get yer beads

It's Fat Tuesday otherwise known as Mardi Gras. It's the culmination of feasts and celebrations and the traditional parades of krewes , where you know the way it goes, is as a woman you are encouraged to expose your breasts to collect cheap beads. How this got started has probably got a lot to do with the famous Hurricane Cocktails served along Bourbon Street and one of the famous towns celebrating Mardi Gras.

I've been to New Orleans. I drove there from Calgary, Alberta in a baker's cargo van. It wasn't in February, but instead the sweltering heat of September. We were basically going through Texas and down to the Gulf of Mexico (for reasons to long to mention here). While we were driving around in rural Texas in the bayou's, we all of a sudden found or selves on the other side of the Texas-Louisiana border and off we went to New Orleans. Just like that. I still have the dragonfly that flew in the open window of the van that night. I considered it a sign of some sort. I kept it in a cigar box I picked up in Dallas.


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I took this photo of a swamp that ran on both sides of the highway just outside the city. I was amazed at how surreal it was to drive through that, surrounded on both sides by thick witchy water and god know's what else.


There were odd little gas station that sold alligator heads and paws and things for your gris-gris. A young girl said they had a curfew at certain times of the year because the 'gator's walked around like wild dogs. It was thick with specialness and kookiness and I was instantly thrilled with Louisiana. Lousy Anna.

New Orleans is a special, mystic, oddland miss mash of blues, jazz, creole, french, spanish, rural, urban, voodoo and Christian and the French Quarter is it's bullseye. I spent 2 days walking the mythical streets of the quarter and prowling the mausleums of the cemeteries off Basin Street while shaking off the air- thick with spices and sweat.

Go if you can and
-adore the wrought iron balconies that snake luxuriously around the buildings like a lover's arm.
-stroll into the historic and open courtyard of Cafe Du Monde and start your day with fresh beignets and chicory coffee
-see the historic New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band
-Drink a Hurricane at Pat O Brian's
and..
-Look for the voodoo queen- Marie Laveau's tomb in the cemetery off Basin Street



Les bon temps rouleez! (or let the good times roll)