mardi gras

[oiran]

Whether it's a travel residual or a symptom of my mental health diagnosis, I'm full of the certainty that something marvelous is happening and that I could/should/would be at the bright center of it if only I hadn't had to leave for home. Eventually, this will wear off, and I'll be back in my usual sulk.

Mardi Gras: Was it any fun? In retrospect, yes, though at the time I was frequently frustrated and/or bored by the limitations imposed on our movements by the parade schedules and routes. I wasn't exactly unaware that patience isn't my strong suit, but I did find waiting for parades to start to be unduly taxing. The longer I stood, the more my back hurt, and the more my personality sucked, and the Mr. is to be commended for putting up with me. However, once the parades were underway, I was as happy as anyone else to wave my arms around and beg for beads. Between the Mr. and myself, we ended up with probably 70 pounds of shiny plastic trinkets, of which we shipped 30 pounds home, and which is at least 29 pounds more beads than we will ever need. My favorite parades were Muses (the all-female krewe, shoe-themed beads and general shininess) and Orpheus (beautiful floats, source of my three precious strands of glass beads), though Hermes gets points for being extra-generous with the swag and Krewe D'Etat is notable for their jester-skull beads and overall bony themes.

On Mardi Gras day itself, we got up at 4:30 AM in hopes of catching up with Skeleton Krewe actually en route. These hopes were ultimately dashed, but by that point we were too tired to care. I was, unfortunately, too exhausted to really appreciate the spectacle of hundreds of people in costume outside R Bar just standing around or moving with more or less purpose in various walking parades. We missed the big parades (Zulu, Rex) entirely in favor of taking a nap. There was no coffee, but I did have a jello shot at 6:30 AM, plus more alcohol in its wake, which probably contributed to the napping.

We got to hang out with some wonderful people—old friends Doug, Shelly, and their little girl Coco, and new friends Meg and Andy, who cooked for us, and ferried us around on Tuesday, as well as Sean and Anna, and Kevin, who is part of Skeleton Krewe and just generally awesome. I might (heart) Kevin a little bit.

Places to eat: Dick & Jenny's, which is an old favorite, and Cowbell, which is both new to us and new in general. Also, breakfast at Surrey's. While everyone else was eating steak at Dickie Brennan's, I was drinking The Prisoner (2009), which I would recommend to anyone who likes rich reds with plenty of sting.

Midweek, I was pretty sure I'd never do Mardi Gras again; now, I'm pretty sure I would. As I'd feared, I did end up feeling kind of like an asshole without a costume, and next time I'd definitely wear at least a hat.

(apologies if this looks wonky - there are a ton of unintended font tags that somehow got into the coding that I can't seem to fix)