Ms. Orange Blossom Sunshine
Christy loves Halloween so much she got married on Halloween 18 years ago
My friend Christy aka Sugar aka Ms. Orange Blossom Sunshine and I met in Florida long ago. She wanted to go out dancing at the only gay bar in Gainesville. She locked her keys in the car, and AAA came and rescued us. She was the first person I knew who had AAA.
She drank 7&7’s which I took to drinking even though they tased awful. She invited me to visit her in DC, and we’d go out dancing at Polly Esthers her favorite dance club back then.
Every Halloween when I was in medical school, I’d fly to DC to celebrate Halloween with her. She’d have an actual costume, and she’d dress me up in glitter body paint, false eye lashes, and a feather boa. Every year I just went as my own Fabulous Diva Self.
She and her mother Maryanne were obsessed back then with being Sweet Potato Queens which was a very festive Southern pre YaYa Sisterhood festival rather like Mardi Gras but with more pink glitter and the Sweet Potato Queens would throw Sweet Potatoes from their floats.
Her dog Tessie (Tesla) would usually eat one or both of my false eyelashes the next very hung over morning sleeping on her fold out living room couch.
We went to the Millenium 2000 New Years Eve celebration in NYC.
We went to Cannes, France, at the Canne Film Festival my senior year of medical school.
We rented a little red French convertible which was a stick, and Christy can’t drive a manual transmission, so I had to do all the driving. We drove down to San Tropez one evening. We’d bought wine at the grocery store which was a novelty in 2000. One of the bottles was some kind of hallucinogenic red wine, and somehow, I drank most of the bottle on a pebble beach on the way to San Tropez. Then I was hallucinating that dragons were coming up out of the sea on those windy mountain cliff roads along the Sea. This is where Princess Grace died, I thought to myself.
I didn’t tell her about the dragons because I knew we would have a better chance making it with me driving with the dragons than her driving a stick shift.
She came to New York for New Years when we were turning 30.
We both got married in 2007. She and Ray got married on Halloween in a circle of gourds they had grown in their backyard. When her twins were two years old, they’d say when we were driving in the car “Play the wedding song!” which was Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
She was Carmen Miranda, and I was Gwen Stefani.
Last year we went to Italy to celebrate turning 50.
This is us in Firenze.
When she picked me up at the train platform in Siena, I squealed with delight. It’d been 4.5 years since we’d seen each other because of the pandemic. And we’re both going grey at our right temple.
“We can dress up as the Brides of Frankenstein!!!” I exclaimed, “With matching grey streaks in our hair!”
I have always looked forward to growing old with Christy.
I knew a long time ago, that we’d get to go on fun trips together and wear hats and be fabulous in our old age.
Here I am when we went to Cinque Terra.
May blessings shine upon you on your Halloween Anniversary, Sugar.
xo
Ida