Para²

If you’ve read the Missus’s blog—and she, amusingly, thinks there’s no reason that you should—then you know that we’ve got two new additions to the household. The link has a picture of them in their cage, but today I managed to get a couple of shots during their daily “flying around” time. Which, given what a couple of spazzmos they are, is more like “brief frenzied flapping until crashing into a solid object then panting sprawled on the floor for a while before repeating” time.

Luckily for them, these two beauties came already named. (I, sad comics geek that I am, was all set to call them Booster and Beetle.) This handsome devil is Blueberry—whom I, in my aforementioned geekery, have come to think of as The Lieutenant. Lovely plumage.

This’un, all green-and-yellow against the film noir blinds and the potted palms, is Chicory. Which I kind of like, actually: It sounds like a name a bird might give itself. I call him Chico, mostly.

Now, I’m very happy with the birds. They give me hope. They lift my spirits. Oh, sure, they're excitable and loud and rock-stupid, and I've got to clean up their shit and the millet hulls they insist on tossing around, and lay down newspapers, feed and water them, shift the cage all over, and trap and transport them (sometimes getting bitten for my trouble) when they fly around and can’t find their way back, like the birdbrains they are. But I accept these indignities cheerfully.

Because parakeets can, allegedly, be taught to talk.
I think you know where I’m going with this.

As seen elsewhere, I’ve already taken to wearing a bandana—particularly when I’m working out, or when the sun might burn my buzz-cropped noggin. And my glasses are already thick—I haven’t got the eyepatch yet, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time (a dose of the pox might help it along; hey, it worked for James Joyce). And then, my friends, and then...

AVAST, YE LUBBERS! I BE LIVING THE DREAM!