House Floats – St. Charles Ave.

St. Charles is famous in part for being the grand avenue the Uptown parades roll during Carnival in New Orleans. This time of year, the live-oak-and-manor-home lined avenue is normally crowded with ladder chairs topped with children, ice chests and barbecues, and throngs of festively dressed parade-goers snatching beads, toys and cups from the air as massive, colorful floats roll by carrying dozens of Krewe members scattering throws. Mardi Gras is an act of love and festivity with the members of the various Krewes paying for everything from the throws, floats, bands and dancers to the police and clean-up. But COVID interrupted that act of generosity.

Not to be undone, the city has embraced “Yardi Gras.” Thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city (and even the world) are decorated as parade floats.

House Floats – Garden District

In the search for fabulous and festive house floats, I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel, Mid-City and the Lower Garden District. New Orleans has been celebrating Mardi Gras in a safe, socially distanced way with City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade and “Yardi Gras,” thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city decorated as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats promoted this safe parade concept, encouraging people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map. The effect is the city basically looks like a drive-thru parade.

House Floats – Lower Garden District

New Orleans has been celebrating Carnival in a safe, socially distanced way with City Park’s drive-thru Floats in the Oaks stationary parade and “Yardi Gras,” thousands of homes and businesses throughout the city decorated as parade floats. Krewe of House Floats, a grassroots organization promoting this safe parade concept, encouraged people to use local businesses and artists to help decorate their places as house floats, or go DIY, then register on their map.

I’ve already covered Magazine Street, the Irish Channel and Mid-City. The next neighborhood we meandered in search of Mardi Gras merriment was the Lower Garden District. I loved the giant tropical fish of the Realm of Poseidon house.

Krewes of Okeanos and Mid-City Parades

The Krewe of Okeanos parade rolled in the rain to sizable crowds. It was warm and the forecast promised clearing skies. Our spot was flooded due to the recent freezes cracking pipes. Later, a neighbor bought a sump pump and drained the street but our morning was spent slogging through over half a foot of water to get to the floats. There’s something about rainy parades that’s special. When I’m watching them, I always admire the people suffering on the floats, dancing drenched and playing wet instruments.

NOLA in a Week (Mom’s Visit)

There’s nothing like having a visitor to push you to take advantage of the city as much as possible in a week. My mom  and stepdad came to town and we went to 2 festivals, a number of concerts, a bunch of restaurants and plenty of cool shops. We even visited the set of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. If you’re planning to visit New Orleans or if you’re a New Orleanian looking for some ideas of how to entertain your guests, here are some highlights from our week.

Treme – Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

Last week, HBO’s Treme once again killed off a beloved character. I’d been enjoying the episode, continuously intrigued by Councilman Oliver Thomas’ portrayal of himself and the choices he made that led to his downfall and incarceration. We got to see Corey Henry play with Kermit Ruffins as well as a scene at the romantic Columns Hotel on St. Charles. Though they talked about the Irish Channel St. Patrick’s parade and the throwing of cabbage and other food items, there was no footage from the parades. If you feel you missed out, check out my video from this year’s parade. But, the whole episode was leading to the shock of the senseless murder of a valued musician and I’ll admit it left me with some rare trouble sleeping.

Krewe of Mid-City

The Krewe of Mid-City, founded in 1933, is the 5th oldest continuously parading krewe of the Carnival season. They live by the motto, “Pour La Joie de Vivre” or “For the Joy of Life.” Unlike the more morose krewes with skeletons or the satirical krewes with their stabs at politics and culture, Mid-City is symbolized by an interlocking heart emblem and strives to delight children and the child in us. And unlike the other krewes with their papier maché floats, Mid-City makes their floats of shiny tinfoil and mylar.

a French Quarter apartment hunt

When I was sitting on my couch in L.A. planning to move to New Orleans, I was open to many experiences of this city. I looked at a home in Mid-City, a neighborhood shifting identities in the last few years. I liked the idea of living across the street from City Park, home to an art museum, botanical garden, sculpture garden, a golf course and on and on and one of my favorite places in the city, the Singing Oak (which I call the Bing Bong Tree).

Ending with Style

The 7th day of Mom and Elle’s visit was one of the best. We drove to City Park, 1,300 acres of ponds, art installations, and Live Oaks up to over 600 years old. On our way there, we noticed all the traffic lights weren’t working. It slowed things down, to be sure, and created traffic, but people were remarkably patient. In L.A., it was easy to gauge how well I was doing, how happy I was in life, by how I behaved in traffic.

Bacchus Trifecta

Sunday was Valentine’s day for everyone, but for New Orleans, it was the day romance, the Saints and Mardi Gras all collided for the perfect carnival trifecta. First, the Krewes of Okeanos, Mid-City and Thoth all rolled down St. Charles during the day.