STELLLAAAA!

This is our new parakeet, Stella.  When we first placed her in her cage, Stella flapped around desperately searching for a place to hide where the scary leering people couldn't see her anymore.

Nailed it

That was a little over a week ago.  Stella eventually crawled out from under her seed dish but spent most of her first week lying low and evaluating her new situation.

 If I walked too close to the cage, she panicked and became a pretty blur. 

When I walked away, she simmered down but remained on high alert.

After one week, we've reached the point where she no longer suffers a hysterical flapping panic attack when I reach in to change her water.  We're getting somewhere.

A couple days ago, Stella thought she might possibly be comfortable enough in her new home to chirp.

Which made all of us very excited and caused a family stampede into the kitchen --

Stella did not like the sudden overwhelming attention --

And since then has made herself very small.

I put a mirror in her cage so now Stella thinks she has company.

 Parakeets aren't the brightest bulbs in the animal world

I come from a parakeet family.  There was always a parakeet flapping around somewhere in my childhood home.  My favorite, named Magoo, loved to eat cereal.  He dive-bombed my dad's cereal bowl every morning, usually skimming the surface and stealing a flake in the process but occasionally missing and landing right in the middle of the bowl.  He had a need, and the need was Wheaties.


Magoo was trained to sit on our fingers and could talk.  He was eventually killed by our dog but that's not a memory I care to relive.

My mom had parakeets before she had children.  She had a parakeet back when she and my dad were dating.  Dad poked at that parakeet so many times, it became a very angry parakeet and began attacking any hand that entered the cage, including my mom's.  It's still a point of contention in their relationship.

Years later, when she was pregnant with my sister, my mom's parakeet got profoundly sick.  The bird lost all its feathers during the course of its illness and became a naked, shivering, blinking, miserable presence in Mom's everyday life.  Mom, pregnant and hormonally challenged, couldn't take it anymore.

She took the bird to the vet but was unable to say she wanted it put down.  She hemmed and hawed and beat around the parakeet-killing bush until the lady behind the desk said, loud enough for the entire waiting room to hear, "OH, SO YOU WANT US TO KILL YOUR BIRD?"

Heads swiveled.  Mom whispered "yes" and ran.  The lady behind the counter called after her, "YOU WANNA KEEP THE CAGE AFTERWARDS OR WHAT?" but Mom said "KEEP IT" as she pushed out the office door with her belly. 

All this to say parakeets are in my DNA.  And by saying that, maybe I can convince myself it's OK to add yet another pet to our burgeoning galley of pets which now includes a praying mantis, an ant farm, about fifty aquatic snails, a schnauzer, the mouse living under our refrigerator, and a bunch of crickets which really shouldn't count since they're only here to be Mantisy's dinner.  But still, I gotta feed those little f*ckers. 

It takes some time to train a bird to love you but we'll get there.  I look forward to the day she does this --

Wheatie bomb!

MJ

Making sin out of nothing at all

As I sat down to write this, I glanced outside and saw Widower Peter standing in front of his house across the street.  He walked down to the sidewalk, opened the cover of his water meter, spit in it, then walked away smoking his wonderfully curvy pipe. 

Can anyone tell me why he would do such a thing?  Can't he just spit on someones car -- or try to land his spit on a quickly-moving bug just for a challenge -- or spit up in the air to see who it lands on like us normal people on this side of the street?

Seattle Mom and I went to see the band Stars last week.  There are few things more enjoyable than sitting in a live music venue with a beer in your hand and loud music rattling your bones.  I can't hear anything for days afterwards, which is a bonus considering the volume of my daily life (I'm looking at you, Lucien and Alex and men constantly hammering on my house).

The show went from fun to sexy when I went to the bathroom and saw these signs on the wall --

Let's rephrase so there's no confusion.  What they really mean is this --

Stars is a good band.  I liked them more when they first appeared on my radar nearly a decade ago but they're still worth the time spent.  They seem to align with me politically as well; I lost count how many times they gave Washington props for legalizing both gay marriage and weed on the same day. They called Washingtonians "an inspiration to civilization" for recognizing both those things for what they are -- not scary.



I recapped the show for Contractor God the following morning and in my description expressed relief Seattle Mom and I were not the oldest people at the show.  That's a legitimate concern when you reach your late thirties. 

Contractor God then told me of the time he and a friend, both in their late forties, went to see one of their old favorite British punk bands.  He said it was quite depressing to look around the crowd, realize how old the fanbase had become and admit they were, in fact, their peers. 

Come the first song, the fans tried hard to pogo with the same enthusiasm they'd had twenty-five years earlier.  But after about half a song, everyone hobbled away from the front of the stage rubbing their lower backs to order a beer, put ice packs on their aching muscles and wonder where the years had gone. 

