys made their own dragon floats, along with a neighbor, and we walked to the route together. I pulled most of the way, and the boys threw beads to random strangers standing around, who mostly got into it and cheered as if they’d caught a pile of gold.
Orpheus is another really beautiful parade – famous for its lights and special effects (dragons breathing “fire,” for example).
Mardi Gras day, Tuesday, marked the close of the festivities. There are always a couple of options for Fat Tuesday – Rex rolls uptown, and is a great calm parade to watch if you’re hungover. Also, St. Anne’s is a walking “parade” (really just a bunch of costumed people who all gather in the same place) that goes through the Marigny and the Bywater, ending up in the Quarter. That one is really amazing – I’ve done it twice now, in 2011 and this year – but you’ve got to be committed to the full day out there because it’s almost impossible to get in and out . . . as I would learn, to my displeasure, later in the day . . .
I went downtown with this guy – the aforementioned Geoff – and his wife Menaka. I paid for our uber downtown, so he paid for breakfast, which was this amazing cup of deliciousness:
Menaka is one of the most impressive costumers I’ve met (we attract a lot of them in this town – Menaka is actually Canadian by way of Sri Lanka, and while it’s partly the Cajun Geoff that brought her here, I think she is happy to stay because she is in her element, vis a vis adult costuming!) She created this headpiece and wig, and usually will do a headpiece for Geoff as well (although he decided to go with the mascot head this year.) I, having limited time (THOUGH NOT LIMITED ENTHUSIASM!) for costume creation just wore my Wonder Woman outfit again.
They are the Prof’s colleagues and good friends of both of us, and they adopted me for the day while the Prof took the boys to Rex. After eating our breakfast in a cup, we met with more of their friends and basically wandered, agog at all of the creativity on display. Really, it’s something to see. These people work so hard, spend so much time to make these completely fabulous setups. I regularly would turn in circles and just stare, absolutely open mouthed.
balconies full of drunk people.
So I will continue with the Easter and what-have-you at a later date, because the amount of time it took to upload these is not insignificant. I will wrap it up by telling the sad sad story of the Big Law Lawyer – our office was closed (you couldn’t get to it), I had an out of office message on my email, I notified all clients and partners ahead of time that I’d be out on Tuesday, and yet . . . I got some frantic emails and something had to be done right then because it had to be filed that day, and though we got it all finalized ahead of time someone suddenly decided it all had to be completely changed and I was the only one who was capable of doing it. So I tried to walk out of the mess of traffic and people as much as I could, and hailed a Lyft, and $100 and two hours of creeping traffic later, I was home. A very stressful end to a fun day. Sad trombone.
More fun to come, though . . . stay tuned! Meanwhile, here’s the meals for the week, many stolen again from bloggers I love!
Smoky rub pork chops, homemade applesauce (using up some apples we have that are going off)
Sunshine lentil bowls that I didn’t make last week
Tortellini and sauce
Black bean burgers and macaroni
You will not regret the Sunshine Lentil Bowls. They’re a new favorite in my house.
Also, your pictures are amazing.