A parakeet. Oh yes we did.

About a week ago, we caved. Nelson had been begging for a parakeet for over a year. Then came the fateful night at a new (former) friend’s house when the kids ran off to play.

Nobody move.

It was a new home for them, for all of us. I let my guard down and didn’t ask the right questions. I assumed all was well. The dad was a cop after all. He was the dude I would call if things went wrong.

Turns out in 4 hours, everything changed. When I wasn’t looking, it happened. They had a parakeet. And I never saw it coming.


It was daybreak the next day before Nelson said it was so: “Grace has a bird.” Come Friday, a mere 7 days after that fateful visit, we had Scoops.

Day 1: We reinforce all doors on the cage and I shove the cage once, hard, like a 10-pound cat might upon landing. It stays put. The bird ignores us.

Day 2: The bird climbs on everyone’s finger but mine. The children are in love with this bird. Nelson gets out his raptor glove and gets the bird on his hand. (At last, he is using his eagle stuff!) “Good boy, Chirps!” I say, feeling like the best mom around. Wait, I got his name wrong.

Day 3: I’m working in my home office next door to Scoop’s lair and I hear it for the first time: a chirp! I drop everything and bolt across the house (4 steps).

“Chirps, is that you?”

I am so proud. He says nothing.

Day 4: Time to get the cat thing over with. I can’t stand Scoops cooped up all day with the bedroom door closed except for the times I come running to find him saying nothing. So I open the bedroom door and wait. The cats arrive together.  “Chirps,” I say, “prepare.”

In five minutes, during which the cats purr, rub and paw at the cage, Scoops becomes more animated than I have seen him his whole life here (less than a week). He races across the perch away from the cats. And then back and butts his head against the cage wall where the two cats are biting the thin white bars with caution, in slow motion.

The cats’ whiskers are literally inside the cage. His beak is poking out of the cage trying to touch them. Scoops does the impossible next: He starts chirping! I see it leave his lips. I knew it was him all along. 

Next, he starts flapping his wings. Then back and forth along the perch. I watch in wonder. I’m not sure, but I think he is playing. The cats are in full support of this fun (one-time) game.

Then Scoops starts flying around his cage. Feathers are floating in the air (the tiniest white and green ones you ever saw, I pause a moment to admire). I can’t tell if the game is over or escalating.

“Are you ok, bird?” I holler over the ruckus. The cats are pouring a nice white wine to go with their meal.

The bird flies to the front of his cage and hangs there looking at me. I don’t think this looks fun anymore.

Day 5: Scoops chirps the whole day. I think he is calling for the cats but secretly I hope it’s for me.

I ask Kendall, who has adeptly gotten the bird on his finger since Day 2, to help me bond with this bird. When I put my hand in the cage, he scuttles across his perch. I corner him. “All aboard!”

He sets one spiny foot on my finger and a shiver runs down my spine. I swallow a small yelp. Then, the second talon is on my finger. Victory! We are one! His name is Scoops! I remember now!

Then, he goes bananas and tries to shoot out the cage door that is blocked by my winter-fat arms.

I screech. I drop the cage door and trap him. I run across the room (2 steps) and screech one more time. Kendall talks me down as he puts Scoops on his finger with no effort.

Day 6: Kids, the bird is all yours. I’ll stick with the cats and the white wine.

Delivery man? Hide.

In honor of Mother's Day, we'd like to share one of our favorite traditions with our mom: hiding from the Watkins man.

Every Tuesday, the Watkins man pulled in with his old brown car. And every Tuesday, we had to decide if we would hide.

Mom loved the spices and balms, but we all bristled at the inconvenience of actually placing an order. Don't get us wrong. He was a friendly man but he persisted in long and involved sales visits even if we were standing there in our swimsuits, especially if.

When he pulled in, there was a throwdown over who would answer the door.

When my sister volunteered, she would try to be brisk with him, asking for the standard black pepper in a no-nonsense matter. But he didn’t care, he felt only that she was having a bad day and that, with some work, he could cheer her up.

I tried being extra jolly and ordered a slew of spices from him. But this didn’t send him on his way, as I thought it might, happy to go before I changed my mind. He saw this as only an invite to stay longer and offer preparation advice.

It got worse when our mother set out to “keep it short.” She was part Watkins man herself and the two of them would end up in a long play-by-play of the latest gossip.

So we all took to hiding from him, if, and only if, the pepper shaker was full.

One afternoon, we floated on flimsy air mattresses bought at the Ben Franklin in Interlochen. We were nearly asleep, while mom was doing the unthinkable: using the shallow plastic cupholder. When she wasn’t dumping Diet Coke into the pool, she was reading a book that soaked up and bloated with water.

