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Stick Neck

I had a cockatiel, an exceptionally handsome bird, a female, lemony-yellow face and erectile crown, gray and white body, with the classic dull orange "cheddar cheeks".  She came to me as an adult, a gift from a couple dear to my heart. They bought Peri a beautiful cage, like a black palace, palacial in shape not in size.

She stood upon her perch, a multiple-colored, twisted cord, soft affair that gracefully spanned the width of cage, to be an integral part of my life. Peri had one fault, she would only bond with one person. Initially, she was bonded with my friend, Rita, and I worried she wouldn't accept me. I need not have worried. Peri was my bird. She outlasted and hissed at boyfriends, friends, extended family, my daughter, my husband, and a few cats. But, me, she only had eyes for me. A fact that irritated my husband but tickled me. "I feed you, you little ingrate!", he'd boom.

It had to rankle when she developed an unlikely friendship with my cat, Gracie. Peri began brushing seeds from her own food dish onto the floor to feed the cat. At first, we thought it a happy accident but, we watched it with our own eyes when they thought we were watching television.

Perhaps my best memory of my feathered baby was when she'd get her new feathers. The feathers arrived encased in a cuticle of sorts, then she'd preen for hours, leaving feather dust to float in the air. One day as she sat atop my finger, I stroked the proud crown feathers and noticed the white cuticle crumble and fall away. The brand new feather and her obvious pleasure at the attention bore us a new shared activity, group preening. It was during this activity that I discovered what a tiny, little stick-like neck she had. Peri could be tempremental and she knew what area she wanted me to work on. Of course we'd have our little squabbles, her bristling, moving away from me, and me telling her, I will break your widdle stick neck! Yeah, it never worked.

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