Even though it was a typical Monday and work was running ramshod on my emotional joie de vivre from the game, what a day indeed. This is a day to remember and a day to cherish – I’ll take New Orleans in good and bad times, but yesterday and today were the best of times. Superbowl champs – yes indeed.
Everybody keeps asking if we had a good time last night, well this city is really just getting started with the good time (if it indeed ever left off) – the Saints are on their way home today and then tomorrow is the Saints parade in front of the Superdome starting at 5PM – Carnival krewes have donated floats for them to have their own parade. And wait then there is actually Mardi Gras going on.
Never a day like today, when you wake up and the sun is shining, or you actually wake up at 4AM and roll over and wake up your sweetie and say, “We won the Superbowl!” and go back to sleep. Then you wake to the sun shining, to a new mayor in New Orleans, to being the one and only, the amazing, the incredible, Super Bowl Champions of 2010!
Pinch me now. Am I dreaming? Is it possible that today we are the World Champions – that the Times Picayune in front of everyone’s doorstep this morning said nothing but AMEN? That the Saints are not the Ain’ts anymore?
You know what the beauty of this is – we played a damn good team, we played ball from beginning to end, the coach took out his playbook and we played ball like only world champions could. Bless you boys – we are reborn here in New Orleans.
We met a bunch of moms out at the parade today. It seems Barkus is a lesbian mom must attend parade. There is an harmonic convergence of white lesbian moms with beautiful brown babies happening right here in New Orleans! Viva la difference!
Again, last minute, the parade starting, little boy sitting in his high chair not a care in the world. We all rallied to get costumed up and get down to the Barkus parade and we got there just in time to watch the fun. I gave my camera to someone to get a photo of us and this is what they took (note the top of his white puppy ears) – how could you see a little boy with a dog hat and NOT get him in the photo?
As much as my brother thinks the mohel’s cut will bring Tin closer to god, I hope Tin learns a broader identity than Jewish, black, gay, straight, or man.
I’ve been suffering through one too many film professor’s idea of a night curled up on the couch with a movie lately (last night’s German Four Minutes is enough to send me to my trust Coen brother collection). But this documentary T recommends appears very poignant and of the times.
After two terms of Ray “Nada Bonito” Nagin, who happens to be at the Superbowl today enjoying the last of his free rides this city is going to give him, we elected Mitch Landrieu in a landslide to be our mayor. New Orleans has a real mayor! Wow – hard to believe. We might not know how to act.
Glory Glory Hallelujah!
When New Orleans was underwater and the whole world was watching as our wretched poor were stuck at the Superdome with the most inefficient city, state and federal government ever seen in a first world country, we all felt a little sick. Not many New Orleans people worry or care about shame, but I’d have to say during and after Katrina more citizens of this beloved city had become acquainted with it. Shame of ourselves, shame of others and most of all world shame. Who are we? The whole world was watching and they thought who are you?
Today, we’re under the microscope again. A friend today in the park said Who Dat to my Who Dat and then said, “I’m nervous because the whole world is watching.” New Orleans has so much riding on this game that it has taken on the powerful gris gris to undo our shame – if we could win this Superbowl then we could show the world just who we are. It’s that feeling of measuring up that most of the time eludes most of the people here in this city that my good friend says is the only place on earth where you could marry a donut and no one would notice (that is unless you are a gay donut).
Dear Lord, give us this game, our first ever, and we will start the slate clean again. One nation, no more shame, under water and underwhelmed with the rest of the world.
Today the Saints go to the Superbowl in Miami for the first time in history. If anyone doubts that New Orleans can throw the best Superbowl party ever – they need to be here right now. I walked down the bayou and my neighbor was blaring on her outside speakers OH WHEN THE SAINTS… and Tin and I stopped and did the crunk.
My neighbors on St. John Court are putting up a 20 foot screen and projecting the game on it.
Yes, it’s Mardi Gras, and yes we’ll go to Barkus, but at 5:20 this afternoon GAME ON – Who Dat, Who Dat, Who Dat Say They Gonna Beat Them Saints!
When my mom was in the hospital for six months in critical condition, I harped at the nurses for not updating her blackboard every day with the day and time and who was her nurse in charge. I think I was sort of mental about it because it just made me think if they couldn’t tell her what day it was then they had no hope for her. I started my visits with updating my mother on where she was, how long she had been there, what day and time it was, and what the weather was outside. It became this rote thing that I did just automatically.
When Tin came home and I was waking him up and putting him on the changing table I began with the day, the date, the time and the weather almost every day.
At one gruesome point in my mother’s hospital stay, I walked in and she took my fingers and put them in her mouth and started sucking on them. I recoiled in horror inside but left my fingers in her mouth and just stared at her. This morning as Tin put his fingers in my mouth for me to suck on, I wondered what in the world goes through most people’s minds.
I decided to quit with the weather report and instead greet Tin with other news from now on.