Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a blue-and-gold macaw in his powder-coated vaulted King cage (you were expecting couplets?)
The millet was hung by the food bowl with care
In hopes lots more birdie bread soon would be there

Louie was nestled all snug in his bed
While visions of pistachios danced in his head
And Paul in his boxers, and I in my robe
Had just settled down for an hour of Leno

When all through the house there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter
Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

The moon on the breast of our half-dead grass.
Gave a pale clammy glow to our cheap-looking creche.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

They moved and they bounced on the neighbor's front lawn
It all looked so real that I rubbed my eyes raw.
Blow-up Santa was moving like no other Claus
Then suddenly I knew exactly what it was.

The neighbor's house swayed, and ours did too.
Mary and Joseph did a crazy boogaloo.
We held to each other, a quite worried pair.
Poor Louie! we said. Let's see if he's scared.

His feathers were ruffled. His pupils all small.
His wings all spread out like he'd just had a fall.
The shell of a peanut he clutched in his beak
Then Paul stuck his head in to get his own peek

Come Louie, come baby, it's just a small shake
Tomorrow we'll feed you your usual pancake
Come let me hold you and smooth out your kinks
While mommy gets me a nice stiff drink

He was fluffy and plump, a right jolly macaw
And we laughed when he picked up a walnut to gnaw
A BRAWWWK from his beak and a shake of his head
Soon gave us to know we had nothing to dread

He spoke not a word but went straight to his work
Climbing the sissal back up to his perch
He tucked his black beak in his shiny blue wing
And Jay's guest Celine began to sing

We sprang to the couch and snatched the remote
And turned it down quick before the high note
But before we hit mute, we heard Jay exclaim
Happy Christmas to all! From earthquake land!

In my other life I write product reviews for a computer magazine. After reviewing hundreds of computer products, I consider myself pretty PC savvy. But then along comes a project from hell that makes me realize such confidence is folly. Putting aside for a moment the fact they make this blog possible, let me say computers are not my friend. They are my enemy. They make me miss deadlines. While Ah-nold is frittering away the days reviewing car registration fees in Sacramento, the machines are rising, and we are not talking drone attack helicopters, my friend. We are talking about that innocent looking PC sitting on your desktop.

After another recent battle with PCs that would do Linda Hamilton proud, I considered sending my editor this article: COMPUTERS ARE THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL. So it's not 3500 words. It's succinct, it's breezy, all the things she appreciates. To make it fit over eight pages they could use 572-point type. Our readers would like such an article. They know computers are wicked and it would spare them a lot of tiresome details. But oh no, my editor is one of those traditionalists. She wants an article with paragraphs, on time.

Why would I denigrate our friend, the PC? Let me tell you.

This time it all started with trying to find my IP address (don't ask). Never mind that sometimes I have trouble finding my street address. Actually, it's easy - all you have to do is go to www.whatsmyip.com (to find the ip address, that is). But this product did not like the IP address at whatsmyip.com. It wanted a different one, so I spent an hour on the phone with the product manager, going over settings, then another hour on the phone with Earthlink, going over some different settings, because the first guy told me it was Earthlink's fault. The Earthlink guy put me on hold. Another two, three, five minutes ticked closer to my deadline. He came back. "Are you absolutely sure you don't have a firewall up somewhere?" he asked. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, I replied. I've looked and looked and I have no firewalls. "Well, it's not us, it's you. It's something on your computer that's blocking use of the IP. You might try checking your applications." Before I could ask which application on my PC might be the culprit – the 35 junk ones, the 10 major ones, or the three new products I had installed in the last week – he tripped away merrily to offer nonhelp to somebody else.

Desperate, I switched to Paul's PC. This time the IP address worked. Cue sun bursting through the clouds, music swelling, bluebirds warbling. But then I realized I hadn't networked that PC yet, so I had to haul the printer in and connect it, install ISP software, and download the product all over again. I left the room to do something, probably slit my wrists. When I came back, the PC was rebooting. That was weird. Must have crashed. I logged back onto the Internet, surfed back over to the vendor's Web site, and started the product download again. Left the room again. Heard synthesized Windows music again. What the !#@#$@? "Are you coming down here and turning off the computer for some reason?" I yelled upstairs to Paul. "No!" he yelled back indignantly.

