Happy Belated Mardi Gras

A belated Happy Mardi Gras to you all.

It was, I venture, one of the better Mardi Gras that I've had. Fat Tuesday's weather was sunny and gorgeous-- mid-70's at least. We slept in a bit, started the march down St. Charles around 11am or so. Met up with Sarah & Greg on Canal Street just in time to catch a bunch of the Rex parade (unfortunately sleeping in meant we missed all of Zulu). Ventured through the Quarter to the Marigny parties. Eventually, despite exhaustion and being a bit "partied-out" we made it to the Maple Leaf Bar uptown, where we took in a Rebirth Brass Band show that night.

My friend Erin took 250+ pictures on Mardi Gras day. I took... none. Sorry.

The entire, truncated, season seemed more fun than usual. Perhaps because it was truncated. Perhaps, too, that we had out-of-towners to make sure that we did stuff that we might normally miss. Hit a Radiators show at Tipitina's. Went for a nice dinner at NOLA's restaurant. After NOLA's Jas and I decided to hang a bit longer in the Quarter and catch a cover band (a very good one) at Kerry's Irish Pub. We caught almost every parade-- or at least I did.

Good stuff. And thankfully, Mardi Gras was largely without incident this year. The only deeply, deeply disturbing thing was that a man was found shot dead in his car around the corner from my apartment on the night that we decided to "hang out a little later" in the Quarter. Had we left NOLA's and gone straight home, we would have been home. And what's driving me crazy is that there has been zero follow up news except for that tiny article linked above. We've yet to ask around the neighborhood to see if anyone knows anything.

Today I am thorougly pooped. Yesterday I had to work my normal 745am-830pm Thursday schedule at McG and UNO. Plus, I had a five page paper due today. So I've been on overdrive for... well, honestly I've been on overdrive since, like, last Thursday. Sarah & Greg are headed back to the city today for one more night. Actually, I don't know if they're staying the night or heading out this evening.

I've made plans to head up to Providence on the 23-26 of March to do at least one interview. Unfortunately, even though I was told otherwise, it turns out I picked a bad weekend to go. Several of the schools that are considering my application are on Spring Break. The good news is that Beth is due to have her baby that weekend, and if the gods and the baby are compliant, I might just get to see his/her debut! Regardless, even though it is going to be a whirlwind trip, it will be good to see my family. Nana has been struggling lately, and I needed to make a trip up there ASAP anyway.

Most likely, I'll have to make a second trip in April to swing by some more schools. This job search is not only a second job, but it requires a second income! After going through these motions for the past five months, I am almost ready to just scoop up a job at Barnes & Nobles and call it a day.

Hope all is well with all of you on the outside. In case you're keeping track, our mayoral ballot is now up to 14 names, our levees are still not fixed, and hurricane season is three months away. Mardi Gras day, ironically, was also the six-month anniversary of the storm. I can't think of a better way to have spent that anniversary.