believe it or not...

Not more than an hour ago, Pablo was ready and willing to tear my head off because I’d the audacity to don a gray sweatshirt in his presence. He is, as you might know already, a strict enforcer of the dress code in this house. He is the only one who knows the rules and nuances of that code, because he is the one who wrote it in the first place.

Lately he has been enforcing that code to the breaking point. Due to the high cost of heating fuel, I have been using the woodstove every day. Most times the fire has gone out by morning, and there’s a chill in the house. Am I allowed to wear a sweater or long sleeves until I get a fire going? No way. Not if I want peace and quiet, instead of a screeching ticked off parrot lunging at the bars of his cage, doing his best to get at me.

I’ve noticed, as this winter drags on, that he has further limited the approved wearing apparel to five tee shirts, all in subtle and subdued shades of gray and blue and green. He even seems to be deciding which pair of jeans I am allowed to wear—the pair he identifies with me staying home as opposed to
me going away for a few hours.

Now, offending garment hidden from sight, he sits on his perch in the loft as I work at the computer. He’s been making little happy noises for a while as I checked e-mail and a couple online sites I visit daily. At one, I laughed out loud. So did Pablo. Then I laughed some more to make I was hearing correctly.

He giggled right along with me. What an unusual sound, coming from this little green and yellow dynamo who scares every one of my friends who visit this house. They’ve never heard him like this—jovial, content, and oh, so pleasant to be around. I doubt they believe me when I speak of these moments. Or, of how he will lie on his back in my lap
while we play. No, they’d never believe that.