Posts Tagged ‘Pratchett’

“And very tasty, might I add,” said Pratchett.

I’d read that giving a grey a chicken leg with a little meat on it is a fine thing to do- they like it, it’s a new texture, and unlike with dogs, the cooked bones won’t hurt them.

So Pratchett took it in his talon and sort of poked at it, but he looked rather conflicted. I had to wonder if he sensed he was literally picking over a distant relative’s bones.

When I extended my hand to him, Pratch dropped it right way before washing out his mouth and returning to his vegetarian ways.

You know, you try your best. You try to raise ‘em right. You love them, teach them, and send them out into the world, hoping they’ll make the right choices.

And then they break your heart.

:::sigh:::

So the other night I was in the kitchen working on dinner and flipped the radio on. I’m an NPR junkie, but Alison’d had it tuned to one of her stations. It was getting late, and I didn’t bother to fiddle with it; it was just supposed to be background noise after all.

And then, like in some terrible, mullet & silicone-filled horror movie, things…changed. Apparently after 7 the station switches over to some sort of light n’ easy format: Air Supply, Bee Gees, Bette Middler, you know the type. But I was up to my elbows in frying beef, and tuned it out. How many parents say that? “Oh, I thought it was harmless, I didn’t think anything of it…” Until Kenny Rogers came on. I groaned, but still didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation.

Pratchett started whistling, very excited. I won’t say he was dancing, but he was running back and forth across the top of his cage. He even puffed up with his wings curled around him in a semi-aroused stance. It seemed my little boy had experienced his first rush of sexual excitement.

For damned Kenny Rogers.

God, where did I go wrong?

I grabbed the pocket Canon, hoping to document this shocking behavior and show it to him later, maybe do a little “Scared Straight” act. “This is your brain on Kenny Rogers” kind of thing. But he was so worked up he lunged at the camera, grabbing the case and pulling the protective cover off the inside of the lens. See what being hopped up on the Gambler’ll make you do?

But it was too late, the moment had passed and all that was left was the awkwardness.

It immediately made me think of the Kathy & Mo show from a decade ago & a skit called “Kenny and the Prostitute.” I searched everywhere but just couldn’t find it online anywhere. I remembered that I had the dvd and did the po’ man’s copy- set my sad and newly injured camera to tape it while it played on the computer. It’s no longer focusing correctly, thanks to Pratchett’s job, but it’s the audio that’s the important bit anyway:
(youTube Link here)

I laughed my ass off when I first saw this, because it touched such a nerve. (Particularly the look she gives at the 4:30 mark, where it’s especially clear that if she actually had to live with Kenny, one of them would have to die.)

You see, I know all too well the pain of growing up in a Kenny Rogers affected household. My mother wasn’t a big music fan- she only had a handful of cassettes, all greatest hits collections: Kenny Rogers, obviously. Anne Murray. Neil Diamond. Barry Manilow. And yes, even Helen Reddy.

Bizarrely sappy, every one- particularly strange since my mother was neither a romantic nor an idealist. In retrospect, her musical tastes were so out of character that I wonder if it wasn’t a cry for help that I was too young to understand. Honestly, my siblings and I wondered if we weren’t a product of immaculate conception, because we’d never seen anyone so seemingly disinterested in the opposite sex- although her uber-nasty divorce might’ve been the very thing that made her decide that fantasy Kenny was the only kind of guy she could be bothered with, and since his songs are about as realistic as the Tooth Fairy, the odds of his doppelganger coming along and sweeping her off her feet were slim.

But in the end I can hardly be blamed for that metalhead phase in high school, can I? And the fact that I’m lactose intolerant after all being force-fed all that cheeze can hardly be a surprise…

So now we’ve come full circle, and Kenny’s claimed a new victim. Of all the things you thought could never happen to one of your own…

I was poking around and came across a new concept in bird toys and gave it a whirl. You go to Birdy Booty to check out their samples, decide they’ve got a whole lot more time and creativity than you, and fill out the form.

You don’t choose a specific toy; you determine how much you want to spend, and tell them about your bird(s), their likes and dislikes, color preferences, the whole shebang, and wait for your box to arrive. (Pratchett’s instructions were that he’s easily annoyed- he wants to be able to break his toys up immediately, all the better to make me have to buy new toys ASAP.)

There was much rejoicing at the opening of the box:

I suspect more boxes will follow.

Oh, and they accept donations for the amazing Project Perry- if you donate a toy to them, BirdyBooty’ll match it. Click the link to see phenomenal photos of the aviary they created for rescued greys.

This falls into the good news/bad news category: Pratchett’s started talking! He’s been saying “Hello” with fair regularity, and he’s got a bunch of other words coming down the pipe. I’ve heard this stage called ‘birdie baby babble,’ which is about right- he sort of works on them when he’s alone, saying them over and over to himself, working it all out.

So, imagine my surprise when something new happened this weekend- he started yelling at the dogs…which made me realize how much Iyell at them, because now Pratch is beating me to it. We have a new dog next door, and whenever she starts yapping, Sammy and Bruiser have to join in, even though my dogs have no idea what they’re barking about. And this new dog yaps a lot.

But now, as start as they get cranked up, Pratch yells “S’mantha!”, followed by a bunch of stuff that’s not understandable yet, but will probably evolve into either “knock it off!” or “be quiet, dammit!”

So yeah, little birdies have big ears. Gonna have to start watching that. Again. It’s kind of like having a toddler all over again, and just when I’ve gotten used to the idea that Alison already knows all those words I’d rather she didn’t.

My morning missive from home:

Subject:bird breakfast bulletin

Charles Burck to me
8:27 AM (1 hour ago)

Mix of yogurt, mango, strawberry, blueberry, and blueberry jam pretty much a hit after a cautious approach?I think he wanted to be settled securely on the crossbar first. Blueberries rejected, all else consumed w/pleasure. Lapping up the soupy yogurt-mango mix, he made those little gargling sounds he does when drinking water.

In the wild, parrots spend most of their waking hours searching out and prying loose their food; having it just plopped into a bowl leaves a bird with a lot of free time on their talons. A bored bird is a terrifying thing- your furniture, your woodwork, your fingers, your eardrums- all are in jeopardy.

So lately I’ve started introducing foraging and more complicated puzzle-type toys, where you’ve got to work for it. He’s still young, so we’re starting simply- these are wadded up water cooler cups with dried fruit inside.

This, obviously, isn’t much of a challenge- the idea is that he comes to understand that one thing can be inside another- and that the reward is worth the effort.

Not much doubt here- this is a boy happy in his work.

…um. Lots, actually.

We traveled, and hosted travelers. Read much, wrote some. Geared up for the political season. Got stood up by Mayor Nagin. Toured vaunted institutions of higher education pretending to be mature so as to fool the admissions people into thinking she comes from people of class and allow her to attend.

Along the way I took nearly 1,000 photos, so they’ll have to suffice as the rest of my Vaca Essay.

We’ll start by introducing the newest member of the family:

I still miss my Zulu terribly, but there’s such a world of difference between an abused bird and a baby who’s known nothing but love and safety.

After much backing and forthing, he was dubbed “Pratchett.” (I’d already chosen Havelock Vetinari, but he’s just too sweet to be a despot.)

Somebody who doesn’t have a name yet is this little guy, 5 weeks old in this pic and safely in his breeder’s hand:

Alison also got her way, and our new Senegal should be ready to fledge in the next week or two. Baby hadn’t been sexed yet, and the saints alone know what she’ll want to name it, but I’m sure it’ll all be most interesting.