Sunday, November 28, 2010

11/15/10: A large sack of fabric scraps...

...a bird cage complete with food and bird toys.       

This type of cage is for parakeets, or budgerigars.  I first heard the word budgerigar (budgie for short) when we moved to Scotland.  The elderly woman a couple doors down had a budgie - named Petey, I think.  Her name was Mrs. Cameron (actually, it wasn't Cameron, but it was a good Scottish name, like Stewart or MacDonald or Gordon - once this email goes out, I will hear from my parents what her last name really was, and likely it will be a good English name).  She figures in our life in Scotland in a couple ways.  First of all, every Saturday, early, we'd hear the mail slot squeak open and then crash shut as four Cadbury chocolate bars descended to our entryway floor.  These offerings came every week that we lived in Scotland, courtesy of Mrs. Cameron.  They came simply because she was delighted that children had moved in (practically) next door, and probably because my parents were good about chatting with her.

One day in the spring after we moved to Scotland, I was playing tennis against the side of the house next door.  It had been vacant the whole time we lived there.  We were expressly forbidden to play tennis against the wall because we might break a window.  So naturally I broke a window.  Eventually, it was decided that I needed to go ask Mrs. Cameron how to get in touch with the owners of house.  I had hoped to avoid this sort of ritual during my childhood, and going to Mrs. Cameron's was quite anxiety-producing.  I shouldn't have worried.  What sort of response did I expect from a woman who put chocolate through the mail slot for children she wasn't related to and barely knew?  She said she wasn't sure how to get ahold of them, and that I wasn't to worry about it.  Then she offered me a cookie.  My dad had a little trouble integrating this, but that was all we were going to get out of Mrs. Cameron.

It is the magic of memory that, to me, she is still in that toasty house of hers, chatting up Petey and feeding him seeds - even though this was 38 years ago.

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