Start off with a drive up Esplanade to Carrollton to Canal and have lunch at Mandina's.  Then walk all the way around City Park on a crystal clear day that just doesn't happen too often in New Orleans, just warm enough and hardly any humidity.  The New Orleans Museum of Art is right there and it's free to Louisiana residents, so check that out for awhile.  Then hit Rouse's for file powder and head back down Carrollton to Basil Leaf for a delicious Thai dinner, during which you watch the streetcar rattle by and after which you walk the rest of the way up Carrollton to the Riverbend levee.  Walk along the levee for awhile, with the river on one side and the city on the other and stars shining bright overhead, only to get cut off from the rest of the city by the train.  Finally, end up at Creole Creamery for dessert of chocolate chicory ice cream in a waffle cone.  Waffle cones taste like fortune cookies.

Thanksekaterinn.  I needed that.  We both needed to not be teachers for a day.

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

- Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn