Mardi Gras? Sounds like devilry to me.

Hello world, I am back.

I realize it is rather gauche to create a sewing blog and then pretty much immediately go on a long vacation. If you want a pillar of taste and refinement, though, you might want to try a different blog. For me, it's gauche or bust, baby! (But seriously, so much love for those blogs. And I will try to tastefully update in the future, now that I'm not punishing my body with whiskey and plastic beads.)

I tried to get some photos of awesome Mardi Gras costumes for you. I really did try. Some where between the rain and cold and music and Jack Daniels and the pitiful camera on my phone, I came home to the thought: These are your photos, Alison? Really?

But, we live with what we have. So, without further ado, my New Orleans trip...

I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that we spent the first night in the sleaziest hotel that Houston had to offer (to shorten the drive the next day). We originally had plans to sleep on a friend's couch, but after some very fantastic late night decision-making, we said "Hey, you know what would be better? A motel where there is a bottle opener attached to the bathroom sink!"

Nothing says classy like drinking beer in a motel bathroom.

Yep.

Next afternoon, we arrive into New Orleans and as soon as we turn into French Quarter, we saw a man totter dangerously before gravity changed its rules specifically for him and he fell down a building. His buddy did nothing to help, whether he was also drunk or just very sangfroid, I'm not entirely sure.

"Oh, wow," Heather proclaimed, because this was her first trip to New Orleans. "On this trip, nobody be THAT GUY, okay?"

Fate would make a fool of her, as Heather was the first to be THAT GUY. But don't worry, we all got our turn at being THAT GUY at some point during the week. The rest can be summed up by a series of blurrier and blurrier photos:

Start a Bacchanalia right with some Roman gods.

I was feeling like a punk rock Marilyn Monroe in my tattoo mini dress.

Strangers made stranger by awesome masks.

David Bowie Lookalike at a Gay Club?
That's like my favorite sentence ever!

This woman partied hard in this dress for a full twenty four hours. I went to bed and then woke up
and she was still partying. She wouldn't stand still long enough to take a great picture,
so I'm guessing she was either on cocaine or some sort of wizard.

Hipster Bee and his Astronaut friend! I wish I had better pictures of these two,
because it would make an awesome children's story.

Hipster Bee's amazing sweater. Or rather his girlfriend's sweater.
How could she possibly lend out this amazing sweater?

Oh. Because she had this amazing (and terrifying) cardigan to wear.

Jennifer making friends with this guy in an amazing headdress.

This guy was a fantastic dancer. Smoother than Nutella.
And something about the lighting in this picture make me (left)
look like an Uncanny Valley Barbie Doll.

King and Queen of Jazz

The four of us in our Mardi Gras tutus and fascinators.
(Note from our jackets that Fat Tuesday was really cold!)

After that many days of carousing, we recovered (with Juan's Flying Burritos and more beer) in the Garden District and snapped a couple of photos of the super swank houses that fill the Garden District. Honestly, though, I don't think that my pictures do justice to how massive these house are.

This is a restaurant, not a house. But I'm absolutely head over heels
for those teal and white stripes.

And I realize that this makes me the definition of a tourist, but I can't let a trip to Nola go by without Cafe du Monde's cafe au lait and beignets.

I'm not above taking pictures of my food!

Drinking. Jazz. Costumes. Bad decisions in taxi cabs. It was a fantastic trip all told. Thank you for indulging me in my vacation and, once I'm recovered from my trip, next post will be back to sewing. (And it will have pink robots. Intrigued?)

Finally I'll leave you with "The King of Mardi Gras" as he was heralded as he rode down Frenchman and since I took enough photos of it, I went ahead and made him a gif.

And he's on a unicorn, guys! On my best day, I'm not even half so awesome.