Good for your body, and it's good for your soul

If you're not from Louisiana, you probably don't know that's a lyric from "Hey Pocky Way."

Even though Jake Allbritton told me he did not like parades, I knew that he had not been to a parade in the time he has been with me, which is almost three years now. Too bad he cannot stay home by himself, because I certainly dragged his ass to New Orleans for Lundi Gras to catch two parades - Proteus and Orpheus.

I should mention here that while I was working at Mardi Gras on Saturday night, I may or may not have informed Mariska Hargitay that we were best friends, had been for fourteen years. She thought this was funny enough to laugh from her belly and agree with me, but apparently not true enough to give me her phone number. It's okay. We know what we mean to each other. She recognized me from her parade float - smiled, waved and threw at me once, pointed and threw at me a second time. Then I got to hear Landen behind me say "That chick from Law and Order knows Nell!"

Monday was iffy, because Jake got funky about an hour before it was time to leave, with the narrow eyes and the "what?" that he gives when he gets Hessmer eyes for being unkind. There was an incident in the backseat on the way there, after which I took him in a bathroom and calmly told him that if he did not get himself together I was going to find a quiet room where we were going and kick his ass. I only had to remind him of this at the parade once and did not have an issue with him for the rest of the day. Their dad told me when he was deployed that they have to be afraid you will hurt them if they do not listen to you, so the threat is good enough to get me the behavior what I want. Usually.

It was misty and gross and the crowd was light, so they put us in a box up front, eight feet from the floats. Jake had the most fun of all of us. I thought having things thrown at him was going to be a problem, but he jumped up and down when he caught stuff, and he danced to all the bands. He's well into admiring girls, so he liked all the dance troups too. Landen had the disadvantage of being short, so he only went for the bags of things, or the toys that light up. He fought with Cydney over a light-up tambourine for most of the night. That one also quickly decided that he did not like the way beads feel on his neck, so bagged everything he caught.

I probably came home with 100 lbs of beads, toys, coins, cups and other items. I hate all of it. I want to throw it all away as soon as I can, probably with the garbage tonight. But when I was sitting in a pizza restaurant with my kids at what is normally their scheduled bedtime, and they were happier than I've seen them in six months and telling me that I was the best ever and this night was the funnest ever, 100lbs of beads wasting space in my sunroom is worth the price of admission.

Landen spent most of the evening negotiating with me about how much cash his doubloons were worth. He made such a good pitch that I think I'm actually going to have to pony up some cash.

You have never seen the boy with his eyes that open. He wants to ride a horse in the Mardi Gras parade when he grows up.

It rained on us, and we were a wet mess. Please ignore that wing of my wet bangs on my right, and the fact that my soaked hair was in a bun and my makeup was no more.

Box seats at the Mardi Gras parade is really the only way to go. It was approved by this one, who things he's a rock star anyway.

This is the photo of Mariska (and her husband and Harry Connick Jr) that I took when I was guarding her box (honestly, it was my assigned task for the evening) shortly before we were introduced and acknowledged our long friendship.

This is from the Endymion parade on Saturday night, because floats are pretty.

The King of Endymion. It took me a while to figure out last year that not only are they harnessed to the float, they are also harnessed to that flashy display of feathers and sequins that looks like part of the outfit.