Spanish Town

I have about 5000 pictures from Mardi Gras parades. And, of course, I want to share all of them! I'll try to restrain myself, but you'll just have to bear with me for the next few days, um, or weeks.

I'll put some up on Lawyer Mama Dabbles every day too.

These are from the Spanish Town parade in Baton Rouge that The Queen was in. She's a member of the Krewe of Pink Ladies. How cool is that? They have jackets and everything. Spanish Town is one looooong parade. It was great and much more family friendly than the parades in New Orleans.


Float with the capitol building in the background. The Spanish Town "mascot" is the flamingo. There was a lot of pink.



The Queen on her float. See what I mean about the jackets?



Hollis in front of the Pink Ladies float. The theme was "Purple is the new Pink" in honor of LSU's national championship. Geaux Tigers! (Please forgive me, Sebastian. It's just a fling.)
Notice that Hollis is all decked out with beads and a flamingo lollipop? This was looooong before the parade started. I just took him up and down the road to look at all the floats getting ready and the boy cleaned up!



My self portrait before the parade. I wore my pink boa just for the occasion. The Queen supplied the beads.



The Queen's gorgeous daughter and honorary Pink Lady. I tried to bring her home with me. Seriously. LOVED her.



Waiting for the parade.



More waiting. See? She's gorgeous. And she and Hollis got along swimmingly.




Everyone who's seen these photos swears these two must be siblings. Nope. There was no fighting at all, just playing. The Princess just entertained Hollis for two hours. Seriously. I'm going to go back and steal her.

I have to say that attending a Mardi Gras parade with two cute kids is far different from attending one as a hot, childless woman. (I'm just assuming the hot part. I never said I wasn't egotistical.) I didn't even have one request to ... um ... lift my shirt and I have never seen so many stuffed animals rain down around me.

I will have more photos up soon....

The Daiquiri Bar

Before we get to the gossip, I have a new review up on Lawyer Mama Review. I adore Pingu, possibly even more than my kids do, so go read about the new Pingu video.

I know y'all want more dirt on my weekend with The Queen and her Mayhem. I put up a few photos from the daiquiri bar we "stopped by" on the way home from "running errands" but here are a few more.

First we made a few friends and played some Quarters:




The Queen and I suck at this game, by the way. Although we did make a few shots:




Then we started making random guys take pictures with us. The Queen has done this before....


The guy washing the windows of the bar. He was 21. I asked.


We picked up a few more friends:


Here's one of our new friends. I can't remember if this is Chuck, or the other one.


And they bought us shots of tequila. Really, really good tequila. It seemed like a fabulous idea at the time....




Then there were more random guys friends:


In the Queen's defense, she had picked up these ladies on a previous visit to the bar. So she already knew them. Oh, and she might not have had anything to do with picking up this random guy. That might have been me....


Then we headed back to the house. Luckily, the kids were still alive and ready to boogie.

Then we were cooked. We're old ladies, you know!





Don't you wish you were us?

The rest of the weekend was a blast and it will take me days just to edit all the photos. I'll post more as I go so stay tuned....

I'm Baaaaack!

I can't say enough nice things about the Queen and her family. Her kids are fantastic. Her husband is perfect, but not annoyingly so. She is gorgeous, funny, and quite the legend in her small town. The Mayhems are all extraverts and made Hollis and me feel welcome right away. Of course, after the shenanigans that happened, The Queen will never believe that I'm an introvert!

I know you're all dying to hear more about Mardi Gras. I need a little time to recover and process all my photos. In the meantime, here's a little teaser....

This is how my first afternoon with The Queen of the Mayhem started off:




Then we headed off to run some "errands."




The Queen had to convince me she lived in the sticks, so she took me to her local butcher. Where they kindly showed me how they make sausage. It was strangely horrifying and fascinating at the same time.




Then I got a nice tour of the smokehouse.




Finally, The Queen and I stopped off at the daiquiri bar where we got, um..., sidetracked. Yeah, that's it.




The Queen was totally trying to blame the fact that she passed out fell asleep on the couch on me. I don't know. Who do you think is the bad influence here?




I have more dirt to dish in the future, so stay tuned....

Jealous?

LM and The Queen having too much fun. (Taken with my crappy camera phone.)

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Happy Second Groundhogs Day

I'm still in New Orleans. In fact, the Queen and I will be partying all day today and tomorrow in Baton Rouge. Jealous?

I just wanted to drop in and remind you that it's Groundhogs Day. Since we have our own groundhogs in the backyard, I feel honor bound to observe their day. This is, in fact, the second Groundhogs Day I've shared with all of you. Last year we had two.

Now we have three.

Funny how that works.

Now if they're good white trash like me, there will be a fourth when they reappear this Spring. Anyone want a new pet?

T tells me that it is supposed to be partly cloudy and in the mid-fifties in Southeast Virginia. The groundhogs may come out, but they're probably still hibernating. If they do come out, your guess is as good as mine as to whether a shadow will be seen.

Somehow I don't think T's going to volunteer to sit out there all day and watch.

Don't expect any more posts until I get back!

Typhoid Mary Hits Mardi Gras (With Child)

By now I should be in New Orleans sipping a beverage and relaxing. In actuality, I'm probably fighting rush hour traffic to get to my aunt's house in Metairie, but we can all dream, can't we? I'm in New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras with my family and The Queen of the Mayhem and all her little subjects.

I won't be posting much (if any) while I'm gone. Mainly because it's a bad idea to blog while drunk. I might end up that scary NaBloPoYe, or whatever, where you promise to post every day for a year in return for ...? Sorry, I'm not sure what you get other than a mandatory 48 hour stay at the mental institution of your choice.

My stay in the Crescent City will be marred a bit, unfortunately. You see I seem to have developed tuberculosis or something this slight cough and it won't go away. I've been bitching to T about how I never got sick before we had kids. Of course he had to remind me, "But remember that time you infected Tobago?" And no, he didn't misspeak, he meant the entire island of Tobago, not simply one or two people in Tobago.

You see, we went with friends to Tobago for the whole year 2000 New Years thing. We figured if the world ended and planes fell from the sky, a beach would be a good place to be. Over Christmas, my parents visited and every one of us got sick. Even T, who rarely gets sick. (Damn him.) I must have better immunity because I was the last to fall. Consequently, when we boarded a plane in Washington, D.C., shortly before December 31st, I was still hacking everywhere.

It was so bad our fellow passengers on the American Airlines flight from Miami to Trinidad were giving me that look. You know the one where they're wondering if the customs officials in Trinidad will be insane enough to let this obvious petri dish into their country. I swear I saw money changing hands when I came back from the plane bathroom. I think T was accepting bribes to stay away from certain hotels and beaches. Bastard.

Anyway, we were there with friends, who introduced us to some Tobago island friends they'd met last time they were there. Our new second hand friends took us to a party with yet more friends and even had us over for dinner. We had the island specialty, a yummy curried crab with dumplings.

We were supposed to meet up with our new friends again but heard that the man of the house had gotten sick. And then their kids. And then the wife. And then the neighbors. One by one, they fell like dominoes. We hot footed it out of the country before they demanded the CDC come pick me up in hazmat gear.

But I'm sure my trip to New Orleans won't be like that. Nooooooooo!

Heather, forget everything you read here.