Fifty Nine Years Later

"Singer" was a canary.  I lived in a New York City housing project which prohibited dogs or cats.  My Mom had brought home various goldfish, but eventually they all went to the large aquarium in the sky.

One of my aunts, who lived a couple of miles from me, had three pets:  two cats and a canary.

Yes, a canary living in the same apartment as two cats.

It was a male and it sang so beautifully.  For me,watching it, it was instant love.  I've always been attracted to birds and started begging Mom for a canary of my own.

At some point, when I was about eight, Mom decided I was old enough to care for a pet, so off to the pet shop we went (at that time, the early 60's, canaries were not expensive the way they are now) and Mom and I came home with a yellow canary.

"Singer" became a friend and companion for me, an only child.  He would sing for me, do little tricks with his seed bell and swing, and entertain me in general with his antics during his weekly bath.  In fact, I was able (with a lot of patience) to train him to sit on my finger, and even to sit on my shoulder.  I have a picture, somewhere of me (in a bathrobe, as I recall), with "Singer" perched on me. 

His songs and company were just what I needed after I broke my leg in three places and had to spend the next two months at home because my elementary school classroom was on the 4th floor and there was no elevator in the school building.  (I was home educated by a teacher sent to my apartment until after my cast was removed.  I blogged about that several years ago. I owe a lot to that teacher, but that's a story for another day).

Sadly, Singer passed away during my recovery.  I remember the date, too, because it was the day before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  I was still in my leg cast. 

Yes, people of my generation remember the date November 22, 1963 well.  It was the day that President John F. Kennedy was in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.  Shot several times, he died shortly after at a local hospital.  

Meanwhile, I was at home, reading or doing homework, perhaps.  My mother had left me to go shopping.  She returned home, and was crying as she opened the door to our Bronx apartment.

Mom turned on the TV, and the next three days were nonstop television coverage.  I had a doctor's appointment the following Monday to have the progress of my healing checked, and I remember watching some of the funeral coverage in the waiting room.

We went to the pet store the day after Kennedy died to buy another canary.  In the pet store cage was a yellow canary with a black spot on top of his head.  My Mom and I agreed the bird had the spot to mourn Kennedy, and that was the bird we took home with us.

It's been 59 years.  I still find that, in some ways, hard to believe.

The Saddest Perfect Pet in the World

Today is my 3700th post, and I am thinking today about loneliness.  It is so easy to be lonely in the midst of celebration, of families reuniting, of people wishing each other Happy Holidays.

And here you are.

Here we are on Christmas Eve, and I am running out of time to write about the Perfect Polly.

Would you consider keeping a plastic pet shaped like a parakeet?

Back around 2013,  I was shopping  and saw this box.  It advertised something called "Perfect Polly".  You can see it in action in a video below.  It bills itself the "Amazingly Lifelike Parakeet".  And you don't even have to feed it (or, for that matter, clean up after it).

This is what Perfect Polly looks like.

I kept parakeets as pets for many years (although I haven't recently) and my interpretation of this plastic parakeet is - just no.

 I think Perfect Polly misses an important point.  In a way, it's all about lonliness, something that I think about more and more as I age (I'm a senior citizen now).

The holidays are a sad time for so many people.  And many seniors are alone, due to death, family far away, or for other reasons.  Perhaps one in three elderly suffer from loneliness.

I think it is part of human nature to need to connect with animals in some way.  Not everyone has a pet, and certainly many cultures can not (or do not have the resources to) pamper their pets the way we do in the west.  However, even if the pets must be working animals, we are still interacting.  And, I've known many people who mourn the death of their pet the way they would a member of their families.

I can't see a pet made of plastic.  And I couldn't see this as any kind of holiday gift.  But that's just me.  Still, I recently looked on Amazon and it was "out of stock" indefinitely.  I wonder if it is even made any more.

I found this interesting list of how to reach out to people who do not choose to be alone.

I couldn't see my late mother in law, for example, being kept company by a battery operated plastic something.  Even if it doesn't have to be fed or cleaned up after.

Perhaps the saddest thing in the world is that someone had to make a product like this.  No one should be alone during the holidays.

Or left to be entertained by a plastic bird.

Are You Prepared?

Are you ready for a natural disaster?  Or your death?
You've drawn up your will, made your wishes known to family.

But, have you thought about your pets?

They are part of your family.  They deserve and have earned your care even after your death.  Or after a natural disaster.

We in the Southern Tier of upstate NY learned this the hard way last September.

A local pet shop (I will not mention their name within this post, but it is part of a chain) flooded in our September 8, 2011 floods in Johnson City caused by Tropical Storm Lee.  The site had flooded at least once, before the shop opened.  The owners of the chain would have had access to this knowledge.

I will not get into the controversy over who was responsible - the village of Johnson City, management....but the sad and sorry fact was that some 100 animals died in the flooded store, scared and alone, because they were not evacuated.  Another 100 or so animals were saved and brought to a location about an hour away.

