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Just picked Trinity up from the sleep over birthday party of her friend, Lydia. Trin was having such a good time that she didn’t want to leave yet, but it was the time on the invitation for picking up of children. Two different parents arrived to pick up their respective children as we were having her gather her stuff. I stood in the foyer carefully not touching anything. They have a cat. Thanks to the allergy shots I could stand there, but within minutes I had to step outside because it began to impact my breathing. I got out before it got bad, but everything that Trin took with her is going to have to be washed. She’s in the bath as we speak. Jon has her clothes in the washer. Her sleeping bag, her pillow case, all of it. I had to roll down a window on the drive home, even in the cold. I’ve taken a benadryl on top of all my other allergy meds, because I’m starting to itch. Some people joke about allergies, those of us who truly suffer from them, well, it’s not so funny. There was an article in Cat Fancy magazine some time ago about the genetic altered cats that are supposed to be ownable by those of us with this allergy. A woman wrote in about the article saying, that those of us with allergies should just suffer through the allergy. It’s just a little sneezing and itching. It’s so much more than that for some of us. It’s throat closing, breathing stopping, epi pen time. Unless the genetically altered kitties actually work, I will never own a cat. Not a horrible tragedy, as tragedies go, but for those of you who spent your childhood wanting a cat, but being raised by someone who hated them . . . You grow up, and think you’ll have one of your own. Then in college I acquired this allergy. Most of my truly severe allergies were acquired in college. You rarely out grow adult onset allergies.
I don’t know where I stand on the genetic alteration of animals. Especially when it’s to allow people with allergies to own them. It seems frivolous. But, it would sooth something inside me to finally have a cat of my own. Funny, somethings you want when you’re five never quite go away.
Truthfully, the thing I miss most about my allergies is birds. I lost my beloved cockatiel, Baby, when she was still quite young. She had not yet seen a decade. Many birds live much longer than dogs or cats. It is one of their many pluses. She passed away before I realized I was allergic to the birds. We found new homes for the canary and a cockatiel that we had inherited from a deceased relative. Snoopy, our yellow-naped Amazon parrot, stayed. If Baby had been alive I wouldn’t have gotten rid of her, and Snoopy had been ours since she was a very little big bird. I did not realize how terribly allergic I was to Snoopy and her cage until I moved out and she stayed with Gary. I got the two pugs, Pugsley and Phouka, and he got Snoopy. I was home more and could do more exercise and socialization of the dogs. It seemed logical. But once I was in a bird free environment I felt so much better. Unfortunately the allergy shots will not help with the bird allergy. Because no one has been able to isolate the protein, or component that makes humans allergic to bird feathers. It is the feathers. I eat poultry just fine, but something in feathers is not my body’s friend. I never owned a cat, so it’s harder to truly miss what I’ve never had. But I had birds. I had a shoulder bird. Long after Baby died I would catch myself at the computer reaching up to scratch her head, and she would not be there. I would swear that I could feel her pressed against my cheek while I wrote. She was my muse for many of the first Anita books. I guess there are three things I feel better with when I work; tea or coffee, music, and animal companionship. Snoopy would sit on her perch, or her play area near my desk. She was a little big to be a shoulder bird. And also, as an Amazon she was more playful, not so much into the sitting around. Heck, we taught her to play catch with some of her smaller toys.
I don’t ever expect to be able to own a cockatoo or a cockatiel again. Very high feather dander. Any of the bigger parrots are going to be out. But if I could just have a canary again. One little bird, to sing in my office. We had a canary named Snert, after Hagar the Horrible’s dog. Snert was a character. He totally sold me on canaries. He was a Gloster Fancy with that Beatles hair-do. He would sing at the drop of a hat. He would come out of his cage and play on Snoopy’s playground. He ate green peas like a hawk with a kill, stabbing through the pea with his little-bitty claws, and eating the pea hollow. He died, and we got another canary. The one that had to find a new home. Sigh. I don’t dare get another bird, because an pet deserves a home for it’s entire life, and I couldn’t count on being able to do that for a canary, or any bird. I have the room to have that finch aviary that I dreamt of, but that is like totally out. Too many feathers.
It isn’t a tragedy, but it is a little loss. I have the dogs, and I am grateful, and I am a dog person at heart, but I do miss the possibilities.