A quiet night, a stack of books, a tuna melt on rye

First boil of the season!  Off to pick up some Strawberry Harvest and then eat the yummy, yummy crawfish (and boil corn).

This weekend was the New Orleans St. Patrick's Day parade, which is like a mini-Mardi Gras where they throw produce in addition to the general beads and other trinkets.  It's kind of funny, in that you can tell this is a parade attended mostly by local people because they are all "Throw me a cabbage, a cabbage, no. not the beads I already have more of them than I could ever use.  I want a cabbage."  For some reason, this year, cabbage seemed to be the only vegetable they were throwing out, which is unfortunate because I really wanted some carrots.  By the end of the parade you are supposed to have all the makings of stew (well, except your meat of choice since that would be supper icky to throw.) apparently this year you are only allowed to have cabbage in your stew. 

Anyway, the first half of the parade consists of men dressed in tuxes or dress kilts who hand out fake flowers for a kiss.  Now for the most part this involves a kiss on the cheek and a wishing of "Happy St. Pats," occasionally the drunker or more exhibitionist members of the crowd will go further to get more.  So, we were close to the end of the parade route, and most of these men had been drinking since the pre-parade mass let out, so by the time they got to us they were rather smashed.  We had one such Drunky McDrunkerson make his way down the side of the street where my friends and I were standing.  He had long ago either given out or lost all of his flowers.  The first time I noticed him, he was nearly pulling a little girl (probably 7 or so) off the ladder she was standing on to give her a kiss on the cheek.  Her parents didn't seem to mind, and they had a bunch of people coming up to them all through the parade, so I have to believe that they were in someway involved with the organization.  Next, he kissed Jenae and glowwormtu each on the cheek.  Finally he comes at me straight on with his tongue hanging out.  Let me tell you how I was not drunk enough to make out with random drunk guy on the street in the middle of the afternoon -- I don't think there exists a level of drunk that would make me okay with that.  glowwormtu said she had never seen anyone reach that shade of red before (I think I recently shared my propensity for blushing) and Amanda, who was standing behind me, latter told me she could tell the look horror on my face just from the way the back of my head moved. 

After that people were much more pleasant.  There was some dancing with a man old enough to be my grandfather from behind a police barricade.  One guy spent his time near us bragging about his kissing ability and then insisted that cheek kissing was not the way to go.  And one guy decided that the Pipe &Drums corp was not moving fast enough so he elected himself drum major with his flower based baton. 

    I'd just like to say that musicians should learn to mark their own scores.  What exactly is it about joining the union which suddenly up people's stupidity level.  Actually, cutting out pieces of paper to cover the measures that the music director cut was kind-of a little fun.  Or maybe I just really, really miss being a part of a performing arts type group.  Damn having a strange schedule and no permanent living quarters.

    Also, if you are in the NOLA area you should go see the Summer Lyric shows.  (Though from what I saw today you might want to miss Little Me.  Just Saying.)

In New Orleans for the weekend and playing Tour Guide/Cauffeur for the other out of town archaeologists.  I'm good!  I even managed, through no fault of my own, to arrange a celebrity sighting:  Jerry Springer at Cafe du Monde.  Really rather boring, but all the people trying to "subtly" take pictures with their camera phones were quite amusing. 

We also went to the aquarium, passed people from the HP convention playing Quidditch in Riverfront Park, browsed the French Market, and took a turn through Jackson Square.  All in all a quality adventure. 

Went swing dancing/jiveing with glowwormtu in NOLA.  I love jive! So much fun.  Of course, now my calves hurt, and I'm really tired -- but in a good way.  

I've missed NOLA far more than I thought I did.  It was nice to drive down the streets I used to haunt.  Partake of favorite restaurants (NInja).  And even see a movie at the theater I always get lost on the way to.  (Pan's Labyrinth is very good, but has very graphic, disturbing violence - and I don't usually say that about a movie.  It also is in Spanish with subtitles, which is not really clear in all the press.)  I didn't get lost on the way, but once again we almost went over the Huey P. Long bridge on the way back.  My Premier drivng rule: NEVER GO OVER THE BRIDGE!