Friendly Letter

Luciana Paz
1234 Oak Grove
Atlanta,Georgia

September 8, 2010

Dear Grandpa,

How have you been? I’m writing because last night, while I was lying on bed thinking about everything and I remembered that it has been three months since we’ve seen each other.

I wanted to recur the good times we had together. The times when you always wanted me to read your big anthology of poems and stories. The times when you would come spontaneously in the room making a meow sound and I would automatically know it was you. The times when you would get the bottle cap of the soda and a napkin and pretended you didn’t have an eye and you had a long white mustache. I remember how you would gingerly explain your book about the genealogy of our family and that you want to pass it down from generation to generation. I remember your calm and fun disposition that made me feel safe and protected.

I also remembered what those horrible people did to you, that night we were supposed to go out to eat dinner. The next morning I found you so depressed and in excruciating pain that it just brought me into tears. From then on I was instilled to how much you have to be grateful and vigilant with everything that is around you. The most important thing is that you are alright and that you have me by your side as well as your entire family. I love you and miss you very much!

Love,
Luciana

Memory Box

I have a memory box. I bet many people do and think of them in their own special way, just the way I do. I love to keep about everything that is important; I still have papers from first grade! My mom gets mad at me because I never organize that junk (don’t think my room is a big trash can.)It’s okay, you may say.

I love to keep the important things in this little box I have, that I like to call a My Memory Box. The name is not that unique but it’s concise for its purpose. My memory box contains things from the late 1900's and the early 21 first century. It’s a place where all your cherished moment and deepest secrets and feelings are kept; it’s just like a diary, but even better.

I have every important event in there; it’s like my entire life in a box. Since barley anything fits in there anymore I asked my mom if we could buy a bigger one (guess what she said...oh yes honey, please you really need it). Now I'm in the middle of the modification of my cardboard box, it’s so exciting and important for me do have this box because at any time, I could have the chance to make a small peek in there that evokes many wonderful memories that bring me joy. So I’m going to continues this until I grow to be a grandma and pass it down to the next generation and the next and the next.

Memoir Monday: It Would Just Make You Smile

I was talking with my big sister on Facebook she said that she was at a friend’s house for the whole weekend…I’d forgot that it was Labor Day weekend (I wish we could have that here in Panama)

I had recurred one specific memory about this weekend… I remember that my swim team and I had organized a special meet and invited other team to join us. Each team had a different cap that had something to do with Labor Day (I can’t really remember what was mine). Anyways, I remember that no one took it like a competition, every face had a big smile even the coaches that have a strict disposition! I can’t describe how much fun we had that day!

At the end of the day I realized that events like those bring everyone together and that’s what really make everyone happy and gives them the chance to wear a smile.

Are You Missing Me the Way I Do to You?

It is 5:30 p.m. it’s about the time where absolutely everyone will log into this so called website: Facebook. I go through my notifications, newsfeeds and stop at a comment my cousin Sabrina, made. It was about how much she missed me but it also said that the Exit Magazine, where our pictures of our party had been printed had come out finally! I was so excited; we had been waiting about almost a month now. As fast as I could, I told her to get on Skype and locally she got the notification in no time! She first showed me the magazine somewhat blurry because of the camera but it was fine...there was a picture of Sabrina and I with all my cousins, and three others with friends. I couldn't believe it, I was in a magazine. She said she was going to send it by mail and some other stuff too including the invitation so I can put in my memory box.

(I'm not done with my slice of life yet...I'm going to write about something else that happened while talking with Sabrina.) So between all that happiness I remembered that I had made my poetry Friday about talking with her on Skype just like now. I decided to open up my blog and share it with her, just after the second I finished reading she was quiet and burst into tears. I couldn’t help it but cry along with her the pain of being so far away is just unbelievable. I remembered that I was going for Christmas over there, but it was a surprise so I couldn’t say anything about it yet.

Ketchup, My Second Love

Okay, Ketchup is my second love...I use it for everything except cereal, that's just weird. I’ve always loved ketchup... I can remember the first time I tried it...just kidding, I really don't. My mom says I have something wrong with me for loving ketchup so much....but I can’t help it!
Is it weird that when you see the new bottle, shimmering with the newly put on sticker you feel an excitement rush into you? It’s kind of embarrassing admitting this but what can I do?

My mom loves to tell this story about me (it’s about ketchup obviously). It’s one of those stories that your mom thinks it’s cute but you think it’s the most embarrassing thing ever and you just want to hide behind anything at that moment. Well, my mom say that right after a tornado hit are house and the red cross had come we had a chance to go and collect our things…and well, the only thing I asked for was (try to guess) it was my ketchup bottle not my bottle of milk, not candy bar, not even my teddy bear! I adore the person one how invented ketchup, it one of the best sauces ever (actually the best sauce ever made) so once again, ketchup is my second love.

It’s Another Friday

finally…
the days hold back
the stories waiting to be told
waiting and waiting until today.
I scroll down the list of friends.
I come upon the name of my cousin.
I click on the green bottom.
Every time I see the little loading sign
I wonder
how it’s possible
to talk from thousand and thousand miles away…
I see them on the screen, blurry
but enough to see there smiles.
We laugh, cry,
we talk about are struggles,
we make jokes,
talk about guys,
are adventures in school
and we count the months, the days to see each other.
But for now we are behind a camera…
Waiting for another Friday,
holding the stories waiting to be told
Waiting and waiting until
next time.

The Tell-Tale Heart from the Point of View of the Police

Its 3:30 a.m., a women pants and rushes within the station. She tells us that during the night she heard a shriek that came from the neighbor’s house and a small ray of light shot out of the window. We asked her if she could corroborate with more but she could not. We thanked her and asked her to lead us to the house... the two officers and I surmised many theories to what might have possibly caused that shriek. We said we would endeavor to search gingerly, not anything slip away.

We walked up to the front door of the house, the porch was clad with dust, I knocked… a man greets us with smiles. Why was he smiling? We tell him that a shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play had been alerted; information had been derived at the police office, and we had been ordered to search the house. We gingerly walked in to the dark and hunting place. He led us all over the house and told us to search well. He informed us that the old man was out of the country…I rose my eyebrows in disbelief. We did not search in a cursory manner because I was sure that there was something wrong.

We did not find anything out of place. We were about to succumb but just as we went into the old man’s room and the man offered us to sit, I could tell that his tone went from calm and content, to an abrasive one. A grimace crossed his face and became paler by the second, as well as dehydrated; I knew he was hiding something. He swung the chair, he talked louder and louder, his frantic expression was terrifying… I saw him tear the floor boards yelling “here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!” I was electrified of this gruesome site, the old man laying stone dead, with his eyes opened one brown and the other pale blue… just like a vultures eye.