Ordinary Evening
Feb. 28th, 2011 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_jackelI've come home late after dance class and am checking my email. There is a grey parrot on my right knee and a wolfdog pressed closely against my left. Jez holds her nose so tightly against my leg as I pet her face that it squishes upward and she has trouble breathing; this cannot possibly be comfortable, yet it has been her way all of her life, so who am I to judge? As I pet her, she will wrap one long paw over my wrist and meet me with a soft gaze, which is also a preference I only partly understand and don't question, so long as the paw is reasonably clean.
Nikola is in an affectionate mood and would like his face pet extensively; when I stop, he turns his head sideways, holds it in his claw and stares at me meaningfully with a half-lidded eye. When I am petting him particularly well, the pale skin around his eye colors delicately in a parrot blush. Jez has wandered off to be replaced by Bliss' long snout; when the dog gets too close, Nickola tells him to "go lay down" or "no." I move him away as directed, maintaining the requested boundary; Bliss is, well, blissfully unaware, as he usually is where his snout is concerned.
I'm tired and, as is often the case, a little lonely and somewhat sad. Before I sleep, I will give the animals I live with some touch and affection to the tastes and preference of each, and in so doing, my need for those things will also be met. This is not the only reason I keep them, but that's part of it---that many of our simple daily interactions are so kind, so physically affectionate, so honest and so essentially similar. That we are all very diverse animals is perhaps too obvious to state; the similarities, the suggestion of a universality of need, interests me.
Nikola is in an affectionate mood and would like his face pet extensively; when I stop, he turns his head sideways, holds it in his claw and stares at me meaningfully with a half-lidded eye. When I am petting him particularly well, the pale skin around his eye colors delicately in a parrot blush. Jez has wandered off to be replaced by Bliss' long snout; when the dog gets too close, Nickola tells him to "go lay down" or "no." I move him away as directed, maintaining the requested boundary; Bliss is, well, blissfully unaware, as he usually is where his snout is concerned.
I'm tired and, as is often the case, a little lonely and somewhat sad. Before I sleep, I will give the animals I live with some touch and affection to the tastes and preference of each, and in so doing, my need for those things will also be met. This is not the only reason I keep them, but that's part of it---that many of our simple daily interactions are so kind, so physically affectionate, so honest and so essentially similar. That we are all very diverse animals is perhaps too obvious to state; the similarities, the suggestion of a universality of need, interests me.
