One of things Ming says to me most often these days is “C’mon, Mum, have a laugh!” So today I will tell a funny story.
Gutsy9, the baby peacock, is now two weeks old and is quite happy to sleep in his box at night as long as he can spend the day on my shoulder. Well, when he was one day old, Ming and I had to go to town to do numerous things and I didn’t want to leave Gutsy9 alone for so long, so I took him tucked into my shirt. Ming had a gig to set up for, I had a lunch date with friends, then Ming had a counselling appointment and I was going to visit Ants (another reason I took Gutsy9 with me – I wanted to show him to Ants.)
Okay, so I dropped Ming off and went to the restaurant. Gutsy9 was asleep inside my shirt almost under my left arm so I kept my left hand on him through the shirt, sat down at the table with my friends and ordered. Gutsy9 was quiet to begin with but soon woke up and chirped, so I took him out and showed my friends who were rather aghast so I quickly chucked him back into my shirt and joined in the various conversations. A couple of hours later I picked Ming up to go to counselling and he’d forgotten I had Gutsy9 so said, “Oh that bloody bird – you’re the one who needs counselling.” He was quite nasty and I was hurt.
Anyway, the counsellor had asked me to come for the first bit of Ming’s session so I went in with him but said I couldn’t stay long because of the bird. I pulled Gutsy9 out of my shirt to show her and she looked, well, a bit surprised to say the least. Then we all sat down and she asked me how I was. It never ceases to amaze me how those three simple words ‘how are you?’ can reduce me to tears – which is what happened much to my horror. I said Ming and I had just had another altercation blah blah blah, and she suggested I stay for the whole session but I said no because I wanted to take Gutsy9 to show Anthony.
So I left and drove up the road to the nursing lodge and spent a very pleasant hour with Ants and Gutsy9 then went back to pick Ming up. By then, Ming was repentant but tentatively suggested that I should have some private counselling sessions of my own because he had been helped enormously. I told him I would think about it and we went home.
It was a few days later, when I was telling some other friends about the counselling experience, and they were laughing hysterically, that I realized how stark, raving mad I must have seemed to the counsellor and to my lunch companions!
Anthony, on the other hand, wasn’t the slightest bit nonplussed because he knows me, adores me and accepts me.
So, “C’mon, Ming, have a laugh!”
And guess what – we are both laughing today – yeeha!
Gutsy9 just hatched.
Gutsy9 – 2 weeks old today!
jmgoyder 