It's the greatest Mardi Gras Ever!

Because there aren't so many tourists in town singing karaoke with their frat buddies and peeing on people's houses and stuff. Now if only we could get the freaking weather to cooperate.
Also in today's Times-Pic, it seems that even Rex has forsaken those classic cheap little plastic strands of beads that remind me of the Carnival of my childhood. Parade goers are so spoiled nowadays. No one has time to fiddle with snap on beads anymore.

Another year, another lost memory I guess.

Last night was exhausting. The police are suddenly enforcing a previously unbeknownst to me ordinance which prohibits canine attendance at parades. Our rather late discovery of this rule via rude shouting cops who you'd think would have something better to do, necessitated a long walk to bring Susie, who didn't really want to be there anyway, home to Daisy's place.

So we saw most of Babylon and Chaos while on the long walk back. Chaos, it seems, is more or less a front organization by which the no longer parading Momus can skirt the city's anti-discrimination ordinance. Chaos uses the old Momus floats and follows the Momus tradition of staging a satirical parade. Last night's theme was "Chaos Spins the Beatles." The parade made fun of local news and politics while tying them to puns on Beatles songs. One float, for example was titled "Don't Let Me Drown" and was decorated with reminders of this past year's ridiculous Hurricane Ivan evacuation.

Tonight: Hermes opens the big weekend with one of the bigger parades of the season. It will be followed by Le Krewe d'Etat which promises more satire.