Saturday, The Bird and The Call

When I was a small boy, not long ago, my father brought home a parakeet.   A family pet to substitute for the dog my mother would have been afraid of.   I named the bird, Pete.  Sadly, I seldom took Pete out of his cage (I DIDN'T KNOW!) and he went to the big sleep within the first year.  I would not have another relationship with a bird until I was in my early thirties and Pa came into our lives.

He was sick when we got him and, as she squirted the medicine down his throat, Pa bonded to Diane and attempt to tear my flesh for the next 23.5 years.   Until last year when, beyond all reason, he finally and suddenly accepted my hand as the gesture of friendship it was always meant to be. Pa will now ride with me, at least into the next room to see "Mommie" (We're have some issues).    Pa is a riot.   He hangs upside down from most things and is not afraid to let you know, in a full cry, that attention must be paid.

On other fronts,  largely deprived of my ability to earn any money writing, I am taking the census enumerators test tomorrow.  It pays surprisingly well and you get to knock on a lot of stranger's doors and scare the children.   I took the practice test, with plenty of help from the always ready to help Robin Snow.   There were, on the test, the kinds of questions that helped delay my graduation from high school.  Time had not improved the situation and why I need to multiply fractions to count people standing in a living room is beyond me.

I had volunteered to be the designated answerer of the Suffolk County AA Hotline on Wednesday night, 8pm to 8am.  They moved the phone line over to mine and the calls began to roll in at a snail's pace. Two calls in, a gentleman called Glen rang from Islip.   Obviously off his meds, Glen kept wondering if he could trust me.  I was entirely sympathetic, but never discovered what he needed to trust me about.   After twenty minutes of an ever shifting story, I said g'night to Glen and took four more calls before Glen called again, obviously concerned.

"Strange thing," he said.
"What?"  I said.
"When I hung up with you last time, the radio went off.  What's up with that?"

I didn't have an answer.   I wanted to say that we did that with all first time callers but instead said only
"Ah."
I never got him to trust me and Glen didn't call back during the six hours remaining in my shift.

Other than Glen there really weren't any unusual calls worth mentioning and, when 8am rolled around, as decided earlier, I tried to take a two or three hour nap and limp along till bedtime that night.  But this was not possible.  Going without sleep was once so easy I'd go for two days fairly often if there was a lot of work and even in one medicinally assisted episode, went for three days without sleep.  I didn't kill me.  Other things may have.  But not the lack of sleep.

I haven't been sleeping  well.   Four or five hours a night.  I have worries.