Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Being considerate

I didn't take any pictures last night, so I'll just tell some recent stories instead.

Saturday morning, Thomas and Rocky were showering together, with Rocky on the shower door ledge. As usual, there were shampoo bottles up there in order to divide the ledge into the appropriate number of parrot slots, even though Rocky was currently the only parrot in the bathroom. Something got into him and he started growling and then knocking all of the bottles, aiming for Thomas's head. As I was reading the paper, I heard Thomas lecturing, "You need to be considerate! Were you born in a barn? Be considerate!" I got a laugh out of that and we've been telling the parrots to be considerate, although they haven't been listening.

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Thomas was on call last night, so I was alone with the parrots. This tends to put everyone in bad moods since we like having him around! Max got angry with me for some reason I no longer remember, so she flew directly towards my head. I didn't duck as she's a good flier, and was surely just buzzing me, right? Wrong! She flew directly into my head, upon impact emitted a sound like she was a squeaky doll, landed on her cage, and then exclaimed, "Hi Max! Good girl!" Maybe that will teach her to play chicken with me, but somehow, I doubt it.

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I had my recycling bottles stacked up on the counter between the stove and the door. It has been ridiculously cold and I am not willing to make a trip out there since it's supposed to warm up a bit in the upcoming days. Stella likes to hang out over there, banging her beak against the bottles. I think she likes the sounds she makes. (I have tried to get a video of this but then she stops). This morning, she started throwing the empty bottles off of the counter! Luckily, she didn't do this with any glass ones, but I had several empty metal and plastic containers rolling around my floor. That was motivation enough to take out the recycling this morning, even though it was minus one degree F.

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Rocky did not want to go to bed last night. He spent the first 10 minutes or so growling in his angry way (I must get this on video since my description is not doing it justice). After a minute or so of silence, he started saying, in his old lady voice, "Hi Rock! Hi Rocky!" I love it when he speaks in that voice because he's such a tough guy, and then a sweet voice comes out of him!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Max-Flies-Into-Your-Face story is a lot funnier if you imagine it with airplane sounds, followed by a BOOM when the collision actually occurs. =P

Scritches.com said...

How you get anything done with that crew is beyond my comprehension!

Listen -- a friend and I have started a blog of cute parrot pictures. Check it out at http://superiorparrot.blogspot.com

I KNOW you've got zillions of pictures (One parrot per day, please) suitable for public viewing.

We supply the snappy remarks, or you can.

All free, of course, and just for fun.

PS: If this is too much like spam, just delete it. No problem.

Mary said...

Sammi -- She's killing me. Did it again last night. I just don't understand why she'd intentionally cause herself pain by doing that! Maybe she could learn to make airplane sounds on arrival so I know to get out of the way :)

BP -- That's why my house is so messy and I'm blaming them for my slow knitting also since I often have to put it down to retrieve someone.

And something from you could never be spam! I will definitely check it out when I have a few minutes!!!

Tony Wildish said...

that Max story reminds me of Jasmine, when she would tell herself off before doing something she shouldn't do. "Jasmine, No!", then she'd fly up to the lamp that she's not allowed on.

At other times when she was being told off she would tell us "Good girl Jasmine!" and we'd have a hard time not laughing. If we laughed, she knew she'd won.

These African Greys just have too much character!

Mary said...

Snoopers -- you are correct. I just love hearing Jazzy stories!

There was a severe macaw at the rescue who loved me as much as Rocky loves Thomas. He'd be on my arm and start biting me (but in the severe macaw playful way) while shouting "no biting!" Like you guys with Jazzy, so hard not to laugh!