31 May 1999: Excuses and Panic

This has been too beautiful a weekend to sit at a desktop, too bright a weekend to sit outside with a laptop. I have swum and walked and ridden my bike and gone blading.

It wouldn't be summer in Denver without thunderstorms, though, and we have had those. Earlier in the day than usual, I think, and altogether a cooler spring: la niña?

RDC spent Saturday on campus and I played with the car. I brought all the recycling back to the store and dropped off dry-cleaning and returned the dry-cleaner bags and hangers and might have done another couple of tedia before ending up at one of the Denver library branches that I've been meaning to visit for 3.5 years. A few days later, I mentioned to someone that I had visited the Field Library on Ohio and University and she thought I'd connected to a field (which she decided was the patois for "on-line") library of a university in Ohio.

Verdict: A fine neighborhood library. Good for its size. The shelves in its children's area are a little high for its demographic: not enough square footage to knock them all a bit lower. Not a lot of windows: modern architecture. A gas fireplace with comfy chairs in the adult area: big plus. A librarian reading The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn to talk to about The Autobiography of Henry VIII with and able to distinguish generations of Dudleys: another plus.

I checked out two Zilpha Keatley Snyders that have somehow escaped my notice. I read a stack of Patricia McLachlans and skimmed a Danny Dunn. I whooped with glee, spotting that on the shelf. I remember Danny Dunn! He used to be a favorite, a lot more accessible than my sixth-grade teacher Mrs. Fitzgerald's with-it hero, Tom Swift. We used to make up Tom-Swifties, gems of wit like "‘I dropped the toothpaste!'" Tom exclaimed, crestfallen." Who was the other inventor, Alvin somebody? He had a younger sister and a friend named Somebody Shoemaker, called Shoey. Danny invented anti-gravity paint and maybe went to the moon; Alvin was terrestrial and every-day possible.

I didn't look at the adult fiction at all. Perusal of the children's room is a necessary part of library evaluation. Adults should know about interlibrary loan, so for the library to own everything is not so critical. The children's section indicates the town's commitment to reading better than the adult section does. The main branch of the Denver library, for instance, has a beautiful bright children's room with a storytelling pavilion and child-sized furniture, but its collection of fiction for children is poor: lots of series, lots of discards of older treasures to fit whatever's new and trendy. It has but one copy of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, available only as a noncirculating reference book, among the other Newbery winners. That the main branch's adult fiction and nonfiction and other collections are superb does not outweigh the miserliness of the children's collection.

Anyway.

Sunday RDC rode to school again and I rode with him on the trail to the mall, in whose parking lot is a weekend morning farmer's market. At least those mornings that are not upon a holiday weekend. I turned around and rode home, enjoying the ride, enjoying the fact that if I'd driven and nothing had been there, I would have been irritated, but since I rode, I had had the ride.

I swam and read outside with Blake and swam again. I returned to the house at 4:00, took my buddy out of his cage, and headed for the study and the Mac. Blake, on the windowsill, heaved as if regurgitating.

Not again.

I called RDC, who advised me not to panic. I assessed Blake's mood: he still steered me toward windowsills, chattered at brightly tie-dyed t-shirts, greeted clouds and birds. I put him on his playpen in the emergent sun in the living room and watched him. More heaving, this time productive. Now he was lethargic. I called RDC again, who started for home. Blake perked up, climbing the stairs of his playpen from the bottom platform to the top perch. He stretched. He preened. He chewed his rawhide toy. I watched.

RDC got home. He brushed his teeth. Blake did not participate (he usually dances along). He wanted water, I allowed him a few beakfuls of water, three drops. Five minutes later he brought it up. Two minutes later we were all in the car. Which is when we learned Blake thinks the new car is scary. But it has air conditioning, which means we can bring Blake places in the summer. Places like the vet.

Halfway to the vet Blake began to produce unbelievable quantities of foam. He was in miserable distress. Cage in my lap, I murmured to him incessantly, reassuring him he was a good boy, a pretty bird, the best buddy. RDC drove tensely.

This winter, he had blueberry muffin I should have known not to give him. The first time was more than three years before that, a scant month after we adopted him, two months after Percy had died by aspirating while regurgitating. What was this? What could he have eaten? What was happening? Would he choke too, two miles from the vet? Why did the emergency clinic never have an avian-certified veterinarian on call? How do the parents of human children deal? I don't want to watch him die.

RDC screeched up in front of the door and we tumbled out. At the desk, a technician decided he did not need oxygen and showed us into a room. Less than a minute later a vet arrived, friendly, concerned, competent, not avian certified.

And Blake, suddenly, was better. Not a single choke more, no more fluid. He hurled himself enthusiastically at the vet, climbing up her sleeve and preening her hair. He fought being immobilized and examined. He flew for the safety of RDC as soon as she released him. He investigated the counter and behind the canisters of swabs. He tossed a pen to the floor.

For a sick bird, he was acting like a strong little bugger.

Without an avian vet, the clinic knew little more than we did, and could provide nothing Blake needed that we didn't have--love, unwavering attention, warmth. He didn't need an incubator, he didn't need oxygen. His crop wasn't blocked, he was defecating normally, his vent was clear, his eyes were brighter by the second and his lungs were not blocked.

The vet administered four cc's of fluid to prevent dehydration, a delicate procedure involving needles and his drumsticks that took place in another room--not that I wanted to see it. We were not to feed or water him for a few hours, but if when we did he couldn't keep anything down, we should bring him back.

As we paid the bill, a distraught man burst into the waiting room with the kind of carrier cats travel in planes in. A nurse whisked the entire cage into the back, and the man and the clerk talked about oxygen for his Amazon. RDC and I met each other's eyes, gazed lovingly at our little buddy, and turned wan sympathetic smiles to the Amazon's human. He dropped his eyes. Oh no.

So we brought Blake home. It was now 7:00 and Blake should have had his supper two hours ago. He whined. He begged. He yelled. He walked, away from us in the living room, into the kitchen to show us where the food was kept. I kept him company in the living room while RDC threw together a meal for us.

Here was a quandary: parrots are flock animals. They eat when you eat, they preen when you brush your teeth or comb your hair, they empathize with your excitement and sadness and tension. We feed Blake by 5:00 almost every night, and he has his appetizer and then eats more when we eat an hour or so later. He was ravenous already, and to be ravenous and watch his parents eat while they deny him food? But we couldn't cover him: we were watching him. And he us. We ate fast.

The vet had said to wait two hours at a minimum and so at 8:30, exactly the minimum, RDC opened the freezer (Blake pranced enthusiastically) and warmed a fingertip of seeds (while Blake paced up and down his arm frantically). RDC offered the seeds as soon as they lost their nip and Blake ripped them to shreds. We waited 20 minutes. Those seeds stayed where we wanted them to stay. We gave him a tiny portion of buddy chow (also from the freezer, also generating excitement). He demolished every kernel of corn, every tender little pea, and even took a bite of carrot. We waited. That stayed down too.

We kept him up a bit later than usual, watching and cuddling him. We put him to bed and covered him up. And in the morning, when I uncovered him, there perched our buddy, extremely anxious for his breakfast.

We all three had breakfast, Blake sharing our two different kinds of cereal in addition to noshing his own chow. We played boat for most of the day, except now we have a fleet. Blake snuggled and dozed, worn out from his tiring day and late night. Then he woke up. He pranced and showed off his mighty shoulders, ripped up a magazine, guarded socks, and yelled at cats. He screamed at us when we ventured out for a walk at 2:00 and greeted us fervently when we returned. He had a regular day. He must--mustn't he?--be fine.