A tall woman with flowing white hair walked into the Bayhaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a Saturday afternoon in January on the Oregon Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was darker outside than inside the joint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat at the bar writing a love letter in longhand with a beer chaser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five of us sat on stools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone but me was eating caramel corn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I glanced up when the woman entered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was the only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was OTA and wearing a see-through linen halter dress that barely contained her ample bosom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foxy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A blue parrot rested on her left shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sidled over to the video poker machine, slid in some bills, punched up a game\u2014jacks or better\u2014 maxed the bet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parrot hopped off her shoulder, onto the console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He started tapping buttons with his beak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She left the parrot on the machine, came over to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She greeted the bartender like an old friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She pounded the drink in one gulp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never stopped watching her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman returned to the machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said something to the parrot I couldn\u2019t make out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parrot hopped on her shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She cashed out and walked back to the bar to collect her winnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parrot had won ten bucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The woman and parrot exited the Bayhaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one said a word about the parrot after they left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tall woman with flowing white hair walked into the Bayhaven. It was a Saturday afternoon in January on the Oregon Coast. It was darker outside than inside the joint. I sat at the bar writing a love letter in longhand with a beer chaser. Five of us sat on stools. Everyone but me was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9891,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9889\/revisions\/9891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}