Thoughts from my cockatiel: Mirror, mirror on the cage, I see Amy and am still filled with rage

Sydney Lynn introduced me to a new term recently when she expressed interest in possibly acquiring a tortoise:  Legacy pet. As in, this creature will undoubtedly outlive you and, when it's done dancing on your grave, will need to move in with your, no-doubt, delighted, next-of-kin. Sydney, to her credit, immediately fled.

I thought about my Will and cringed. My daughters (now 28 & 30...such a precocious age. At this stage of development, apparently, they begin to stop sassing back at their mother. My children are lagging behind a bit in this particular area.) are covered as, in the event that Brad and I are wiped out by a wayward meteor or succumbed to eating questionable clams at the county fair, Savannah and Sydney's care has been lovingly bequeathed to my friend, Joan. I'm sure their spouses are relieved by this news.  But I had failed to make such accommodations for our aged cockatiel, Percy.

I have not been shy in expressing my feelings for my feathered fiend:

Example One

Example Two

We are reluctant roommates...a fraudulent flock unfit to share the same space.

But last week, I had a startling revelation as I was wandering through Petsmart ("Pet's Mart?" "Pet Smart?"). There, in his gilded cage, perched a virtual Bird of Paradise. I froze, enraptured by his beauty. A silver cockatiel. He gleamed. Glowed. I swooned. Heart? Explode. Mind? Blown. I glanced at his price tag...like you could place a monetary value on such a mystical marvel...forty bucks?!? I was outraged. I stormed off to drag the poor guy cleaning the aquariums over to show him the museum-quality piece that Petsmart (Oh! It MUST be "Pet's Mart"!) had overlooked. His arm dripping, the staff guy did not seem impressed by my helpful suggestion to perhaps move the cage to a more trafficked area or to perhaps highlight this perched Pegasus on social media, arranging viewing times or one of those nifty "live cam" opportunities. The guy just waved his wilted green net at me and asked if I was going to buy it. "No!" I told him indignantly, "I don't like birds!"

As I walked away, I suddenly realized that I had given more compliments to this bird in five minutes than I had bestowed upon Percy in his nearly twenty years in my home. Shamed, I rushed back to the now-empty bird aisle (The guy was muttering something under his breath as he stood, shoulder-deep, over a ten gallon aquarium filled with fleeing fish.) I inspected the merchandise carefully. Maybe Percy would like another rope perch. Or a nice cuttlebone. Then I saw a mirror...I'd read that single birds often enjoy a mirror. Percy is perched where he can easily view the outdoor bird feeder (He was traumatized briefly when our outside birds were targeted by a Sharp-shinned hawk who struck like a missile leaving a cloud of feathers in its wake) and the TV for when we put on his channel so he won't be lonely when we're at work. I wondered if he would like a mirror. 

Guilt made me buy all three.

Why not buy the silver cockatiel, Amy, if you're so worried about your lonely little bird? 

Look. These things live twenty-five years OR more. My bird is NOT a cuddle-er. He likes to sit NEXT to me but, any move on my part, and he'll lunge at me like a Sharp-shinned hawk. He rudely interrupts my phone calls. Spits seeds at me. Will look me STRAIGHT in the eye and decorate my floor. We co-exist. Reluctantly. 

If the silver cockatiel was a senior citizen, I would have bought him without a thought. 

I cannot go another twenty-five years like this.

Which reminds me, I have to add my legacy pet to the Will. I'm sure Joan won't mind. What a wonderful way to reflect upon our relationship after I take wing!

 

Having a breakdown retiring Titan: It was exhausting

Part of adulting, or so I've heard, is knowing how to make decisions. Well, I agonize over my choice of infinite ice cream flavor selections so, clearly, I DO NOT qualify for adulthood. Sure, I can stand up on tip-toe to reach the height bar to sneak in line for the ride once in awhile, but I lack the clinical discernment and world-wise resources necessary to actually qualify for a Fast Pass. 

Do you know the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry, unhappy that his car rental arrangement had fallen through, giddily agrees to the insurance, promising the agent that he plans to beat the heck out of the replacement car they gave him? We Mosimans connect hard to that scene. For over thirty years, we have carefully culled the best used cars from the herd and then rode them mercilessly across a desert of decades. Rarely did a vehicle successfully make it to the other side...instead, abandoned along the wilderness trail, among the bison bones, organs, and broken wagon wheels. It is a heart-wrenching business.

But I don't trouble myself with therapists. I have mechanics. 

There was Roger who warned me not to take my Ranger over the railroad tracks. Steve who would make sure I was seated before gently listing the problems with my S-10. Most recently, was Andy...a mechanic unfamiliar with my automotive autobiography, who just bluntly told me that he wasn't comfortable with Titan even leaving his lot. I immediately drove Titan to my current therapist, Shane, who agreed that Titan's days were numbered.

