We watched "Waking Ned Devine" last night. I didn't think of "wake" as in funeral until well into it, but of course that makes a lot more sense than rousing the dead man from sleep. In a short story my modern Irish lit professor told us about but that we didn't read, a dancing instructor dies and at his wake, people get properly Irishly drunk and dance, and decide that of course the dancing master would want to dance too, so they pluck the cadaver from its coffin and dance with it. I don't know whether the Isle of Man belongs to Ireland or England, except the populace's being Catholic hints toward the former.

I took another Percocet in the evening because I wanted no trouble sleeping. I woke at 4:00 from a nasty nightmare and knew I wouldn't take any more of that. This morning I took a couple of Tylenol--no ibuprofen or aspirin because those are anti-coagulants--and that's what I'll stick with if I need anything more. Want anything more. Painkillers are a convenience at this point, no more, which is a strong argument against taking any.

We gave Blake a manicure and trimmed his wings. I was wrong in the feather count: he had but four and two and flew as strongly as he did on just those six, not the eleven I thought he had. I know cockatiels are light and I know birds have more feathers than they need so they can moult a bit at a time without losing flight, but I'm still surprised that a bird who's seldom flown much farther than from counter to shoulder managed the distance he did. Just another warning about how careful we must be and how dangerous my carelessness was. Cutting the extra two in half probably won't disable him very much.

We thought we might bring the bikes to Boulder on Sunday--we've still never explored that town much--but my untried stamina and whether I can wear a bike helmet over my jaw make that a questionable proposition. So today RDC went off to the gym and I went for a small walk. I felt like Mr. Woodhouse, taking my three slow turns around the park. Definitely not the day-long rambles Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy indulged in, nor even our regular 3+ mile paved walk. I won't swim or do anything to hike my heartrate for at least another day. Percocet hangover.

Will I enjoy Wicked when I have read only The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and disliked it keenly)? I've seen the film scores of times, of course. But when I finally read (listened to) the book, three years ago maybe, I couldn't stand it. I maybe didn't even actively listen to it but just kind of played it and whatever I happened to hear, I heard. I wonder if Wicked has a lot of in-jokes from the other books. That's how brain-dead I was, chose to be, Thursday and Friday--I borrowed the book Wednesday and am not yet on page 50.

Which reminds me, enough of this. Time to read.

5:00 The Emma reference of course filled me with a need to reread it, to make sure it was three turns, no more no fewer, and now I'm all embarrassed to have had Emma's family name as P.G. Wodehouse instead of Woodhouse all day. At least I didn't call him Mr. Palmer, whom Hugh Laurie played in Emma Thompson's "Sense and Sensibility," long after his stint as P.G. Wodehouse's Wooster had ended.

I messed up and am doing a bad job covering it up with convoluted other references.

Blake and I spent much of the afternoon outside under a tree. Our new neighbors in another building are two humans, two cockatiels, and two lovebirds, all of whom we've met, but in this case we heard but did not see them, which Blake found frustrating. We have contemplated getting him a companion, but we'd both rather have a dog than another batty bird. The dog would be our companion, however, not Blake's, at least for a while. Poor buddy.

RDC put him in his harness and we had him outside, carefully this time. He won't leave the harness alone unless his head is being pet, which is close enough to buddy-hypnotism to make him forget anything. At least he does allow us to pet his head, not concluding that we torment him with the harness because we hate him. Also he knows what "No" means and we finally caught on to telling him No whenever he begins to chew. He gets mad at the command, but he does stop. So he needs short training sessions--short so that his desire to gnaw doesn't overwhelm his obediance to No. Short and successful.

Plus I took pictures.