Friendship

The Best Bird

Sam Falco2 Comments
Pookie, the best bird

Pookie is a 28-year-old sun conure. She has been my wife’s constant companion for all of those years.

I met Pookie after Carolyn and I began dating in 2001. Pookie was nine years old then, and fiercely protective of Carolyn. Every time I put my arm around Carolyn, the little tyrant ran across the sofa in attack posture, her beak open and wings spread. Pookie remained suspicious of me the whole time Carolyn and I were dating, throughout our engagement, and for the first three months after we married.

One Saturday morning, Carolyn went out with a friend. While she was gone, I started playing my guitar and singing. I was a verse or so into “Lover’s Cross” by Jim Croce when I heard the flutter of her wings and she landed on my shoulder.

I thought she was going to attack me. I braced for a nip on the ear. It didn’t come. Instead, she rubbed her face against my cheek and made little, happy noises. I kept singing. She kept snuggling. By the time Carolyn got home, Pookie and I were best friends.

After that, Pookie had to be wherever I was. If I slept in, she would yell out her “assemble the flock” scream until I got up. One day she tried to stow away in my jacket when I was going to work. She ignored Carolyn if I was around.

Pookie’s crush on me ended after about six months and Carolyn reclaimed her position as first in Pookie’s affections. But I have been part of the flock ever since. She’s been the best bird to both of us.

Last week, Pookie started having seizures. We struggled to get her to take the anti-seizure medication that was prescribed for her. It smells awful and apparently tastes worse. But she seemed to be doing better until yesterday. Carolyn took her back to the vet and they took a blood sample. The vet called back with the results late in the afternoon.

Pookie’s liver and kidneys are starting to fail. She’s 28, which is very near the upper range of a sun conure’s lifespan. The vet told us that there are some other medications we can try. (Apparently these are formulated to taste better.) But she’s living on borrowed time. I’ll pick up the medications in the morning. We’ll take all of the time we can have with her.

Letters

Sam Falco2 Comments

I miss letters.

During my first year at college, going to the mailbox was often the best part of my day. Mail arrive twice each weekday at ten and three. People swarmed the campus post office like addicted gamblers fighting to place last-minute bets at the track. I knew it was foolish to join them. Why not wait fifteen minutes until the crowd evaporated? I plunged in anyway. I had to see what awaited.

In my first quarter, the girlfriend I’d left behind wrote to me almost daily. Even after we broke up, though, I could count on something being there more often than not. A letter from my parents (if I was lucky, with a check). A packet from my sister containing a week’s worth of “Calvin and Hobbes” strips cut from the Orlando Sentinel. (The local paper didn’t carry it.) Postcards and letters from friends at other schools.

Letters were treasure.

After I transferred schools, I kept up steady correspondences with the friends I’d made in my freshman year. It kept me connected to a world I missed with all the longing of an unwilling expatriate. I wrote letters in big batches every Sunday night. I looked forward to the responses throughout the week.

It didn’t last, of course. Someone would forget to write back. Or I would. The flow of letters slowed to a trickle. By the time I got my first email account, I was only getting regular letters from one person. Then she got an email account, too, and we shifted our correspondence online. It didn’t last much longer after that. Email lacked the warmth, personality, and permanence of letters. I still have many of her letters. I don’t have any of the emails.

LEGO play date

Sam Falco

At last night’s Tampa Bay Scrum Master’s Guild, we did a simulation of a scaled Scrum project. We used LEGO bricks to build the components of a zombie defense system. It was fun, of course. How can LEGOS be anything but fun?

At one point, when several members of my team were off coordinating with other teams, my friend Jessica and I remained at our table. As we caught each other up on what we’ve been doing since we last saw each other, we idly assembled pieces of our teams design. It was very relaxing to be engaged in what amounts to children’s play while we talked of the challenges of adult life. Maybe, the next time we arrange to get together for coffee, we should bring a bucket of LEGO bricks to play with, too!

Fate, Fortune, and Friendship

Sam Falco

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It happened that my friend Don and I discovered that we were in New York City at the same time. I was staying near the World Trade Center, and he was in Harlem, but that distance paled in comparison to the 1,200 miles or so that usually separates us. We arranged to meet in Midtown. When I spotted him as I crossed 8th Avenue toward the restaurant we’d agreed on, I felt a deep sense of joy and gratitude for the gift of time together.

Don and I met over twenty years ago in graduate school, when we were assigned an office together. We discovered mutual loves not only of literature, language, and drama, but also of less highbrow interests like superheroes and Star Trek. Our similar outlook and senses of humor meant we were sympatico in other ways as well.

It sometimes feels like it was fate, rather than mere good fortune, that we found each other as friends. Last night, it felt like it was fate, rather than mere good fortune, that placed us at the same time in a city where neither of us live, with time enough to get together. Whether it was fate or good fortune, I am profoundly grateful for it.