Four Calling Birds
Fuck.
Did I really used to write this thing every day?
I must have had nothing going on.
I mean NOTHING.
I so do not have time for this nonsense now.
And yet here I am.
Yet again.
So what’s this thing about again?
Oh yeah. That’s right. Four calling birds.
That sounds like a bad gift right there: Four noisy-ass birds.
Do you have birds? Or know anyone with birds? They are loud. LOUD. LOUD.
It’s the universe punishing us for (sort of) domesticating birds and clipping their wings and throwing table cloths over their cages at night.
Break it down.
We’re jerks.
So anyway, speaking of ‘calling birds’, I don’t know about four, but I do have a story. You see, once upon a time, I went into my high school Graphic Arts II class and the substitute teacher was my dad’s ex-girlfriend.
And she was a really lovely and charming and delightful person…but she had a truly awful son.
No. Don’t judge. I’m dead serious. Even as youth, my brother and I couldn’t stand the kid (exactly one year in between us in age). He was – and pardon my French – a punk ass bitch.
Nonetheless, it had been a few years and I was excited and happy to reunite with her, and she sensed my weakness and that’s why – through a complex and unfortunate mix of guilt and pity and ‘reuinted and it feels so good’ and pity – she convinced me to go to her son’s prom with him.
Because no other female human would.
And the few chimps they knew were busy.
So along comes the big night – fabulous and magical (or not. All I remember is that he spent most of it outside smoking as he had been a foreign exchange student in France for most of the year and picked up the vile habit and imported it in the hopes of seeming cool) – and I went over to have dinner at their house.
And they had some kind of really smart black bird (a Macaw?) in a cage, and it was a pistol. I’d never really given birds much thought, and this thing blew my mind. In addition to singing songs and reciting poetry and calling the dog over to tease it, the bird would make the EXACT sound of the telephone ringing, and then do this dead-on impression of the mother (my dad’s ex).
“Hello? Oh, hiiiiiiii!”
And in addition to being strange and spooky and kind of unnerving, It was actually one of the more hilarious things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Tags: better today, birds are loud, blech, Dogs rock, Dogs rule, Everyone I know with a bird hates it, funny blog, Had a good day with my friend, humorous blog, I could never own a bird, I slept like shit last night and I'm so tired, I would feel guilty owning a bird, In contrast I really really love my dog, Life, Macaws, macaws as pets, me me me, Sooooo tired, tags, thanks Jose, That bird really did do a dead-on impression of the phone ringing and Joy answering it, Tired...but now the Top Chef reunion is on. Dammit!!!, Why is everything about the twelve days of Christmas about birds?
I had forgotten this, but I have a story about birds. Some years ago, my Grandma left for holidays, and left her canary with us.
The only previous thought I’ve had for birds before had probably been listening to Police’s song “canary in a coalmine”, which I guess wasn’t a good omen to the bird. But anyway…
The bird stood in his cage in the big office we had by then beside the kitchen, where my mother would cook twice a day our lunches and dinners.
She is a great cook, but doesn’t like it that much, so she always brought her real passion to the kitchen; music. Yes, my mother always cooked listening to Maria Callas singing loudly her arias, while she “conducted the orchestra” with a wooden spoon in her hand. Don’t mention any other singer to her. She just loooves “la Callas”, being the other possible alternative “her Luciano”. And that was it.
So one day I get home and there was my mother, “conducting” her beans, when I realised that the “o mio babbino caro” sung by the divine Maria was being accompanied by the crazy shouting of the bird, who followed the tune with scary precission, in rythm and tone.
To make it short: In two weeks he spent with us, he learnt the whole Callas’ discography, and he was honoured by my mother with the name of “Canarotti”.
They are crazy, those birds…
: )))
Did the bird sing those songs for the rest of its life?
Or just sing along?
(And amazing either way. Kind of makes me want to get a bird…except that I think perhaps it’s cruel. I don’t know. I’ve never owned a bird…)
???