So about 2 years ago my ex-boyfriend and I ended our relationship.  (Ok, I ended it.)  When he moved out he went to a place where his bird (cockatiel) was not welcome.  Having a soft spot for animals, I told him he could leave the bird with me until he got his own place.

I now own a bird.

While dating said ex-boyfriend I used to get very upset that the bird was kept in the kitchen (a room no one ever went in).  I now know why it was kept there and why he never came to claim it.

This is the loudest, most obnoxious, most irritating bird I have EVER met.  All day he taps on the cage.  He does this other thing, that I'm pretty sure is him taking a metal cup to the bars of the cage.  As soon as you turn on a light he tweets/screeches at what I can only describe as volume 11 levels.  (Anyone who has seen Spinal Tap will understand that.  If you don't get it, you need to watch Spinal Tap.)  He chitters and whistles constantly.  I seriously think the bird is afraid of exploding if he is quiet because often he is so loud and excited he sounds like he's freaking out because he has a bomb strapped to his chest.  No matter how many insults or threats I hurl at him (like that I'm going to fry him or feed him to the bear) he will NOT be quiet!  I don't think he has the ability.

And, yes, I am aware that I am referring to him as Bird.  He has a name (Petey), but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know it.  If he could talk (thank the Goddess he can't) he would probably tell you his name is SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!


A lot of ppl have asked me, "Why don't you just get rid of it?"  My response?  Because it's my bird.  I don't have a better one than that.  We have bonded.  I will fully admit that, while I have a soft spot for animals, I am not an "animal lover."  That is to say, I'm not on a quest to save all animals.  I do not agree with animal abuse or treatment, while at the same time I do believe in animal experimentation.  (I would also like to state that I TOTALLY agree with stupid human experimentation.  We could weed out a lot of dingbats that way.  I'm just saying...no one needs stupid ppl.)  I do think of animals as innocents though.  They are what they are.  They run on instinct and what they are taught.  Bad pets come from bad owners.  

Wait...wasn't I talking about the bird?  I believe I derailed.

Anyway, why would I offer to house the fuckhead if I were just going to give him away because he's annoying?  Hell, if that were the way I thought I would never have had a meaningful relationship.

One of the first things D.J. asked, when we figured out I was going to be moving in with him, was, "Do you have to bring the bird?"  (See?  He knew.  He had met the bird before.)  And my answer was, "Yes.  You get me, you get my bird.  It's a package deal."  And it really is.  No matter how much the piece of cat-bait annoys me he has become a part of me and my life.  It's a love hate relationship.  I could just get done yelling for him to be quiet and turn around and deck someone for doing the same.  That's MY bird.  (Only I can be mean to him.)

My intent in writing this just to let you all know...If you see me sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth, bald and covering my ears, don't worry.  I'm trying to escape from the bird without killing him.  Or plotting how I really can feed him to the bear.  One of those.

Note:  I would like to state here that I was going to go on to tell you all about my very picky, yet quirky, gecko, Climber.  However as of 8:30am, yesterday morning, I watched my poor gecko die.  Ok, it was really Lil Miss's gecko, but I loved her as well.  After a good cry, she was buried and a lil something was said for her.  I will be sad for her loss.  Just like I will when the bird goes.  The gecko liked to bark at me (yes they bark like a dog) and wouldn't drink out of a water dish (you HAD to spray the cage so she could lick the glass.)  She was fussy and very aggressive...just like me.  And I wouldn't have traded her for any other gecko in the world.  I spent all day being depressed and cranky at ppl (cause they were breating my air!).  It's how I grieve.  But I'm better today, so I'm sharing with you, minions.

    So there is a bear (or pair.  One could just be a clone) that wanders this neighborhood that I now live in.  I've seen at least one of the bears, but wouldn't you know it, there's never a camera around to snap a pic.  And the stupid bear won't wait for me to go get one.  He's like the Houdini of bears when it comes to grabbing a camera.  One minute there, then...POOF!!!  Gone when you get the camera.

    Maybe it's me, but the thought of going outside, after dark (cause the bear stays away during the day) scares the living shit outta me.  I have bad visuals of my face being eaten off by this bear for no better reason than I went to my car and the bear decided, "Is she provoking me?  I think she is.  I'll eat her face."  Yep, that's what bears think.  Doubt me?  Come ask it.

    So maybe I'm bieng a bit paranoid, since no one in the neighborhood has had any problems worse than having their garbage cans overturned and trash scattered down the street.  I think it's a healty paranoia (one that might keep me alive) since, where I'm from, we don't have to deal with bears.  Maybe a rabid opossum or pissed off skunk.  Or stupid raccoons.  There was that one time the rouge turtle wandered into my yard, but I'm pretty sure he was just drunk and lost and he was easily delt with.

