Top 10 Things to Know About Mardi Gras

The Top 10 Things You Need to Know About Mardi Gras(From Someone Who Isn't From Around Here)*

*Who, by the way, consulted absolutely no one before she made this list and who, incidentally, is completely uninterested in any arguments or corrections. So, there's that.

Disclaimer: I've been here for two Carnival seasons and I'm not really an expert but that isn't stopping me from telling you all about it. Most of y'all aren't from NOLA either, so you don't know any better and I'll gladly impart my knowledge upon you!!

First of all, YES that is Daryl from the Walking Dead on a Mardi Gras float. Zombies, I hope you enjoyed your hey day, because Daryl was too busy tossing beads to kill you. Which brings me to item #10 on my list of things to know:

#10. Celebrities Freaking Love Mardi Gras

It's true. Mardi Gras is as star-studded an event as any awards show. Celebs are always parading as grand marshals or krewe royalty or what have you. This year they include:

• Norman Reedus ("The Walking Dead")
• Ian Somerhalder ("Vampire Diaries")
• Carrie Underwood
• Hugh Laurie ("House")
• Will Smith
• Quentin Tarantino

Whatever. You get it. It's a big deal.

#9. King Cake: It's What's for Dinner

There's no escaping King Cake during Mardi Gras. It's the only time the treat is (*or SHOULD BE) available, so it's literally everywhere. Every office at work, in every store, handed out by strangers in the street. You can try to fight it, but why? IT'S SO GOOD!

If you are what you eat, then for two months of the year I'm purple, green, and gold sugar with a little pastry and cinnamon on the side.

#8. Context Is Everything

For those of you outside of New Orleans this time of year, you probably hand over plastic beads to little kids playing dress up and think of cheap stuffed animals as bad carnival prizes. Don't fret-- we feel that way, too. UNLESS, of course, that cheap trinket is thrown from a float. Suddenly it becomes precious as gold. Context, I tell you, is EVERYTHING.

And the bigger the trinket? Cheap though it may be, there will be BLOOD. Seriously, I almost fought an old man for a medallion. A plastic necklace with a plastic disc attached. And if it lights up? Oh, buddy. I NEED IT. 

#7. It's Good to Be Adorable

Seriously, you want to know who gets all the good stuff? Kids. And, less common but just and popular, nuns and adorable old ladies. As an average parade goer, your only option is to seek out these adorable folks and try to poach their throws. 

What? Don't judge me. I have no shame. The old folks have had their day and kids gotta learn sometime that life is hard.

There is, however, one less seedy option for getting the goods...

#6. Witty People Will Out

The only hope for the average Joe to get some goodies is to sport a witty or outrageous costume or make a witty sign. I want to be clear, I didn't make it to Muses this year (*work) so illustrating cartoon LeeAnne in this bit is just a pipe dream because I am so epically jealous of the woman who made this sign and got not one, not two, but SIX shoes. 

It gets boring up there (or so I'm told-- I've only ridden in a dinky Mardi Gras parade around campus, so I have no idea) so anything that catches a rider's eye, challenges them, or makes them laugh is win-win for all.

#5. Nothing Is Weird Here

I also considered naming #5 "Read carefully" because yes, you read right. If you read this warning in the Midwest, you'd probably be quite alarmed. Not here. It's everyday language.

I've said before that anything goes in NOLA. That goes double for Mardi Gras. 

#4. Plan Ahead

You best plan ahead, y'all, because you ain't getting anything done on Mardi Gras day. Grocery shopping? Nope. Run some errands? No way. Grab a bite to eat? Forget it! The entire city of New Orleans shuts down for Mardi Gras. It's a holiday at work-- the university is closed. But not anywhere else. Because everywhere else, it's Tuesday.

I take that back. Last year, we drove around for an hour or so until we found a little Thai joint that was open. That might not seem like much time, but considering how many restaurants there are per capita around here, that's plenty. Let's just say we passed a lot of "CLOSED" signs and our tummies rumbled for a long time.

#3. Mardi Gras Knows How to Jam

When you turn on the radio each winter, you know it's officially the holiday season by the time the sax solo chimes in to "Last Christmas." Christmas has a soundtrack hundreds of songs deep-- but I'm telling you: the holiday soundtrack doesn't end after that! Mardi Gras has a prolific list of songs itself. 