In all these months of me blogging about the flood recovery, I have never spoken until now about the Pet Shop of Death.  But I can tell you that in the days and weeks after the flood, so many people discussed, debated, cared about what had happened in that store on Harry L. Drive.  In the swirl of people dealing with flooded basements and homes, not having clean water to drink or a place to wash their clothes, finding the roads they normally used closed and damaged, coping with their displacement or the displacement of their workplaces, and everything else that accompanies this type of disaster, people cared about those animals.

It hurt.  It still hurts.

Or, as tragically happened to a relative - she lived alone, and died instantly in a car accident.  She had two cats, both rescue cats.  She volunteered time in an animal shelter.  She had a will.  But she had not made a provision for her cats. This can happen, too.

So, I would like to ask each of my readers this question, because a weather disaster can happen anywhere, at any time.

-Have you thought about, if there is a disaster, who will care for your pets?  Your chosen people might not be able to when that day comes, but at least you have tried.

-Have you made it known, if you live alone and pass away suddenly, who will take in and care for your pets?  Not just hoped, but spoken to the person(s) and gotten their agreement?

If you haven't, please do so today.  Or, at the latest, tomorrow.  Your pets love you, look to you, depend on you.  Don't let them down.

I was petless during the flood, and am still petless.  But this may change in the future, and I will make these arrangements before ever being honored by the company of a pet, ever again. 

BelatedRainbow Bridge Remembance Day

I did not know that yesterday, August 28, was Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day.

Quoting from the National Day Calendar:

"Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day on August 28th sets aside a day to remember the pet companions we’ve lost.
The death of a pet, whether furry, feathered, or an uncommon variety, is felt deeply. They become family and a familiar part of our lives. Mourning their death is different for everyone, and the observance provides a way to help heal the ache of loss.
The pain of loss is real. As each person travels through their grief, we remember the companionship and comfort they provided to us. Don’t forget that part of the relationship included care provided by you. The empty space left by the loss of a beloved pet is sometimes a difficult void to overcome."

I found this out a little too late when three blogs I read featured Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day posts yesterday.  

Almost all of us have felt that pain.

So, how about my story?

I want to blog about my first pet.  The name has been changed because..well, because.

"Singer" was a canary.  I lived in a New York City housing project which prohibited dogs or cats.  My Mom had brought home various goldfish, but eventually they all went to the large aquarium in the sky.

Meanwhile, one of my aunts, who lived a couple of miles from me, had three pets:  two cats and a canary.

Yes, a canary living in the same apartment as two cats.

It was a male and it sang so beautifully.  For me,watching it, it was instant love.  I've always been attracted to birds and started begging Mom for a canary of my own.

At some point, when I was about eight, Mom decided I was old enough to care for a pet, so off to the pet shop we went (at that time, the early 60's, canaries were not expensive the way they are now) and Mom and I came home with a yellow canary.

"Singer" became a friend and companion for this only child.  He would sing for me, do little tricks with his seed bell and swing, and entertain me in general with his antics during his weekly bath.  In fact, I was able (with a lot of patience) to train him to sit on my finger, and even to sit on my shoulder.  I have a picture, somewhere of me (in a bathrobe, as I recall), with "Singer" perched on me. 

His songs and company were just what I needed after I broke my leg in three places and had to spend the next two months at home because my elementary school classroom was on the 4th floor and there was no elevator in the school building.

Sadly, he passed away during my recovery.  I can remember the date, too, because it was the day before Kennedy was assassinated.  I was still in my leg cast.

We went to the pet store the day after Kennedy died to buy another canary.  In the pet store cage was a yellow canary with a black spot on top of his head.  My Mom and I agreed the bird had the spot to mourn Kennedy, and that was the bird we took home with us.

I haven't had a pet in several years.  But, as retirement beckons...who knows?  Writing this post brought back so many sweet memories of my first true pet.

What about you?  Do you have a beloved pet you want to remember today?

A Final Act of Love

I know someone who has been helping to take care of an elderly man, living near her, who has dementia.  Despite the best efforts of those who care for him, it appears this man can no longer live on his own.

That leaves the fate of his blind dog and several cats living on his rural property up in the air.


This brought up a memory I had not thought about for many years.  Years ago, an aunt died suddenly in an accident.  My aunt, who lived alone, had not made provisions for her two cats in the event of her death.

A kindly neighbor took care of the cats in the immediate days after the accident that killed her (which happened out of town) but then, decisions had to be made concerning the cats.  Ironically, my aunt had done volunteer work at an animal shelter local to her.  And her grown children lived hundreds (in one case, thousands) of miles away.  But she never realized she needed to spell out her wishes.

I've been blogging recently about how my spouse and I hadn't updated our will in many years. We are between pets, but we may not have made provisions for pets, either.  We didn't the last time we updated our will, and we had a pet then.

Yikes.

Have you made provisions for your pets in case of your death?  If you (heaven forbid!) died suddenly tomorrow, do you know who would care for the pet?  Or, what happens if you are in an accident and are incapacitated?  Or are diagnosed with a serious illness?  If you have, do you have that information in your wallet? 

Does that person know he or she will be asked to take that responsibility on?

There are a lot of things to think about. 

For pet owners, one of them is a final act of love.