Reading: The Secret History, even though at this point I think I won't crack the 100-book mark this year.

Moving: another reason driving to work is bad

Garden: none of that either

Watching: F/X is showing up to three Buffys a day. Season 5 is much better than 4.

19 November 2002: Peacock

My first Hallowe'en in Denver, in 1995, or the day before, CO-NARAL had a fundraiser for which I volunteered. It was a high-end deal, silent auction and banquet, and the volunteers (mostly college women from the campus pro-choice organizations) dressed up like the attendees so we could run around doing errands in our Little Blacks and heels. I did have a Little Black at this point but I was glad to be the only one in teal linen instead, because that meant that the mask I picked out, made of (I assume) fake peacock feathers went just swimmingly with my dress. I was the only volunteer to wear my mask all night. I got to walk among the moneyed faithful with a sign, like an old-time bellcap (I am confusing a train and a hotel, work with me), the sign announcing 15 minutes left before the banquet. I carried that one for five minutes and then was given a five minutes one. I maybe made that last part up.

Anyway, that mask has since hung on my wall waiting for me to go to Mardi Gras. Its current spot is on the west wall of my study, marking a corner of the arch (that sounds so swanky but I assure you it is not) into the den. If you are a cockatiel and your favorite place in mommy's study is the top shelf next to her desk, you might nearly be able to reach the mask if you leaned waaaaaay over, clinging to the melamine (?) shelf with your little talons, and also if she had not deliberately blocked your access with the metal Curious George lunchbox where she keeps her crayons. Because mean old mommy has some fastidiousness about how dusty a mask might be after seven years. Which is ironic considering the state of Blake's cage.

It really isn't possessiveness on my part. Not so much, anyway. And if I don't let him chew on the big blue rubber band around the lunchbox it's because that's what holds it closed after the latch broke and I have visions of Blake's suddenly severing the band and braining himself with a falling lunch box half before being buried in a pile of colored pencils and crayons. Someone gave me a basket I would never use even if I liked it and he can chew that, and some other art supplies are in a shoebox and he can chew that (and does), and if I stacked the shoebox and a metal Whitman's sampler box where I keep stationery (both metal boxes gifts from my sister), it's because I want to block the hole in the ceiling that we haven't patched yet. Since I don't have Robert DeNiro available, I need to keep my ducts free of cockatiels.

Anyway, yesterday the big excitement in the hinterlands was for me and Lou to go to Target and Petsmart over lunch. She didn't find what she wanted at Target, but she did find what I was about to give up on in Petsmart, that is, a genoowyne, and treated, peacock feather for Blake's very berry own.

Yesterday when I got home, I showed him my purchases. The peacock feather was an instant hit and he actually was extremely protective of it in a way he usually reserves for things he lusts. Despite his legion superstitions and fears, he appears to lack the theatrical set. I bought a Birdy Buddy a while ago, a little furry triangle that fits in the corner of his cage to cuddle against. He didn't like it and I have no idea where it is now. This one is grey, less intimidating than the previous jungle green one. It might be snuggly for him on cold winter nights or at camp. He was unimpressed by his new cuttlebone and did not recognize the honey sticks (which I have not yet put in his cage) as the portends they are. He has them only when he goes to camp. Maybe he gets one in his stocking, too, but otherwise only camp.

Or, as I think of it these days, storage. My poor little boy.