My husband's back is bothering him today and he took a couple of darvocettes to ease the pain. Later I was leaning over doing some household chore and he offered to do it. I told him it was okay; I could do it and he replied, "My back is better"; to which I replied, "Of course, your back is fine; you're stoned."

And that got us to laughing and bantering about how all of God's creatures like to be stoned.

We had a parrot that got addicted to black sunflower seeds - the vet said it was like being a crackhead. That bird never forgave us for weaning him off the junk.

But the best was a tree just over the back wall in our next door neighbor's yard. It was this huge tree that bore some kind of berries that ripened around August every year. And the birds loved that tree.

We would sit in the backyard with our own cocktails and watch them 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 we would laugh ourselves silly watching them, until we fell off our 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...