So I met a nice Jewish boy yesterday.

Although he was quite soused to the gills (as was I), I could tell right off. I asked him where he was from, and he told me Ohio. His buddies, thinking to embarrass him, yelled for him to speak Hebrew. In my inebriated state, I yelled "Mee zeh (who's that)?" He yelled, "Anee rowtzeh le beit-sheemoosh (I need to go to the bathroom)!" in his state. I pointed behind him and tried to yell that it was over his shoulder, "Le beit-sheemoosh..."

"Yeah, I know!" he yelled back, grinning.

It was right then that someone threw me a HUGE set of apple-shaped beads. By then the guy had moved on. Oh, well...

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Dan, the little guy, and I spent a lot of time yesterday at the beginning of the Krewe of Thoth's parade route, at our friend Pacrac's house party he throws every year at the very beginning of the parade...even last year, when Thoth was forced to parade on the same route as all the other parades during Mardi Gras time. Pac makes a massive bowl of brandy milk punch, he makes sure everybody brings some good food to nosh on, and we send off the parade among good friends, old ones and new ones.

After we got LOADS of beads, in a huge bag that is still in the trunk of our car, we hung out for longer than we've ever hung out at Pac's house before (which we paid for later - the traffic trying to get to our side of the parade route was a nasty snarl. That we managed to get home AND find a parking spot fairly close to our house just before the big-time Bacchus parade rolled is nothing short of miraculous). Somehow, I got embroiled in a discussion with one of Pac's Catholic buds about the difference between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewry (not jewelry, y'all), the little guy was running in and out of the house with bunches of kids, when he wasn't inhaling chocolate chip cookies and potato chips, and Dan was off someplace else in the house, resisting the urge to give our son some of the milk punch.

After we got home, we found that my housemate's boyfriend and a buddy of his had set up a drum set in our front yard and were manning a brand-new grill next to our front porch (not at the same time, though that would have been something to see). There was also a good-sized amp nearby, and the boyfriend laid down a beat while his friend played some mean harmonica. Suddenly we had a small blues concert going, and passersby danced on the sidewalk and in the streets. I let the little guy hang out and watch and listen for a bit, since he was curious and he loves the drums. I had to be mom and yank him inside, however, because he started to try to bang on a cymbal with one of his plastic buckets - plus, he tried to hog the harmonica player's mike. My son then threw such a conniption fit when we got in the house. The kid is such the ham...

I kind of got roped in to sing with Dan's klezmer trio at the last minute, so we ended up the night serenading our neighbors on their back porch with many Jewish hits as they munched on their boiled crawfish, potatoes, and corn. I was up there next to Dan and his clarinet belting out "Tzena", "Hava Nagila", "Sisu Et Yerushalayim", and a number of other great klezmer tunes, all while trying to head off our overtired son from trying to enter our neighbors' empty house so that he could play with their little girls' toys. After our short performance, the little guy had to go home because he was throwing the biggest fit of them all, right there in the backyard.

By then, I was too pooped to go back to the neighbors' party, much less to go out and watch Bacchus pass by, so I missed this spectacle on the parade route. Somehow, Dan already got hold of some James Gandolfini Bacchus doubloons from the Thoth parade (don't ask me how), so he didn't want to head back out there, either. We pooped out to the sounds of the housemates' drums, harmonica, and now guitar, playing some blues beneath our place...

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I keep thinking about that Jewish guy I met yesterday morning. If he's single, I can just imagine what his profile on JDate would look like:

Man, aged 39, seeking woman, aged 18-25. Must be willing to travel every year to the mouth of the Mississippi around February-March in order to cheer me on as I wear a satin suit, a mask over my face, and a menorah-shaped hat on my head. Catch me as I go by on that fateful Sunday morning! I'll be throwing you something special, like a real man should...