Sleepy Numbers
I have decided that there are few semi-physical activities more sleep-inducing than archiving library items in a spreadsheet. I don’t know how many times…
Although it started with a bacon, egg, and cheese McGriddle, because I guess Mom and I just didn’t feel like participating in the mash of grits and “The Twilight Zone” for breakfast. We still had a lot of work to finish at church. I wouldn’t guess that the whole thing would take so much effort, and for all this nonsense of romantic nonsensical nonsense paperbacks…
We drove back after twelve in the simpering heat of an afternoon that couldn’t make up its mind.
As soon as I walked back in the door, Puck rushed up, eyes wide…
“Mama! Pumpkin was on TV! They were trying to shoot at her because they thought she was a monster!”
Carrie sent me a wink.
Apparently “Pumpkin” had made a guest appearance on “Monster Quest”, one of Carrie’s and Rose’s latest television program interests. That, or…
“The other day Lucia and I went over to Rose’s place, and she was sitting on the couch with a glass of red wine watching ‘Parking Meter Wars’.”
Only my siblings.
Carrie had also spent a lengthy amount of time schooling Puck in the ways of 9-1-1 and various emergency/non-emergency situations.
Meanwhile, Linnea was garbed-up for her third volleyball game of the season with the same electric pink headband – Linnea doesn’t really like pink.
And all these storms they prophesy…
We got that bit of a rumble just before dinner. The rain slammed in harsh for starters, but didn’t last long, as I read about First Nations [Native American] evangelists aloud to Puck. The kid listens; he really does.
Thought of the Day
So I really don’t have an absolute problem with the simple idea of alcohol itself.
“Simple”.
In basic moderation, many things are fine.
In the right context, tons of things are A-OK.
But aside from basic issues of morality and consequence, I guess my first hang-up is really… the smell.
Maybe I’m absolutely ignorant in that department — as I have clarified earlier — the “nose department”, but I have a heck of a time trying to get past that amazing moldy sourdough bread aroma.
I digress into an age long ago, in a day when family members and other loved ones might accompany air traveling passengers to their send-off gate, in an age where no one really thought about safety and allowed their children to run rampant in the streets with live firecrackers and bonfires fueled by old attic chairs.
Ok… so not quite that far into the distance…
But in this age of 16 year-old innocence, I tramped the Atlantic into the mystery and darkness of a world left stamped heavily by Mongol, Hebrew, and Communist… a land I learned to quickly love in the form of its capital city — Budapest.
Aside from the actual point of the trip, which may be divulged in other stories, I was handed the opportunity to participate in communion following an entirely Hungarian worship service one Sunday morning in a once-movie theater — dead-beat with jet lag. Naturally, I was unopposed.
There was just only one small problem.
They weren’t serving grape juice.
I had never come anywhere near anything resembling fermentation in my life. And here I was, in the middle of an Eastern European holy sacrament, and all they had in that shiny dish were glasses of the most fermented stuff I had ever seen.
Was this possible? I thought to myself.
Was this really wine?
The smell made my head spin a little. I — for one ridiculously bad moment — thought I might feel sick. Of course, I knew that was ludicrous too. I hadn’t “lost it” in eight and a half years. I wasn’t about to start doing it again then. So, with two tentative fingers around that tiny glass, I held the sacrament I was certain I was somehow defaming with my disgust, and waited to slip it down my very scared throat.
Pour.
And gulp.
I tried so hard not to gag it down. I really, really did. And God forgive me for the face I know I made. But it just couldn’t be helped. And ever since that day, I have anticipated the inexcusable intrusion of my deformed sense.
I do not believe that I have ever fully recovered.
Although I just bought my husband a 1998 Scotch in the Bahamas last year. Do they label scotches by year? So I can handle being in its company. Just as long as the bottles are adequately corked.