Nobody's Knows:
I love birds. Most people who know me think I am practically on the cusp of severe neurosis when it comes to my dear parakeets. I still have my little dead parakeet “Sunny” downstairs wrapped up in tissue paper in my freezer.
You see, I just couldn’t bring myself to put him in the ground when he died.
Sunny, got very sick a few years ago, right in the middle of winter. And of course, as luck would have it, our “electric” went out for three days, and we couldn’t keep the fire going, to keep the birds warm. We finally took them (at the time I had four parakeets) to a local hotel…in a last effort to save my little yellow soul mate.
It didn’t matter. That first night did him in…the house was a good 20 degrees…and that was sitting NEXT to our fireplace. The houses of today might as well be made of paper, all the good they are for holding in the heat.
And this morning, very early, there I was, on my birthday, at the Vets, with two more “sick” parakeets. One, who goes by the name of Snowball, was filled with protein evidently. The Vet, who has been there at the “passing” of many of my dear “pets” was surprised that she was still alive. It seems she can’t make eggs, so she just fills up with fluid. She looks like she sitting on a huge balloon.
He stuck a big needle in her and filled it with…junk. Protein he said.
Gee.
He couldn’t remove the ovaries of a bird he said…so therefore, I must just wait for the inevitably day when Snowball (who is an albino) just pops, I suppose.
And then there’s Smoky. Smoky has a limp leg. He pulled a tendon one day trying to get away from me catching him to take him to the doctor.
He hobbles, but his future looks good, although somewhat depressing, because Snowball was his girlfriend, and I must admit, I envied their sex life, which has passed them both now, due to her balloon and his limp leg.
And like a true male, Smoky is taking the loss of his morning hump pretty badly.
Now, there is a point to this meaninglessness talk about birds. I had taken both “sick” birds out of the big cage to be by themselves, but it was obvious, they couldn’t WAIT to get back to the other birds…four other happy, loudmouth buddies who have not a care in the world. These are birds who have never known what it is to really fly.
They don’t miss it. They just miss each other.
Today, my husband and I went to the zoo. We only go once a year usually on someone’s birthday. And every year, my most favorite animals are…you got it..the
birds. From the ducks, to the flamingos, to the eagles, to the koo-koos, to the bustards…I don’t care. I talk to them all.
I also don’t care if it embarrass whoever I’m with.
“Oooooo…
you’re a pretty bird aren’t you? “
While the prairie dogs were pretty entertaining, in form, style, variation, color, and sheer amazement, you can’t beat birds in my book.
So, there we were, on the first sunny day of the summer months…relaxing in a closed bird cage when this little guy (see picture) flew down, inches away from our feet… and spread out both wings…and sat there.
Odd…what is he doing we whispered?
Well, who knows? His blue wings were enough to make you realize that no human could have designed something so perfectly, wonderfully blue.
At first I thought he was maybe drying his wings…but they weren’t wet. No, he was showing
off…
After about five whole minutes of being just incredibly breathtaking…he flew off. Unlike the poor huge Eagles, who were in cages so small it seemed almost cruel…he
could…fly off that is.
Freedom.
If you’ve never experienced it, you don’t know what you’re missing. My parakeets don’t want freedom. They prefer the safe cozy confines of the secure cage they have always known.
We have been so very free in America. And the question arises: Will someday our children, and their children, not
want to be free, but instead prefer to remain happy in their secure little worlds…taken care of by this global nanny state, where class, and race tell the purpose of your life?
Will future children raised in a less free America desire freedom…having never known the feeling of what it’s like to be free?
Is it in our genes to fight for freedom?
Well, if you look at the liberals of today, they act just like my parakeets. They
prefer the zoo.
Too bad we just can’t put them all there.
Labels: life