In case hibernation was somehow to blame I changed all the power settings to "never". And since the PC obviously enjoyed pulling this trick only when my back was turned, this time I stayed and watched the download. Two minutes into the process, a cryptic but official looking error message popped up saying the computer would now be shut off.

Speaking in public gives some people panic attacks. Demon-seed PCs make my palms sweat like a roofer on a 90-degree day. I ran to the other PC and googled the error message. One of the hits, a message thread deep in some geek message board somewhere, spelled it all out for me, bless the poster's heart. I had the mblaster worm. Lovely. My husband had forgotten to install anti-virus software on his computer. (So it was his fault!)

No problem. I still had my old box of Norton's somewhere. I dug it out of a back shelf and tried to install it. No dice. The version was too old for this operating system. All right. Okay. No problem. I would buy the latest version of Norton's, damn the cost, full speed ahead. I went online and, dodging worm-initiated reboots, managed to punch in my credit card number. Ha! I was good! But there was just one problem. The dialup connection was so slow that only 5 percent of the software could download at a time before the worm brought everything crashing down again. At this rate I'd be up until 3 a.m.

Okay. Fine. No problem. "I'm going to OfficeMax to buy the Norton box," I yelled, stomping out the door into the night.

Getting out of my car at the strip mall, I was accosted by a couple leaving. "They aren’t selling anything," the woman sang out cheerfully. Huh? I ran inside. Two long lines of people snaked, waiting to make a purchase. I asked a manager what was going on. "Our computers are down," she said smiling wryly. The entire, nationwide OfficeMax computer network - kaput.

The machines were restless.

"Can you come back tomorrow?" the manager asked. "I've got my own problem," I said, holding up the Norton's. Without the Norton's I couldn't fix Paul's computer. If I couldn't fix Paul's computer I couldn't install the product I needed to review, because my computer's IP address couldn't be pinged. And if I couldn't install the product now, I would just have to start over later, when all my notes were cold and I was that much closer to blowing the deadline.

Fortunately, I had just withdrawn $60 for food. "Will you take cash?" I asked and handed the cashier my money as the other customers looked on jealously. "She's got money," I could hear them whispering, fingering their credit cards. Ha! With my paper-money skills only I would survive the agrarian society left when computers overthrew the world! Or something like that. I threw in a Hershey's bar and left with a receipt hand-scrawled on a Post-It note.

I cleaned up the worm, finished my product review, and went on to examine several other products that refused to install drivers/hung/crashed, take your pick. A week later, with a refund request in to Norton for the first copy of anti-virus software I bought and my article safely in the hands of my editor, I stumbled across a firewall on the first PC that had been blocking IP access after all.

It all makes one wish one had taken a different career path, such as arranging flowers. Or writing about birds. Birds crash often, but rebooting them is easy. Just pick them up, dust them off, and everything's operating smoothly again. Birds rarely get viruses - thank goodness, because Norton's won't fix them. Pooping and screaming – the parrot equivalent of spam – can exhaust one's patience. But I would take either any day over another e-mail in my inbox announcing a patch/pill/operation to enhance my you-know-what (this is a family parrot magazine). I don’t even HAVE a you-know-what, for cripe's sake. But I do have Louie, and he does not need a shred of improvement. Louie, can you say "Computers are spawn of the devil?"

Quick as a bunny, mark this on your calendar. Or just go to your TV, turn it on, and wait (it's really soon). Tani Robar will be reprising her Pet Star performance in a special wild card competition tomorrow night on the Animal Planet. That's Friday, Nov. 21. It'll be cool. This I can promise.

