I have felt remorse for Blake's flightlessness but never guilt for the safety I am sure it has brought him. The price of freedom, but really the cost of imprisonment. I had seen still but never moving images of a cockatiel in flight.
Blake will never look like that, and that's my fault. Hatched in captivity, he was never going to be free and wild, but I contributed to the demand for captive, though non-domesticated, birds. If he were genetically domesticated, it might not be so bad. Maybe that's another reason I call him puppy.
I do wonder how badly his psychology, in parallel with his clipped if not crippled physiology, is warped. Certainly no wild cockatiel is a Widespread Panic or Rolling Stones fan.
But I can't figure out where that bird keeps its toes while aloft.
In order of arrival, though hardly in order of import:
Going to the beach, going to the beach, going to the beach. Possibly frolicking with dolphins. Going to the beach, going to the beach, going to the beach.
Gonna be an aunt again, an aunt again, an aunt again. I dibbsed the honor of making the sproutling's stocking before it was even a glimmer. Now it's a sea monkey!
I have just learned that someone is a good kisser. And that the dinner he made for the other kisser that contained a pint of heavy cream. I didn't ask about dessert. But kissing is important! And the news was delivered with a grin.
This came in a couple of days later, but it fits with the happyhappy theme: SEM is crashing at Formigny in a few weeks.
I know that Blake would have made a fine wild bird, father, and prematurely a snake's breakfast, but I'm pretty sure he likes me. Surely he wouldn't be so interested with the imperfections in my skin--freckles and goosebumps--and tongue them and try to nibble them off if he weren't concerned with my well-being and appearance.