Another part of adulting is being able to let things go.

I still have my S-10's gear shift knob on a prominent place on my bookshelf so that, at certain times during the day, a beam of sunlight illuminates it with a heavenly glow. It's about as useful as the size 8 prom gown I wore when I was 17 and the box of canning jars that I hold onto despite the fact that the only blanch I know stars on "The Golden Girls."

I wasn't ready to let Titan go.

Brad Mosiman, on the other hand, had been quietly preparing for this moment for the past three or so years. He had a slide-show presentation ready for me to review fifty possible replacements, of assorted shapes, sizes, and colors, for my beloved truck. 

I hated them all.

Titan was fine.

I would just drive slow.

But, depending on your tie rods, the steering wheel of change continues to turn and, before I knew it, we were headed off to pick up our new truck.

Another Titan.

A bold red boy...ready to run wild in Wyoming County.

I didn't want to like him and, sensing that, he remained quiet...a strange silence from the roar of my old fella. 

We eased out on the highway and his V8 engine ate up the miles...effortlessly traversing a bridge without his back-end slipping out alarmingly beneath us.

Okay. I liked him.

But I still had one more road left to travel...

"Where are you?" Sydney asked on the phone as I carefully followed my husband to Titan's retirement home. "We're taking Titan to the farm," I shouted over the usual din that filled his cab. Either she couldn't hear me or just didn't understand my subtle reference. "Where?" she yelled. "The salvage yard," I hissed into the phone. I had wanted Titan to enjoy his last ride. 

Mere moments later, he began to buck.

I'd been warned about something called a knock sensor but didn't fully understand the ramifications until I was navigating multi-lane traffic, uphill with a truck that had no intention of reaching his final destination. It was at this moment, that it became crystal clear, that we (Brad) had made an astutely intelligent, adult decision. 

But we couldn't leave our old friend alone, beside the road.

Brad patiently coaxed him along...a few miles at a time...offering Titan fifteen minute breaks to rest, reflect, and regroup. I followed with prayer and gratitude.  I sang parts of praise songs...annoyed and appalled at my lack of repertoire. I realized that I was abysmally ill-equipped to ever survive as a prisoner of war.

As always, Titan got us there.

Brad tried to cheer me up as I reluctantly left my old friend behind. He explained how Titan would now sacrificially donate his workable parts for the betterment of others. How the lives of other Titans would be enhanced and extended because of his selfless contribution. Titan now had a higher purpose than just simply driving me to work and back every day. I nodded...knowing this was true. Titan always came through in the clutch.

A tale of two nails

To be fair, I may have brought this on myself. My friend, Katriel, is good at everything. And instead of celebrating her success and being her biggest cheerleader, I am, instead, on a constant hunt for a chink in her armor or a chip in her nail.

For the second year in a row, Katriel's Morning Glories have failed to flourish while my lattice of lovelies greets the rising sun with regal regularity. 

And I rub it in...carefully chronicling each bloom to send to her. Delighting in her jealousy (which I must PRY from her).

Did I mention that Katriel is good at everything? Turns out, I'd foolishly underestimated her patient capacity for comeuppance. 

Checking in with her on a Saturday evening, I shot her a quick picture of some Sweet Peas I'd gathered before embarking on, according to Brad Mosiman, a few, quick chores.

So I was already in a bad mood.

Then, I find out that Katriel is LAKESIDE.

Ugh.

I am watching Brad Mosiman clear out a gutter.

Katriel is lounging on a dock, overlooking sparkling waves.

I am standing by the road while Brad Mosiman rakes the grooves out of the shoulder caused by the constant traffic of side-by-sides and four-wheelers. "That's not even our property!" I yell at his diminishing figure.

Katriel is aboard a boat, skipping lightly, like a pebble, across the surface of the reflecting water. 

I am carrying two empty buckets, following my husband so he can shovel some dirt to smooth out our driveway. "Won't driving on our driveway smooth it out?" I ask him. He must not have heard me as he balanced the shovel across his shoulders while lugging the two buckets back. 

Katriel is transfixed as the sun makes its slow, poetic plunge into the dark depths of the rippling water.

I am disgusted when Brad Mosiman wants to water the flowers "super-quick" before calling it a day.

This was my fault. Had I erred on the side of graciousness, I would not have been awash in selfish, jealous misery all evening. I made my (flower) bed of nails...it was time to go water them.

Screwing up my manicure

It seemed simple enough. 

Place the washer on the screw and hand it to my husband as he precariously balanced, ingeniously using his forehead and non-dominant hand/shoulder/or elbow, an over-sized sheet of particle board along the steeply-sloped angle of our garage ceiling.

Again.

Simple.

Imagine picking up dimes from a flat surface using chopsticks.

My pretty, pretty nails.

Not box nails, finishing nails, or roofing nails.

