Houston, We Have a Problem

As Deacon mentioned, The BE and I headed down to Mardi Gras to visit our old pal DonaghyEstates.  You will soon learn that things did not quite go as planned.  We didn't see DonaghyEstates all that much, but when we did, it was the best.  Otherwise, we spent the week eating delicious food and going to parades.

The Mardi Parades are like an all day tailgate with no actual sporting event to go to.  When we had perfected our routine, the BE and I simply sat in fold out chairs next to the tables and tent eating and drinking all day.  We had the good fortune of staying with a friend who lives in New Orleans.  This was the best decision I've ever made.  We had beds and so much good all week.  Great, great food.  We had jambalaya and gumbo almost every day.  The parades featured these two staples as well as boxes of Popeyes and chili dogs.  We also had cases of beer in coolers just waiting for us.  The best part - all of this was free and we took advantage of it to the fullest extent.

The parades themselves were pretty cool.  There are obviously lots of floats that go by with different themes.  One of them was the Thoth parade, which was themed after Thoth Goes to College.  I think that is hilarious.  Every float featured Thoth, a goofy Egyptian God, going to different classes and drinking.  And then there is the beads, which are thrown out non-stop.  After a while, we realized getting beads was overrated and we eventually threw them away (mostly).  The best part of the parades were meeting the random people around us. These two old women next to us became our best friends and together we made fun of the kids we came with.  One of them was from Houston and since we made it our mission to get him hammered, they kept yelling, "Houston, we have a problem!"  Classic.  They also gave me homemade beef jerky, which was delicious.

At one point we went over to the Tulane section of the parade watching at (General) Lee's Circle.  It was obviously pretty rowdy there, but nothing too much.  Tulane seems like a fine school, but it's fucking impossible to find and there are some majds there, which is true of any establishment.  Overall, Mardi Gras was hilarious.  New Orleans is a ridiculous city where anything goes and when we were walking down those parade streets, it looked like the end of the world.  We peed outside once, despite the many warnings, and the port-a-potty we had access to literally saved the weekend.