So the bird. Lyra is her name but I just call her bird. Which is better than what I call the rat.
When RJ is not here for long stretches of time, the bird moves to our bedroom. I think I like this development even less than I like F*** Elvis in here. (See I told you calling Lyra “Bird” was better than what I call the rat.) I really am not a bird person and while I did find it amusing to hear the pissed off little baby voice coming out of Jenn’s mouth when she heard RJ got a bird, “No fair, you never let me get a birdddddddd!!!!”, I’ve really disliked having this creature in my life. I particularly dislike it when TW gets her out of the cage and she flies all over the darn place and I really dislike it when she does this while I’m in a phone meeting. I also dislike it when the bird hisses at me while I”m getting clothes out of my dresser. The hissing obviously means the bird dislikes me as much as I dislike it.
But. The bird also seems to appreciate me enough to learn things from me.
It now can whistle, like I do. It also makes some really weird noises that I could not place but have grudgingly decided to admit sound surprisingly like laptop keyboard noises – and mouse clicking noises. So – I’ve taught it to whistle. I’ve taught it to make keyboarding and mouse noises. Now I am attempting to teach it music. Music that RJ likes and that I like.
I’m trying to teach it to sing or whistle “Emotional Girl”. She definitely loves the music. She will sing and make every noise she has ever made and flutter her wings and whistle non-stop while it is on. She also seems to appreciate Terri Clark’s version of “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” but the Zevon version puts her to sleep. I may dislike the bird, but at least she has good taste in music – or maybe she just appreciates a woman who looks really good in a hat.