Not steel, galvanized, or vinyl-coated.

Finger nails. Gel. Pretty.

Chasing a silver-coated coin across a container with my manicured mitts was the weirdest and most frustrating combination game of Tiddly Winks and Pick-Up Sticks that I'd ever played. 

Fortunately, Brad Mosiman was super-patient.

Even when it took 45-seconds-to-a-minute to successfully assemble each screw. Even when I handed EACH screw to him the wrong way (I didn't even know that was possible). Even when I accidentally knocked over the container of washers and they rained down onto the garage floor and he had to climb down off the ladder to help me pick them up (My job was to hold the container).

I won't lie.

Over the course of this marriage-building, home-improvement project:

Words were said.

A storm-off (or two) occurred. 

But, eventually, taking MUCH longer than it should have, the garage ceiling got done.

And, a week later, so did my nails.

Brad Mosiman admired them as he was planting some flowers. He asked me to get him a trowel from the garage. Failing that, I brought him back some weird two-pronged fork thing with a metal handle that seemed "garden"-y. 

He gazed, for a long minute, at the replacement that I had brought him, before looking at me with a wry smile. "Perfect," he said.

Just like our relationship.

Trying not to put my foot (or Erin's) in my mouth

 "Is that Erin's..." I could feel Sydney squinting as she inspected the picture I'd sent her, all the way from California, "foot?" 

I sighed.

Yes.

It was Erin's foot.

I honestly do not know how these things happen.

In the summer, I go off the grid--socially and emotionally. I dissipate. Recuperate. Hibernate. Vacillate. Perseverate. Caffeinate. Hydrate. Chlorinate. Decelerate. 

I do NOT collaborate. Radiate. Invigorate. Ebulliate. Titillate. Initiate. Or venerate.

I do not need a workmate. Teammate. Classmate. Playmate.

But here we were.

Either she has an intuitive sixth sense or had me darted and tagged at some point, but Erin always seems to know when I'm about to peer cautiously out of my reclusive den to reluctantly embark on a small adventure. 

And then she blows it up.

Katriel and I were going to get our nails done. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nails, by itself, is about all I can handle.

In my life, Jesus takes the wheel but, over the last few years, He hands it over to Erin who then careens us directly towards a cliff where Katriel, map in hand, guides us to a miraculously-placed ramp where we fly, Bo and Luke Duke-style, over the ravine, landing lopsidedly, engine smoking, hearts racing, and laughing.

I was going to write about how Erin shanghaied my trip...my lexical leanings originating from an episode of "Bonanza" that I watched as a child where Hoss was kidnapped to crew a sailing vessel for China while visiting San Francisco. Once I wrote the word "shanghaied" though, I worried that maybe it was inappropriate. So, down the rabbit hole I tumbled in my resolve not to offend anyone.

SKIP THIS PART:  Irrelevant and unnecessary

First of all, the episode of "Bonanza" was much more unnecessarily involved than I remembered but the chair on the trap door in the bar was just as I had pictured AND hysterically historically accurate. 

More or less, from the United States' end, the term "shanghaied" evolved during a brief window of history book-ended by the California Gold Rush that lured sailors that harbored on the West Coast to abandon ship to try their luck, leaving rudderless vessels in perpetual port so...rather than offer a livable wage and benefits package (Sound familiar, anyone?), captains organized a crew by tricking, drugging, and kidnapping their victims on the return trip across the Pacific AND the introduction of the steam-powered ship which required a higher level of skilled labor than a sailing vessel rendering the forced-on-board-labor moot.

I also did a deep dive on the miles-long lengths of tunnels connecting hotels and bars to the harbor that lurk beneath Portland's streets that derived from this era. Color me intrigued!

So...two hours later, I still don't know if the term is universally inappropriate. I can only apply the advice that I offer my 4th graders when they are uncertain if what they are about to say or do will get them in trouble. Follow your gut. If your tummy feels funny...it's probably wrong. If it makes you hesitate...head the other way. I would never want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings (aside from Erin's) so I decided to abstain from casual use of this term in my blog. But I also believe that a small group of the easily offended should not have the right to censure language when no offence is intended. I just wanted to write about my pretty nails but, instead, ended up exhausted because a few people have terrorized the rule-abiding part of the population to question every word and to curb their tongues at every turn. We've got to learn to relax a little. Planned ignoring is a great teaching and parenting technique. Walking away (sometimes in a huff) is another strategy. Or earnestly (not dramatically) sharing how those words affect you personally WITHOUT the lecture and condemnation is also another way to go. 

YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED READING

What on EARTH was I talking about?

Oh yeah...Erin commandeered my and Katriel's little outing.

I was ready to go home when, during our first, off-course, stop for fancy coffee drinks, Erin began planning for the NEXT nail salon venture. 

