5 June 1999: The Young Ones' favorite band

Another thing RDC talked to the vet about was leashes. Ever since I read My Side of the Mountain, I've wanted to have a falcon and jesses, but I figure jesses are a mite dangerous for a bird's tender little hips--think of how easy it is to rip the thigh off a roasted chicken--and with this the vet concurred. He did declare full-body harnesses to be absolutely safe, however. This surprised me, but if the vet's right (and we do trust his experience), we can take Blake for walks!

So Saturday morning we brought Blake to the bird store, one with an excellent reputation and whose proprietor knows scads about birds and which is even close by. We bought the little guy a harness and a leash (and some vitamins and a toy).

We did not buy a pair of caiques, however tempting they were. They lay on their backs and kicked at each other and wrestled and overall cavorted like a pair of puppies. I told the proprietor I hope they are adopted as a pair, and she nodded, and I asked how much they were, and she said "Thirteen hundred," and I verified, "Apiece," and she nodded again, and I told RDC we weren't getting the caiques.

The fundamental principle in loving parrots (why is it called "fancying"?) is restraint. Usually, as here, one applies it to oneself. Occasionally, one applies it to one's little buddy.

Blake doesn't like the harness. RDC manipulates Blake a lot more than I do, turning him on his back to nibble on his keelbone and tickling him under his wings and such, so RDC took the initiative in harnessing him. One leg through, then the other, and whip the velcro across the back, then ease out each wing, and there you have a harnessed buddy. The vet had recommended distracting him immediately from trying to gnaw his way out, so we snapped the leash on and brought him outside, outside but not in a cage for the first time in his life. He wasn't interested in outside, just in getting this thing off!

The next training session Blake tolerated better. He was able to forget about the harness to eat some seeds, to dance and chirrup to RDC's patterned shorts, to pace the windowsill, to chatter a bit. In between all these activities, he chewed. If ever he can ignore it, we can take him for walks and have him out in the car and things. Tee hee.

HAO and her friend who was driving her home kidnapped me and we went to the People's Fair downtown. Denver is the thinnest city in the country, but you'd never know it from the demographic the Fair attracted. Or maybe I noticed the most people (the people who were the most in themselves) while idling outside the cheesy rides. Rollercoasters I love and things that drop you and those big pendulum boat things but even the Teacups at Disney World are too much for me. Too much spinning within spinning. There were a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round but the former is best with a view and the latter when you're slaphappy goofy, and there was no view and I wasn't giddy enough for a solo spin on the carousel. HAO and Ben rode things that hold you in place with centrifugal force and weren't interested in the tame ponies, so I just held their drinks.

I met another Labrador/Australian Shepherd mix. I met one a couple of weeks ago who was a planned mating (planned by the dogs' humans, anyway) and I wondered if I could find such a dog when our time comes. But this dog today the man found in the pound! Her name was Cheyenne and she was wonderful, mostly black with some gray and the gray had black splotches. I met this dog among the stalls and tents. While among the rides I saw another and asked its owner what kind it was, besides gargantuan, and he said Neapolitan mastiff and not to come too close (in that case why bring it to a street fair?). Another example in the change in demographic between stands and carnival rides.

There were the usual stalls and food and there were some unusual stalls too. One stretch held political tents, and one was Freedom from Religion. Upon the back of the tent hung several placards with quotations, and I read the first my eye fell upon. The quotation's author was Andy Rooney, and I eyeballed the authors of the other two: Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. I turned on my heel. Freedom from religion indeed, but not with any organization that equates a whiny curmudgeon with Jefferson and Lincoln.

And the Colorado Raptor Rescue had a tent which I sniffed out. One person held some sort of owl, another held a Swainson's hawk, and a third an eagle. The first two people just held their arms out and the birds sat on their gauntleted wrists, but the third person had a crutch under his arm to support the majestic tawny bird. He told the audience that this bird was hit by a truck in Wyoming and her right wing broken. She will never fly again, and in exchange for care for the rest of her life, she travels to exhibits like this to raise awareness. When I first glanced at the hawk, I thought it was sleepy and closing its left eye, and then I realized that socket was entirely empty. I don't know what was wrong with the owl.

Then Ben asked HAO and me if only the males had white heads. I nearly stared but caught myself in time. Having just reread Winter Holiday, I heard Roger Walker in my head. Dick Callum has just shown his naval ignorance and Roger says, "Haven't you ever been to sea?" and John reprimands him, "Steady on, Roger."

Steady on, lisa. "It's a golden eagle," I told him. "The males and females look alike. The bald eagle has the white head and tail, and the sexes look alike too. But as with all raptors, the females are bigger." I don't expect everyone to know the sex and size correlation, but not to know a golden eagle (which is not golden) from a bald eagle (which is not bald)? Maybe Sam Eagle from the Muppets led him to wonder if some eagles are blue?

Ben reeaaally wanted to go the Planetarium, so off we went to the Museum of Natural History. We parked in the best parking spot! Right at the end of a row, right in the front of the lot! We could never ever leave. We scampered in only to learn the last Planetarium show of the day started 10 minutes before. Ben dropped his toothpaste (a Tom Swift reference meaning he looked crestfallen). I veered into the museum shop and they followed, and I told Ben to close his eyes and look up. He did, right at the star map I held over his head. I revolved like the best of all planets around him, but he said it wasn't the same because it didn't have Patrick Stewart.

We came out and looked at the car along with everyone else in the parking lot (it's a schoolbus yellow Mustang) and endured the additional shame of claiming such good parking real estate for a mere 15 minutes.

We came home to RDC putting on the tires he bought at Performance. He and Ben started talking computers--just as he and Jeff had--and HAO and I were left to our own resources, which are greater than mine and Adrian's were and I could ask HAO about more than her hair. But HAO was recovering from her end of quarter slam and nearly fell asleep in her chair (she would have missed the Planetarium show anyway, I bet: I often fall asleep during them even when I've had more than 10 hours sleep in the past three days).

I have lived an REO Speedwagon-less life for the past year. I have not regretted this. But Saturday Smoking Man had his first barbecue of the summer and my musical peace was shattered. (Apologies, btw, to anyone who cringes at the northern use of "barbecue" to mean mere "cooking at an outside grill.") All Sunday I had REO songs in my head, all the way until I appropriated the Ramones' lyrics, at which point they took over.

Smoking Man wore overalls over a tank top and I was ashamed I actually needed the musical prompt of "Come on, Eileen" to tell him he looked like Dexy. I was the third person to tell him that. Sigh. And he denied it anyway: he said he could be any of the Midnight Runners. I prefer Dexy to Smoking Man. Maybe I'll call him that. Or Billy, because he shouldn't be a hero. Or Dom DeLuise, because he tried to teach Blake to say that one Thanksgiving.

The occasion was a birthday, and while during some girl talk I did learn the birthday girl's birth name and therefore now have a complete TLA, I might call her husband and her Jack and Diane, because that song puts her husband into an Indianan trance. So it was Diane's birthday--that is just so wrong. Diane is another journaler or a coworker here, but she is not this person I am writing about--and toward the end of the evening there was cake. The sky had been thinking about storming all night and when CGK came outside with the cake, just as she was about to set it on the table in front of (erg!) Diane, a sudden gust blew out all the candles and stole the wish.