The Best Men

My husband is one of the Good Ones.  One of the sour, grumpy, curmudgeonly, opinionated ones, but one of the good ones.  After many years and many men I think I've found the way to identify the Good Ones - through the way they treat pets, especially pets which are not their own. 

My husband never particularly wanted a parakeet.  He didn't interact too much with them when the whole horde of parakeets were downstairs, except that I'd occasionally find he'd made sure the door to their flight was latched securely, and he was the driver on a few late-night vet missions.  His pets were the beta fish and the lizards we kept inheriting as rescues.  He liked to watch for new bubble nests in the fish tank, and was proud when they showed up because it meant he'd gotten the water and the food and the plants right and made the fish happy.  The water dragons loved heights.  He liked to let the larger water dragon, named Spazz, climb to the highest point available in a room, which was often the top of his hat. He didn't love the blue-tongued skink as much but still tried to keep it properly moisturized, and fed a healthy diet.  I'm the one who messes up everyone's diet since I loved to save some of the fish eggs from my sushi to feed to the delighted beta, and I loved to cut up apples to give to the skink, which made it make the most joyous face a lizard with only one expression can make, and made it move faster than a snail which was unusual.  I also feed my brother in law's dog crackers and cheese when we see him every year or two, since it's the only time I get to spoil the dog.  Contrary to the innocent expression on my husband's face, I am not the person who originally fed the dog the Swedish Fish, that was the innocent looking husband.  My brother in law should know by now that any time my husband looks innocent he is in fact the culprit. 

So, getting back to the start of that last paragraph, my husband is the lizardfishdog guy.  He is not the bird guy - the birds were mine.  Originally I had a flock of four, and one by one over the years they've passed away.  Now I have one little bird left, a pretty even-tempered cub scout of a parakeet, two and a half inches of opinion with a three inch tail, and he'd die of loneliness in the pet room by himself so we've moved him up to the office, where his smaller cage now occupies the spot to my husband's left.  It has taken him a little while to settle down from flighted wild flock member to computer companion to humans, but he's adjusted gradually and I think we do make a difference to his loneliness.  He's gone from being pretty skittish to being pretty bossy, as a comfortable parakeet will tend to be, with all five inches of blue and yellow poofed out.  He tends to move to the back to rest when we're out at work, and come out to see us when we return.  If he's in a standoffish mood he stays on the second to furthest perch.  If he wants to interact, he comes to the second to closest perch.  If he is really jonesing for interaction he'll come sit on a little blue perch I put in the absolute front corner.  If we're elsewhere in the house he'll yell 'til we respond and sometimes keep yelling.  He knows me as the source of good food, treats, compliments and toe nail clippings, which is enough to keep me in the role of betrayer.  He knows my husband as the source of that great clicking noise when typing like wildfire, blues and metal music to which he loves to yell along, and most of the interesting shows on the computer, to which my husband is normally attached most waking hours at home.  The bird may be my child but he's my husband's hang-out buddy, and has taken to sitting on the little blue perch staring at the computer to see what my husband is up to at all times.

My husband, in turn, has also adapted.  While he occasionally comes through telling me "YOUR BIRD sounds like an air raid siren," he more often comes through telling me stories about what the bird is up to - "He keeps putting up his foot to rest, getting interested in what I'm doing, and falling over when he leans forward to look."  He's learned that when giving the bird a spray bath it's important to spray all the plastic chains and bells since those chains are his favorite toy when covered with water.  He's learned that the bird likes oat sprays best and likes stealing plastic Starbucks stir sticks from any human holding one.  But I catch him in little moments liking the bird better than he admits.  He has conversations with the bird, and changes the music depending on what the bird is in the mood for (anything with fast guitar has immediate approval, other things depend on bird whim).  At night, when he pulls the cover over the bird's cage, he lifts the edge to say good night one more time. It's the last one that lets me know what kind of dad my husband would be.