If only I could harness Louie's special talents for Halloween. Every kid on my block would run screaming and I would have the popcorn balls to myself. After breakfast, his macaw tummy pleasantly full of pistachios and birdie bread, Louie perches on his favorite kitchen chair and with the radio blaring in the background, launches into a full-tilt recitation of sound effects from beyond the grave. A happy macaw sounds anything but. Depending on his oratorial mood, Louie is an aggrieved ghoul moaning in the attic, a cranky Night of the Living Dead zombie, a tormented creation from the Island of Dr. Moreau. Sometimes he's just Julia Child loaded on cooking sherry. He pauses to say "Hello?" in a little girl's voice, swivels his head one almost complete revolution and starts muttering again. Can you say "Linda Blair"?

Alas, Louie gives only morning concerts. By this evening he will be preening in front of the TV, stopping only to raise his wings in alarm whenever an army of ghouls stumbles up our front steps. Maybe he can give me a quick lesson or two in screeching, always a useful skill for a witch to have. Happy Hallow's Eve.

Paul has spent the week at his parents' house, helping his dad who fell and hurt his back. Louie is monumentally confused because rarely does Paul go away. Usually I'm the one who disappears, which is fine. I am the wacky housemate who's good for food and a few laughs every now and then, but I get in the way a lot. I am the fifth wheel on Paul and Louie's little love bug. Louie is not in love with me.

Every afternoon around 4 Louie takes up his post on the long perch at the top of the cage and stares out the window. Any minute now, the truck bearing his beloved will magically appear and pull into the driveway. Any minute now...any minute now...any minute... Then again, maybe not. After a lusty bout of screaming, Louie decides that staring out the kitchen window into the back yard might be just as useful, so he waddles into the breakfast nook and perches on his chair, the one he's scratched so badly with his toenails we don't use anymore. Usually, Paul appears in the back yard only on the day following several days of appearing in the front yard, but maybe the schedule has changed somehow. Maybe today Paul has taken up his customary position in the back yard, where he moves large twigs and other objects around and spritzes everything with the large watering device.

When there's no Paul in the back yard, either, Louie finally allows me to carry him into the living room, where we watch TV. At first, Louie sits on my legs, closer to the door, because Paul will be walking in any minute now and taking his rightful place on the couch in our spot. When that happens, Louie wants to be there waiting, so Paul can pick him up and Louie can kiss him on the lips.

Finally, though, Louie heeds my calls to come sit on my chest so I can pet him. He lets me scratch him under the wings and crunch the sheaths off his new tail feathers, but his eyes are big and round as he continues to watch the door over one shoulder. Any minute now...Paul is coming...must be vigilant.

I don't think birds "get" telephone calls. When I try to bring the receiver close so Louie can hear Paul shouting, "Louie! Louie! Hi sweetie!", I can't tell from the alarmed look on his face whether he thinks Paul is teasing him from another dimension or I intend to bonk him on the head with a large blunt object.

Mornings, Louie runs to the top of the stairs and calls down, "Hello!" Sometimes he thinks he hears Paul sitting at his desk and he quickly lowers himself down each step, the right foot first while he steadies himself on the current step with his beak, then the other foot. Ker-plunk. Ker-plunk. Ker-plunk. He's gotten fast at this.

When Paul proves a phantom once again, Louie finds solace by climbing inside the laundry basket. Then again, maybe he has only come downstairs to visit the laundry basket. Maybe he's forgotten Paul and I've been replaced by an inanimate object. It wouldn't be the first time.

Do you ever envy the animals of the field, who do not toil, or sweat, or worry about their hair? Oh sure, Louie spends 22 hours of the day rearranging his feathers, but trust me, Lou, they never looked all that bad to begin with.

I have a hair appointment today and I am nervous. I am on the Internet now, looking for a picture I can carry in my hand and say, "Here, this is what I want my hair to look like." And with that, I can hand the whole problem over to someone else for 45 glorious minutes.

So I've done a search on the words "hairstyles photos," and so far I've come up with a domain for sale, a celebrity hairstyles site that is actually a porn site, a real celebrity hairstyles site that features Jennifer Love Hewitt, and a site that features wedding hairstyles from the 70s. I already have a wedding hairstyle from the 70s, so it looks like I'll be stuck flipping through the Outlandish Hair You Would Never Choose For Yourself coffee table book at the salon again, trying desperately to nail down a look before it's my time in the chair.

