Marching On

Over the last month since my last post, I've Pussyfooted in 2 parades, marched in another, watched a ton of parades, celebrated my birthday, attended 2 more Mardi Gras Balls, bought a car, ate 2 monstrous corn dogs, went camping and continue to battle the crud. Pshew, no wonder I'm still tired. AND now trying to clear out Mardi Gras stuff to make way for St. Patrick's Day.

First of my new car! A Rav 4 I've named Barry White from Lakeside Toyota. The Rav4 and Honda CRV were my top two picks, both highly rated. My experience at Lakeside Toyota (ask for Mike Chosa) was far superior to the one I had at Royal Honda plus, it's closer to where I live for servicing. I love it!

Our float. From https://www.facebook.com/NewOrleansLocal

This year, the Krewe of SPANK got to march first (after the title and royalty float) in the Krewe du Vieux parade. Our float and throws, especially the Dizneylandrieu Map, were highly coveted and beloved by the media. The weather wasn't bad and the crowds were big but polite this year.
More photos: NewOrleansLocal.com, nola.com, Offbeat.com and NolaDefender.com. We had Loki, a "GoogleGlassHole," with us and he took still photos and video of the parade.

In my previous post I said I was going to Pussyfoot in 3 parade. The first was Carrollton on 2/23 and it was a deluge. I was in denial it would rain, and never imagined it would rain as hard as it did. But we danced on and there were still people along the parade route! Every single piece of clothing I was wearing was soak through. Our new corsets bled pink dye all over everything that wasn't already pink. It was insane. I had been feeling better before this day but after that my cold came back. I dropped out of the Nyx parade and didn't even watch it. It was a cold, damp night and I decided it wasn't a good idea for me to be outside. Plus, the next day was my birthday!

The deluge! But we smiled and danced the whole parade.

The Krewe of Muses parade rolled on my birthday and I watched it over at our good friend's who always have an open house for it. The rest of Mardi Gras was a blur as I recovered from the crud.

Mardi Gras Madness - Part 1 - Krewe du Vieux

For the past few years G and I have been in a subkrewe of Krewe du Vieux (KdV), the Krewe of PAN. Our original subkrewe was suspended (looong story) but we reformed with some of the other members and got conditionally accepted into KdV as Krewe of SPANK. (See what we did there?) KdV doesn't normally accept new subkrewes but we were an exception. G was elected co-captain of SPANK and I secretary. Since being accepted in September, we've been super busy getting by-laws written (ugh) getting incorporated, filling up membership, collecting dues. The unique thing about KdV is each subkrewe comes up with their own theme, decorates their own float, comes up with and/or makes their own throws and costumes. However our float was stolen out of the den (another long story, we have an idea who took it) so we had to improvise. Luckily one of our members had a mule drawn carriage lying around (only in New Orleans, right?) so we used that. All the floats are pulled by mules or people.

The weather was fantastic that evening (never a given) so the crowds were huge but pretty well behaved (also, not a given). We had a blast marching through the Marigny and Quarter accompanied by the Lagniappe Brass band, winging penalty flags at the crowds and handing out other throws. Doug McCash, art critic for the T-P said our penalty flag throws were the best of the parade. Woot!

Here's a few pics, more can be seen here.

Moi with a "Vilma for Mayor" sign.
©Ride Hamilton

Our "float" ©Ride Hamilton

G marching. ©Ride Hamilton

Grassroots Mardi Gras marching groups opt for spunk and sparkle over pomp and prestige
Published: Thursday, March 03, 2011, 9:00 AM
By John Pope, The Times-Picayune
Article in the T-P about marching groups with great photos of the Pussyfooters and other groups.

NOTE: The Pussyfooter started 10 years ago, before Katrina. :-)

Slide show of photos from the shoot above.

Krewe du Vieux 2011

G and I are in Krewe of PAN and sub-Krewe of Krewe du Vieux and our parade was Saturday. Unlike the huge super-krewe who pay professionals to make their floats and costumes we all do it all ourselves. Our theme this year was "S'il Vous Played" and everyone costumed as a huckster, sham artist, what have you. There were several meter maids, garbage collection agencies, corrupt politicians, card sharks and mimes. The crowds this year were huge! Probably because the weather was mild. It's usually freezing cold for our parade.

I was a fortune teller.

Our float. The hands were motorized.

