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Mardi Gras weekend: Are you Sarah Connor
Feb. 16th, 2026 11:17 amApparently I almost met Linda Hamilton. Lori and Jeremy have this friend couple they do a lot of stuff with, Saints games and Carnival parades and such, and Linda Hamilton is their friend. They're neighbors in Algiers--Algiers is such a low-key neighborhood for a movie star to live in--and NO has been her primary residence for a while because her oldest kid and first grandkid live there. Lori and Jeremy have met her at least once that I know of, when the 5 of them went to a game. Lori likes her a lot, she says she's very nice and funny and not at all like a weird rich out-of-touch movie star.
Anyway she wanted to come to Iris and Tucks, but they went to something the day before where one person recognized her and it started a chain reaction of people mobbing her for selfies, which sounds like my personal nightmare, and I guess that killed the vibe. Too bad, I was going to tell her about the time I was a Pinkerton and every single day for several years one of our site managers would call and say "Are you Sarah Connor" in a terrible Austrian accent every time I answered the phone and I had to pretend to find it funny. You just know people yell that at her on the street.
Fame sounds like absolute hell to me and I honestly don't know why anyone aspires to it. Unfortunately there's no real way to opt out of it if acting is what you want to do with your life, and you're successful at it.
But it was a fabulous weekend. I left straight from work on Friday night and made pretty good time; Google maps took me in via the Westbank Expressway, which has a lot of traffic lights but avoided any serious traffic jams. I was in time to see most of Krewe of Hermes, then Krewe D'état and Krewe of Morpheus. D'état had a pro-ICE float that everyone boo'd; they are generally known for having shitty political messaging anyway and if they weren't between Hermes and Morpheus probably the only people that would turn out for them are their fellow causeway runaways (a NO term for people that talk shit about the city from the safety of their North Shore 'burbs but still treat it like their personal theme park). I would be surprised if even 10% of that krewe actually live in the city.
I got one of Morpheus' signature throws, a decorated sleep mask.
Iris and Tucks are day parades, so we made breakfast at the apartment instead of going out, then made the signs. This year Jeremy had a backboard that said "She'd <3 a" with the heart in red glitter and outlined in LED tape lights, then he made different foamboard cutouts of whatever the signature throw was that he put on with velcro, so he could just swap them out. I colored in the sunglasses (Iris) with glitter while they finished the toilet plunger (Tucks), then we went down, where Mike and Patrice (the friends that are neighbors with Linda Hamilton) were holding down our chairs. The weather was perfect for day parades: low 70s, low humidity, a good breeze, and just overcast enough.
Iris is the krewe I most wanted to see this year, and I really wanted one of their decorative sunglasses. I had caught a couple pairs that had their name on them but weren't very elaborate, when a hand-decorated pair with lenses shaped like butterfly wings landed between me and another woman. We both reached for them, and she said I already caught a couple pairs, you take them. We'd been talking to the people around us and fostering community, which encourages people to share and not hoard everything they catch. You don't need a dozen versions of the same throw, pass them around! I caught another pair a little while later with heart-shaped lenses and I gave them to a cute little girl behind me who was so happy.
Tucks was also fun, and I got a decorated plunger and a toilet brush, but I started to really hit the wall towards the end. 42 floats is a lot of toilet jokes, and by then we'd been out for about 6 hours. Having the chairs helped, but still. You have to stand for every float or you'll never catch anything so it was still a lot of standing, and getting out of those camp chairs is also a little painful when you have suboptimal knees. We had planned to maybe see a little bit of Endymion, but we were too pooped to even get something to eat out. We had some cold fried chicken they had got from Brothers the day before and then went to bed pretty early.
Endymion kinda sucks anyway, it's like the tourists' idea of a Mardi Gras parade and the crowds are always very aggressive, and the krewe itself is pretty mean. Like they throw a lot of stuff, but they'll aim right at your face and laugh about it.
I headed out shortly after noon on Sunday. At home I unpacked, did a load of laundry, changed my bedsheets, and once I'd untangled all my beads I put them in the shower and ran scalding water on them for a couple of minutes. (When I was showing Mom all the throws I caught--literally 2 grocery totes full--Penny immediately seized the poop emoji plushie I caught from Tucks and claimed it as her own. Seemed fitting so I let her keep it.) I got us pizza for dinner--Amore Pizza brought back the muffaletta pizza!--since obviously I wasn't going to the grocery store or cooking.
After supper I wheedled one of Mom's hydrocodones out of her because boy was everything starting to hurt. My knees, obviously; but also my calves--I think I was a little dehydrated, I kept getting cramps--my shoulders from constantly raising my arms and waving them around, and my neck from craning my head upwards. I put on the Netflix version of Unsolved Mysteries and plugged in my hot glue gun, because the plunger and brush from Tucks had a lot of little not-very-well-glued-on elements that came off when they threw it. Luckily they had both been in plastic bags, so I still had all of them.
I had a great time and it was really fun to see some different krewes; next year I think I want to see Krewe of Cleopatra, another women's krewe.
My signature throws:
And the Tucks throws once I fixed them:
I caught them from different floats so it's neat how much they match, with the Carnival colors, the beads in a spiral, and the same foil strips.
