Happy Mardi Gras!

It's Mardi Gras season, so it's hard to get much done around here right now. Most people are working on their costumes for the big day or hanging out with friends diving for beads at parades. It's amazing to me what a family and community-oriented event Mardi Gras is. Before living here, I thought that Mardi Gras was that gross thing of drunks and women flashing their breasts on Bourbon Street. That happens, too, trust me, but only on Bourbon Street. The parades that roll down St. Charles Avenue and along Canal Street are attended by families and children of all ages.
One of the devices I particularly like are wide viewing ladders that people set up so that the kids can sit above the crowd and see the floats --- and be strategically positioned to catch "throws." These ladders are generally about 3 feet wide, and they have a board across the top (between side railings) for sitting. The structures are positioned along the neutral ground, and they're an excellent tool for parade watching.
Yesterday, my friend Liz Lew and I went to see the NOMTOC parade, New Orleans Most Talked About Club, in Algiers. It was fun, although truly long and slow. We were fortunate to have a rooftop spot, so we had a pretty good view of all the bands and floats, but the power lines did deflect a large number of the beads and other throws hurled our way.
It started to rain during the parade, so we moved inside. At a certain point, since Liz wanted to get a printer cartridge, and I wanted to go to another friend's pre-parade brunch, we headed off on our bikes for the ferry. The rain, however, hadn't actually stopped.
So, we got to the ferry and hid under the walkway until it arrived. Unfortunately, at the same time, the rain grew more intense, turning the Mississippi River into a mist-covered, swirling expanse with more droplet-induced freckles than a tub in a shower.
When we reached the other side, I gave up on the idea of going to Liz's to do some porch sitting and have dinner, and I decided to strike out for home.
My glasses, which were covered with rain drops, were not particularly helpful, and the fact that the streets were flooded was also not encouraging. A clanging noise frightened me as a I approached St. Peters from Canal Street. It was a manhole cover that had come out of its rim and was bouncing up and down as water gushed out from the sewer. This was the first time I saw one of these on the way home, but not the last. This scary thing, however, was juxtaposed with the brassy call of a marching band that continued to wind it's way along Canal Street, in spite of the torrential rain.
Although the rain was pretty warm, I thought about what it must be like to go through a hurricane. No fun. I pedaled along at a pretty steady pace, but the water on the edge of the street would come up to the middle of my tire. Clearly the road sloped down from the middle, so I tried to stay as close to the high part as possible while leaving room for the cars that were also trying to get through.
One advantage to being on a bike in this, I have to say, was the knowledge that the water wasn't going to flood my engine.
Oh, I should mention that the garlands of Mardi Gras beads that I had collected at NOMTOC added an oddly cute clinking sound to this whole scene.
While I did manage to stay up long enough to peel off the beads and water-logged clothes to take a hot shower, I did completely crash into a long, afternoon nap, which, I guess, is part of what this whole Mardi Gras thing is supposed to be about.

From one low-lying, flood-prone city to another

I spent the last couple weeks of December with my Dad in Mestre, which is technically part of Venice, Italy. As I boarded my plane, the symmetry of leaving one city in danger of disappearing under water for another one in the same situation wasn´t lost on me.
Although I lived in Italy for 7 years in my 20s, I was struck by how many people were looking at me on the street. There are a few possible explanations for this: 1) my stunning good looks, 2) my lime-colored jacket, which stood out amongst all the conservative navy blue, gray and black coats, or 3) my typically American fashion which combines sneakers with everything, regardless of how poorly matched. It also occurred to me that I could just no longer be used to the kind of eye contact and checking out that goes on in a Latin country.
Venice had its most significant snow fall in probably 20 years while I was there, so I got to experience a winter wonderland, even if it wasn´t the typical setting for that. Now that I´m back here in New Orleans, we are getting the coldest weather the area has had for 14 years, and I´m thinking about all the hats, mittens and long underwear that I foolishly left in storage in New York. Oh well.
January 6th was the Epiphany, or, as people here call it, 12th night. The first Mardi Gras parade was held by the Krewe St. Joan of Arc. It was fun with people carrying candles in a parade and a couple of women dressed in medieval garb on horseback. The woman in the photo on the left is wearing a hat that says: heretic, relapsed, apostate, idolater.
Let´s just say that I can see how people could get hooked on this place.