For The Birds

Another glorious day, this day after Valentine's Day. I took a couple of those red heart-shaped balloons from the party and tied them to the bushes out in the front of our house. They're blowing around in the breeze and looking happy. When Gracie goes by the front door, she barks at them.

I also took two of the heart balloons over to our young friend C's house yesterday. I tied them up on the post of her front porch. C was still at school, but her dad was at home so I chatted with him for a few minutes. He told me that C is beginning to get interested in boys. (She'll be 14 this March.) Ah.... the teenage years. I've known C since she was in the second grade... and wasn't it just last year that she said to me: "Boys are good to have around when you need someone to play cards with or if you need a fourth person for Monopoly, but what else do they do?"

I guess C is finding out what else they do........... Good grief....... she's growing up right before our eyes....... I hope she takes this nice and slow. I don't know if her dad and my husband can handle this. Or me........ I want her to stay a little girl for a while longer.

Lots of little errands to do this morning, one of which was stopping at the dry-cleaner's. The local cleaner has two huge bird cages in the store..... one holding a black mynah-bird, the other holding a gray parrot.

The mynah-bird talks to nearly everyone who comes into the store. He usually says Hello! Not a questioning hello, but a demanding Hello! As if to say: I'm saying hello to you, so you'd better say hello to me. There are days when the mynah-bird says "Hi-i-ii-ii-i" and drags it out to make it nearly a six-syllable word.

Today, however, the mynah said "Can you talk?" And he said that as if he were asking a question, so I'm guessing that enough people have asked the same question of the bird, so now he's added that phrase to his vocabulary.

The gray parrot's name is Lucy. She's a friendly bird, but only friendly to certain people. I happen to be one of Lucy's chosen people. When she sees me, she'll come close to the edge of her cage so I can pet her. I call her "Lucy Pretty Girl" and she seems to like that. When I say that to her, she turns her head down on an angle so my finger can get through the cage and stroke the back of her neck. For as long as I keep repeating "Lucy Pretty Girl," she will stay in that position and let me pet her. One day last week, I spent so much time with Lucy that I walked out of the store without the shirts I went to pick up.... the girl behind the counter brought them out to me before I drove away. (It was a bird-brain moment....)

So on this beautiful, sunny, glorious day, two birds made me smile....... one by asking Can you talk? and the other by trusting me enough to stroke and smooth her neck feathers.