[niteowl77]

An elderly woman I knew had a budgie she named Charlie. She let the bird fly around her tiny house most of the day. I was initially appalled that the bird was probably leaving droppings on the tops of curtains, etc, but she didn’t seem to care. The woman stored the pills she took nightly on top of her toaster oven, and if 10:00 p.m. came and she hadn’t taken her pills, Charlie would stand on the toaster oven and squawk until the lady came into the kitchen to take her pills. Then the bird would go back to his cage and retire for the night.

One of my mom's relatives had some sort of parakeet or such that had a limited vocabulary of English words along with the usual cheeps and chirps. It also had free rein in the house. It would perch on the rim of its main human's coffee cup in the morning and daintily dip its beak in the coffee and then leave-- sort of like giving it an avian seal of approval.

When you are a little kid, this seems like pretty neat stuff; from the cynical teen years to the midlife crisis, it is just hopelessly stupid and you roll your eyes over it.

But if you last long enough and the culture hasn't managed to poison you, it seems like pretty neat stuff again.

[stylin19a]

budgie slide

after my grandfather died, my grandmother’s youngest son bought her a budgie.

She had a bunch of them over the years.
One mean one, died biting her.
One she thought was male, laid an egg. Drove us nutz how this could happen. Turns out they do do this and it’s called an infertile egg.

Most had the free run of the house.

These budgies brought joy to her throughout the rest of her life.