In an attempt to hold onto youth, I've let my hair grow out to high school lengths, which in turn has depressed me thoroughly because I bear more than a passing resemblance to my senior picture, a publicity still for Tiny Tim. But it's too late to turn back now because I've let my bangs grow out, too, and that's not a project undertaken lightly. For two months now they've sat parted on the sides of my head where I've combed them. If it's windy out they flop back down in my face. If you're having a group picture taken on a windy day, I've discovered, they will flop in the face of the person next to you, who will politely pick them up and lay them back on your head. (Sorry, Shana.)

Paul proves his graciousness time and again by never, ever saying anything derogatory about my hair. I, on the other hand, cannot leave his alone because he parts it down the middle, 60s style. 1860s. "How's the barbershop quartet thing going?" his sisters ask. When we go out my eye is drawn to the white stripe of scalp down the middle of his head. But I've discovered a bargaining chip. If I don't dry my hair straight, he'll let me tousle his to erase the part. He likes my naturally curly Julianna Margulies look. "Don't cut your hair too much," he said. "Okay?" So I have that to consider today, too, when I go under the shears. Cut hair, lose part-erasure privileges. Is it any wonder I have a stomachache?

By the way, men: please stop shaving your heads. I don't care how bald you already are; you're not helping things, especially if you have a tiny head and great big body. Please grow your hair to Beatles lengths. You would look so much cuter that way. If you need extensions, drop me a line. I'll save some clippings for you.

Because I am a terribly lazy blogger, our stand-in columnist today is Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle. He's one of my favorite writers, one reason being he agrees with me on just about everything, including the end of summer (except for his previous fondness for fall, which I've never liked all that much, mainly because of the depressing symbolism and going back to school).

I will say a few things about this summer: the weather was great here in Alameda, usually the third fog capital of the world (after San Francisco and Pacifica). Louie was a good bird all summer, giving us no trouble in the areas of screaming, biting, or falling ill with some horrible bird disease that keeps you up nights and breaks your heart in the end. Thank you, Louie. Thanks to all who wrote for or otherwise contributed to the last couple of issues of ParrotChronicles.com. You don't know how much you are appreciated. You make it possible for me to go on vacation.

And speaking of vacations, I would like to give a special shout out to Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine, a Jim Belushi lookalike who happened to be on board the same Lake Tahoe dinner cruise as us in June. After dinner when the band struck up, Mr. Machine volunteered an awesome pole dance to the classic tune of "Play That Funky Music, White Boy". I didn't think those moves were possible with the center post of a dinner boat. What's more, I don't think he was even all that drunk. Thanks, Gene, and here's hoping all you bird lovers out there had a great summer, too.

As I write this, a down feather, having caught some strange thermal behind my desk, is drifting upward, toward the low ceiling. Where it stops, nobody knows. Probably behind the door, or in the toe of a shoe inside my closet, or on the stair tread, where we will walk by it one hundred times before getting out the vacuum. Chasing down feathers that Louie molts is like pursuing fairies; they dance on drafts just out of reach, like a ball you keep accidentally kicking every time you bend down to pick it up. The Dust Buster makes short work of them, but it's never within reach. So they lie there, little powderpuffs waving like tiny sea anemones in every nook and cranny of our house, until I clean again.

There are feathers pirouetting around my desk today because Louie is underneath it, perched on one of the crossbars preening. And molting. Heavily. I see one, two, three...oh, 20 pieces of down and two yellow breast feathers at my feet. But I am not worried. These are all molted feathers. I know this because for the most part, Louie has stopped plucking his feathers.

His once entirely bare legs have almost completely filled in with yellow, making him look more robust than he has in years. His wing pits show only a little naked flesh. After a bath, he is WHAT A HANDSOME BIRD YOU ARE! YES, YOU ARE! WHAT A PRETTY BOY! (Here, Louie tosses his head and pins and flashes in proud acknowledgment).

