Today, you may have heard, is the first day of the rest of your life. Forgive the cliche, but every now and again a cliche lines up with actual events. So it does today, Friday, May 1, 2009, which is the final day of the remarkable Miss Laura’s remarkable 24-year career in the trenches (another cliche, but what the heck) of the daily journalism racket.

Farewell to all that. Baby, let the good times roll.

First, a glorious bouquet, which you see above. It’s called “Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge,” probably because it’s a bouquet and it’s sitting on a ledge. The Dutch artist Ambrosius Bosschaert — they just don’t make names like that any more — painted it in 1619, and it now resides in the Los Angeles County Museum. But not, I imagine, on a ledge.

My next task is to whisk her out of town for a weekend on the Olympic Peninsula in the company of oysters, bubbly, martinis and a select company of relatives who appreciate the generous charms of the oyster (raw and baked), the bubbly (foreign and domestic) and the martini (dirty, with four olives). The children will be along, of course. But that’s what relatives are for, isn’t it? — watching the kids when you need them watched?

Then, beginning Monday, it will be incumbent on me (an odd turn of phrase, but there you have it) to introduce her to my wandering route of coffee houses, especially those with free wireless connections. Who says you can’t work and drink at the same time?

Not that it’s all going to be work. Miss Laura’s friend Beth, who lives in the neighborhood just up the hill, also leaves gainful employment on this sanctified day (shall we call it Good Friday?), and I suspect escapades in the offing. Perhaps with coffee. Perhaps with bubbly. Perhaps with gardens, or a good brisk walk in the coming summer sun.

Note to wife: Go ahead. Sleep in Monday morning. I’ll get the kids off to school. Then, maybe, Helser’s or J&M or Grand Central?

With or without the morning paper.