I now have enough throws I want to keep that I have to clear off a space for display. I think my window sill will be the best place, but the drawback there is it's where I keep the orrery I assembled, and that thing is huge. There really isn't anywhere else to keep it, unless I clear out a different space. The top shelf of my desk, maybe? A lot of that is stuff I don't necessarily need out and could keep in the closet, like my tote full of fountain pen inks and all my unused notebooks.
Anyway she wanted to come to Iris and Tucks, but they went to something the day before where one person recognized her and it started a chain reaction of people mobbing her for selfies, which sounds like my personal nightmare, and I guess that killed the vibe. Too bad, I was going to tell her about the time I was a Pinkerton and every single day for several years one of our site managers would call and say "Are you Sarah Connor" in a terrible Austrian accent every time I answered the phone and I had to pretend to find it funny. You just know people yell that at her on the street.
Fame sounds like absolute hell to me and I honestly don't know why anyone aspires to it. Unfortunately there's no real way to opt out of it if acting is what you want to do with your life, and you're successful at it.
But it was a fabulous weekend. I left straight from work on Friday night and made pretty good time; Google maps took me in via the Westbank Expressway, which has a lot of traffic lights but avoided any serious traffic jams. I was in time to see most of Krewe of Hermes, then Krewe D'état and Krewe of Morpheus. D'état had a pro-ICE float that everyone boo'd; they are generally known for having shitty political messaging anyway and if they weren't between Hermes and Morpheus probably the only people that would turn out for them are their fellow causeway runaways (a NO term for people that talk shit about the city from the safety of their North Shore 'burbs but still treat it like their personal theme park). I would be surprised if even 10% of that krewe actually live in the city.
I got one of Morpheus' signature throws, a decorated sleep mask.
Iris and Tucks are day parades, so we made breakfast at the apartment instead of going out, then made the signs. This year Jeremy had a backboard that said "She'd <3 a" with the heart in red glitter and outlined in LED tape lights, then he made different foamboard cutouts of whatever the signature throw was that he put on with velcro, so he could just swap them out. I colored in the sunglasses (Iris) with glitter while they finished the toilet plunger (Tucks), then we went down, where Mike and Patrice (the friends that are neighbors with Linda Hamilton) were holding down our chairs. The weather was perfect for day parades: low 70s, low humidity, a good breeze, and just overcast enough.
Iris is the krewe I most wanted to see this year, and I really wanted one of their decorative sunglasses. I had caught a couple pairs that had their name on them but weren't very elaborate, when a hand-decorated pair with lenses shaped like butterfly wings landed between me and another woman. We both reached for them, and she said I already caught a couple pairs, you take them. We'd been talking to the people around us and fostering community, which encourages people to share and not hoard everything they catch. You don't need a dozen versions of the same throw, pass them around! I caught another pair a little while later with heart-shaped lenses and I gave them to a cute little girl behind me who was so happy.
Tucks was also fun, and I got a decorated plunger and a toilet brush, but I started to really hit the wall towards the end. 42 floats is a lot of toilet jokes, and by then we'd been out for about 6 hours. Having the chairs helped, but still. You have to stand for every float or you'll never catch anything so it was still a lot of standing, and getting out of those camp chairs is also a little painful when you have suboptimal knees. We had planned to maybe see a little bit of Endymion, but we were too pooped to even get something to eat out. We had some cold fried chicken they had got from Brothers the day before and then went to bed pretty early.
Endymion kinda sucks anyway, it's like the tourists' idea of a Mardi Gras parade and the crowds are always very aggressive, and the krewe itself is pretty mean. Like they throw a lot of stuff, but they'll aim right at your face and laugh about it.
I headed out shortly after noon on Sunday. At home I unpacked, did a load of laundry, changed my bedsheets, and once I'd untangled all my beads I put them in the shower and ran scalding water on them for a couple of minutes. (When I was showing Mom all the throws I caught--literally 2 grocery totes full--Penny immediately seized the poop emoji plushie I caught from Tucks and claimed it as her own. Seemed fitting so I let her keep it.) I got us pizza for dinner--Amore Pizza brought back the muffaletta pizza!--since obviously I wasn't going to the grocery store or cooking.
After supper I wheedled one of Mom's hydrocodones out of her because boy was everything starting to hurt. My knees, obviously; but also my calves--I think I was a little dehydrated, I kept getting cramps--my shoulders from constantly raising my arms and waving them around, and my neck from craning my head upwards. I put on the Netflix version of Unsolved Mysteries and plugged in my hot glue gun, because the plunger and brush from Tucks had a lot of little not-very-well-glued-on elements that came off when they threw it. Luckily they had both been in plastic bags, so I still had all of them.
I had a great time and it was really fun to see some different krewes; next year I think I want to see Krewe of Cleopatra, another women's krewe.
My signature throws:
And the Tucks throws once I fixed them:
I caught them from different floats so it's neat how much they match, with the Carnival colors, the beads in a spiral, and the same foil strips.
I now have enough throws I want to keep that I have to clear off a space for display. I think my window sill will be the best place, but the drawback there is it's where I keep the orrery I assembled, and that thing is huge. There really isn't anywhere else to keep it, unless I clear out a different space. The top shelf of my desk, maybe? A lot of that is stuff I don't necessarily need out and could keep in the closet, like my tote full of fountain pen inks and all my unused notebooks.
