Wednesday, February 09, 2005

It was a long day capping off a short season. Yesterday, I got up at 6:00am to tidy in advance of the open house for our fellow St. Anne revelers, took the hounds on a nice, long walk, laced myself into costume, and as the parade was passing, locked up and began the march to Canal.

St. Anne took a different route this year, bypassing a large swath of Royal Street that usually wreaks havoc on the parade because of bottlenecking and huge crowds. Although I was skeptical at first, I have to say, it worked much, much better. We hit Canal Street just as Rex was arriving, had a small but frustrating confrontation with some tourist bitch/idiot, then after watching a dozen cracker-iffic floats (the themes of which were so completely obscure that they must have been designed to raise awareness of an as-yet-unannounced exhibition of seventh century Cambodian pottery at the New Orleans Museum of Art), we headed off to fagland.

We didn't last long. Between the meager crowds (hotels were only at 80% occupancy), the minimal costuming in the gay quarter (attention, bignellymarys of the world: going shirtless with camo pants doesn't count as a costume), my aching feet, and the fact that my yoga instructor has been kicking my ass lately, I was ready to go, and so was you-know-who.

The weather, which had cooperated for most of the day, finally let loose with a little rain as we neared the house, but nothing major. We got back, undressed, had a few people over for ziti (which I'd encouraged Jonno to make the night before, in anticipation of the need for hot, fattening food late on Fat Tuesday), and crashed. Pleasant and without incident: the way I like my Mardi Gras.

And yes, for the first time ever, I took pictures. I really enjoyed doing it, too. It's enough to make me re-think my costume for next year to allow for more of it. (New shoes are at the top of the redesign list: five-inch-platforms make me wobble.)

Among the pics: the boyfriend, some killer jellyfish outfits, and Elizabeth, winning the prize of the day for her "barfly" outfit. Truly inspired.

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