Flash's Story

I deliberately went to the local bird club's bird fair with only a debit card and maybe $15 in cash. It was maybe four or five years ago. I had two birds: Sugar Franklin and Charli. I wasn't going to let myself become a victim of MBS (multiple bird syndrome).

It was a great day -- lots of beautiful parrots and toys and cages and toys and treats and toys. Baby parrots, breeder parrots, pet parrots.

I stopped by a cage full of baby cockatiels. The birds, the man at the table told me, were from a friend who had died. He raised English budgies and didn't know much about cockatiels.

He pointed out one of the babies and praised the bird for playing with toys and climbing all over the cage. "He's like that all the time," the man said. "My niece feeds him Cheerio's through the cage every day. He likes Cheerios's."

I listened politely and said I wasn't going to buy any birds, and then I turned away.

"I'm willing to come down on the price," he called.

I lifted my hand in farewell and went on to admire the parrots at the next table.

Later as I walked back by the man and his cockatiels, he stopped me and said he'd sell him to me for only $50. I stood at the cage for a long time and watched the bird interact with his cagemates. He was pretty active, I thought. But I summoned up all my strength and again said no, I already had all the birds I could handle.

I walked away, feeling very good about myself. I went outside to get some fresh air and thought about the little cockatiel the man was willing to sell for only $50.

A little later I went back inside to pick up some more toys, and I had to pass the man and his cockatiels.

"Here he is!" the man said. "Just $50." I shook my head. I glanced at the cage. He really was a cute cockatiel.

I went on and the man followed me. "I really need to sell these cockatiels and I won't take him home with me." I couldn't imagine what he would do if he didn't sell the bird.

"I only have $5 on me," I said. "Sorry."

"I'll take it," he exclaimed. "I'll give you my card and you can just mail me the rest."

Before I could say no again, I was holding a ragged box with the baby cockatiel in it.

I had an extra cage at home, so I got things set up quickly and turned the bird loose in it. I placed the cage in my study for quarantine, then called Dr. Z for a baby bird check. He was about 6 months old.

He was such a sweet baby bird -- hungry for scritches and curious. He had, I saw for the first time, a crooked beak. But he didn't seem to have trouble eating.

I watched him for a few days before naming him. At one point he was out of the cage and flew over to the table with the play stand. It happened in a flash, so that's what I named him.

Dr. Z gave me the bad news -- Flash tested positive for pssiticosis (I know I'm spelling that wrong) and he would have to receive treatment. Because all my birds shared the same air system the other two would have to be treated, too.

I called the man to tell him that his entire flock was probably infected, but he said his birds were healthy, nothing wrong with them. I explained that pssiticosis could be passed to humans, but he was "sure" his birds were fine. He hung up on me.

Flash was maybe a year or two old when Nicholas came into the house, and that was about the time Flash decided he didn't like being touched and liked me even less. He wasn't impressed with Nicholas either, despite Nicholas' joy at being with other cockatiels. Flash was and still is very interested in Sugar Franklin, but she thinks she's human and doesn't like any other birds (I blame myself).

So that's where things stand with Flash these days. He refuses to let me touch him and hisses mightily if I get too near. Everyday I "force" him to step up and take him to the basket stand or the study to be with Nicholas and Sugar Franklin, which he tolerates so he can get out of his cage. But he almost always makes heart wings at me when I'm near the cage, protected by the bars, and will often come to the bars to listen to me telling him what a big boy he is, if I'm a safe enough distance away.

I love Flash in a special way, even though he'll probably never really warm up to me.

Sometimes I offer him a Cheerio through the cage bars.

Close Call

I went outside to pick up my mail. A woman was walking her big lab on the other side of the street. We waved at one another, though I have no idea who she was.

I turned back to my driveway, looking through the junk mail. I heard a dog barking furiously, so I took one step into the grass of my yard and leaned over to see if it was the neighbor's dog.

It was. He/she was going crazy with the barking and had been tied to what looked like a coiled, wrapped wire. He rushed out at me but the wire held. For a moment. Then the stake came loose from the ground, and he ran toward me.

I froze, though I was telling myself to move! move! move! I remembered the young black woman telling me he wouldn't bite anyone, that he was very friendly. But this creature flying toward me and barking didn't look very friendly. He was running so fast that his feet didn't even touch the ground. The neighbor's dog noticed the other dog while he was about three feet from me, so he headed off toward the woman and her dog who were now on the corner, watching in horror. This entire event took maybe thirty seconds.

I ran to the neighbor's front porch and rang the bell about 4 times. The man came to the door (I noticed he wasn't that old and was, in fact, pretty good looking).

"Your dog has gotten loose and is chasing me and that other dog," I said, pointing to the woman who was pulling her dog away. The neighbor's dog was just barking but not making any threatening moves toward the woman and her dog.

"Come here, Champ," the black man called. He came outside and headed to the corner.

"I'm sure he's friendly," I said, "but it's scary to have him chase you like that."

"Come on, Champ," he called again. We didn't speak further.

I went on into my house and tried to get my blood pressure back to normal. I've never been attacked by an animal before, though I've been bitten. It was a horrible feeling.

Schedule at Vermont

Several people have asked what it was like at Vermont as far as the conference went. Here's the basic schedule:

7:30 to 8:30
Breakfast (kitchen closed at 8:30, but you could linger in the dining room)

8:45 to 9:45
bookstore open (most of the time and at other random times)

10:00 to noon
workshops

Noon to 12:30
Lunch

1:45 to 2:45
lectures or private conferences with faculty

3:00 to 4:45
lectures

5:30 to 6:00
Dinner

7:00 to 7:45
participant (student) readings

8:00 to 9ish
faculty readings (with wonderful brownies and apple cider)

or

8:00 to whenever
hosted parties or ice cream socials, etc.

