This weekend saw parade after parade as a carnival season that before Katrina extended from 12th Night to Fat Tuesday is now compressed into a 10 day extravaganza of floats, flambeauxs, throws, kids and adults who act like kids. Choctaw, Sparta, King Arthur, Cleopatra, Dionysius. New Orleans, Metarie and Slidell, West Bank and North Shore. All over greater New Orleans one krewe after another reminds us all that it’s far far better to give than receive.
(photos courtesy of New Orleans Time Picayune)
Throws that is. Medallions, cups, plush toys, candy, small toys and beads. Blinking beads, glass beads, ceramic beads, big beads, tangled beads, bags of beads .Oops. Sorry lady … didn’t mean to hit your toddler in the face with that big ole bag of beads. (you know how you can tell a nawlins native? Bag burns on the face)
And for one group, the throw in biggest demand was … dog biscuits? That’s right. Sunday afternoon in the French Quarter the Mystic Krewe of Barkus rolled with the 2009 theme of The Retturn of The Bark Knight. I think the pictures pretty much say it all.
And for those of you unlucky enough to live someplace other than southern Louisiana you can check out the parades this weekend at the Times Picayune Parade Cam. Bon temps roulez.