PAST LIFE. My first blog post on this page has nothing whatsoever (isn’t that a great word?) with writing murder mysteries and everything to do with staring at a blank page with a blank mind.

Which is surprising. This doesn’t happen when I’m creating characters or killing one of those said characters off.

So as I look in the dark corners of my brain, the only story I can find, lying on the floor in a heap for several years, has to do with my winery, Costa Ventosa. My ex and I owned and operated it in a past life.

We started with planting a vineyard, which flooded about every other year, and produced crap grapes, making us buy grapes and grape juice from the market. At least the vineyard looked good enough for bridal shower attendees to take selfies before being chased away by the bees or an errant chicken. I’ll reserve the chicken tales for another day.

I made pretty good wine, though. Even won an award or two.

Right before the grand opening of the winery, my sister Karen came to help with the finishing touches like cleaning floors, toilets, sampling the wine to make sure it was still good, touching up paint, drinking more wine, that sort of thing. We were expecting a huge crowd since it was going to be all gratis: the food, the wine, the candy, the fun. Everyone shows up when the word “free” is bantered about.

My good friend Debi had created an eye-catching advertisement a few days prior, a full color picture of a glass of wine, grapes in the background, gold light flooding the photo, making the thing look magical. I wasn’t sure who was going to cater the event, so she plugged in “Wolfgang Puck” as a joke. We forgot about the placeholder, and ran the ad.

The Washington Post emailed me about Wolfgang. Was he really coming?

I panicked and wrote to Wolfie although I called him “Sir.” I apologized profusely. I told him it was an honest mistake. I asked him not to sue me. I told him he could come to the opening and I’d show him around.

I drank a whole bottle of wine getting over my anxiety. Or maybe it was two.

He never wrote back, so I felt I was in good shape. I wouldn’t be in court any time soon.

I’m telling sister Karen this exact story as we’re slopping paint on the porch columns on the eve of the grand opening. I hear a helicopter and mention it’s too early in the year for the state police to be trolling for marijuana plants. I wonder out loud who it is.

Karen looks at me with her brown eyes, twinkling. “It’s Wolfgang. He’s come to see his new winery.”