The Day Phyllis Closed The Niagara Street Bar

The Man’s back is bothering him today and he took a couple of pain pills to ease his discomfort. Later The Lady was leaning over doing some household chore and he offered to do it for her. The Lady told him it was okay; she could do it and he replied, “My back is better”; to which The Lady replied, “Of course, your back is fine; you’re stoned.”
And they started laughing (something they do a lot and I mean A LOT) and chatting about how all of God’s creatures like to be stoned.
They had an Amazon parrot named Hook that got addicted to black sunflower seeds – the vet said it was like being a crackhead. That bird never forgave them for weaning him off the junk. In fact Hook was so pissed that eventually The Lady had to give him away. This followed a declaration by their son, Jason, “You know that bird is going to outlive you and if you think you can leave him to me…well re-write the will because he’s not coming to live with me.”
But the best example of animals just wanting to have fun was a tree just over the back wall in our next door neighbor’s yard in Burbank. It was this huge tree that bore some kind of berries that ripened around August every year. And the birds loved that tree.
The Lady and The Man would sit in the backyard with their own cocktails and cheese tray (see how nicely I tied cheese into this entry…) and watch the birds fly in for happy hour – it was around dusk every afternoon. Their chatter increased as they belted their first berries of the evening. And continued until they started falling off their perches in drunken stupors.
I kid you not; they would eat until they couldn’t keep their little claws wrapped around the branches.
And The Lady and The Man would laugh themselves silly watching the birds, until they fell off their chairs.
Then Phyllis closed the bar – its roots were getting into her swimming pool.
It was a sad day when Phyllis closed down the Niagara Street Bar and Grill…

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