Window shop for chandeliers and antique suits of armor on the way to Sylvain on Royal for silky chicken liver pate and a crispy fried chicken sandwich, all washed down with a glass of rosé. Let a magician wave you in for his performance, suspend skepticism, let yourself be impressed when he cuts into a kiwi fruit to reveal a $20 bill. Hear an old man beat out the blues. Walked and walk and walk some more. Have a daiquiri in a plastic cup, because it seems like the thing to do. Café du Monde for powdered sugar deep-fried dough & chicory café au lait. Keep the energy up!

Nightfall. All the doors are open spilling sound to collide in the neon street the tunes of a hundred musicians amplified by booze, frozen rum rainbows in a plastic cup held by a sorority girl in a mini skirt who can’t walk in her platform shoes. Come on in! Come inside say the hucksters with their signs and flyers they want you to just come on in, hey girly, come on now, two-for-ones and just a dollar will get you through the door for tonight’s special is right on stage. You don’t need a sign post to know you’re on Bourbon Street because the balconies are dancing and someone’s still throwing beads into an entertainer’s upturned hat and the swamp smell is sticking to the edges of the gutters. Then turn the corner and all is quiet.

Follow a different kind of crowd tumbling down Frenchman Street. This is where we like to be. Grab a seat at The Three Muses bar to nibble crawfish beignets and sip an Old Fashioned while the band swings. At set break, the brass blare of a trombone calls from outside where a 12-piece band covers Billie Jean and the cars are honking ‘cause people are dancing right in the street. I’m enchanted. Here the notes jitterbug out onto the sidewalk with the flip of a skirt and a backward glance to lure us inside The Spotted Cat Club where a small stage is crammed with talent and soul. Everyone’s feet are tap tap tapping and even the doorman is grinning under his mustache. Hey!

Then it’s time to sneak past the ghosts in the high walled cemetery, feeling the music still in our tired feet, to slip through safe gates back to our Minnie to sleep.