All on a Bacchus Sunday (or is it a Thoth Sunday?):

Popped into Surrey's for breakfast and met up with a retired couple from Bayside, Queens, outside the door. It was a hoot to talk Nu Yawk with 'em for a bit, like having my Long Island grandparents here for a chat while insanity reigns....only this couple really really loved New Orleans and wished they could move here permanently. "You gotta deal with the summers first," Dan said bemusedly.

The little guy went walking through the restaurant while we were waiting for our breakfast, and he saw some small wall hangings of funky-looking shotgun houses with mirrors for windows. He stood in front of a couple's table, mesmerized by them, asking me what kind of house it was. "It's a shotgun house, honey," I told him.

"And what's that one, Mom?" he asked pointing to another house next to it.

"That's a double shotgun," I told him. "Excuse us, please," I said to the couple with a smile.

"Oh, no, that's okay," the man said.

He then turned to my son and said," That shotgun's about to be turned into condos, see. And then the bank will foreclose on it!"

Evil laughs came from the man's companion and myself. "It's true, but it's sad," I said, and we all agreed, as the kid went wandering around and asking me if every house on the wall was a shotgun. Yes, yes, and yes again. And it's shaping up to be quite a 'hood, apparently.

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Nothing spoils parading fun like having somebody mark off our parade spot with packing tape attached to parade chairs and a cooler on wheels, with our bead-eating tree roped into the bargain as a territory marker. If it weren't so crass, I'd have spray-painted it as our spot a long time ago, but that ain't right. I set up the chairs just outside of the tape zone and settled in to mark time for us until Thoth came down the pike. Dan and the little guy came by most of the way through Babylon, and Dan set about trying to annoy the packing tape crew as much as he could. "Can I go get your scissors from home and just cut that crap?" he asked me.

"No objections from me," I said as a float went by and Dan went running off to whore himself for doubloons. Yeah, we've got our priorities straight.

At one point, the little guy bummed his way up on a ladder with the son of a lady whose mother was visiting from Germany. Normally, the family doesn't go out and see this many parades, but they decided to take it all in just for the frau. The kid worked it up there with the boy and got a spear and some stuffed animals from Thoth. The lady's daughters worked it on the ground and one of 'em came back with some stars and bars beads around her neck. "Look what I got, Mama!" she said.

The lady took one look at those Confederate flags and gave her daughter a short history lesson on what they stood for right then and there. The beads came off and went into their bead bag. The frau, who was sitting next to the swag bag, picked them up out of the bag and put them on herself. Her daughter turned around and saw them on her. A short discussion in German followed along the lines of what the lady had just told her own daughter, with something about the Nazis thrown in for emphasis. The frau pulled the beads off superfast after that and tossed them in the bag.

"I can't believe somebody would buy those, let alone throw 'em at a parade!" I said to the lady.

"Well, that's Mardi Gras for ya," she said. Oy vey.

I got my sign ready for when float 16A came around:

Hey Huck!
Upchuck Us Somethin', Mister!

and it was in that way that I got to meet yet another fellow blogger. Huck, man, one of these days, you'll just have to take the mask off. We've gotta stop meeting like this! Thanks again for the throws with an actual country's flag on 'em and not the stars and bars. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

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We decided to poop out on Bacchus (largely because of the packing tape crew...I did get some perverse satisfaction out of the fact that a float rider tossed an open Coors Light at one of the members of the crew, soaking her lap. What goes around comes around) and headed over to Edie's for the Super Bowl, some chili, some beer, and some copious amounts of nacho dip, and ice cream. I am now glad that we made that decision, since it was one helluva game that even had Edie's daughter on the edge of her seat. It certainly made history, y'all, and we even got back home and got a parking spot on our block.

Life is goooood.

However, just 'cause life is good for me right now doesn't mean that city officials have quit being pigheaded idiots for the duration, just 'cause it's Carnival. Main offender of the day: the Walking Id. Otherwise known as the Grand Liar Whose Pants Are On Fire.