Claire's Life

After church on Sunday, May 7, my friend Sarah, my sister Katie, and I were sitting in Jackson Square Park, enjoying the sunshine and waiting for Katie's friend to join us for brunch. Suddenly,  the NOPD came through and hustled everyone out of the park without explanation. They then chained shut the park gates and, uh, leaned against the fence and casually watched a street magician performing. This turned out to be a crowd-control measure because of the protests going on in New Orleans. You might have heard about them if you  read the New York Times .  To sum up: Over the past century and a quarter, New Orleans has erected statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and P.T. Beauregard, as well as an obelisk memorializing the time  white supremacists revolted against Reconstruction  and lost. Recently, New Orleans city government started removing these monuments, starting with the obelisk. This created major backlash from pro-Co

Last Christmas, my sister, Katie, bought me plane tickets and a hotel room in New Orleans. My close friend from college and my sister's close friend from grad school have both moved down there in the past year, so we were excited to catch up. The trip was last week, and I offer here a few highlights. Our flight getting indefinitely delayed by a 50,000' thunderstorm This was a discouraging start to the trip. Fortunately, we finally got to the hotel around 5:30AM the day after we were supposed to arrive. Our string of exasperated Facebook posts about it attracted the attention of some college friendsz     of mine, which led to . . . A random surprise reunion We were there, as I said, to visit two friends that we know in New Orleans. Unbeknownst to us, three other people I knew were also in town for the Jazz Festival. After we finally landed and got to the hotel, I got a call saying "we're around the block from your hotel! Come meet us for lunch!" After lun