It's not Carnival without "Mardi Gras Mambo" or Professor Longhair's "Go to the Mardi Gras"-- these songs instill more holiday cheer than any Christmas carol.

Want to listen along? Here's a great Mardi Gras playlist on Spotify: New Orleans / Louisiana (Mardi Gras) music

#2. Master the Vocabulary

Sometimes I'm pretty sure that people here in New Orleans make up words just to see who will go along with it. That educated guess aside, there are a lot of words associated with Mardi Gras that I never used before moving here. Here's an extremely abbreviated list for you foreigners:

• carnival (or carnivale) - the official term for Mardi Gras season, from Twelfth Night (the twelfth day of Christmas matters here) through Mardi Gras day
• doubloons - coins some krewes give away; there's much debate as to their worth, but I like them until I inevitably lose them
• krewe - a group of folks who put on Carnival parades or balls (See also: Micro-krewe and Super Krewe)
• ladders - not just for home improvement jobs, special ladders with seats and wheels are set up for the little ones to sit on for a good viewing/catching spot
• Mardi Gras - officially, "Fat Tuesday" (the day before Ash Wednesday and Lent), but unofficially the name for the entire season
• micro-krewe - a "krewe" that puts on a smaller parade whose floats are often shopping carts, bikes, or small trailers. Chewbacchus is my favorite--it's sci-fi themed and goes right past my old place!
• riders - those nice masked folks who throw goodies at you
• super-krewe - a big ol' krewe with thousands of riders and double decker floats. Endymion is my favorite because their Pontchartrain Beach float is a gigantic, sparkly, fiber-optic paradise.
• throw - the goodies you get from Mardi Gras parades
• "Throw me something, mister!" - the Mardi Gras creed; may the throws be ever in your favor

#1. Do Whatcha Wanna!

Rebirth says it best: DO WHATCHA WANNA! Mardi Gras is all about having a great time! People are nicer during Mardi Gras than any other time of year. You look parched? Have a beer. You haven't caught anything? Have these glorious beads. You lost your phone? Why, here you are!

I digress to tell you my very own Mardi Gras miracle: On the way back from a parade route, a friend and I came across a track. OBVIOUSLY we had to race back to the car... and apparently fling my phone out of purse along the way. We discovered it was missing when we got back to the car and headed back to search. We called once and a gentleman had it and was waiting for someone to come looking for it.

That's right folks. He didn't steal it, break it, or ignore it. He figured someone would come back for it. 

Mardi Gras blessings upon that man-- may his car never be towed, may his beers always be cold, and may his kids catch the best throws from every parade.

Enough talk: It's Lundi Gras, y'all! HAPPY MARDI GRAS!!

Identity Crisis

Alright folks, it looks as though many of you anticipate an identity crisis in my future. New Orleans is going to make me an entirely different person?! That's news to me!

For those of you who don't know me well, let me paint you a picture (or crudely draw you a stick figure):

That's me. Pretty average, I know, but I like me a lot, so I'm happy with this picture.

What everyone else pictures, however, is a little more seedy (or depressing):

To be fair, my family also pictures me as this:

Copyright the History Channel

I have something else in mind:

Adventures in Moving

First and foremost, I'm spoiling you, you know. Don't get used to this posting-on-a-regular-basis business, because it's just not going to happen. I'll fall off the face of the planet again soon, don't worry! Mostly because:

I'm MOVING!

That's right, folks, I really am moving to New Orleans! I'm very excited for this life change!! 

Yay! Sunshine and rainbows and daisies!

...But the reality of moving has definitely set in.

Ugh. Sunshine and rainbows and daisies take up a lot of boxes. 

Don't worry too much about me, though. I'm very quickly approaching the final stage of moving: apathy.

Don't worry. Mostly I donate it all. Everything but the clothes on my back.

This whole process is definitely an emotional whirlwind (mostly because I am moving and all my favorite things about Ohio are not), but it's also been a great learning process for me. Even just looking for places to live, I've noticed how much I've grown over the past few years.

Who cares?! IT'S MY FIRST PLACE!!!

Ah. There's the bitterness of experience right there.

Overall, I'm proud of myself. What a relatively responsible way of looking at renting, right? (I did not use that spreadsheet by the way, but I did think of those things! I still get points for good intentions!)

But, of course, moving has also led me to intense judgement. What kind of person am I? So many questions...

Seriously. I've never smoked ANYTHING. How could I possibly like Pink Floyd THAT much?!

