"My what shiny teeth you have?"
The
dictionary defines “polyamory” as the practice of having more than one open
romantic relationship at a time. If only my life were that simple.
When
my daughter Lucia left home, she forgot to take the bird. Blue-headed,
green-feathered and red-rumped, Vivi didn’t understand why she couldn’t follow
her love to college. Scheduling was the issue. Vivi was awake during the day
when student sleeping-through-class happened and nodding off when college partying-while-studying
began. Besides there was the risk of her being the central character in the
bird-in-the-microwave prank we’d been seeing on social media. I tried to fill the
void by spending time teaching Vivi tricks, rewarding her with treats and eventually
she bonded with me and showered me with the classic bird love gesture:
regurgitation.
Our
nest felt empty, so my husband Stephen and I filled it with ballroom dance lessons.
The dining room/cage room was the only place with hardwood floors where our
dance shoes would slide. We’d get in position, turn on the music and sway: Step – step, back step; step – step, back
step; step – step.
“SQUAWK BLOODY MURDER!”
And
cue regurgitation.
Kissing
Stephen was considered as dance-like and had to take place on the sly; ducking
around corners or covering the bird cage. Otherwise, we would risk a warning
growl from 350 grams of furious parrot. I enjoyed the secrecy.
At
some point I got talked into adding to our ménage
à trois with a rescue lab we named Coltrane. He would look directly into
Vivi’s cage and the battle line was drawn. During quiet times, Coltrane would
slink away from us and tip-toe under the cage to fill up his stomach with her detritus
of discarded fruit and she would give him the stink eye.
Coltrane
loved me best – at least when Stephen
was not around. The dog preyed upon my divided loyalties; he would bring me his
ball, his head cocked just as I was entering the cage room for parrot play. Vivi
noticed.
We
continued to live in denial of my divided loyalties with a morning ritual that
looked like détente. Coltrane would
enter his kennel and stay while I sprang Vivi from her night covering for
breakfast al fresco. I would occasionally
forget some necessary item and wander away into the kitchen. One morning, I had
meandered by the kitchen sink when I heard a continuous SQUAWKING cacophony
that sent me bounding into the pet room to see what Coltrane had finally done to
Vivi.
The
dog was frozen in his tracks, paw uplifted and entering the forbidden food
garrison under Vivi’s cage, this time the stink eye was aimed in my direction
with no requisite regurgitation of love. The spell was broken as was the détente. She may have told on him, but
now I was the enemy.
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Thanks, Leslie: I can just see Vivi's evil eye! How does the story continue!?!?
ReplyDelete(Music) "Tell me more, tell me more, like does he have a car?"
Enjoying this!