Toasting to a Fresh Start

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2009

Entry #150

Toasting to a Fresh Start

by Esther Avila

April looked around her new bedroom. It was perfect.

“Everything had to be white. That’s what I told him,” she told her best friend Nicky as she let herself fall on top of the white down’s comforter on her white wrought iron bed.

Across the small room, lit candles reflected two sad faces off the mirror of a white dresser.

“I still can’t believe you said yes? You don’t love him,” Nicky said. “It’s not too late. Call your parents. Tell them you want to go home.”

“I have no family,” April answered quietly as she looked at long-stem white roses adorning the bedside table. “They threw me out. He saved me. I owe him this.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to marry him.”

Nicky tried to talk some last minute sense into her friend. In a few hours it would be too late. The wedding was scheduled for morning.

April looked at her maid of honor – her only real friend – the only person who really knew her.

Removing a bottle of wine from under the bed, April poured red wine into a single goblet.

“Some things have to be red,” April said, sharing the wine with Nicky who sobbed quietly.

“Don’t cry, my love. I’m not going to marry Jack,” April said, brushing her wine-tasting, arsenic-covered lips against Nicky’s. “Don’t be scared. In vino veritas. No one can ever separate us again.”

Long time, no write - too busy traveling

So much has happened this year and I have not written in my blog much - my apologies to myself as much as to others for that. Let's see if I can catch people up.....

January - I lost my dream job. Odd that I call it that. But to me, it was. I loved writing for my home paper and still miss it alot. But, like dozens of others who have been laid off from the newspaper business, I had no choice but to move on. I chose to do so by traveling.

Jennifer and Richard
Mardi Gras Festival - near Louisiana

Marisa in Mississippi

Marisa in Alabama

@ Hardees - Meridian, Mississippi
Marisa-Esther-Jennifer
Had never seen/been to one

February - Mississippi and Alabama - Spent Valentines Day in Mississippi. I loved the area. A whole week in Mississippi, Alabama (including a drive to Cuba, AL) and Louisiana. It was fun. I remember stopping in Alabama and seeing a little red-headed, freckled-face, bare-footed boy riding his bicycle down a narrow road. A brown dog ran after him. I loved it. So Norman Rockwell like. 

March 2009 - Ten days in New York City

March - Spring Break with my daughter Catherine in New York City. I finally had a dream come true - I ice skated in Central Park - a dream of mine since I was in 7th grade. (and saw it on "Love Story")

April - San Francisco - 4-day band trip with Jennifer.

Marisa at Disney's
California Adventure

May - Disneyland & California Adventure

Catherine at Forks, Washington
"Twilight Tour"

June - Pacific NW - following and writing about the Fabulous Studio Band (Seattle and in Everett, WA) With side trips to Whidbey Island The San Juan Islands is one of my favorite all-time places. Forks and Port Angeles in Washington and the "Twilight Tour."

Richard and Jennifer
Atlantic Beach, NC

July - I am currently writing this from North Carolina - where I am spending a week with Jennifer at Cherry Point MCAS - Havelock, NC

I really love this area. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. The Outerbanks - absolutely breathtaking. We went to the aquarium and took a small charter boat to see the wild mustangs and collect shells at Shackleford Banks - something I will never forget.