Thursday morning, we dropped the kids off at school and did a short tour of some of the flooded and recovering areas of Mid-City, City Park, and Lakeview. Then we drove back home to change into more tailored duds and arrived at Commander’s Palace at noon. Mardi Gras season was apparent; members of Muses were en masse in their awesome blue costume sacks and head pieces. We sat in the garden room, lovely, but a bit too close to the window (we should have asked to be moved — they certainly would have been happy to accommodate). Laura and I tried the $.25 martinis (we had cosmopolitians, our first). We enjoyed the very reasonable lunch specials — they start at about $15 and include appetizer and entree. Then we split the signature desserts: strawberry shortcake and bread pudding for dessert. Paul wasn’t feeling well and ended up having his lunch packed to go home.
We got the kids early from school, drove out to Metairie to get Paul’s tuxedo and my dress for Saturday’s ball, and went home to get ready for the night’s parades.
We arrived in our spot of choice (Napoleon, towards the start of the parade route) and saw friends Emmy and Kevin with kids. We set up our children’s ladder — a NOLA original with a kid-sized seat on the top — and enjoyed Chaos (shown below) and our favorite, MUSES.
Muses is an all-girls krewe, known for having the best throws and putting on a fabulous parade. This year, the girls threw sleep masks, make-up kits, comic books, and Muses regala for their this year’s theme: Super Muses.We did pretty well — that Mardi Gras ladder works great! For parts of the parade, we went over to the “sidewalk side” to try to see friends of ours who were rolling with certain floats on both parades (didn’t see them) but always returned quickly to the “neutral ground” which we find more polite and kid-friendly. Kate enjoys some of the throws from Muses and Chaos in these pictures… Muses loot includes stuffed toys, footballs, cups, doubloons, specialty beads and medallions, comic book… AND a SHOE!!!
That’s right — Kate and I caught a SHOE! (It’s in the center of the loot picture above.) The Muses shoe is right up there with the Zulu coconut and even more rare in numbers. Kate was asleep in my arms, Will and Paul were on the sidewalk side, and I stood way in the back while the floats passed. One of the riders pulled out the shoe and was looking in the crowd for someone to throw to — I had my arms way up and was apart from the crowd enough for us to be seen. She pointed to us, nodded that the throw was coming, and let it go! The shoes are each one-of-a-kind, ours has the rider’s initials and float number (float 10). Happy Mardi Gras!
Cold Spaghetti :: All photographs were taken with an Iphone. None involve live animals. | 12-Feb-10 at 11:49 pm | Permalink
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