Zulu is a crowd favorite! See all those hands in the air? And the roar that goes up when a rider has a coconut in their hands — wow! Zulu is filled with fantastic music of all kinds and great throws. Will got a music wand, stuffed toys (many of which we gave to other kids), some great beads, and medallions. And YES — we got a coconut!!! Because coconuts aren’t usually thrown (you have to be right up on the float to get one), one of the families around us that we befriended got one for me — I’m not sure if a rider designated it for me or not. There were some super-fun families around and they watched out for me and the belly!
Me and my belly! Will’s washable markers provided the medium and Paul the artistic hand, following a sketch I made on a napkin. After realizing how thick the standing crowd was, we kept back a bit with our chairs and I stood on our big block cooler. The belly got *a lot* of attention. People asked for photographs and several of the riders on the floats stopped to pick up cameras to photograph me. The local news and CNN affliate also took video of me — although we missed tonight’s news (I was making dinner) and haven’t seen our particular clip in CNN. The belly also attracted some special throws from riders who singled me out: including a huge stuffed tiger (Will was with me for this one so it was really for both of us) and some “risque” items from Zulu… a set of male nude playing cards and a (ahem) phallically-themed bead necklace (which I’m wearing in this picture if you can make it out!) 
Looking back at the crowd. We were in the “neutral” ground on St. Charles Avenue — the street light in the distance is Jackson Avenue, which is the end of the Garden District. Usually, we are closer to home on Napoleon, where the crowd is thinner — but Zulu hits St. Charles at Jackson Avenue, so you have to get further in town to catch that parade. (Rex does the more common route starting on Napoleon to St. Charles.)
The bull is a Rex symbol — one of the special throws for this year was a bull stuffed animal. Unfortunately, Will was tired for the majority of Rex and spent most of the parade quietly playing in his stroller, running around in the neutral ground with other kids, or asleep. Will is our “speciality throws” magnet so we missed out on the bull.
