I Just Love That Religion of Peace
God bless Florida Power and Light. They do a real service, making other utilities look so good. My power went out today--first time in maybe three weeks--and I got to spend a good long time living without technology.
Fortunately, due to the incredible progress of global warming, it's fifteen degrees below the average temperature here, so I was able to use the power outage as an excuse to open doors and windows and let fresh air in. Generally when you open a door or window in Miami, the cockroaches and mosquitoes stampede through your house like Vikings in a Bank of America commercial. But I have poisoned everything near me, and the cool, dry air isn't to the bugs' liking, so I was safe.
I had a pile of administrative things to do today, like convincing the Florida DMV once again that I really do have insurance. They forget once a year, minimum. And I didn't know until this weekend that I was going to file a tax extension, and the juice went out at about the time I planned to print the form out and mail it, so I ended up in a line of fools at the Post Office, trying to get my postmark. And I did other crap even more boring than all this.
I want to thank the Religion of Peace once again, for one of its many blessings. There used to be a mailbox on every corner. Ever wonder what happened to them? The government took the damn things away to minimize the likelihood that Muslims would put bombs in them. Do I know this for a fact? No, but I'm not stupid, either. The boxes started disappearing after 911, and it cost the government a lot of money to do it, so it's pretty clear what the reason was. It's like the thick cast iron public trash receptacles in Israel, or the crazy trash containers they have in airports now. Thank you Muslims, for these wonderful advances.
In other news, you will be glad to know that Marv is finally accepting his new ceramic perch, after a week of pretending to hate it. I figured he needed a new perch higher in his cage, because he kept sitting on a steel ring intended to hold a food dish. It looked uncomfortable, but he sat there all the time, and finally I realized it was higher than his regular perch.
I bought him a "calcium perch," which is some sort of calcium-based material dyed red. And for a week, he sat directly UNDER it. On the uncomfortable steel ring. But last night I realized things were working out, because one side of his head was pink. He had clearly been mashing his head against the perch, which indicates acceptance. He was probably trying to make the perch pet him. He does that with my computer mouse.
I thought it might be a black eye. African greys are among the few birds that fall down, and Marv was beating the hell out of his toys yesterday, and every so often he manages to give himself a shiner doing this. But it turned out to be perch dye.
Have you ever seen a bird fall down? Marv does it all the time. He'll be hanging by his feet from a bird toy, screaming and cursing, and you'll turn your head away, and suddenly you'll hear a noise like "BUNG!"
That's Marv, hitting the heavy wire poop grate. It rings for quite some time after he smacks it. He gets up and walks around, muttering "Are you okay?" He learned that from me. When he flies into a wall or dives into the toilet, I pick him up and ask him if he's okay. He seems to appreciate it.
"I love your head," Marv says. He's upset because Maynard is walking around on me while I type. Maynard was whining for attention, and I ignored him, and when I looked toward his cage, he was sitting on the perch, looking at me while petting himself on the head. Cheap trick. It got him some out time.
Mike is supposedly in town this week on business. I haven't heard from him. I hope he drops by for pizza and a trip to the range. If not, I'm going anyway.
I better put Maynard away before Marv loses his voice.
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