This is when we heard the rumble of the old beater.

“Oh no, it’s Tuesday!” I said, floating in a perfect moon of sunshine, cutting between the shade trees Dad insisted on planting around the pool. I cried to think of leaving it.

“Let’s get out and hide!” Mom called out. But, with the Diet Coke and the book, she was ensnared.

“We’ll stay put,” I said and lay my head back against the plastic and shut my eyes. I was thin enough (then) and the plastic cheap enough, that I literally floated in the 6 inches of space between the water and the rim of the pool. I was nearly out of sight.

Mom wasn’t so lucky. She instead paddled one-handed to the side of the pool and huddled behind the tree between the house and the pool, clutching the railing with her wet book, her Coke can floating in the middle of the pool. We looked at her over our sunglasses. And the giggles started.

“Shhh! Here he comes!” Mom said. She was, in a real turnabout, mad at us. This only added to the hilarity of the situation.

“HELLO! Ladies?!!” the Watkins man's voice rang out in the garage, a few feet from where we floated, hysterical.

“Hold steady,” Kerry whispered.

But it was not to be. The laughter was too loud and the pressure too much.

We certainly can't remember what we ordered or who did the ordering, but we do remember how much fun those days were. When we were teenagers in the swimming pool, laughing and gossiping with mom and hiding from the Watkins man.

We miss those days. And, as if orchestrated from heaven, the day I wrote this, the Schwan's man came calling. And I was in my workout clothes, on the treadmill and looking, dare I say, nasty.

What should I do? What could I do?

Hide, of course. (Forgive me, Fred.)

As he knocked and waited, I sat huddled in my sweaty clothes and thought fondly of my mother who had taught me best.

Happy Mother's Day to our mom, who taught us when to wait things out and, just as importantly, how to laugh very, very quietly.

Margaritas & Sweatpants

There’s the unknown when you’re invited to a friend's house for the first time. Just come for a strawberry margarita, she says. It's 40 degrees in late April. There’s still snow on the deck. And she is standing in her kitchen making fruity cocktails. 

I’m going and no one can stop me. 

I decide this has the potential for a date night. With a little work, my husband might realize I'm not always in sweatpants with my hair in a ponytail. I can see it already - me and him, him and me (me especially), youthful in the light of our friend's kitchen. 

First I flat iron my hair but see this provides a straight-on view of my roots. So I curl massive pieces of hair around my face. Look over here, far left and far right, people. Leave the gray for everyday life in my own kitchen. Tonight, we are making new friends and liquefying strawberries. 

I pull on my favorite pair of jeans. I pull them off. Check the tag. They are indeed my fat pair and they are indeed longs. But I can see my ankles now, which weren't on display last fall. A little study in the mirror and I see the problem. My backend has grown an inch upward and outward. Never mind, tall boots and a fluffy sweater at the waist and I look fine. ish. 

I go one more and find some crusty mascara to set off my eyes, one of which failed its driving test last year. 

We hit the road. The kids are thrilled. They have detected they are going to be with their mother but she has clearly checked out and will do little more than keep them alive. They will light matches and run with scissors. And she will be flipping her big hair at the far side of the room, winking at them good-naturedly and shooing them along. 

They see from their father's ratty t-shirt that he's still very much on the radar. When they get to the new house they will memorize the floor plan to always be out of his eyesight and earshot.

We arrive at our friend's house. She said 6 p.m. We get there by 5:50. I have never been on time anywhere at any time. I feel anxious. This is all wrong. 

"Drive around the block a few times," I say. "It's rude to show up early, especially for the first time (in my life)."

The kids screech in protest when we pass by the house of freedom.

Finally, it's a decent 6:01 pm and we pull in.

"Hello! Sorry we're late!" I call.

"What. are . you . wearing?" is the reply. I look up to find three couples. All the women in sweatpants and ponytails. In the kitchen light, they look a lot like I did all month.

"You look good," one says to me.

"Too good," says another.

What have I done? I think.

They start elbowing each other. I am not sure what is happening but the gal not in sweatpants is now undergoing a hazing.

"What? Is this date night?" they howl.

"Perhaps," I hedge. My date has already ditched me and is across the room with the guys.

They hand me a cocktail. They admire the curls. They wait.

Finally, I cave.

"Does anyone have a pair of sweats I can borrow?" I ask. "These jeans are about to split."

But they won't comply. They are going to keep me uncomfortably beautiful all night and poke endless fun at me while Tim never looks twice. But it's fine. I was a little in love with these gals before tonight. Now? I'm totally in love.