Love Life, with Parrots (ePub)

Men come and go. That's not what I intend; it just happens.

Parrots are forever.

I don't plan to spend my life fighting loss and feelings of inadequacy, and searching for the human love of my life. That just happens, too.

I don't expect to bring home a wild-caught parrot for a pet, either, until Peaches wins me over. In my efficiency apartment in Los Alamos, New Mexico, he falls in love with a raven and is evacuated during a fire. When boyfriend Perry and split up, Peaches overcomes the last of his wild resistance to heal my broken heart.

Peaches and I move to a trailer park near Santa Fe to live with Joe, my next intended happily-ever-after. It is Peaches, much more than Joe, who helps me recover from a brain-damaging auto accident and keeps my spirits up while I deal with disability hearings, insurance, and the electric company.

When I can work again, I surprise Peaches with his own a partner: Maggie, who later reveals his true gender. Maggie understands English and makes paperclip art. Sometimes he's too clever by half, as when he gets stuck inside a wall.

The flock dynamic is thrown off center when a friend's daughter shows up allergic to birds, and Willie comes to live with us. He and Maggie can hardly be in the same room without fighting. Eventually, they make an imperfect peace.

My relationship with Joe becomes more and more out of kilter, ending in a restraining order. Long-time friend Rob becomes my next inamorato. During our brief fling, Willie pairs with Peaches and lays six eggs. Maggie alternately guards the family and looks for a nest to attract his own mate. Willie's eggs turn out to be infertile.

Disheartened about my romantic prospects, I resign myself to being an old maid with fifty parrots. Then Dennis, an old friend I've lost touch with, comes back into my life, and romance ensues. The birds and I move to Arizona. Finally, my human life partner!

Dennis and I adopt baby parrot Sunny, who believes I'm her mother. Why wouldn't she, when I feed her several times a day from a plastic pipette?

After seventeen years as my companion, Peaches dies of cancer. In my grief, I realize that he has been my most constant love.

At the book's close, Willie and Maggie set aside their differences and pair. She is sitting on a clutch of eggs that may produce the next generation of parrots.