Monday, Lundi Gras, has no day parades. This is a blessing. We were planning on heading out to a huge formal ball that evening, from which we would be returning very late, and the next day would be Fat Tuesday, which meant we’d have to get up way early to get a good spot for the parades. We needed a little break.
We showered and piled into the car to head over to the Westbank to pick up Clif’s tux and join his dad, Big Clif, for a delicious seafood lunch at a local place he knows. The kids had chicken nuggets, and I had fried catfish, and it was a perfect, hot ‘n’ greasy kinda meal, to which Big Clif kindly treated us. When we returned home that afternoon, we put the kids and ourselves down for naps. Ours were necessarily short, though, because we had lots to do before the evening. We’d already decided to have the kids fed, bathed, and ready for bed before the sitter arrived at 6:30, and have our coolers, picnic lunches, diaper bags, and wagons packed up and in the car for Fat Tuesday, so all we’d have to do in the morning was pack up the kids and roll out. Erin and Ella and I dashed to the grocery to get some picnic items, and then we all set to prepping. Erin made sandwiches, labeled with a Sharpie, and stacked them in the cooler – I loaded the diaper bags and filled milk bottles and a sack full of baby-distracting toys – Clif and Patrick helped load the car and corral the kids. We managed to get everything done and still get ourselves dressed and ready for the Orpheus Ball by 6:45, which was a feat. This ball is an odd one – men must wear tuxes and women floor length gowns, but its BYOB so everybody drags coolers full of beer behind their strappy shoes and formalwear. We decided to just bring liquor and forego the cooler – a wise choice, I think.
Our men looked smashing in their tuxes – I wore a blue floor length gown that I’d bought 30 pounds ago for my wedding rehearsal dinner and which I could still zip (its empire waist let me get away with being all preggo – no way was I buying a maternity formal gown for this thing) – Erin wore a lovely black frock with a sparkly bodice and floofy tulle skirt. After a somewhat nervewracking drive, trying to find our way around the winding parade routes, we found great parking by the Convention Center and headed in. We sat in an elevated area, because Clif’s family plan the Orpheus parade and ball and they’d gotten us special faboo tickets seated with them. We ate cheese and fruit and tiny muffaletta sandwiches, and I drank sparkling water while the boys enjoyed Woodford Reserve and Erin sucked down her rum and cokes. The room was giant, and set up with a wide track in a loop around the floor. This track was where the Orpheus parade would, later in the night, run right through our party! We met lots of people and tried to chat despite the noise of the band, and then everyone started to line up for the parade. I ended up leaning on the railing – much needed for my very tired, very pregnant body at this point in the week. Erin stood beside me. The parade was late, but it finally began rolling in, in fits and starts. The theme for this one was Dessert Delights, and every float had a dessert theme, though most of them were tongue-in-cheek. (i.e. Devil’s Food Cake had nary a cake in sight, but lots of devils). The police rode by, and some Shriners on motorcycles. Several minutes later, a band came marching past. Finally, finally, the parades started rolling in. Harry Connick Jr rode on one float – he was mere FEET from me! – and Taylor Dane, who performed later. Sean Payton was there, drunk off his rear and carrying his heavily fingerprinted trophy. We caught tons of throws at this parade – at one point, the Moon Pie float got stopped right in front of us. I’ll never forget the look on my tuxedoed husband’s face as he stood on that platform and experienced his life’s dream – a never-ending shower of moon pies. It was a juxtaposition the delightfulness of which I can’t describe, and I think it’s the perfect representation of New Orleans – tuxedo pockets full of Mardi Gras beads and moon pies.
Eventually, the parade ended, and we sat down to enjoy Taylor Dane’s show. I knew every single song, I’m happy to report – it was 80s fabulous. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Smash Mouth were set to play later in the evening, but it was getting close to 2am and we had a $10 an hour babysitter to pay, so we headed home before they came on. We set our alarms for 7am the next morning, and crawled our exhausted selves into bed.
And 7am came, way too soon – 6:30 for us, as Jack decided to be an early riser. We skipped showers, just got dressed in the clothes we’d wisely laid out the night before, bundled the babies in several layers as it was effing FREEZING out there, slathered sunscreen on our faces, and piled into the car once more. We headed up to Napoleon to watch our last two parades of the season – Rex and Elks. Luckily we got there early enough to leap into a primo spot, right in the front, and then parked the kids in the wagon to wait for a couple of hours before the parades would roll. This was a challenge, especially to my unrested pregnant self. I finally just let Jack run up the street. I followed close behind, keeping him from running straight into people’s houses, and he stopped to dance at every place that had a boombox. There were some amazing setups – one group had a huge L-shaped couch, three ladders, two grills, several tables, and a rented portapotty in their little area, which they taped off with police tape. Made our little wagons and camp-chairs scenario look downright amateur.
Rex is THE parade, the original New Orleans Mardi Gras parade, with the king of Mardi Gras’s first appearance. After trying to entertain the kids for hours, we adults were just as excited as they were when the first floats finally came into view. Jack let out an excited stream of baby babble, pointed, waved, screeched, and overall lost his mind when he saw them on the horizon. Then he immediately held up his hands and whispered "woooo" and I died, right there on the spot. Ella fell asleep just as it started, though it was long enough that she woke to catch the end. After Rex, we had lunch, and then along came Elks. Elks is a truck parade – so no floats, just flatbed trucks decorated by different groups. They aren’t as elaborate, and the riders tended to be less enthusiastic – half of them were texting people as they went by. We stuck around for it, though, because Clif’s family was riding in it on truck 21, and we had to wait to get lots of stuff dumped on us by adoring grandparents and granduncles. 70 trucks later, as truck 95 was cresting the horizon and no end in sight, we gave up on seeing the end of Elks, and dashed through between trucks so we could get to our car and go home. 100 trucks is about 70 trucks too many for anybody, but especially our weary children.
That was our last parade. That evening, we headed back over to the Westbank to enjoy gumbo and King Cake at a big family gathering, and ended up following a parade over the bridge, making a 20 minute drive take over an hour. It was at this point that I thanked the heavens it was Fat Tuesday and the nonsense was almost over.
After a lovely family meal – they welcomed us tangential, related-by-distant-marriage family as if we were long lost cousins and fed us gumbo and sandwiches til we exploded – we drove home. And we all went to bed at about 9:00.
And that is the story of our first Mardi Gras.