How Does Your Contentment-o-meter Rate?

My terrier, Lulu, is barking, of course. And it is piercing a hole straight through my skull. Each bark makes my eardrums bow out, pulse and flinch.

I have a parrot on my right shoulder, preening himself. He ruffles his feathers all at once and makes a series of nasally, soft revs and riffs, almost like a very slow and very small dj scratching minute records. Slo-mo dis-co.

When he is really content, he sneezes once and stretches out his leg and his wing on the same side, at the same time. I love that this is called mantling. To spread out, to blush, to cover, to cloak, to conceal. It looks like it feels good. He does this all the time for Jonesy. Tonight, I think was the first time he did it while standing on my shoulder.

The last time I felt as relaxed like he looks was after I took an eight week meditation class where I sat, quiet in one spot, for 45 minutes a day. That was years ago--now my mind is like a tumbling dryer.

He is warm to my cheek, and his feathers tickle where his tail ends and it brushes against my collarbone, a back and forth as he adjusts, wiggles, and keeps an eye on the room. I am not sure if SSW likes one shoulder over the other. He is content to chew the straps of my tank top regardless of the side he is on.

Last summer, when a plane or a crow flew by the sliding glass door where SSW could see them, he would scuttle off the top of his cage, and once inside it, hide, making a series of soft, single-noted, high pitched calls, what I call his eek-scary alarm. Planes no longer bother him, the crows can just shove off for all he cares, and even the terrier's bark is less troubling most of the time. He has gotten so comfortable that even the keeeeeer! of a red-tailed hawk near the house last week did not set off any worries in his tiny skull. What a quick and naive meal he would make; I hate to think about it.

This is not to say he is no longer extremely high strung. No, no. He is a guy who listens for everything, like Lulu. Maybe he doesn't really sleep, but keeps one eye open, like dolphins who swim and sleep simultaneously.

For the rest of us, there is always Ambien or Xanax or beer.