Living In A Birdcage...

It's Mother's Day and I don't want to go out in the wind. And it looks like it's going to rain later on, wouldn't you say? Let's not bother with a barbeque today, please. Let's stay home and pretend We don't exist instead.

I am sitting in my Birdcage, and my Hubby ruffles my fringe absentmindedly, like I'm a forgotten pet, and reminds Me why we have to go to the park today...

So that the kids can all play with their cousins nicely and hopefully not chase each other around with pointed objects or argue over who gets to sit in front of the bowl of chips- and so that I don't feel guilty for keeping the kids at home again on another perfectly good day. A cloud shaped like the Cat in the Hat drifts past as if to prove a point...

And even though my Hubby doesn't particularly like going to these Picnics in the Park either, he has to go today, because it's His family feeding us this time. Our eldest Son is stunned by the revelation that his father doesn't like going along to these types of outings- ones with Just The Family. He'd rather cut his own arm off than be there Son, if the truth be known. He wants to eat and run. This time we get two types of cheeses and biscuits, and a fruit platter, and rissoles and salad on fresh crusty rolls that my Hubby's brother has cooked on the luke-warm hot-plate under the Gazebo.

Gazebo. I really like that word...

I think his brother bought most of the meat, too, but then he won the Lotto once so he can afford it. My Hubby and I have a casually jealous conversation about their brand new People Mover, and talk about what kind of car we'd get if we had the same amount of money to throw around Just on a car. Like that's ever going to happen.

If I had that sort of money I'd have to pay off the rusty car I already own- and then I'd be pretty tempted to fix the termite damage in the walls of our house- but that would mean we would have to evict my little Son's Birdies; the pair of Eastern Rosellas that have nested in the termite hole in the wall of our house for at least the last five years. See? I wasn't joking when I told you before that nothing ever gets done quickly around here.

When he was first starting to walk my little Son would pull himself up onto his high chair and look out of the window to see them. They are beautiful birds- far nicer than the Indian Miner birds that lurk in the front yard that I sometimes see from the window, swooping at the young postman as he puts the mail into my rickety letter box. The rest of the view's not that much to see- but sometimes the birds perch on the garage roof and call out to their babies to try and fly across to them- and at night, when I am typing, sometimes I can hear them in the wall flapping their newly feathered wings; and I know that they are practicing for the big moment in October when they will make that giant leap out of the nest.

There was one baby, one year, who tried it a little too early and fell down onto the concrete below, but he was alright. My Hubby wrapped him up in an old towel and climbed on top of the wheelie bin and plopped him back down the termite hole, which the parent birds have fashioned into a quasi-tree hollow. At that stage he only had a few of his bright rainbow-coloured feathers, while the rest of his body was still covered in down. He should really count himself lucky that we were home at all that day- or else the cat would have eaten him. Quick smart.

I figure if I live in a cage I may as well live in a Birdcage. Just give me a swing and a mirror and a little friend and I'll be just fine. It's funny; the birds who live in the wall are the ones that are free- even if they still live in a birdhouse; I'm the one living in their cage. Can you see the connection? It's my cage. Not their's.

I'm a bird in a house-my house Is a bird's house- so I really Do live in a Birdcage.

Confused yet? Me as well. I'm sorry that I can't think in paragraphs.

I am panning for kitty litter instead of gold, I realise, as the shit swills around and around the cat's poo-bucket. It's just one of the many pleasant jobs that I get to do. Mickey's scratching up the leg of my jeans, impatient for his dinner. He's my cat- but my little Son loves him the most out of everyone. I see a pair of green and red King parrots eating the berries off a nearby tree, and I wonder if they think that I am the one sitting in an aviary for their amusement. Why won't one of them rip me up little strips of paper to fold up under my armpits to feather My nest with?

They regard me suspiciously as I twitter at them, trying in vain to communicate, before flying off out of my sight. I wonder if I will see them again. Why do they get to fly away and I have to stay behind? I search for movement in the trees but I've lost them now. I don't suppose that I'll find them looking through the dirty fly screen of my back verandah- the colours of the trees aren't even real anymore and are now washed out greens and browns; even the sky is somewhat greyer than it should be.

But I won't run, blindfolded, down across the train tracks to the Hanging Tree just yet.

I've got too many other things I'd rather do today...