"But we haven't even had our nails done yet today," I growled as I wrestled my way with the infinite options of drink possibilities. Katriel's choice was the best...some chocolatey-minty concoction. I spent the bulk of my counter time beseeching the staff to quit changing the menu. Apparently, I have a fondness of limited time offers.

We arrived at the packed salon and settled in, sipping our drinks. A nail salon, for good or bad, is a magical place where, if you pose a question out loud, EVERYONE will provide an opinionated answer and then have an invested interest in the outcome. A big fan of the look and durability of gel, I wondered how dipping compared. 

And...we were off and running.

My newfound nail family advised me up until my name was called.

Erin and Katriel handle my anxiety in equally effective but very different ways. I have trouble with someone I am not familiar with touching me. I am plagued with both tunnel vision AND hearing so accents send me spinning out of control. Noise is a bear. Close quarters...get me out of here.

Amy. Why on earth would you even GO to a nail salon then?

Number one:  I do not want my fear to dictate my life.

Number two:  I love pretty nails.

Erin distracts me by talking CONSTANTLY. She is aware that if she can get me engaged in conversation, I can fake my way through my fear. When we get separated at the salon, she keeps a not-so-subtle eye on me, yelling and waving at me from her pedicure pod where the staff flutters around her like little bees attending to a flower.

Katriel is the clean-up crew...where is Amy's drink, her bag, her sanity as I am moved (pried) from location to location. It is Katriel who, when I look at her in a panic, makes the quick and quiet assessment of the trigger and either alters the environment or gently reassures me in the moment. If she's not within eyesight, Katriel will check in regularly so I know that I'm not alone.

Whew. We did it. We were done.

Nope. 

Before I could even take a deep, cleansing breath from that experience, I was being pulled into a clothing
store. I unfortunately made the mistake of acting too happy when greeted by the staff so Erin and Katriel alternated as intermittent missiles, attempting to re-route the salesperson from being locked onto me. 

I am obsessed with waffle fabric right now and to combine that with a romper was like hitting the jackpot so I couldn't be (too) mad at Erin. She honed in on a glitter tank and a star-patterned light sweater. I honed in on the star-pattered tank she was currently wearing. Eye roll.

Now we were done.

Except, of course, for the obligatory picture. As we held hands (and feet?), I silently gave thanks for my dear friends who put up with my quirks so that we can delight in our time spent together. I am grateful.

Now. We were done.

Nailed it.

According to our office staff, Erin is Number One while I come in a solid Number Two

To determine the success behind an efficiently-run, happily harmonious, and warmly welcoming school, you must first look at the central nervous system of the organization; the office, which serves as both the brain and heart of the building.

Our office staff dispenses wisdom, sass, and band-aids daily. They bolster spirits, confer common sense, and transmit tough love (when necessary). 

Val and Joanne are frighteningly telepathic...I might make it three steps into the room before Joanne has lobbed a miniature Peppermint Patty at me...discerning that the only thing between me and a screaming fit is the cool sensation of eighteen 4th graders NOT repeating my name a thousand times a minute. I have walked into that room...my sanctuary...arms filled with work, completely overwhelmed...only to have Val unload my burden, wipe the sweat from my brow, squirt some Gatorade in my mouth and send me, revived, back into the Octagon. 

They are also not above some well-intended shenanigans.

Although they are too professional to have "favorites," Joanne and Val rarely interfere in the on-going battle to fight for their favors. Erin and I have taken this competition to the next level...racing to be the first to complete each necessary request. Half-day forms collected and turned in? Amy clearly won that race. "Although..." Joanne said slowly, spreading out my slips like a deck of cards and fanning herself, "Erin's WERE in alphabetical order." Erin got her Student-of-the-Month certificate in..."Nice," Val congratulated her, "but do you see how Amy writes a lovely paragraph detailing all of the child's commendable qualities?" Fair entries. Filing. Absence notes..."How did she beat me?" I yowled, "I ran them down the minute it was announced!" 

But then, I noticed it...Erin had clearly failed to complete her task according to specification! "She used a paperclip!" I sang, dancing happily around the office, "The instructions stated to bundle the notes with a rubber band!"

So how did I end up with the Number Two award?

Imagine my surprise when I spotted it clogging up my mailbox. I could feel my face flush. I stomped over to Joanne's desk to get to the bottom of this matter. Both she and Val were cracking up by this time. I don't know what's so funny," I growled, "Don't leave me hanging." "Did you notice Erin's mailbox?" they asked me. Figures. Decked out in balloons and bows. It was time to go. "It's all dung," they assured me as I left, "Time to wipe the slate clean and start fresh for next year." What a relief!

Those two are regular comedians. And they sure know how to lay it on thick.

And even though I need to digest this situation for a bit, I better quit stalling and start planning...maybe 

work it out with a pencil so that, next year, I'll really leave a mark.