G as a politician.

A great video of us appears on YouTube:

You don't have to be crazy to live here but it helps.

I survived my trip, but just barely. Day two I went on a rafting trip. The river was running high, fast and very cold due to all the snow melt. We hit a rapid the wrong way and everyone got thrown from the raft except the guide. Two manged to swim to shore, me and another guy got pulled back into the raft. Never been so cold in my life. Scared the shit out of me and I got some lovely bruises. One guy twisted his ankle really bad. But we all were OK and we only lost 3 baseball caps and one paddle.

That white stuff is snow, my friends. Up to our knees in some places.

It's always interesting to travel-you realize just how dysfunctional yet unique New Orleans really is. The first week of my trip was small spent in small, charming mountain towns in the southern half of Colorado. One day were were so high up in the mountains that the snow still hadn't melted. The second week I was in Denver for a conference. Denver is huge and flat. Who knew? It's very clean and there's a good mix of older buildings and new ones. I thought "this is what it's like to live in a town with a robust tax base." I like the funk of New Orleans though, and Denver seems like it tries too hard. My friend and I visited Pearl Street, billed as "unique shops, excellent dining and community minded businesses nestled in a delightful, pedestrian and pet friendly setting." All three blocks of it. Whatever. It pales compared to Magazine Street which is 6 miles long full of shops, restaurants, bars and galleries.

Cute, mountain town of Silverton.

I did have an interesting experience. I have friends in Denver and they picked me up from my downtown hotel and took me to their house for dinner. I was there for about 5 minutes when the power went out. It was a very hot day so we all assumed it was a brownout. But it stayed out. Thankfully they lived within walking distance of some restaurants so we headed out. This was no brownout, traffic lights were also out. My friend pulled up the news on her Blackberry - an electrical substation had exploded and thousands of people were out of power! We were lucky there was an area near by that had power and we were able to have dinner. They took me back to my hotel around 9pm and it was creepy. It was dark, no lights, no traffic lights - very reminiscent of parts of New Orleans after Katrina - plus smoke. Thankfully downtown had power so my hotel wasn't affected.

Getting back to crazy; I come home to extreme heat and humidity, the start of hurricane season and the on-going oil "spill" in the gulf. I won't lie, it was a relief to be away from all the bad news for a while. As well as away from the humidity. But we do find ways to distract ourselves and make it worth it to live here: incredible food, amazing music, copious amount of booze available 24/7, the laissez faire attitude, Mardi Gras, festivals and other crazy things. For example, I just found out today I got accepted into the Pussyfooters, one of the female dance troupes. There are others; Camel Toes Steppers, Bearded Oysters and The Muffalottas. I also play on a Skee Ball team every Thursday. Excuse me, it's a skee ball and drinking league. The guy who formed the league just made this great video. I'm a member of two Mardi Gras krewes, so I get to dress up in costumes and parade through the street with a drink in my hand, throwing stuff at people-it's really a hoot. If you are thinking "grow up" then you don't have the right attitude to live here. Yes, people do have jobs, pay bills, own homes and raise families. We just like to have fun while being all grown up and responsible.

The morning after...


We had SO much fun with Krewe du Vieux and all the wonderful people of Krewe of PAN. Can't wait to do it again next year. However, today I am sore all over from walking, dancing and lugging a gym bag full of beads and throws. These photos were taken from a balcony on Royal street by G's cousin. I have a whole host of photos I took here.

The local rag, the T-P has a nice slide show of image from the parade. Our float made the front cover of the paper! Nice! VOO DAT!

Krewe du Vieux gets FIRED UP tonight!

After living in New Orleans for 17 years I am finally participating in my first Mardi Gras parade. G and I were invited to join the Krewe of PAN, a sub-Krewe of Krewe du Vieux, 2 weeks ago by Adrastos and Dr. A. It's been a very busy 2 weeks as we helped with the float (well, we mostly stood around, drank beer and held things when needed), created gris gris bags for throws and ran around town buying throws and parts for our costumes. Our Krewe's theme is VOO DAT and I will be dressed as a Miami Dophin voo doo doll. I'm glad I didn't decide to be a Saintsation cause it's gonna be bone chilling cold tonight! Therefore, you can be guarenteed the parade will move fast like last year. It's been fun getting to know the other krewe members and using our creative juices for some fun stuff. I'll post pics tomorrow.