Gosh, We’ve been here a while. So, I’d driven towards New orleans and met a handful of people that were awesome. Sunday before this last one we had a sunny day after some long grayness, so we went to a playground. The kids were happy to run a bit and this lovely guy ended up bringing us a cooler full of frozen things like chicken and fishsticks and some capri suns.
I really appreciate the gesture, even though I’d told him we didn’t have a whole lot of room. It did get utilized. It gave me cause to message my facebook acquaintance with three kids to see if we could come and drop it off at the least. She said that was fine and we rolled over to her that night in time for pizza and movie night! Spoiler alert, we’ve been here since.
So, Turtle is a single mom of three kids with a roommate named Adam, occupying a 3 bedroom house in New Orleans. The kids are 1, 3, and 4 years old, so my 4 and almost 7 year old fit in quite nicely. Her parenting style also chives very well with mine. It’s hectic with three kids so young so obviously I’m trying my best to help out with cleaning and child care. Gratitude has been expressed about it so I’m happy to be here. It takes a village to raise kids and turtle certainly has some awesome friends around her too!
We got to attend the 3 year olds minnie mouse birthday party and so many people showed up to give this awesome girl a birthday ovation. It’s the part I didn’t catch on camera sadly, but I got some more party pix I got to share with momma. Having a shower available to clean up in is awesome. All the people are colorful and it’s a great time. Taking the kids through a yardi gras walk in substitution to Mardi gras was a great time too.
So yes, New Orleans, Or Nola, has mardi gras in febuary. It’s like carneval or fashing, a celebration in preparation for 40 days of lent. The tourist Mardi gras is going on Bourbon street and watching parades and getting drunk (“showing your chestickles for beads.”) The parades roam the streets with floats made up by Krewes preparing themselves for the festival year round sometimes. The Locals mardi gras is going into the streets, listening to music, getting together with your neighbors, barbecueing, watching floats that also have things for kids attached on occasion, having a party. A festival of colours and spirit. Yes, people get drunk on festive occasions, too, people will utilize any excuse to imbibe, but it’s about having a good time.
As we all know, there’s a pandemic, so this year mardi gras was vetoed, canceled, nixed. But you can’t cancel people celebrating the spirit of such. Tourist traps were shut down and alcohol was banned from the quarter. Parades weren’t happening, so they set up Floats in the Oaks, a park with a path to drive through where they set up lights and a parade float or two per krewe. It was fun driving through. And residential houses signed up to make “housse floats” for people to stroll through and still have a chance to yell “Happy mardi gras” at people. It was pretty fun. I took some pictures and a couple videos to share a part of our experience.
I’m kind of drawing a blank right now. Got a bit distracted. I feel like this is a bit of a short post considering I’ve been here so long and I’ve posted so little. But I’ve also had a hard time motivating myself to actually do work. I should also do my taxes if we’re thinking about that here. It would do us good, but all in all I’ve done some good relationship building and helping out and that’s gotta count for something!
Oh something else! I’ve slept in past 8AM a couple of times now lately! What what? Mom win! I need to start up the bus sometime today too. I should do a grocery shopping run too. It would get some food into our bus and the bus running and exposed to the public which is good. Then again, it’s been super cold and I really want it to not be. It’s also a good reason to be with a friend right now. To keep warm and occupied through the cold, gray days.
Anyway, I’m gonna move on to more tasks, I just really felt the need to stop procrastinating on this task. Thank you for your patience with my sporadicism. If you’re wondering how I got here (I am too) but read up here:
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Please do try to share a smile. Be grateful for the people who care about you. I’m loving you from over here!
Matilda the Bugus 