Mardi Gras season in New Orleans

We have survived our first Mardi Gras season in New Orleans. A few thought, reflections, and images.

First off, Mardi Gras is generally nothing like what you see on COPS. So just get that image out of your head right now.

Mardi Gras is indeed a season here, starting at the end of the 12 days of Christmas and runs until midnight of Mardi Gras night, which marks the start of Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras as celebrated in the U.S. was actually begun in Mobile, Alabama, and is a riff on the European (and then Caribbean) Carnival celebrations. You can use Wikipedia to get the details. Here, MG is closely tied in with "coming out" balls, and since the beginning of the year you'd find pictures of the new debutantes in each copy of the newspaper. The photos demonstrate the dichotomy of New Orleans: There were balls for white girls and there were balls for black girls, but never, ever did you find both in the same group. In fact, some of the oldest groups stopped parading because they were being forced not to discriminate.

My first taste of the season was literally that, when one of my coworkers brought along king cake to our biweekly meeting. It's pretty much a cinnamon-roll dough with icing and sugar on top and comes in various flavors. The praline gets high marks as does the plain. Because the beginning of the year also began my effort to whip my ass in shape, I avoided king cake when I could.

As time passed, the visibility of MG increased exponentially. At first, it was a few decorations on office doors at work or garlands around columns on the homes of the rich and the shameless on St. Charles. Then, you'd see beads dangling from chain-link fences, strings of lights in MG colors (green, gold, and purple), giant masks on the sides of homes. You also heard a lot of commercials on the radio for "throws" (the beads and other cheap paraphernalia tossed during the parades, for which members of the parading organizations have to purchase themselves), king cakes, banquet halls, etc.

The first parades around the area began around the beginning of February, mainly in the communities outside the metro area. But they came up in conversation a lot, in terms of attendance and avoidance. Parades can, and do, close down major thoroughfares for entire days, so if you need to be somewhere on parade days, it takes planning. As an example, my knitting group didn't meet last Saturday because one of the "super krewes," Endymion, for which people began sitting out to save their viewing spots 2 days in advance, passed right in front of the coffee shop where we meet. Because I live away from the main parade routes (and because most of the big parades have been forced out of the neighborhoods onto those main routes), I didn't have many problems, although I postponed some necessary trips to the mall. On MG day, most offices, gyms, and businesses other than restaurants are closed because it is so hard to get around. We were rather surprised, however, to find that even the postal service is closed that day.

The first parade we attended was the Mystic Krewe of Barkus, the dog krewe. (Human escorts are allowed, and indeed, required, though.) The king and queen of the krewe are always rescues, and the event raises funds for the Animal Rescue League and other groups. Before the event is a big party with music, booths from local shops and organizations, and music, in the park where the parade starts, just north of the French Quarter. We took Molly and Tristan, but left Mischa at home because she's so small. Tristan was a bit overwhelmed by everything, although he only got ugly with one dog. Molly, meanwhile, had a fabulous time and just wanted to see everything and sniff everyone. We garnered several bags of kibble samples to use as treats, a poop-bag holder, and a variety of other things for free. We skipped costumes for the dogs, though Molly was wearing a lovely strand of teal beads.


There are also local krewes that parade around the neighborhood. Ours is Krewe of O.A.K., which parades from bar to bar in the Riverbend/Carrollton area, my 'hood. Walking the Friday night before M.G., they always start and end at the Maple Leaf Bar. Among the regular marchers are a group called the Krewe of the Rolling Elvi, the Pussyfooters (of which our realtor is a founding member), and the Bearded Oysters. O.A.K. was neat because it's local, so we recognized participants and spectators, including an elderly woman I know from the dog park. However, because I was in the bathroom when the parade took off, I actually missed seeing the total congregation. Best costumes of the night had to have been the two friends who came dressed as Michael Phelps (on a box of Wheaties) and his bong. Never have I seen such a creative use of cardboard, tinfoil, and a shower curtain.

We also went to Bacchus, one of the super-krewes. Thanks to a friend, we had front-row seats. (Her work, my hair salon, rents a balcony on St. Charles every year, and employees can invite friends and family.) King Bacchus this year was Val Kilmer (Bacchus and Endymion are two of the only krewes to crown a nonmember as king). The scooter made travel that day fairly painless, as we could squeeze past traffic and park much closer to where we needed to be than anyone in a car could (this was good, because I was wearing cute leather boots that weren't made for urban hiking).

We arrived close to the parade start time, but because the start was a couple miles away, it didn't reach us until an hour later. (Hint for anyone attending MG in the future: When you start seeing the Entergy trucks and the police, the parade has started.) We took advantage of the cash bar to get some Irish coffees, because it was more than a bit nippy, especially once the sun went down. I was bundled in two shawls (wearing my MG shirt underneath), but the spouse was all pirated up in a fairly thin shirt. Luckily, he had the presence of mind to layer a t-shirt under it. (Incidentally, the gorgeous woman in the pic with me is Laura, our hostess.)

Because of higher vantage point on the balcony, we were sort of a target for the large floats because they could throw beads up at us rather than down toward the folks at street level. I started out the evening by catching a bag of beads thrown by King Bacchus himself, which were promptly shared with everyone else on the balcony.

The parade included the big floats interspersed between high school marching bands, local dignitaries, and the Flambeauxs. Useful knowledge: You're supposed to throw coins at the Flambeauxs. The bands all made my feet hurt, because they march in that exaggerated HBCU style. Plus, their twirlers and flag corps folks all had taps on their boots, which are a bitch to march in.

Like most parades, there was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait involved, which sometimes meant that a float was in front of us for 5 minutes or more.

As the evening progressed, I was amazed to see how into my non-sporting guy got into bead catching. In part because of our prime location and in part because of his efforts, we came home with a lot of beads, including two bags that were never opened. (You can actually recycle your beads -- take them to a drop-off point, where they go to an organization for developmentally disabled adults, who sort and repackage the beads for next year.)

The parade ran about 3 hours, from the time it hit our viewing spot to until the last few floats. We actually left just a few minutes early, to try to beat the crowds. We did a tolerable job, because we had just hopped on the scooter as the parade ended. It took us about 20 minutes to get home (normally it would have taken 10). We had to deal with angry dogs, whose dinner was 2 hours late, and we were both bone-weary, but we had a blast.

We missed all of the Tuesday parades because we slept in, but we got to experience a bit of it by checking out the costumes of our fellow diners at the Vietnamese place down the street, later that evening. Perhaps next year we'll make it for the big celebration in the Quarter. (We are told that it's one of those things you should experience at least once and then you don't have to do it again, much like the 4th of July on the Mall in D.C.) I'll have to start pondering costume options now.