A Gras Weekend

Parades everywhere.

I suppose we haven't made it clear, and if you never live in New Orleans, you would never know. Mardi Gras is not the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is a season. Beginning at least 3 weekends before the day itself, New Orleans celebrates with regular parades and festivals (I suppose we know it as Carnival). And by regular, I mean that the library closes an hour early every day this week to accomodate the parades.

Everybody loves the parades well enough that the same people will tell us again and again "THIS is the parade you need to see." A few days after that one, they say "THIS is the parade you HAVE to see." And they disagree. And some of them will consider one parade famous, and others another, and they may not concede any credibility to another's claim.

Well, we really just figured this out, so we've been seeing parade after parade after parade. We saw two on Saturday and one on Sunday and then I said "STOP" before the 2nd one on Sunday. I felt paraded out. It's more stressful than you might think. Suddenly, you're pelted with hundreds of beads, which are shiny and bright, and you want them because everybody else wants them, and then you have them, and then your neck is too heavy to hold up, and you fall to the ground, and the children scurry to your prone corpse and loot the body.

Sunday was all about that. We went to Family Gras (Fat Family - very Supersize Me) to volunteer with Amia* (names have been changed to protect the innocent) at the Al Copeland Foundation booth (which is raising money for cancer research). While there we saw a genre of performers that I had no idea existed - pre-fame pop singers. Hilary Duff-esque, Justin Timberlake-esque... I had no idea people could be small time tweeny boppers. Stina also realized and told me that there was a legend on stage. It was true. None other than Monkees hottie Davy Jones performed some of the greatest songs of one of the earliest and greatest made-up bands. WOOT!

Going back in time, on Saturday we met the muppetiest dog in the city. His name is Bailey, and he's one quarter Shitzu, three quarters Maltese, 100% Jim Henson. He lives with Matt, against whom and whose friends Stina and I dominated game day. (Settlers: Stina 1st Place, Brendan 2nd, Munchkin: Brendan 1st Place, Stina 2nd, Scrabble: Team Brendan and Stina 1st Place, Lunch Money: Stina 1st Place, Brendan 2nd)