We were at Seattle Mom and Dad's house for dinner recently when Seattle daughter and Lucien brought us a picture they'd drawn together.  I immediately got upset.

"Sin?  SIN??  With arrows pointing at the important bits?  Who is teaching our children their bodies are sinful?  I don't even believe in 'sin,' just use your common sense and don't hurt anybody, duh."

Seattle Mom and I called the children over, concerned about the messages they were receiving from somewhere and wanting to set them straight.  When we asked Seattle Daughter what she meant by "sin," she looked at us like we were dumb and said, "That doesn't say "sin," that says "NICE."

Seattle Mom then remembered Seattle Daughter has a tendency to write words backwards. She actually sounded it out pretty well.  English is hard. 

It's winter, the skies have gotten gray and rainy and most Seattle residents are stir-crazy and itching for change.  But for some reason, I'm currently involved in a full-on love affair with my city.  Everywhere I look, I love things.

Love my Seattle boy running on the waterfront

Love my girl owning that lollipop under the viaduct

Love those brick walls

Love that neighborhood theatre sign

Love the picture Contractor God took from up on our roof

 Love my funny friends

I wasn't born in Seattle and it's far from the most exotic or interesting place I've been, but as my boyfriend, hip-hop artist Macklemore, says about it:

"The skyline is etched in my veins, you can never put that out no matter how hard it rains."

Break it down for the town...

Not really sure where I was going with all that but there it is,
MJ

Miss you, metro baby

Alex is having a hard time adjusting to life back in the U.S.  Maybe it's because he's not American.  Maybe it's because his work hours got longer when we returned (something no one thought possible).  Maybe it's because he misses wearing huge scarves and pointy-toed shoes without looking like an idiot. 

Or maybe it's because of the bus.

After the near-flawless (if you don't count all the strikes) Paris metro system, the Seattle bus system isn't measuring up.  Seattle's public transportation is a little less glamorous, a little less polished, a little more flannel-filled than in Paris.  But we don't care about that -- the problem is Alex's bus has an attitude problem.  It may get him to work on time today, but if it doesn't feel like it, it sure as hell isn't getting him to work on time tomorrow --

 

We swore we'd be a one-car family when we returned.  That resolution may not last long because I'm worried about Alex's mental health and my children's vocabulary.  Even if I'm in the shower (a rare occurrence these days because....I mean, why?) with lots of water hitting my ears, I can still hear a long string of expletives from the other room and know the bus is running late according to the "just how late IS your bus?" bus tracker online tool. 

So I yell from the bathroom, "ALEX, PLEASE WATCH THE LANGUAGE!  THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" and Lucien pops his head around the corner to say, "He can't help it, Mom.  It's that goddamn motherf*ckin' bus again."

(To those who are going to say Alex should get his butt out of the house earlier, I say "back off, kind sir."  Mornings are the only time Al has with the kids; they are not going to let him leave a second earlier than he absolutely has to and that's the way it should be.) 

I've suggested Al buy a new bike since his other bike has gone into deep freeze storage with our Paris stuff until we find a house to buy in this town.  He liked that idea.  Fingers crossed his new bike is always on time. 

But this brings me to another point about Alex.  Unfortunately, whenever Alex is pissed off at something not at all related to me, he seems to think it's related to me and I owe him an explanation and a solution.  He suspects I'm part of a grand universal plan to make him miserable.

"I was late to a meeting yesterday because the bus was late," is said with a slightly accusatory tone that means, "I know you are in control of the bus, woman, you are fooling no one." 

"I can't find my keys," is spoken with an undercurrent of "I know you took my keys." 

"Where is my important work file?" is said with a suspicious look that says "You are attempting to destroy all I've worked for by hiding my important documents." 

To my knowledge, I have never been the true cause of any of these problems (she says as she hides her Seattle Metro transponder and her "where to hide Alex's documents so he will never find them" study guide.)  I don't understand my Al sometimes. 

I also don't understand Coco's reaction when she asks for a piece of cheese.  She adores cheese more than anything in this world.  She follows me into the kitchen laughing her head off with cheese anticipation but when I open the refrigerator, she gets so excited she runs directly away from the refrigerator, away from the cheese, as fast as she can.  Then she usually trips over her own feet and falls in the dining room.  Wouldn't it be easier to just take the piece of cheese from mama at the refrigerator, kid?

Man, I really don't get these people.  Thankfully I'm on the same page as Lucien.  When he insists on eating dinner with his pants off because that's the way dinner should be, I'm like, "YES!  EXACTLY!"

Hey, good news.  One of our Presidential candidates has finally mentioned a pressing issue, one very close to my heart -- establishing moon colonies.  Finally, someone's got his finger on the pulse of the important issues affecting everyday Americans. 

Mama's night out tonight with the ladies.  Don't wait up, Al -- going to be a late one because I'm searching for new and exciting places to hide your stuff,
MJ