9ish
If you had a car and/or willing friends, go downtown to Julio's to drink beer and eat nachoes. Otherwise, go to your room and collapse on the bed, declaring you're going to get some sleep tonight only to lay awake until 1 reading one of the books you've bought at the bookstore.

Multiply by six days.

No TV or newspapers or radio around in the dorms, and would be unwelcome even if they were around. Some of us got news from CNN.com in the computer lab; most of us didn't care what was happening in the world. Each day felt like a week, literally.

Most everyone in my workshop stuck together; we all tended to get up early and have breakfast together (along with other folks, of course), then sit together for lunch and dinner, and sit together if we attended the same lectures.

Last Vacation Day

Last vacation day for awhile. Tomorrow I have to go back to that Evil Place and shuffle papers. Oh well, things could be worse.

I feel a lot better than I did earlier. Just needed more sleep, I guess.

Heard from DF today; haven't heard from him in a long time. He's doing well, and we both promised we'd do better about staying connected. The sad thing is that we both really, really mean it.

I thought I heard the dog next door barking Thursday night, when I got home, but I haven't heard it since. Or seen it. I hope they're keeping it inside, not letting it run loose in hopes it'll run away and no longer be a problem for them. Maybe they don't know what happens when a dog ends up in the pound. Cute dog, too; kinda boxer and mutt mix -- loud bark but very friendly. People who don't take care of their animals are not people I want to know.

Finished maybe half of The Gift, and I highly recommend it to anyone with any amount of creativity whatsoever -- which means everyone. It's about, as Baron put it, the anthropology of poetry, but it's about more than that. It's a way of understanding and learning to live with what is valued in our society and what is not -- without diminishing the two.

And I am still trudging through The Art of the Personal Essay by Philip Lopate. It's in choronological order, and around about RL Stevenson I skipped ahead. The language in the earlier English stuff is too ornate for me, though I appreciate its value within its own time. I liked Seneca and the early Greek works.

I dread going back to work and seeing the English language butchered by people who truly believe themselves to be great editors and writers. When in reality they don't have a clue. Take capitalization, for example. The title of a job is NOT capitalized unless it's directly attached to the person holding that job. Chief medical officer is not capitalized unless it's Alice Doe, Chief Medical Officer. Yet these poor souls capitalize stuff like that repeatedly. More suck-up value. They don't capitalize nurse or technician or manager (and consistency is the first thing you learn as an editor). And when I refuse to capitalize non-proper nouns I get told I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about and to just do what the ignorant tell me to do. I refer them to any book on basic grammar, but of course, they already know everything and don't need to look it up.

I've heard people say that any noun preceded by "the" is automatically a proper noun and should be capitalized. And any title is a proper noun. Where on earth do people get this stuff?

A lot of it is stylistic, based on who makes the most money. Nurse isn't capitalized because they're mostly women and don't make as much as the male chief medical officer. It's as simple as that.

Earlier this year I came across a blog about Humphrey the parrot. His last entry was about being moved from England to America, and about being sick after quarantine. At least once every week or so I'd check on the blog to see how he was doing, but there were never any updates. The latest issue of Bird Talk reprinted some correspondence about a woman adopting a special needs bird of the same species as her parrot Humphrey, who had died six days after the last date of the blog. I wrote Bird Talk to forward a note to her. It was obvious from the blogs how loved and cherished Humphrey was, and when the owner said he was the light of her life and that his death devastated her, I knew she wasn't exaggerating. I'll take his blog off my bookmark list now.

I decided, at 10:47 am, to go to the movies today. It always feels so decadent to go to the movies during a work day. I went to see Brideshead Revisited, which I haven't seen in decades -- so long ago with Jeremy Irons that I'd forgotten what it's about.

Why is it that great literary works of art nearly always involve dysfunctional families?

Settling Back In

Went out for breakfast again; I got up too late to make the Farmer's Market and avoid the crowds. So after breakfast I went to the Good Foods Coop for some eggs and bread and bacon. I also got two bottles of melatonin since I put my usual bottle away somewhere "safe" (where I'll never find it again) and a half gallon of Newman's lemonade. I also got some homeopathic Boiron rhus toxicodendron for joint pain that improves with motion, 12 power. I don't know if 12 is stronger than 20 or not. Wouldn't it be great if I could get off piroxicam for pain altogether?

I haven't felt as perky as usual since I got home. Sore throat at night, dizziness during the day, continuing bad balance, exhaustion. I have a three-inch circle bruise high on my left shoulder, from the fall at Ellen's. Probably the airline air and change in routine and not getting enough sleep.

I received both The Gift by Lewis Hyde and The Art of the Personal Essay by what's-his-name from amazon.com, so I've been reading, without the TV. In fact, I only turned on the TV last night to watch Legally Blonde, just for fun and because I was tired of reading.

TV is okay, but it's too easy to watch it or have it on all the time. I've been keeping it on during the day for the birds, so when I get home I automatically plop down on the couch and before I know it, it's eleven o'clock. Lately I've been leaving the TV off on weekends and just having NPR on. The weekends feel longer and better to me when I do that. So I think I'll just leave the radio on for the birds while I'm at work.