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Reply to "Mardi Gras in New Orleans 2007 - KREWE YORK"

Doesn't Daddy look all Velasquez and all?

Here's my report on this year's KREWE YORK.

Whenever we're in New Orleans, we wander around dazed with love for all the unique, eternal things and people you find there:

The old queen wearing nothing but a jockstrap stumbling home at 10:30 AM on Ash Wednesday, in the Lower Quarter.

The new (to us) restaurant we ate in, Muriel's, with its resident "prominent ghost", Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, who lost the house in 1815, but has been seen there fifty times this decade alone. Delicious food BTW.

The TSA Agent at Louis Armstrong airport saying "Y'all come back soon and see us, baby"

And of course, St. Anne.

The parade began with a giant contretemps, which immediately reassured me that Marigny/Bywater was back to normal - the same Divine Pettiness that marks other great towns as well - Provincetown immediately comes to mind. They actually published two conflicting parade routes, then chose which one to use as they went - Royal Street, my favorite route. I hope no one was waiting for us at Chartres and Esplanade, but we saw everyone but you Ms Blue, hope you had a great day.

Got to walk quite a ways with Abby, catching up. She was resplendent in pink satin and purple ribbons and jewelry made of candy. She seems happy being a West Coast girl now - I actually hadn't seen her since last year's St. Anne!

Right before Canal Street, about two hours into the parade, we pined for a cocktail and decided to duck into the Monteleone Hotel's lobby bar. It seems like a hundred completely decked St. Anne folks all had the same idea, and it was so much fun to be in an entire room of people dressed as elaborately and lovingly as JD and myself - AND have seats, bloody marys, and a bloody cigarette too!

Exited the hotel - had missed Rex this year and the heinous truck parades were already rolling for the bead grumpsters on Canal. Suddenly, Johnny spied one of the huge, beribboned hoops turning the corner. We fell into the hardcore of St. Anne as they made the annual pilgrimage to the river. Though it was our fourth St. Anne parade, we had never made it to the very end before. It was solemn, joyful, incredibly overdressed, with the partially crossdressed Storyville Stompers playing "I'll Fly Away" as the krewe filled the stairs right down to the mighty Mississipi, to leave the ashes of the "dearly departed". And a phalanx of Coast Guard boats with machine guns ready were also on the river with us. I'm sure they enjoyed the spectacle.

Afterwards, Bourbon was almost its pre-K nightmare packed self, but it's great, because all the nightmares WANT to be there. Like finds like, ya no? We scurried towards Marigny, and were served by a delightful waitress at Mona's, which was also filled with St. Anne and like-minded folk. We ate like pigs after the five-hour St. Anne experience. Frenchmen Street later on seemed emptier this year, but still riveting and filled with everyone from JCs to Ancient Faeries. As predicted, out at noon and home by midnight, All On A Mardi Gras Day.

I'll post again when the pics go up on the St. Anne website.
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