Friday evening, my wife leaves town and suddenly I had the house to myself for the weekend. I ordered pizza and made big plans but plans do not always go the way we hope.
Saturday morning I awoke at my usual 5:30 a.m. but decided to sleep late. I changed position five times and looked at the clock-- it was 5:34 a.m. I got up.
I showered with the bathroom door open and sang “Heartbreak Hotel” Elvis style, toweled off and shimmied, nude and glossy white, to the bedroom. The dog was coming down the hall, saw me and tried to hurl herself out of a nearby window.
For breakfast I decided to cook a coronary occlusion—four eggs (count’em-- four fried in grease), eight pieces of bacon and three slices of white toast buried under a mound of grape jelly. The coffee was so strong it I wanted to wear a tuxedo and sing tenor like Pavarotti did.
The house needed cleaning so I loaded some cd’s, turned up the volume and danced to “Jenny Jenny” while pushing the old upright Hoover. Later the kitchen broom handle served as a stage microphone and I sang into it while I accompanied Neil Diamond in “Sweet Caroline”. We got a standing ovation from thousands of dust motes and so Neil and I did “Forever in Blue Jeans” complete with choreographed gyrations with my hips.
I declared an end to house work and lay down on the couch to read. I had just gotten comfortable, words were blurring-- a nap was in the making when suddenly the doorbell rang. It was a pair of Jehovah Witness. I was polite, they left and I went back to the couch. I was getting pretty comfortable again when the phone rang. My mother was calling to see if I was relaxing?
Lunch was cheese with a glass of home-made wine given to me by a friend. I sat out on our deck and watched cardinals and finches. I took a tentative sip---the wine tasted like cod-liver oil with grease solvent.
Later back inside I heard the boxer scratching to come in and so I opened the door. Apparently she had been standing in some mud and before I could stop her there were brown paw prints on the just-mopped kitchen floor and then there were a billion paw prints on the living room carpet. With a sigh I got out the Hoover and mop but no Neil Diamond.
By mid-afternoon I was finished with cleaning and decided to go for a ride in the country on my motorcycle. BMW (Beemer) motorcycles are very dependable but today mine refused to start. This has never happened before. Where to look?
Two hours later a dirty terminal connection was found suspect. I used some of the wine to clean the grease off the terminal. The Beemer cranked right up but now it was too late for a ride. I put the jar of wine on a shelf in the shop.
For dinner I had bought the ingredients for a recipe I wanted to try and with Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major playing in the background I made Moroccan Shrimp with Tomato Relish. It was good--I did Emeril Lagasse proud-- and ate downstairs while watching CNN. Afterwards I cued up “Band of Brothers” on the DVD but fell asleep and awoke hours later just as Easy Company was told World War II was over.
Some days things just don’t go as planned but there are upsides. If you need some grease cleaner call me—I have a whole jar of it in the shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment