Drunk on Laurel

If you come to Tucson today we'd take you out on a bike ride. Pick any road with a bike lane and landscaped median and you'll encounter rows of Texas Mountain Laurel trees, in bloom. You don't have to see them to know you're passing them. I've never been to a winery but I imagine the aroma is similar to these trees.

Saturday morning I was out riding, drunk on the smell of Laurel flowers. The flowers, which happen to resemble clumps of grapes on the vine, are poisonous. So don't eat any if you run out of cliff bars. Or at least give them to your competition. But out I was riding, swerving in and out of the bike lane. I usually swerve while checking out my chiseled calf muscles. This time I was swerving because I was quite drunk on Laurel flower goodness. But I took control of my handlebars the moment I imagined myself telling the ED doctors, who I probably know, the reason I crashed was because I was "smelling flowers." I made it safely home.

But the damage was done. I was imbibed for the day. How else can you explain a mature adult charging his mature wife with two light sabers inside Michael's craft store that evening? After some quick strokes of death Anna and I turned around to hear a worker down the aisle say to her colleague, "They're not kids." Apparently the worker's wage was enough to get her to tell kids to stop horsing around, but not adults. So the worker just walked away with a justly dealt scowl on her face. As we walked out the store I asked Anna, "What's more demeaning to our pride, hearing: 'Oh, they're just kids' or 'Oh, they're not kids' ?" To me it doesn't matter, I was drunk and I blamed it on the Laurels. Come ride in Tucson with us for a good time...