What an intoxicating day. No, I mean really. In the last twenty four hours, I had more red wine than I could drink before bed, slept so deeply that I didn't wake up when a cat barfed on the comforter between us, took a morning to give my coffee a chance to get a running start, bleached more deck boards without a mask, stained more deck boards without a mask, and then closed the day with a flight of bourbon that set fire to the cayenne in the BBQ rub on the chicken it accompanied. My head hasn't stopped spinning in all that time. Now I really want to go crash in bed and sleep off this crushing but satisfying fatigue. I promised I would write, however, and I have a picture of Murray I really want to share, so I will perform my writerly duty before rolling over and falling asleep.
We are in an extended rainy period down here in the Low Country, so simply cleaning and staining the deck boards in the back yard is not an option. I can bleach them and lay them out in the yard for the sun to lighten when it deigns to show itself through the clouds, but my grand plans to go ahead and stain outside were foiled by two short bursts of rain. I had to carry fourteen long boards around the house to the garage, plus my sawhorses, and carry sixteen stained ones back (there were two drying overnight in the garage already). It's awkward maneuvering in a giant C shape, between walls and truck windows, and through the gate, with a ten to twelve foot board balanced on one shoulder. I learned quickly not to leave the gate open after Murray took off down the street, so I had to add a level of difficulty in the transfer. (It felt a lot like having to get through a gate on horseback, approaching it to open, backing up to go around, going through, closing, and then riding away, all while remaining on the horse who thinks you're wasting his time going forward, back, and sideways.) Every time I came around the corner, there was a little white nose poking through the three inch wide gap I left in the gate so that it was easier to pull it open with six feet of board on either side of me. The first time that I was smart enough to open my camera before I rounded the bend was the one and only time he wasn't standing on the cobblestones watching for me. Eventually I captured him, peeping out, wondering how much time he had before he saw me to push through and run to freedom (or at least take the route his daddy walks with him, but this time have no one to hold him back from chasing the ducks that roam the streets).
I can tell that this project is wearing out both of us equally, me and ol' John Henry. When I came to him and said that I was about to stain the last three boards, and as soon as they were delivered, I was going to clean up and demand to go out to dinner, there was absolutely no argument. No suggestions to stay home and cook something we already had. He just said, "Uh-huh," and drove while I looked for a good place to stop. I know that I'm overdoing it on BBQ in these last few months I have left in the Low Country, but I'm going to miss it so much when I leave, I need to have as much in the tank as possible to get me through. I'm sure there will be a few places out West that can smoke beef ribs right, but unless I meet up with a nice Carolina family who wants to feed me all the time, I'm going to find myself bereft and dreaming of pig picking.
Okay, those three little glasses of bourbon can take control now. As my younger daughter says, putting voice to her cat's favorite time of day, "Isbedtimeright?" Indeed, it is.
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