Pets, like people, don't like to change routines

The universe as I know it has been flipped.

Simon, my little green Quaker Parakeet, and our roommate, Catherine, are getting along. It’s I who has suddenly found myself on the outside of this equation.

For a creature I can hold in the palm of my hand, he sure does hold a grudge.

It happened gradually, amid a multitude of weekends I spent away from Lynchburg taking care of my dying mother. Normally, I’d pack up Simon’s Cheerios and cram his cage in the car for a visit with Grandma, but Grandma couldn’t play with him and I knew Simon would cry for her attention and drive us all insane.

So he stayed home, weekend after weekend, under Catherine’s and a coworker’s care.

Simon seemed to give me a little slack for a while, and then late last month my mother’s condition deteriorated and she passed away.

Simon and Catherine were thrust together for more than two weeks.

While I wouldn’t consider the two of them best buddies, and Catherine still won’t let Simon out of his cage for fear that she wouldn’t be able to get him back inside, they seem to have come to an understanding of sorts.

Simon no longer screams at Catherine, and Catherine feeds him considerably more walnuts than I and does not require any tricks for the treat.

I popped in once during the extended absence to find Catherine’s two cats were eager to see me, but Simon had had enough and delivered some of the wrath he typically reserves for pet sitters.

There was no denying he was upset at being left behind. He even chose to ignore my requests for kisses — the trick he had mastered last month.

I’ve spent the past week trying to make it up to him by reestablishing our routines, which has been difficult since my own life pattern hasn’t reemerged.

Every morning, though, we’ve worked on the kissing trick – where I request a smackeroo from Simon and he delivers the sound of a big wet one being planted on someone’s cheek. It’s slowly coming back to him.

We’ve spent quiet time watching television together, and Simon has gotten a chance to buzz around the room like a free bird, choosing for himself when and where he lands.

There are a few things about our relationship, however, that Simon seems determined to change. He decided that since Catherine leaves for work a full hour before I even get up, that I should adopt her schedule since it would, of course, mean more time for him.

I prefer the extra sleep. Simon has made it his mission to at least wake me early.

I’ve been trying to keep in mind the advice that a local pet behaviorist told me last year: we all make mistakes with our pets. There are times in our lives that circumstances keep us from being the person that our bird or cat or dog or lizard or whatever your pet of choice wants and needs us to be.

With time, Simon and I will patch the holes in our relationship and perhaps Simon and Catherine will grow to be friends.