Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?

Crankyjewishguy (CJG) knows he said he might not be blogging every day from New Orleans, but just a quick one. When he left Boston yesterday it was about 12 degrees and the piles of dirty snow at the end of his driveway were still about five feet high. As he drove along St. Charles Avenue yesterday afternoon the temperature was 75 degrees and the magnolia trees were in bloom. What's wrong with this picture? (Not the one below, the bigger picture.)

New Orleans, more than any city CJG has ever visited, is a state of mind and it is, in his humble opinion, America's most distinctive city, wholly unlike any other city in the country. Mardi Gras doesn't start for another two weeks, but this weekend there will be not one, not two, but three big pre-Mardi Gras parades, proving yet again that this city loves a party, or a parade, preferably at least one a day. There's a real charm to the city's amiable chaos, but it would drive anyone from neat and orderly Switzerland crazy. As they say, you can't think of New Orleans as the worst organized city in the United States; you have to think of it as the best organized city in the Caribbean.