All dem parades

Hey kids. Just thought I'd drop in to remind everyone how much I love you. And to let you know you can expect light posting (or at least drunken silly posting) from this space for the next week because it is carnival time in New Orleans. The truly beautiful thing about living here is that we take these two weeks to ignore all of the evil, the despair, the poverty and dirt and crime and corruption we live with in this city, the fact that A-Rod is a Yankee (WTF!!!) the George W Bushes, the fact that the Democrats are too spineless to nominate someone who can beat the George W Bushes, the Catholic Church in general these days, the fact that your dog died, or your rent is overdue, or the girl just doesn't love you, or.. whatever because we're too busy celebrating. The only real problem for the next eight days is figuring out where you're going to pee. Actually, I've had that one solved for a few years now ever since I moved into my current apartment... which has its problems but is located one block from the Uptown parade route. Thus, I hardly miss anything anymore. This year is particularly fun because it is Daisy's first Mardi Gras and I get to play tour guide. Execution of my duties in this role generally sounds something like this "There is the parade." "Here, drink this." "Yeah, I need to pee too." It's a great time, man.

Summary of weekend 1:

• Got really really wet watching the Krewe of Oshun roll through a steady downpour Friday night. Didn't mind. In fact, we were delighted. D caught her first beads. They were gay. I caught a short plastic sword and engaged the nearest twelve year old in an Errol Flynn imitation contest.



• Got wet again watching Pontchartrain and Shangri La on Saturday. Delighted to do so once more. The rain keeps the crowd sparse and manageable allowing the hard-core idiots like us to catch more stuff. Caught a stuffed puppy dog. Gave it to Consuela.



• Braved the cold on Saturday night to see Sparta and Pegasus. Bought a hot dog and a funnel cake from the gypsy-carnie-street-vendor type people. Much more fun when you don't have to hold an umbrella. Caught a bean bag football.



• Sunday morning began with the house rattling. Turns out the people who live across the street had set up a large sound system in their front yard through which they began pumping Urban Contemporary hits directly into poor Consuela's bedroom. She had worked until 4am the previous evening and was scheduled to work that night. Needless to say, she was not pleased. I was secretly amused, however, due to the fact that the music existed only to promote the fact that the neighbors were offering off street parking in their back yard for $15.00 a car. The DJ announced this by singing "Off-street parking" over the words of most of his playlist. This became a running joke for the rest of the afternoon as I "entertained" r and Goldschmidt by singing these lyrics over every (and I mean every) marching band in the day's parades. Beautiful (if a bit chilly) weather all day. Watched Krewes of Carrollton, (lots o' bands) King Arthur, and Bards of Bohemia. Bards had trouble raising the necessary funds to roll this year.. and it showed. r says, "They just didn't care did they." It was ok though, they threw a lot.

Tonight, the postponed from Friday Krewe of Pygmalion rolls at 6:45. Happy Mardi Gras everybody.