The Big Easy: Week One - Mardi Gras

The manner in which we've entered cities has developed significance for me. Leaving Portland was reminiscent of arriving as Bobby and I lugged about 200 lbs of luggage up and down hills. I ran ahead to stall the bus while he made circles, slowly bringing our luggage forward in groups. This seemed to reflect my experience with getting around in Portland as a whole, despite their intricate bus system...work was a 2 hour commute, often in chilly rain, one way.
Entering New Orleans was automatically easier because we were driving my newly re-purchased, salvaged, now-a-bit-banged-up Saturn! Perfect for street parking during Mardis Gras - go ahead and hit it, we don't care!
I digress...entering New Orleans, although in a car, was not exactly easy. Torrential downpour and tornado warnings gave the area a very volatile feel, as if the whole area was unstable and unpredictable.
We were arriving during the height of Mardis Gras, as evident by a bunch of college boys dressed as women standing outside of a bar at the end of our road. Later that night, another group decided to celebrate their drunken manliness with Indian war whoops in a little circle in front of our bead-decorated house.
The next day, my brother and sister-in-law arrived and we headed out the the parades. How do I describe Mardis Gras? The sheer number of people lining the streets excites you, and the feel of party wafts through the air. The freeway heading into the city is backed for miles and beads are found in the most unexpected places...strung on telephone wires, in tree branches, and through rod-iron fences. Celebrating supersedes work, by a LOT, in this town.
We picked our way through the chairs and grills and began walking through the streets, when all of a sudden a tidal wave of vendors, pulling carts with cotton candy or hats and toys, came rushing towards us. I knew something was about to begin when a vendor brushed off little girl trying to purchase a wad of cotton candy in his rush to get away from...something. We found a front row spot (literally, this was so close that I was millimeters from being hit by a spinning baton and cymbal on two different occasions). We waited. A limo flanked by police cars blowing their horns drove through. We waited. More police cars. Waited....then came the police on horses. About eight of them sat for about 10 minutes and when they finally moved, everyone cheered. The parade had begun.
And then the horse pooped directly in front of us. And then, the parade began in earnest.
Our Mardis Gras mission was clear - we, and the people pressing to our right and left, had to warn the parade dancers, musicians, and others passing by. It went pretty well, until we saw the approach of the marching band spanning the length of the road and knew they were doomed. But Mardi Gras goes on, even as the poo got spread and trampled further and further. The noise of the trumpets and drums in your ear; the sparkly costumes of the steppers with their pompom boots, and of-course the bead-laden floats. They probably could solely keep China in business. The amazing part is, how much excitement they can generate in you to want to capture these beautiful shiny brightly colored bead flying through the air, which will serve absolutely NO purpose once you get them home. Not so much the average beads, but every once in a while, they'll throw out special beads...ones with rubber skulls strung through, or grotesquely over-sized ones. These go to the loudest, or closest, or cutest parade-attendees. Most valuable of all, perhaps, are the Zulu parade's coveted painted coconuts. You'll hear people yelling "coconut" or go up to policemen on horses with sacks full of goodies, begging for a coconut. My own moment of glory came when I made eye contact with a floater (person throwing stuff from a float). I maintained the eye contact, knowing that he would throw me the prized non-bead object in his hand if he looked too long (out of guilt, probably). He did, and it was a golden coconut! Seconds after getting it, people cheered and the girl behind me offered to buy it from me. One floater was supposedly willing to trade two Heineken for a coconut. You think I'm being overly-dramatic, but they really suck you in with the noise, decorations, and lights. Bobby and Andy had me so loaded with beads one night that my neck was hurting and I was begging them to stop.
It is fun though.
The other side of Mardis Gras has to be the costumes. On Fat Tuesday, if you're not dressed oddly (and age does not negate this fact) then you will be out-of-place. Anything goes, although down in the French Quarter, the weirder and more creative the better. There wasn't really a theme for costumes...men dress as women, women as fairies...I found Waldo, Obama, A Hooters Girl (man)...it didn't matter.
What perhaps surprised me most was that, although their were lots of publicly open alcoholic drinks, the majority of Mardis Gras really was a family affair. Children played football in the streets and were hoisted on parent's shoulders when the parades began. Family's camped out and grilled all day. Granted, Bourbon Street had a bit of a different feel, but I didn't see one female exposure (at least from the front). Had we stayed out much later than 9 pm on Fat Tuesday, that may have been a different story. Only the partiers with the most endurance or strongest chemical "enhancement" would have lasted through five full days of partying and kept going into that night.
I'm sure they're all fasting for Lent now...

Portland, Oregon: The City of Niceness

It really is the city of Niceness, I tell you. It's similar to Portand, Maine, in that people are down-to-Earth, active, and outdoorsy...but here people are over-the-top nice. If you tell them that, they'll just say that you must be putting it out there to receive it. How sweet!
Well, there's a lot that I've missed since my last blogger. We left Duke, visited snowy ole Syracuse for testing (they already have had 70 inches this year up there, I hear), then proceeded to return to PA for the holidays where we wrecked one car and took the other one to the shop 3 times. Needless to say, we decided not to drive across country as originally planned.
Instead we bought one-way plane tickets, took a light rail, bus, and hiked almost a mile carrying mounds of luggage. I thought my arms were going to fall off at the elbows.
Christmas was nice though...mainly it was filled with playing games with Kt and Phil and the rest of Bobby's family as well as some of the stress of looking for a new car (post-poned that). We've graduated from Pitch onto the threshold of feisty card games like Bridge and Canasta or Pinnacle....I have no idea of their names, nor how to play them (yet) but I know that I associate most of them with smoking older women with Brooklyn accents.
Anyhoo, this is an exciting time for us because the final leg of our journey is here. TWO more rotations to go and our dreams of an income and our own place and no more living out of boxes and suitcases will be realized! I'll be able to have a garden and spices and a sound night of sleep....and all my clothing available to wear. Little as they seem, these are some of the things I miss. And Bobby will know which drawer the silverware is in (you start mixing it up after so many houses). So, we're putting out applications and praying.
Portland will be a different sort of rotation, since we're living with a lady and her early-20s son and don't have a car (already annoying). Lots of the people here are into board sports, like even the cardiac surgeon is an avid snowboarder, and there's that laid-back Western "go for it" attitude that I love. Portland is clean. It's evergreen and house dotted hills, landscaped by a couple of volcanic snow-covered mountains melting into the sky. It's the perfect place to start experimenting with soups and rustic breads from scratch...mmm. I'm interested in cooking more than ever right now (thanks, KT, my fearless inspiration!). Yep, made my first beef soup yesterday and it was good!
Well, I suppose that I will leave off there.
Sorry I've been so MIA and hope you all are doing well.
K&B