Prep, Party, Parade, Plans

Carnival season in New Orleans has ended, and for that, I and my liver are truly grateful.  For us, the highlight of Mardi Gras weekend is the Endymion Parade, which is the only parade that passes close to our house.  Endymion is a super-crew--that means they have a large number of floats, huge floats, celebrity grand marshalls, major bands and singers performing at their ball, and they roll during the weekend before Mardi Gras when the city has been whipped into a frenzy (especially this year...Who Dat Nation---finally a grassroots organization I can get behind..  Since we live a block from the route, our house becomes the scene of an all day event--which means days of prep before hand.  This year, out of town guests dropped by unexpectedly the day before while we were still cleaning.  Notice the cleaning supplies still on the console.

 

So, what's a host to do?   Turn the lights down low so the still-present dirt can't be seen, and pour the drinks with a ration of 1 to 1 liquor to mixer so the the guests won't remember any dirt even if they have night vision.

Besides, with a support staff like mine, who can go wrong?  Cleo, our helpful concierge sizing up the situation:

And showing our guests the hospitality the South has been long known for:

And Damien had the kitchen "situation" well under control:

Luckily, parade day was clear and sunny, if a bit chilly.Even if the bottle tree my 80 year old father made for us was the only tree left alive after this winter.  (By the way, I have to admit it took less than a week for us to fill in the foliage with empty bottles--but that's what happens when your significant other works as a wine manager.)

Finally the parade:

But I didn't let the festivities interfere with my plans for blogging domination. I'm trying to develop a strategy:  Do I crossover into mommy blogging like dooce?  But I soon realized there were a couple of flaws in that plan, not limited to  the fact that I was unlikley to gain media attention for being fired for blogging since:  a: I work for myself, and  b: the only time I was fired was in the mid 90s, and it involved (among several other things) introducing  a client's wedding heirloom ( a crystal bowl HER mother received as a wedding present)  to a tile floor.  Perhaps I could try to steal  the title of Host with the Most from Eddie Ross?  However after realizing I just greeted guests with (unused) cleaning products left out, enough visible pet hair that someone asked if we were participating in a pet cloning experiment, and matching "stemware" that matched because it was actually red plastic ups from the dollar store, I probably would not win that contest.   (In fact, the "matching stemware" included not only the red cups, some clear cups from leftover from last year, and some purple plastic cups that came in a Crown Royal gift pack---faced with drunken hoards, I asked myself what would Martha do and decided to mix materials--so festive!  so unexpected!  And luckily Mardi Gras crazed drunken hoards turn out to not be that particular about either their beverage or its container) So since I have neither children or fine china to exploit, I've settled on exploiting my pets.  I hope it worked, but somehow I don't think "furkid" blogging is really going to catch on.