    Anyway, I thinnk the scariest thing about the whole bear business is the laws that protect it as "wildlife."  I mean it is wildlife, but it's roaming the suburbs.  Does that really still count?  The laws leave humans that take up residence in the houses open to harm.  The rangers keep coming out and trapping it and taking it away, but it keeps coming back.  Cause that's what bears do.  And apparently, after a while, not only do they come back but they clone themselves for maximum garbaging.

    The laws say you are not allowed to take action against the bear until/unless it maims you.  (This is my translation.)  Like...I don't know...eating your face off.  They tell you ("They" being the Department of Fish and Game) not to provoke it.  Well, no fucking shit!!!  But who the hell knows what a bear views as provocation?  I know what I think of as provocation, but I'm not a bear.  I'm from the city.  I don't know about bears.  I know about bunnies.  As I said eairlier, a bear could be like, "She's looking at me.  Get her!!!"

        All in all it is my goal to get rid of the bear(s).  And do it while avoiding jail time (cause that's what happens if you hurt it without getting maimed first).  And to avoid being hurt in the process.  And maybe get a new rug out of the whole mess.  Who knows.  However, if you read a story about a girl in Florida who got eaten by a bear while trying to get a pic of it...well, it was nice knowing all of you.

    P.S.  Having a bear roam the neighborhood does cut down on crime in the area and saves on having to buy security alarms.  See there's a plus side.  I'm looking into getting a sticker for my car (to go next to the NRA one) that says, "Protected by ADT LIVE BEAR SECURITY SYSTEM."

So the other day my girlfriend sent me a link about a 5 ft. metal chicken and the pranks the owner has pulled with it.  I could not stop laughing my ass off.  Not just because the story was hilarious, but because the writer talks about putting the chicken up to her door-step and ringing the bell for her husband to find.  What had me beside myself was the memory it stirred up.

Years ago (I believe I was in middle school), I woke up and got ready for school.  As I opened to door to leave for the day I came face to face with 2 chickens on our enclosed front porch.  Seeing as how I knew a house not too far away that had chickens (even though we lived in the city and this was strange to begin with) I pretty much knew where they had come from.  The question was, what were they doing there?

I stepped back and closed the door and let the fact sink in that there were chickens in our front porch.  I mean, of all things to leave the house to, CHICKENS?!?! WTF?!?  Anyway, so now I had a choice to make.  Do I go out the door and brave the chickens to go to school?  Or, do I stay in the house, skip school and avoid the chickens that have camped outside the door?  Seeing as how I had no previous experience with chickens, I was stumped.  The thought of my parents killing me for not going to school though made me try for going to school.

So once again I approached the door.  As I got one foot outside the chickens decided to violently flap around, scarring me back into the house.  Ok, no school for me.  I wondered if the school would consider that an acceptable excuse.  “Yes, hi.  I can’t come to school today.  Why?  Well, I’m being held hostage by chickens.”

For the rest of the day I stayed inside and lounged around the house.  Later in the afternoon I heard a commotion on the front porch and looked out the window to see the chickens doing their crazy, wing flappy thing again.  (I would call it a chicken dance, but that's just rediculous.  Everyone knows what a chicken dance looks like.  Although, it's just as scarry.)  I jumped up and ran out the back door to find my dad standing on the outside of the porch staring into it.  (At this time it occurred to me that had I thought of the back door earlier I could have gone to school, but really who thinks of things like that while being held hostage by chicken?)

Me:  Good. You’re home.  Make sure they don’t go anywhere and I’ll go get their owners.

Dad:  You know where these belong?

Me:  I think so.

Dad:  Of course YOU would know where chickens live in the city.

So I got on my bike and rode over to the house and sure enough they were missing their chickens.  From time to time, after that, the chickens would come and visit (and I would use the back door) and the owners would just come get their chickens because they now knew where to find them.

About a year later, I woke up to go to school and opened the front door to find it full of a big, black pig.  Once again I stepped back, closed the door, shook my head and went back to bed.  No school for me.  When I woke up again, I found my mom sitting in the living room watching T.V.   (Something she almost never did.)

Me:  I think I dreamt there was a pig on the porch.

Mom:  That wasn’t a dream.  It’s still there.

Me:  You’re kidding me?

Mom:  Nope. A big, black one?

Me: Yep.

Mom: Nope, you weren’t dreaming.



Apparently the neighbor a few houses down decided that instead of getting a dog or cat (or chicken) for a pet she wanted a Vietnamese Pot Belly Pig.  What she didn’t do is make sure the pig couldn’t dig its way out of the pen.  So once again I went out the back door, down to the neighbor’s house and she followed me back with a leash to take her pig back home.  After that the pig would get out often and the neighbor always found it on our porch. We never saw the chickens again.

What I learned from this was that, sometime during the night, while I was sleeping, my front porch would somehow magically produce livestock that liked to keep me in my own house.  I never really knew what to expect when I stepped outside in the mornings, but I never was shocked either.  Now I live more out in the country-ish where horses and cows are not so odd and think, “I have not once been visited by a chicken or pig.  I think my childhood home just had a magic front porch.”