It’s been the weirdest Carnival ever. It’s been cancelled for war and police strikes but never because of disease; hopefully for the first and last time.

As much as I hate overuse of the R-word, New Orleanians are resilient people. We survived Katrina and the Federal Flood; we can survive the pandemic. We may be down but we’re never out.

In response to parade cancellations, a new phenomenon has spread across the metro area, house floats. That’s right, some enterprising locals have transformed their houses into floats. Some are simple, others are elaborate. Some are homemade, others were done by local artists thrown out of work because of the pandemic. Many New Orleans artists make their living from Jazz Fest and Carnival. Some have turned to house floating if that’s the right word. Beats the hell outta house painting.

The featured image comes from a house on State Street Uptown. It’s a take on the Seurat masterpiece Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte. It features local Carnival characters instead of long dead French people.

I’ve been sidelined with a recurring malady but Dr. A has been out and about looking at the house floats. The picture at the top is hers.

While I want Carnival to return to normal next year, I hope house float mania was not just a one-year craze. It took Carnival off the parade route and into the neighborhoods. Let’s do it again.

Augmenting the weirdness, it’s going to be the coldest Mardi Gras day since 1989. I hate the cold, so I plan to hunker down and wait for warmer weather. Claire Trevor is happy because the space heater will be roaring. So it goes.

The last word goes to Dr. John with a Mardi Gras Indian anthem:

Wait Until Next Year.