Sunday Afternoon Revelation

Sunday Afternoon Revelation - © Kent Fletcher
April 6, 2008

This morning I awoke to a potentially beautiful day. And it has been a beautiful day. Yesterday I had loaded the bed of my pickup with broken, dried-out limbs from the pine trees, and some other assorted limbs, with the intention of taking it all out to Leona's to throw on the future burn pile. Then, about 10, Leona just happened to call, talking about some sycamore wood from a tree in her front yard she needed hauled around to the same burn pile. I told her Belle and I would be out in about 30 minutes.

So Belle and I loaded up and ankled out to Leona's. Leona is still in the process of cleaning out/cleaning up her abode. When I walked in the house, she was cleaning out her pantry, which I built for her a couple of years ago. We yakked for a few minutes while Belle and Priss played, and Biddy growled. In a bit I drove on out in the field and dumped my load. I came back to the house and helped her load her own truck with the sycamore limbs and hauled them out to the burn pile as well. I left Belle in Leona's care and returned to the house to pick up a couple of garbage cans full of thorny vines and returned to her house.

While still in the field, I stopped by my old Volvo with the intent of breaking loose that second bolt on the starter. I was able to get the socket on the bolt along with the wobbly and the extensions and the breaker bar. But alas, I don't have the physical strength to turn the bolt. Disgruntled, I gave it up and went back out of the field, returning to the house. I helped Leona move the future firewood logs to the side of the house, then went inside with her, returning to her kitchen.

She was cleaning off her kitchen counters of jars of canned foods, of which I came home with a dozen or so, anything from blueberry jam to peanut butter to spicy mustard, and a couple of yams, to boot. Then we sat in the living room while she rested, and Belle fell asleep on my lap, while we were just talking about this, that, and the other.

I guess I finally left around 2, driving Belle and myself back to our own digs. Leaving Belle at home (the heat index was up at the time, and she's a young pup), I took the frontage road up to Burleson, about 10 miles north. I had a hankering for beer and wine. So for the first time in about 1½ years, I whipped into Albertson's and bought a six-pack of Coors and a bottle of Liebfraumilch. On the way back, I stopped in the Smoke Shack for my weekly of seegars, and began the trek back to the abode, again on the frontage road. Interesting things one can see on a frontage road, that are otherwise passed by in quick succession of but a blur when on the interstate.

Got home about 4:30, grabbed that first brew, and ankled out in the yard, with Belle on my heels. Man, what a nice day, today. The yard thermometer was reading about 82F, and all was good. I called several people, one in McKinney, another in Dallas, a friend in Madison, MS, and my niece in Jackson, MS.

Finishing off that first brew, I proceeded to the 2nd one. Mistake in the making. I knew when I bought the brew that I'd sit and drink the stuff like water. And I did. Should have bought Red Dog, a lot cheaper, but palatable. After all, the content doesn't really matter, it's the taste in the long run, for in the end the brew is just pithed away. I like that term, "pithed," cause I can get away with it on rhyme alone.

Coming up on 5ish, and the cats were gathering, I dropped a couple of cans of food in warm water in the sink in the kitchen. About 15 minutes later, I began to ring the cat dinner bell, which is a stainless steel bowl with rings on the side. They come running when they hear it. All in the kitchen, of course, with a little meowing going on from a select few. Sometimes I mix a little dry in with the stuff, to give it some substance, if nothing else. Then I have to forge my way through a herd of cats to the outside picnic table where their bowls and saucers are. Must be around a dozen or so, some are everyday cats, others are just happened-by types. Some I don't really like - toms mostly - but all are welcome to the tidbits if they can get to it all. Just no fighting allowed.

The cats are fed, now, coming up on 6 p.m., and even Belle has had her morsel of her own food, I think. She loves cat food, as does any dog I've ever run across. Keeping a close eye on her and attempting to feed the cats alone is a chore in itself. If I turn my back for a moment, I know without looking where she is, already.

And I'm working on my third brew already. Gentle Reader, you may be asking what the Sunday Afternoon Revelation is, by now. Well, it's this: I don't need beer on a regular schedule. Heck, I'd dare say, I don't need it at all. When I quit the stuff before Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, 2006, I was going through a case in four or less days. Talk about pithing my money away, what an understatement. But beer, good beer sure does go down smoothly and serenely. It's the after-effects that I really don't like, and frankly, until today, I'd forgotten all about. One more reason I don't imbibe like I usta. Pithing my money away. I suppose I could get the non-alcoholic Coors, or some other brand, but why?

And while I'm typing this, I'm somewhat inebriated on just shy of three beers. Think I'd better get some food in my gut before the next one. I'm a cheap drunk, huh? Better yet, I can freely admit it!