i plucked my eyebrows for the first time in ages today. while i was taking care of that business my mind was musing on related topics, and landed on one i hadnt thought of in years.

when i was in catholic school, the AP (whom i found irritating and snobby) sent his daughter (who happened to be a senior at the same school) to a third world country for relief work. when she came back her most witty story was about how she had to gesticulate to get the natives to understand she wanted to borrow some tweezers, she made the ‘plucking the eyebrow’ gesture at them.
other girls in the classroom laughed it up, i didnt. it disgusted me. i remember telling one of the other students when we were leaving the classroom that that was a disgusting display it was tragically american, going to a third world country to help out and being worried about one’s own vanity, not to mention asking them for something they may not have.
i remember thinking about that story when i myself visited the country she went to. even the richer districts are poor there, and i remember thinking i had never seen such poverty myself… and it made me mad to think that some privelaged rich girl who hasnt seen a day of hardship in her life expected to continue her own style of living at the expense of the locals…but still thinking she should be revered for some form of salvation she was bringing to them. i hoped, at the time, that she was not the ambassador to that country’s idea of what americans were like. sadly, as things progress the way they do now, i’m afraid it is. everywhere we look, we are despised for our wasteful behaviors, carelessness for humanity, the poor…. if only i could tell people in other countries that not everyone is like her. we don’t all live a life of disposable excess, and we don’t all expect the world to appreciate us just because we exist. we’re people, just as they are people….unfortunately we have a political climate that is rapidly telling the world that we don’t care who we destroy or what we ruin as long as we get what we want. that’s not good.

if this aint a happy bird, i dont know what is:

we’re getting on very well now. she doesnt bite me nearly as much, which is good because she has been using her cuttlebone a whole heck of a lot and her beak is 5 times sharper than it was when i took the picture of my hand… so when she does bite it hurts like the dickens.

phew. what a day.
i had to change the covers on the couch. it’s an ikea couch, which is great because we have two covers that fit on the couch itself. made to fit on all the cushions so that when i do change it, it’s like having a enw couch. the downside is that i have to completely disassemble the couch to do it. so now my back is sore.
one of the girls wet the bed last night, so i had to take all of the bed linens off her bed… only to find that an opportunistic cat had also decided that was the place to have a wee.
nasty.
but it’s almost all clean. once i get all of that done i have to wash the covers i just took off the couch and fold them for the next time i change the couch covers.
cookie is doing quite well. she’s no longer biting me (hard, rather, she only gives warning bites), and i got her a play structure that she gets to play on at least once a day. last night she even stepped up on my hand without me asking her to. she’s also a laugher. her laughs are incredibly cute, and you know they are laughs by the tone and when she does it. the other night we were watching some comedy stand up on the boob tube and whenever the audience would laugh, so would she. i noticed today that she’s also picking up coughing. i walked into the room coughing, and i heard “ack-ack-ack!” from the peanut gallery in the corner.
yesterday i was in some form of foul mood. i was definetly lacking protein in my system, but after being at a lack of protein alll day, all eating beans and rice did for me was make the headdache and the weakness go away. poor scott got the brunt of it. he was rubbing my ankle with his foot absently while we sat on the couch watching Quills and i looked at him with a foul face and said “stop that, it’s irritating.”
i’m better now. still tired as the dickens, but at least i’m getting stuff done… which is more than i can say for yesterday.

today’s going quite well.
i clipped cookie’s wings this morning, which was harrowing for both of us. not to mention that she bit me on the webbing between my thumb and forefinger and refused to let go… but once the deed was done (complete success, by the way. no bloodfeathers, and she still has the ability to glide) she glided to the floor and explored while i had to run to the toilet and have a massive stress diarrhea.
i’m not one for clipping wings, just like i dont agree with declawing cats, but the bird was not going to be hand tamed if i was scared of her flying away every time i took her out of the cage… and parrots of all sizes like to be out and about. so this afternoon cookie got to be out and about, and she enjoyed it immensely. i even got preened by her when she was on my shoulder, how’s that for a mixed bag? she doesnt bite nearly as much now, and she seems pretty happy. the trick now will be to get her to not bite at all so the girls can pet her. they’ve been dying to.

a new friend has come to the house:

her name is cookie, she’s a 5 year old parrotlet. no, i’m not misspelling it, nor am i joking. parrotlets are actual parrots, they are the size of a finch or sparrow 4-5 inches long… the smallest parrot known to man. she doesnt talk, but man, does she chatter. pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-pi… all day long.
all the research i’ve done on parrotlets suggests that they simply don’t know their own size. they think they are as big as a macaw. specifically the Pacific (or Celestial) parrotlet (that’s forpus coelestis to you latin types), which is what i have. the pacific is reknown for it’s curiosity, and for lack of a better term: chutzpah. i was prepared to give her a day to take the new surroundings in (which meant a cover over 3 sides of her cage) but no! 10 minutes after we got home she was tugging on the cover so she could see. her daily habit, it seems, is to dance, hang upside down by one leg, dance some more, talk to herself in the mirror, eat a little, groom a little…. repeat. all the while: pi-pi-pi-pi-pi-pi! and god forbid i leave the room. it goes from pi-pi-pi-pi to CHEEP! CHEEP! CHEEP-CHEEP!!!! she likes being petted, but she’s not hand-tamed yet… which brings me to my second picture. i like to call it “the burning is love.”

those are my fingers, from one day of hand-taming. notice the precision cookie uses to attack only the same spots over and over until they bleed. she can’t actually bite hard enough to draw blood on the first try, but by god she keeps at it until it does bleed. i guess i’ll never play the dulcimer again. that was yesterday, we’re better today… in fact, she even let me pet her without biting me, but i didnt attempt to get her to step up on my finger yet.
speaking of biting… i was interested in cookie because of the reputation parrotlets have for being fierce. it was a toss-up between a budgie and a parrotlet, but i ultimately chose her because i knew she would be able to hold her own among the cats. i was right. starsky tried all of three times yesterday to touch her, and she bit him every time. eeeexcellent.