No. I don't have a drinking problem. I have a storage problem.

Five or six pounds of beads.

Not everything has been left a mystery to me, though. I've learned some things, too!

Every piece of trash has a story, dang it!

This shouldn't be in past tense. It's still on my fridge.

Ha cha cha.

Please don't actually nominate me for that show.

Hoarding's not so bad though, is it? Look for updates with more fun facts I'm learning about myself... who knew moving was such a developmental process?!

Happy Awkward Holidays, Vol. 2

I considered subtitling this post "Modge Podge and Glitter" instead, but in the spirit of "We Bought a Zoo," I decided to go with the most descriptive subtitle. The refined art of lacking subtlety or mystery is underrated these days.


Anyway, the prologue: Since college, my "girls" and I have been getting together for Christmas at Jill's parents' house to decorate for the holiday and all that. It's a fun tradition, similar enough each year to pull at our heart strings but evolving enough to keep us interested in attending. We exchanged gifts at first, and after two years of failing miserably at that, we switched to buying each other ornaments. I brought a craft for us to do last year, and after that was a success, we switched to each of us bringing in a craft. And that brings us to today's post.


You may not have caught that at first: EACH ONE OF US brought in a craft. That is a lot of crafting. 


WE CRAFTED FOR FOUR HOURS.

• Keep breast milk out unrefrigerated before it goes bad.
• Watch “Gone with the Wind” (3 hrs, 46 min).
• Run a marathon.
• Draw comics for your blog.
• Take an extra long nap.
• Work a day at a part-time job.
• Watch four episodes of “The Walking Dead.”
• Troll Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Etsy/your web-based procrastination station of choice.
• Build a living room’s worth of IKEA furniture.
• Not get a healthy amount of sleep. (6+ hours!)
• Build a shed.
• Digest and absorb a well-rounded meal (3-4 hours).
• Read a book.
• Go on a hot air balloon ride.
• Fly from London to the South of France.
• Read Life as LeeAnne Knows It. (Kidding. You’d have to read it about a dozen times to fill four hours!)
• Play a game of Risk or Monopoly or some other frustrating board game.
• CRAFT.

Don't get me wrong, I love crafting. My Pinterest DIY board makes me extremely happy.

I friggin' love Pinterest.

But crafting can get away from you. Some things are easy to do, some are difficult, but they all take time. Lots and lots of time.

180 Christmas crafts that would have been easier and less time-consuming than the ones we chose.

We started out with a simple, pre-packaged craft: jingle bell ornaments. Or, at least we thought it was simple.

Craft-induced identity crisis.

Needless to say, that didn't bode well for the remaining 3 hours and 56 minutes we spent crafting. Those ended up looking alright, though, if a little like Nicki Minaj.

Difficult as the crafts may have been, we all had fun and Jackie especially attempted each craft with a lot of fervor.

 Us applying stray adhesive to our ornaments.

Jackie applying spray adhesive to her ornaments.

 Us applying glitter to our ornaments.

Jackie applying glitter to her ornaments.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm doesn't always make things better. Especially after hours of crafting, it's difficult to maintain both enthusiasm and skill.

Even the worst of crafts ended up looking adorable and awesome, though.* That's the glory of crafting, the imperfections really DO add character. (*I want to note that by the end of the night, my crafts were neither adorable nor awesome, but we'll skirt over my short attention span and complete lack of patience.)

Enthusiasm backfired for Jackie in unexpected ways, too. 

Turns out the spray adhesive cloud mixed with the glitter explosion gave Jackie a difficult time. :)

So, lessons learned:

• Four hours is too long to craft. Unless, of course, it's the holidays, then you'll be expected to craft as long as it's festive.
• LeeAnne really has only two good crafts in her, then the other go considerably downhill.
• Crafting is messy business, so be careful with the spray adhesive.
• There are a LOT of fumes from clouds of spray adhesive.
• Those fumes make crafting for so long a little more tolerable.

Thanks for a fun weekend, ladies! More awkward holidays to come!

(Some of) My Favorite New Orleans Stories

So I love NOLA, that's pretty clear. I have lots of legitimate reasons for loving that place-- harrowing stories of people that I've met and things that I've seen and special moments shared with great music/food/architecture/spirit-- but let's be honest, none of those stories are funny. So here are some of my favorite New Orleans stories. I hope they're funny to people who didn't experience them, but if not, screw you, I'm laughing.

