Saturday, January 28, 2006
Another "Daddy Saturday". And what a day it was: gorgeous and sunny, the warmth from the sun belying the still unusually high temperature of about 8 degrees or so for this time of year.
The girls were still recuperating for much of the morning from the birthday skating bash of the evening before, and much of the time was spent playing alternately indoors and outdoors with some kids from just up the street. There was a fancy dress tea party, playing with a very happy puppy out in the back yard, and much ooh-ing and aah-ing over the news toys scooped up from yesterday’s party that demanded to be played with.
It's pretty much a given at this stage that we are keeping the puppy. There's been no sign at all of the kitten -- Erika's put in calls to the Humane Society and the local vets -- and we console ourselves that she most likely got "scooped" by someone who is hopefully enjoying and appreciating little Tiger.
I had been joking about buying a bird for some time. Joking because Erika had always half-threatened to throttle a bird if it woke her up in the morning with its all too happy chirping for her "stop-it-I-haven't-had-my-coffee-yet-you-little-feathered-twit" mood some mornings. This all dates back to a time just before we were married when we stayed over at my parent's place, in the same room as the resident budgie. I was used to the morning chorus and slept in. She wasn't, and subsequently most of her sentences that had the word "budgie" in it also contain the verb "throttle".
But I was thinking that the time has arguably come for me to get a bird if I was going to. It's pretty much a safe bet at this point that we are keeping the dog -- Annie in particular is besotted with him, as is Erika. I am beginning to be won over as well -- he has a sweet personality, which helps.
Our current cat is arguably too lazy, fat and self-content to be seriously interested in a bird that is even the slightest bit hard to get at, and the dog is likely to be wholly indifferent to it. So after the girls had had their lunch we headed out on a "budgie hunt".
We headed over to a pet store near the south-west corner of Coxwell and Queen, where we had stopped in many times before to have a look at the various critters there. I had sometimes threatened to buy a bird, but had never used the place for anything much other than a fun way to kill a few minutes with the kids. They also have a much more extensive stock of birds than the other main pet store near Queen and Wineva.
My only real stipulation was that I wanted a blue budgie, for old time's sake. The girls both quickly settled on a young English budgie of as yet indeterminate sex (going by the colour of its cere) who was in the middle of a molt. "We like the fuzzy-looking blue one" they both said, so both the bird and the name ("Fuzzy") was chosen.
'Fuzzy' Budgie in the Pet Shop (Foreground) Moments Before Being Nabbed by the Pet Store Owner
The man at the pet store deftly but gently nabbed him, and ushered him into a small cardbox box. Annie carried the budgie food (which she helped pick out) I carried the cage, and Vanessa had the honour of carrying the bird back home in his box.
Got him home and ensconced in his new bird cage, and hung it from a hook from the ceiling, and let him be in order to settle in
He has said a peep all day -- likely too traumatized as yet to fell confident that this isn't some strange predatory ploy by us humans.
Will settle him somewhere in my basement office tomorrow, hopefully somewhere near a window, which is where he (she?) will live to escape from the possibility of being throttled one morning by a caffeine-deprived Erika some morning, a basement location should keep everybody happy.
I also hope the cat continues to be as lazy and disinterested as he seems to be.
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