In Memoriam

Murderess

Vinnie & Shakira in Happier Times

It has taken several weeks for me to compose myself to write this. I can't believe how attached I became to a damn parakeet. Vinnie, my baby girl, is gone. The appropriately called bitch in the above photo got her. Baby's baby Tallula crept into the aviary when the house was asleep and did her in. There was nothing left but scattered feathers on the living room floor.

Vinnie was such a tough little thing. I thought if there was ever a battle between the dog and the bird the dog would lose-- even though, at 50 pounds, Lula outweighed my budgie by a few ounces less than 50 pounds.

In her brief and violently abbreviated life Vinnie had demolished a pretty little wooden bird house, stripped several hibiscus plants and chewed entire pots of wandering jew to ragged clumps. The purple whatnot in the monkey planter? Demolished. She took apart a wicker chair.  She was destructive and quiet and beady eyed and cunning...she could wriggle through the bars of her bird cage.

But it was night and she was sleeping...