When we leave Louie alone for a few days, I no longer fear seeing a naked chicken ready for the stewpot when we return. If anything, he looks even more fully feathered. Why the turnaround? Because Nelson is gone? Maybe that's all it took. Peace and quiet. No more vying for our attention, fending off her attacks. And maybe Louie simply finds peace in routine and freedom of choice. When he becomes agitated at being placed somewhere he doesn't want to be, he begins to preen in frustration, and frustration leads to picking.

Maybe this is all malarkey. Five years ago, maybe he simply decided he had too many feathers. Five years later, he is satisfied with his remodeling efforts. Okay by me.

History books, or at least this blog, will show a significant shift in the rodent population from central Alameda, Calif., to the west end of the island during the summer of '03, with unknown climate and crop ramifications. Actually, effect on crops in one central block, I'm happy to report, is unprecedented growth of beans and zinnias. Havahart squirrel relocation really works. I highly recommend it. And thanks again but no thanks to the coworker who volunteered his services to dispatch our squirrels and make gumbo out of them. Lovely thought, but we're on a strict squirrel-free diet.

We transferred six squirrels, small and large, to the park at the other end of the island the first weekend we put out the trap, which we baited with bread and peanut butter. Funds did not allow fitting them with tiny radio transmitters to see if they migrate back, but so far we seem to be relatively squirrel free.

We do have one squirrel that is staying on, courtesy of management. He was the last squirrel I caught in our trap. I had seen him earlier in the garden. His right haunch looked shaved and when he ran he favored that side. When I approached him to get a closer look, he would cock his head and peer up at me as if he couldn't quite see, and he would let me get to within a couple of feet of him before running awkwardly away. When I saw him in the trap, I felt terrible. Mighty trapper of invalid squirrels. For shame.

After setting him free, I brought out some more peanut butter and apple slices and set them on the patio, hoping to make up for the trauma of the Havahart. As I write this, the squirrel is probably sitting up in the neighbor's sweetgum tree, snickering to himself over the brilliance of his subterfuge. "Ha! Stupid human! All you have to do is limp like you have an old war wound and they cave every time! Tomorrow I'll use the fake cast and eye patch and she will bring me caviar!"

For that matter, word has probably gotten back to the park that the yard everyone got kicked out of just a few weeks ago is now serving snacks, all squirrels welcome. I might as well put out a neon sign: Sucker human lives here. Louie the blue-and-gold macaw knows this better than any animal. He has his own bedroom inside the house with toys and mirrors and food and attention all day long. He better not tell the squirrels about this!

Little Timmy and Cindy Squirrel, we'll call them, and all their cute little fuzzy frolicking progeny who prance around my back yard all day, chasing one another and tumbling about the flower beds, are going on a trip. Yes! A very fun and exciting trip to the great big park on the other end of town! Where they'll meet all sorts of new friends, such as Guido the Bouncer Squirrel who beats up all the newcomer squirrels, and Bruiser the Pit Bull who bites the tails off silly little squirrels who accidentally trespass across the dog park.

Aw, that's just mean. I don't really want anything bad to happen to the squirrels we catch in the Havahart and let go in Crown Beach Park this weekend. And I do expect to take care of this problem this weekend, or else I will become a rampaging gardener with a sharpened trowel in one hand and powdered fox urine in the other, determined to rid my yard of these Disneyesque rodents who capture my heart with their big brown Bambi eyes and fluffy tails one moment and break it the next as they murder another innocent zinnia. The stripped stalks, the squash plants pulled out by their roots, the cute little holes scratched by little paws all over the yard and the squirrel-mouth-size bites taken out of every plum on the tree. I cannot take it anymore. Worse, Louie is completely useless. Now a dog, no matter how small, you can send a dog into battle for you, an all-natural squirrel repellant that power charges the little delinquents up the nearest tree. Louie is afraid of squirrels. They have teeth, I'll grant him that. Squirrels flick, they leap about and chatter as if on nuts spiked with some sort of rodent speed, they move way too fast to be safe. Louie knows a vicious predator when he sees one.

