At Home

It is midday and the radio is playing next door. Leaves fall from the trees.
Squirrels nibble away on the telephone line. It’s a mild day. I sit outside on our porch which looks down upon New York Harbor and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Barbara makes a cup of spiced chai for me and a cup of coffee for herself.

At home, Barbara and I nurture a community of rescued pets -- three cats, a flock of cockatiels, a dog, a rabbit, two chinchillas and two turtles.

For eleven years we lived together in a Greenwich Village artists’ loft, resembling a ship’s hull with portholes and crossbeams, where a cat, Xanadu, made friends with a cockatiel, Gawain. Barbara doted on a little bb parrot who perched on her shoulder. She was also known to care for broken wings; so Bird Jungle, gave us two cockatiels, Jack and Jill. They had been returned by their reluctant owners. The couple multiplied until a flock flew about our nine foot tall bookcases. A homing pigeon, mourning dove, rabbit, guinea pig, box turtle, dog and three cats walked along the red and yellow tiled concrete floor. Finches, love birds, nightingales, parakeets, and a canary sang in cages.

Barbara fed the birds with salads she made fresh each morning. A few of the baby cockatiels were given away to teachers and students with whom we worked. She brought birds to our vet, Doctor Adams, who took them home to Warwick and shared them with his wife, a school teacher.

A green market farmer from Long Island brought us the mate for our turtle. Thomas brought home the rabbit, Nosey, from summer camp. Nosey fell in love with Pigolino, a guinea pig we were boarding.

Twenty three years ago, we packed our menagerie in cages and carriers. Loaded them into a small rented truck; and moved the community to a hundred year old house on Staten Island. Our Miss Brooks, a little blonde dog, sat in the truck beside us as we drove over the Manhattan Bridge, through the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and along the Gowanus to the Verrazano Bridge.

The house was big enough to provide separate rooms for the animals. Most of the cockatiels fly freely about an aviary upstairs. The parrots lived on the first floor. Albird, a Blue Crown Amazon, and Snooka, a Spectacled Amazon, became a couple hanging out on top of a cage we bought originally for a rescued neurotic African Grey, Toby. Parakeets and a few cockatiels along with a rabbit share another room on the first floor. The chinchillas and turtles are in a third room on the first floor studio with a sink which helps Barbara with the daily cleaning.

After Miss Brooks died, we drove out to North Shore in Port Washington and rescued Cassie. As Cassie grew older, her maternal instinct called out for a puppy. She was spayed and could not bear a pup herself. Five years ago, we returned to Port Washington where Barbara found ten week old Chewie, who was adopted by Cassie in her old age.