Reading: The Princes in the Tower

Moving: 30' NT, 3.15 miles

Watching: "Lawrence of Arabia"

28 November 2001: For Sale Cheeap

One slightly used cockatiel. Dusty, but out of the box that way. Dent in skull indicates emptiness of brain pan. Incapable of growing full tail, but does grow very sexy, very full crest. Minutes of amusement per day, plus hours irritation. Makes grinding noise in grooming his beak for its next day's use marginally more tolerable than nails on a chalk board. Adept spider-spotter. Excellent watch bird: yells when gas is on but you've forgotten to spark burner, also yells when apple pie juice smokes next time oven is on and tries to herd you from kitchen out of apparent danger, also yells when doorbell is rung. Loves strangers, prefers them to you (probably just novelty though--he'll come back). Panics at sound of phone ringing. Screams and flutters from windowsill if predatory bird is in the sky. Therefore not fond of any non-cloud sky object, like planes. Scared of balloons, dogs, brooms, Pantalaimon, and the dark. Limited vocabulary, but extensive variation of single phrase "You're a good boy buddy" capable of expressing multitudes of concepts and moods. Also utters, in metallic kind of whistle, "Blake is a pretty bird," very endearing. Enjoys showering, but dislikes being wet afterward and doesn't like being blow-dried either. Currently loudly in love with nothing identifiable in study--not main speaker emitting Dave Matthews Band (a favorite; if you hate them he likes the Beatles too; if you hate the Beatles just go away), not woofer on floor, no socks in sight: a mystery. Very loud though. (This is reason for current owner's fed-up-edness.) Fun to pet, though has proportionally more sharp parts than dog or cat and is more delicate. Scaly feet bicycle humbly and frantically when body is lifted. Rarely bites, usually strikes with beak instead. When cockatiel is singing during head petting, a nasty bit of bone or cartilage in throat vibrates and protrudes. Icky. Also has keel bone with two uses: pressing against your finger when perched thereon to steer toward desired destination, and marking the bird in two halves when fluffing or squatting. Oh yes, completely un-potty-trained. A bargain.

No, wait. Dusty, loving, and now has been downstairs under computer long enough to have forgotten whatever the objet d'amor was upstairs, plus his beak is all sticky from sharing with me the first orange of the season. I'm keeping him.

---

He loves the medicine cabinet. And the boxes. Of course the medication, in stacks of blisterpack, is on a different shelf, but the box is there to be chewed on, once the tail is done.

He actually has been growing a decent tail lately. This might be because RDC has figured out how to pluck his tail stubs. Blake now has more than half his tail for the first time in his life. I love watching him (big surprise, that) sieze a feather at its base and zip it up, up, up to the tip, and then release it and snap back to a straight instead of a curved buddy.

Here's something I could live without: the beak sculpture. A face only a mother could love. First the beak is stickified with corn, peas, and quinoa, plus rice or pasta if that's what the humans are having, and then a fine dessert of seeds finishes the look off. Believe me, I didn't do this to him. One of the disadvantages of a parrot is (unless you're a much more determined freak than I am) that you can't dress them up in yellow sweaters with purple mice in cowboy hats (what is the name of cat in Bunnicula? Plus I have to read the newer Howes--they look really good, though not about vampire bunnies) or Barkin' Boots. This is Blake's own work, though one of his more impressive accomplishments. The thing to do with your beak in this state is, of course, to snap your head back and forth rapidly to free it, which is why his corner of the dining room needs its paint touched up. He does also feak, which is the Official Sport of Kings word for when a bird like Sam Gribley's Frightful stropes her beak on whatever surface to clean it. Usually I attack him with a napkin, in which he will reluctantly but resolutely stick his head.

I loved Shadow devotedly, but Blake is something else.

"Almost as nifty as Lisa thinks he is," indeed. Jessie did say that that statement actually is quite a compliment, since your children and pets are never as fascinating to other people as you think.