Costume de Rigeur

It's been a busy and tiring weekend so far. Saturday I went out to the Giro Ride, and although I was intent on staying well within my limits, I still logged over 70 miles, riding back the long way with Tim, Reo, Charlie and Kenny. The weather was quite warm, but the persistent dampness and morning fog made it feel quite a bit colder than it was. As soon as I got back home, The Wife was ready to drive up to Baton Rouge, so off I went for the rest of the day. We arrived back in New Orleans just in town to rush over to a housewarming for one of the doctors who had just about finished repairs on his house that was flooded after Katrina. This is the house from which we helped rescue stuff back in October '05. In this particular subdivision I'd guess about 10% of the people are back in their houses. That's just how long it takes to go through this whole process when you have insurance and other resources available - 16 months. Anyway, it was a nice party.

So this morning I woke up to the sound of wet streets and stumbled down the hallway to check the weather on the computer. I stared at the radar image for a long time before finally deciding to go ahead and try for the northshore ride, so I met Sam at Morning Call and we headed across the causeway in the thick fog at 45 mph. As it turned out, we had made the right decision. Although the streets were wet the whole time and we got a couple of very brief sprinkles of rain, all-in-all it was a pretty good 65 miles. We only had about seven guys today and the pace stayed pretty civilized, so that was nice considering that my legs were a little tired from Saturday. When I got home I took the bike outside, filled a bucket with soapy water and washed the poor thing down pretty well. There was grit and dirt everywhere, and although I rarely wash the bike with water like that, sometimes it's just the only way.

Yesterday was 12th night (or as we called it as children "King Cake Day") and what arrived in the mail but a set of invitations to a Mardi Gras ball. I haven't the faintest idea who would do such a thing as to invite me to a ball unless they were just curious about what I would look like in the required "costume de rigeur," which any good New Orleans boy knows is another way of saying white tie and tails. Looks like we'll be out of town that weekend. Whew! Nice of someone out there to think of me, I guess, but Mardi Gras balls, while a facinating tradition to be sure, have never been too high on my list, although I could certainly enjoy a nice drunken Queen's Supper afterward! I think my dad was king of Olympians once....