My opinion of squirrels took a dive the day I lay in the lawn chair beneath the trellis out back and, shading my eyes against the sun, watched one pass overhead. The cute twitchy little face, the paws picking their way through the vines, then..ack!!!..the tail! Oh-my-god-would-you-look-at-the-tail!! The sun shone through the fluffy fur on the tail like an x-ray and exposed the squirrel for what he really was: a large rat. There was the real tail, the rat's tail, underneath all the cute fur, one long sinewy appendage. That was the beginning of the end of my love affair with the squirrel. This spring, with the wholesale squirrel-mounted attack on my garden, vegetable and flower, is the end of the end.

I wonder what Cindy and Timmy and all their baby-faced squirrelets would like to snack on in their Havahart condos? Oh, ha ha ha! Silly me! I already know what they like to eat! I'll just set the traps with the sweetest, most succulent, largest and most perfect strawberry I can find on my plants! They would like that! Or maybe I'll use those beans I was just about to pick! Or shred my favorite, best and most beautiful sunflower into little strips! Nothing is too good for our esteemed yard guests, the squirrels! Oh, must you leave so soon? We can't tell you how much we've enjoyed your stay. No, really, we just can't tell you.

Every few years, usually while cleaning out a closet, I rediscover a pair of religious tracts my great-grandfather wrote over forty years ago. Although I never met Dozier Thornton, an itinerant Baptist preacher in the 30s and 40s, he must have been some character.

The tracts, which one of Dozier's children - my great Uncle Lodes - gave me years ago, are part religious screed, part autobiography. Dozier published the first one in 1948. The flimsy booklet runs 33 pages, has a light grey cover, and bears the stultifying title of The Subject of This Sketch Was Written By Dozier Thornton, Expressing His Opinion As To The Teaching of The Written Word.

The second booklet, a slightly lengthier 43 pages, has a light blue cover, the same overweening title (appended with Volume No. 2), and was published in 1959. The date on the second volume always amuses me, because Dozier announced his approaching death and solemnly bade farewell to the world 11 years earlier in the first booklet.

Melodrama like this is why I find myself reading Dozier's booklets over and over again. They may be filled with stuffy pontifications, but they also provide a window into the lives of my great-grandfather and Thorntons all the way back to the 1700s. The fact that the view includes hypochondria, sin and lust just makes it that much more interesting.

Dozier was not a happy-go-lucky fellow. His first booklet opens with the Dickensian, "I was delivered of my earthly mother into this low ground of sin and sorrow in Llano County, Texas, January 3, 1877."

Reading a little further, you learn why he might have viewed birth as less than a lucky break. Life was hardscrabble. Dozier's father (my great-great granddad) was a poor sharecropper who wandered Texas and Arkansas all of his life behind a team of mules and produced 16 children with two (successive) wives. Dozier's mother (the second Mrs. Thornton), was the "most even-tempered woman I ever knew." She must have been, to put up with the mules and passel of kids.

The early Thorntons adhered to a religion as unforgiving as their existence. They belonged to a branch of Baptists called primitive, also known as "hardshell". No dancing, no makeup, no musical instruments allowed in the church building (only a capella singing, if that).

With the twin yokes of poverty and religion weighing heavily upon him, Dozier apparently found it necessary to seek relief every now and then in the sin portion of that low ground he referred to. Before and after he took up preaching, he admits in booklet number one, his life was marked by "strong drink" and other behavioral lapses not becoming a man of God.

According to a cousin of mine, at least a few of those lapses included women other than my great-grandmother. Cousin Joan told me that in the churches he pastored, Dozier had an eye for the young girls.

It was a shameful family secret that deeply wounded Dozier's children. Those five wonderful great-aunts and great-uncles of mine are all gone now. That allows the rest of us descendants to muse about Dozier's salacious ways in a more detached way.

So my great-grandfather Dozier was a womanizer. And according to others, he was not even a very charming one at that.

