Hail Thoth!

Yesterday, in the midst of some pre-parade jitters about possible bad weather, I awoke early, picked up my little brother and fellow Thoth rider, and headed down to the downtown Hilton grand ballroom for our annual Thoth breakfast and pre-parade gathering. It's always quite fun. We hang out with our floatmates, some of whom we only see one time each year, eat heartily, get an early start on the imbibing, and costume up in preparation for our Thoth ride. Then, at around 10:00am or so (this year we started later) we board busses and head in an impressive caravan to our floats which are lined up ahead of time along Tchoupitoulas. Then we board and wait for the parade to roll.

This year, I think we got started at around 12:30pm, which is almost one hour past our regular scheduled route. And we rode for 5 hours until disembarking at about 5:30pm back where we started, right out in front of the downtown Hilton.

My brother and I generally tend to ride heavy, meaning we have an inordinate amount of throws, so that we can pretty much chunk all along the route.

Saw lots of friends and colleagues and their kids along the route. Saw lots of friends of friends of friends, too. Saw plenty of my students, too. I even had the chance to see fellow NOLA blogger Leigh C.. If I missed anyone on the route, I beg your forgiveness. It can be quite difficult to catch everyone in the constant din of hollers and merriment, as I am sure anyone who has ridden before knows.

I can tell how much fun I had by how exhausted I was in the end. I crashed and burned (from exhuastion and not from being sauced!) at around 8:30pm, and I slept for about 11 hours. Today, I'm sore and reliving the good memories and looking forward to tomorrow. Hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Mardi Gras this season and, if I didn't see you this year, there's always next year! Hail Thoth!