I'll start out with a story that I'm sure I won't give justice, but hopefully that won't matter much:

FEEDING FRENZY!

So two friends and I went on a swamp tour. (Yeah, it was just as awesome as it sounds.) Lots of funny things that don't necessarily warrant their own stories but just imagine them as I flippantly list them here: me fawning over our 40 yr old tour guide because of his Cajun accent, the Australians in the boat ooh-ing and aww-ing over our silly accents, learning about alligator crack (marshmallows), and learning about Cajun swimming holes ("You betcha them suckahs gotta learn how to swim wit dem gators in de watah!"). Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle and all that. We had a grand time watching gators until...

All of the sudden we're surrounded by seven or eight alligators. It's all fine and dandy, just a little unnerving. One hops on the boat, people scream, the tour guide seems okay and tries to calm everyone down. Then he tells us we need to get the hell outta there and hands back oars so that we can hit the gators in the face if they get too close. When animals come out of hibernation, they are extremely hungry. And why would marshmallows and rotten chicken cut it with delicious imported meats like the Australians on board? At any rate, we got out okay, though we kept saying "holy shit" for the rest of the trip whenever we thought about our gator experience.

Oops

Again, this story probably not as funny either, but I promise it will get better. That's how writing works: you end with the good stuff so that people will trudge through the rubbish to get there. 

Anyway, I've done a lot of volunteer-work in New Orleans, cleaning up neighborhoods, building playgrounds, working on houses, yadda, yadda, yadda. One day we were in the Lower 9th Ward to help with clean-up around a volunteer organization's headquarters. They only had one weed eater and a couple of shovels, so of course the men took those leaving the rest of us to do "women's work" (aka picking up used condoms and other trash). I was bitter but pretty much fine until I got propositioned by some guy in a kidnapping van who was driving past... Then I hid behind the building picking up trash and chilling with my new lizard friend "Frankie." Then I heard a big CRASH! (Or, in Batman terms, KAPOW! KABLAM! or KABOOM!)

I liked to think it was karma for the men thinking that they could do better work than the women. Ha.

We had to ride around the city in this jankity rental van for a few days after that... Luckily it didn't rain!

And now...

MORE SORDID TALES

AKA Booze-y Stories.

I'll be honest, I don't drink that often. Period. But I am perfectly capable. Adept, really. Some friends who were in NOLA with me this summer said it was funny to see "LeeAnne go from zero to drunk in 60 seconds."

"Gone in 60 Seconds" has a whole new meaning, no? 

In my defense, I had a lot of compensating to do for the hours of lethargy we spent in our hotel room during the day. The air conditioning in our hotel (then just our room, then the whole hotel, then our room) was broken. With heat index, it was 110 outside. Inside, it was a sultry 84. So we'd cool down in that for a little while before we went out:

Miserable.

Anyway, drunkenness is wrong, but it can lead to some funny stories.

Drunken Jackie + drunken homeless guy = the most amusing intervention ever witnessed. Always the social worker, that Jackie. She didn't mean to give him $20 but it just makes the story all the better!

BEADS

Mardi Gras beads are like currency in New Orleans. You get pelted with some just for walking by, then nicer and nicer get-ups proportional to the amount of skin you show. Sometimes, though, people get beads NOT to show skin.

In our case, it didn't work, but I tell you what: we (+ our new friend "New Jersey") threw so many beads at that fat old lady and she just flopped around all night using our beads to throw to other people. Life's just wrong sometimes.

DRUNKEN AUTHORSHIP

My favorite drunken NOLA story is about the writer that we met on Bourbon Street. We were stumbling back from hurricanes at Jean Lafitte's and came across some chick with a laptop and a golden retriever. Drunk LeeAnne likes to talk to people and Drunk Jackie likes to make out with dogs, so poor Drunk Levi just had to come along for the ride. 

This gal told us about the book she was writing "about things and stuff." Drunk Jackie took a break from playing with the dog to say, "That is SO AWESOME. So many people take the time to write about THINGS but no one bothers to write about STUFF." Drunk Levi, always logical, kept the conversation going by trying to differentiate between "things" and "stuff" without much luck. We would talk, she would type, Jackie would propose to the dog. 

In the end, I got a good peek at her computer screen and I was thoroughly impressed at her progress:

If anything could give you information about "things" and "stuff" to write about, Google would be it.