Motorcycle Chick, the Biker Cockatiel

I want to give the cockatiels a whole room to themselves again - I had caged them last June due to visitors and my girls want me to take back the others we had adopted and raised - they don't have time for them anymore (at least two of them must be 12 years old or more by now).

Motorcycle Chick had been a runt (chick number three in the clutch) that was a day younger & not getting as much parental food or attention. I stuck him in my ample bra and fed him every two hours. I had been riding with a group of people that summer & fall, and we all shared hotel costs on long trips. We had one more plan for a trip to Valdez but that morning one rider called to say, "see that termination dust on the mountains? I'm not going," implying that none of us would be, of course. She didn't know me very well

If she wasn't going, then Rob wasn't either, so DJ and I packed and went without them, with me and Motorcycle Chick en brassiere - he never made a peep. I fed him each time we stopped to rest. I never told DJ we had a baby along for the ride.

Weather got a bit peckish mid-way there. On the other side of Glennallen, it started to drizzle; we worried about being able to cross Thompson's Pass. We got through that with the weather calming down on the other side.and we got to a hotel in good shape. We each got our own bed, ordered a pizza, warmed up.and fell asleep - me with Motorcycle Chick under the covers in his own little nest, unbeknownst to DJ. Not. A. Peep.

The next morning I'm in the shower, DJ is banging on the door, "Have you looked out the window? Not a cloud in the sky!" My first thought it is totally overcast - he has a sarcastic wit.

Looking out - the mountains were spectacular with the most gorgeous blue sky ever. The kind of blue-sky and sunshine day that makes Juneau shopkeepers give everyone the day off work.

We packed, rode home through the fairytale scenery that is the highway north of Thompson's Pass - truly unbelievable, a feast for the eyes and heart unparalleled in any morning light anywhere - then stopped to fuel in Glenallen where a convoy of horsetrailers, hauling their precious cargo out for the winter, were dropping snow off their bumpers in the bright sunshine.

I hopped on my bike, hollered at DJ, "I'm riding through snow!" Damn you, he hollers back, and rides through it, too, and that is how the tradition of the "Go 'til it Snows Tours" began, way back then, and how Motorcycle Chick, unnamed then, MC for short now, became a biker cockatiel.

The First Few Minutes Could Be Like This.

I want to kiss and kiss and kiss you

all over

every single inch of your beautiful skin,

your rock hard muscles

Rock me.

with your touch

with your kisses

with your lips,

here, and here, and here,

Oh, my.

I won't wait

I already know you

you know me

kiss me now,

make it start,

thousand tingles

start me up

light me up

it's like an ocean between us

and nothing at all

across space and time

I feel you

Feel you here

and here

and here.

Roll me up

on my side

move this leg

move into me

Move me.

Your hand

starts with my cheek

under my ear

down my neck

slowly, slowly

to the knobs where my clavicles meet

straight down the cleft,

and down.


You go down.

She Doesn't Want It

He comes

he’s at the door

she lets him in

she’s shy

she holds him anyway

She wasn’t ready

She didn’t want him

She says she doesn’t want him

He doesn’t listen

Does he hear?

She couldn’t have him

She knows it wouldn’t last

He comes in

His kiss is good

Oh, so good,

She pushes back into his mouth seeking more

So much better where they’re alone

She can’t see him it would be disaster

His hands are down her hips, her thighs,

Cold hands, so good

Down her thighs

No panties

To the small of her back

A hand on each hip and a thumb in

That soft velvety place

Where the belly meets the thigh

Presses her against him

Hard

Hands, cold hands, up her back

No bra

Smiling, he likes it.

______________

She turns he’s on her like a cat

What she wants

He’s behind her fully connected

It’s too intense she rolls

Rolls under him and takes him into her again

He’s deep and hard and fast and

Tender tells her what he wants

She’s flushed she arches she moans

He wants her on top

She’s on top, still, he’s deeper still

He wants to hear what she says

She whispers she’s a giant V and he’s

Bottomed at her heart

But she won’t say that loud

Enough, he says penny for your thoughts

But she won’t give

Just drives him deeper in

He says again what he wants

She drives him deeper deeper in then

He’s on top asking her again

But she cannot talk

She won’t believe, won’t give

She’s shocked for the goodness of it

What shouldn’t be.

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I Made Peace with the Gay Philosopher!

Are you familiar with this character, this painting, "The Gay Philosopher" by Henry Major?

He was a ubiquitous presence in my life growing up - he scared me. Grandma had to move this painting, actually a tintogravure of the original, from the upstairs bedrooms to the dining room because I couldn't sleep with him hanging there.

Grandma hated it, too, but I didn't know that until I brought mom home to live with me.

I knew she was crazy about the painting, though, so I brought it here with her, and hung it where she could see it with all the other pictures and memories; memories of her wedding, her children, holidays, family and friends.

She loved telling the nurses and aides and volunteers her stories, her life history, cataloged in those pictures, as well sharing her delight in a snapshot of her life, held in the painting of Uncle Herman.

“Uncle Herman?” ?!!? !! Yes, I remember her calling The Gay Philosopher that, and I do remember that I thought he was a real relative, and how much that dismayed me. The man is a bum – a slope shouldered, wrinkled coat, squashed hat hobo, but with a string tie and a sassy single-bud yellow boutonniere.

There was a real uncle of mom’s in the family stories, a sort of hobo, Uncle Bill, a transient who had left her a few dollars and a trunk full of stuff her kids could paw through in the 1950s; was this him?

If I hadn't brought her here, if I hadn't had all these pictures, and that print, I probably wouldn't have heard half her stories.

I thought I had, but we didn't get along most of my life. I was lucky to have those last two years with her.

Mom had bought The Gay Philosopher from The Minature Shop, 526 Union Street, in downtown Seattle; as a young woman she was a bookkeeper for a mortgage company - it was a Father's Day present - and Grandpa loved it. He and mom shared a finely tuned sense of humor that often had me laughing into silliness.

If you look into the eyes of “Uncle Herman” you can see what they knew – that teasing look and sly smile inviting you into the joke, the brilliantly-honed edge of their sarcasm and satire, the cutting remarks that were, nonetheless, harmless but hilarious to family and friends.

The solid brush strokes and strong red coat but muted colors of orange and yellow and brown and black create an unassuming portrait of this gentleman who doesn't worry even as he doesn't seem to labor at anything.

The bum was a fine character in Grandpa's repertoire of scalawags. Hallelujah! I'm a Bum was a song he sang to us all the time. In my mind, The Gay Philosopher is the Hallelujah Bum in Grandpa's song.

I'm positive there were two paintings by Henry Major in the house - but no one agrees with me on that memory. I called the other creepy painting, "The Sergeant," because this one had "Major" on it (I was five, I didn't know about artist signatures, so what can I say?).

I had no idea its real name was "The Gay Philosopher" until I hung it up here - the story line is attached to the back, titled, "Why Worry."

Henry Major was born in 1889, ten years before Grandpa, and died in 1948 before the age of 60. He came from Hungary, and worked in Vienna and London as a caricaturist before coming to America in the 1920s. He took up painting in his later years. He was buried in the dunes on the East Coast. I don't know the copyright date for The Gay Philosopher – but today I like it.

I think mom was more like him than I ever imagined, certainly more than what she could imagine she would become, at the time she brought it home to Grandpa.

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