We have an Amaryllis. We have had it for, maybe, 25 years. When we first got it, every year it would put out two huge, elegant, glorious blooms that were something to cause aesthetic jealousy. For the last 10, maybe 15 years it has not showed even the slightest inklings to go forth and bloom.

We have, at times, considered chucking it as away to administer a punitive action. I don't know just whom we would have been punishing, other than say God, but we felt we had a need to get even for not pleasing us. In any case, we kept it, thinking one day it would come to life and bless us.

Someone here in Wisconsin told us to give it a bit of fertilizer at a certain time of the year. I think it was at the time of first watering, in this case in late December. Like usual the long lancolite green leaves burst from the bulb and took off like all the energy available was to be in another display of foliage.

But then out of the side of this bulb comes what is clearly a flowering stalk. At this moment the the buds are massive and the red hues of the flower are busting out all over the about-to-form flowers. There seems little doubt that the fertilizer set it off.

So how does this play out for me. First of all, it is almost spring and it has been well observed that my behavior this winter has been one of sloth. I literally am no different than that lazy bulb that has been setting inactive in the soil. Here is the metaphor. I, like the bulb, am about to bloom, being spring and all. What I need is some fertilizer so that the slothitude will go away and I can create a great inflorescence of creation. At the moment I am on my way to the refrigerator for that sustenance in the form of a cold, luscious beer. So as the spring warms and my green shoots are out, my flowering will all be set off by the nutrients God has put into beer---and maybe a bit later a nice Scotch aged some 18 years. I just love metaphors.