Category: Happy

that’s actually a candle flame; the cupboard is a faded apple green

It looks onto the garden roof terrace, away from the street bustle. We eat all of our informal meals here, but otherwise it functions more like a combination Victorian-era morning room and late-twentieth-century family room. Then again, I suppose it’s really Sweetpea’s room [he’s doing fine, thank you; just refuses to give up his millet for regular birdseed or pellets, although he loves his greens as well].
Old American furniture. Nothing here even begins to suggest our current collecting interests. Funny that, but the picture would change if the camera pulled back just a bit.

I was feeling just slightly abashed as I sat in the waiting room of a small-animal veterinarian a few days ago. I was gently cradling Sweetpea, our little green parakeet, slumped in his small clear-plexiglas travelling case, waiting our turn to be interviewed and examined.
To Barry and I our bright, chirpy roommate looked and acted perfectly healthy, but he had not been eating any of his normal seeds for almost a week and we had become very concerned. Other than the receptionist, our bench companions were a woman waiting for her dog to come out of the examination room and a young girl holding a box which sheltered a beautiful small rabbit with an injured leg.
Sweetpea had flown into our apartment two and a half years ago on a cold November day, and this was the first time he’d had any occasion to leave its safety since. He had become precious to Barry and me, but every visit to a pet store was a reminder that his relatives were being traded everywhere in New York for only $9.95.
And then everything in that room changed.
The door from the street opened suddenly and a tall, sturdy young man came in with a container similar to Sweetpea’s, but smaller still. Even before sitting down he addressed the room sheepishly, almost apologetically, “you probably haven’t seen a ‘small animal’ this small before.” In the box was a tiny turtle, a red ear, its carapace perhaps an inch in diameter. The man’s little charge was one of three he had brought home from Chinatown a few months earlier. The other two had flourished and grown considerably, but this little Fred only languished, and his companion thought he even appeared to be shrinking.
Sweetpea checked out fine, and he’s back home now, although he’s still ignoring the food mix which once seemed to make him so happy. He’s also acting more than a bit subdued now, probably because of the trauma of his capture and tranport to and from the East Village by taxi, not to mention some intimate torso-poking and the drawing of blood for tests. But I’m hoping he’ll eventually tire of his current diet of millet and greens, and go on to fill his biblical half score of years – at least – with two people who smile every time they look at him.
I’ve read that those cute little turtles could theoretically outlive their owners, even if they do cost half the going price of a parakeet when they’re very young. I asked the veterinarian today whether Fred was going to make it, and she admitted he didn’t have a good prognosis.

“It’s such a shame; there are so many natural hazards for some species, and only some of them can survive. People fall in love with these little creatures, and sometimes there’s nothing that can be done.”

Bernie, wanting still more

Yesterday I made one of my regular visits to the wonderful avian shop called 33rd & Bird to pick up supplies for the third member of the family. As usual, I hung out with their hundreds of birds for a good part of an hour.
Our own friend, Sweetpea, is a beautiful, tiny green parakeet who flew into our apartment out of the cold two and a half years ago. He sits near one or both of us much or most of the day, and he provides enormous good cheer and good company. We do our best to return it.
I’ve always loved birds, but this little creature has given me an enormous respect for all of their kind, and above all for the parrot species.
Each time I visit this shop (which raises many of the parrots itself) after checking out the young birds still in their homely pinfeathers, I look around for Bernie. In the picture above he had just gotten a good scratching on the back of his head, the only spot on his body he can’t access with his remarkably-flexible neck. He was looking for still more, and I’m sure he soon got it. He bends his head down for anyone who comes near. He’s gorgeous, and extraordinarily affectionate, as all Moluccan Cockattoos are said to be. He’s not for sale: good for me and all the people who come to the shop, and probably very good for Bernie. He has a huge family exactly where he is.
Oh yes, for anyone thinking about living with a bird, while Barry and I got ours free, you’ll need at least $9.95 to go home with a parakeet from most shops. I’d recommend 33rd and Bird, whatever they ask. They respect all of their tenants and the wishes of all of their customers equally, regardless of how much money is involved, but if you really want to spend more, possibly thousands more, and you’re ready to commit to fully sharing your life and perhaps that of your heirs, you can adopt a larger bird. Just remember that you may never be alone again. There’s a reason some people walk around everywhere with birds on their shoulders; they really, really need interaction. I mean that it’s the birds who need the attention, although I admit I once thought it was the other way around.


parakeet chicks, can’t say they’re pretty yet, but they sure are lovable