Maybe they would have cried.
(Unless, of course, they enjoy staying up until 5 a.m. listening to a loud New Orleans funk band and seeing men in red dresses and thongs running through the streets at noon).
Oh yea.
The Red Dress run is a charity pub crawl where everyone (men AND women) don crimson dresses and walk through the French Quarter for charity, and it was quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
I laughed especially hard at the big, muscley men wearing V-neck halter dresses and thrift store red moo moos.
It certainly was a good conversation starter.
“Sweet prom dress,” I told one guy, who immediately showed me the bustle on the back.
(I learned what a bustle was that one time I was a bridesmaid, and this guy got mad points for knowing the term.)
“People are telling me I look like a lesbian,” a smaller, blonde guy told me when I complimented the gold buttons on his red polyester business power suit.
Ha. Maybe a lesbian from Working Girl.
Other guys wore tutus, thongs and wigs and gyrated around the street screaming, laughing, spilling beer and smoking cigarettes.
But everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dressed up.
That’s one thing I love about New Orleans: 100 percent participation rate.
It was like the best Halloween ever.
I was wearing a red dress, but I wasn’t a registered participant for the run, mainly because I didn’t have $70 for the registration fee.
But I did have spirit, and that only cost a 12-pack of miller high life.
I put the beer in my backpack and my friend, Bailey, and I each popped open a can (IN THE STREET!) and walked down to Bourbon Street to join the revelers.
(Drinking in the street is my favorite non-law ever, because you can party immediately.)
People in New Orleans come prepared to party with surprisingly loud speakers attached to beer coolers being pushed down the street, and instruments (of course), and you couldn’t swing a red handbag around without hitting a dance party.
I also ran into people I knew from ten years ago in high school, and it still weirds me out how small New Orleans can be.
After several beers and a few sips of a hand grenade, I rode my mom’s old bike home (FYI: Bike rides! Super fun!) and proceeded to take the nicest nap I’ve had in a long time.
Fast forward three hours, and I was sitting with my mom at a Norah Jones concert, wishing that I could play the piano like her, look like her and be a sexy siren with a smooth jazzy voice.
Norah Jones should dress more like Jessica Rabbit, I thought. Like when she came out with that glittery red dress with the big slit up the side.
“Like another maaaaaan…..do..” haha.
Norah Jones put on a great show, and everyone laughed when someone screamed “WHO DAT!” and Norah said, “Did you just say Hooters?”
Silly rabbit.
After the concert, I went to another concert --- this one with lots and lots and lots of dancing ---- and lots and lots and lots of dancing with MY BOYFRIEND ---- and dancing with my boyfriend is pretty much my favorite thing in the whole world.
The band, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, is my favorite band in New Orleans, and I’m pretty convinced after last night that I have an involuntary condition that prohibits me from sitting still when I hear brass instruments.
(Especially the saxophone and trombone.)
I forgot that bars don’t close. I was honestly in shock when the band ended, and it was after 4 a.m.
(Another thing I like about New Orleans).
Oh and before we went home, my friends all stopped by a snowball stand and got some treats.
As such, today I slept till noon. Then I got brunch with my boyfriend at a neighborhood cafe and lounged with him on the couch for the entire afternoon.
It was glorious.
Dinner at a restaurant uptown included gumbo, followed by a stop at the most decadent little gelato place where we got “big kid” shakes that included alcohol.
Mine? A “gelato-tini,” strawberry blossom flavored gelato with champagne. (It was very dainty.)
My boyfriend got something with a hazelnut liquor and whipped cream.
We noted that it would be a great hair-of-the-dog place for a hangover. I’ll keep that in mind.
Now, I’m home at my parents’ house and I’m watching the roast of David Hasselhoff and my mom left the room after the fourth C-word was uttered (um…awkward).
But other than that, this really was the best weekend I could have asked for back home in the city.
Perhaps a more conservative person would think it was a bit over the top, though.
I mean, alcohol in the ice cream? 5 a.m. bedtime? Unproductively laying on the couch?
And what about that red dress debauchery???
Too scandalous?
Hell no! It was totally perfect, and it included all of my favorite things. Including David Hasselhoff.
(Sorry to those who didn’t have a perfect weekend, because I’ve totally been there and the last thing you want to hear about is someone else’s perfect weekend when yours was bad, but you know what? Come visit anytime. But, only if you’re not offended.)
-Jenny
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