My grandmother called Dozier "mean and hard." According to her, Dozier used the biblical exhortation to "spare the rod and spoil the child" as an excuse for flailing his three boys every chance he got, including Bud, grandmother's meek and mild husband. Years after Dozier's death, my grandmother still hated her father-in-law on behalf of my grandfather. "He was a tough old bird," she would say, shaking her head.

Indeed, my only photo of Dozier shows him standing in a cornfield with a handful of grandchildren giving him a wide berth, except for one who did not escape in time. There's my then-10-year-old Uncle Don, snared like a scared rabbit, his stick-thin upper arm in the viselike grip of Dozier, who glares straight into the lens.

Judging from his booklets, Dozier did not believe in the equality of women. In one passage he quotes, "....if [women] learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."

I know for a fact that Dozier won my grandmother's everlasting enmity when Bud brought his new bride home to the farm to meet the folks. According to my grandmother, Dozier gave her a scornful glance and barked, "Who's yer squaw?"

Still, I can't help but be a bit intrigued by the old goat. In his dotage he became a craftsman whittler. I have many of his pieces, including family names carved in cursive from blocks of wood; a beautiful walking cane composed of 100 different types of native trees, each segment inscribed with an identifying name (walnut, cherry, oak); and framed photographs pieced together inside old bottles.

Dozier was also a competent writer. In places, his booklets are eloquent in their back-country plainspokenness. "I have bumped many a stump in my stay here," he writes in the first booklet. "I have crossed many gullies and branches, lakes and rivers, hills and mountains, valleys, plains and deserts."

Dozier even displayed some talent for poetry. While he may not have thought much of women in general, he apparently worshipped his long-suffering mother (who had her last child in a wagon when she was 46), because he wrote this nice little poem about her in the second booklet:

Good morning to you, Mr. Artist
Here's a picture I want you to paint
Just a small photograph of my mother
In style that is olden and quaint
Don't try to leave out any wrinkles
Or bind up a straggling hair.
'Twas just as she looked that evening
And I want every one to be there
'Twas caught in a pocket camera
One day as she sat all alone
When the shadows of evening were fallling
And all of her work had been done.
Her picture's at home in the album
And fairer than this one will be
And others may think they are better
But this one is dearest to me
I can look at all those and remember
Her beauty and numberless charms.
I can look at this one and remember
How she rocked me to sleep in her arms.
So make it as plain as this picture,
Nor think I will love it the less
For the dearest thing under the heavens
Is Mother in everyday dress.

Another highlight of Dozier's booklets: minutes from a Georgia church run by his grandfather - my great-great-great-great grandfather Dozier Thornton.

Apparently the elder Dozier was something of an early Billy Graham, a spiritual advisor to the social set of his day, which included a general in the Revolutionary war (and later a governor of Georgia) named George Mathews, and the Chief of the Cherokee nation, David Van.

When he wasn't gadding about with his famous pals, Dozier the Elder evidently was a Johnny Appleseed among Baptists, founding a new church practically every few feet on his travels throughout the south. One of those new congregations was Vans Creek, named in honor of Dozier's Native American friend.

For some reason, perhaps for its historical interest, my great-grandfather reproduces in his second booklet reams of minutes from the Vans Creek church circa 1780. It's excruciatingly dry stuff - until you notice that buried among the dates and Brother This and Sister That are juicy tidbits representing a level of confession not found today outside Jerry Springer.

Apparently, the faithful in those early days devoted a portion of every meeting to airing dirty laundry. Someone might accuse a fellow churchgoer of public drunkenness, or bring a "complaint" against his own self for "wanting to fight" or desiring another's spouse. A typical self-flagellation went something like this: "Bro. Jacob Prewit came with a charge against himself for drinking too much, and was being too familiar with a woman."

All it took to dismiss a complaint, including those filed by the sinners themselves, was "satisfactory acknowledgement," whereupon the confessor would promptly be "retained in fellowship." Who delivered these satisfactory acknowledgements - whether it was the sinner or his rapt listners - I'm not sure.

One thing Dozier did not talk about in the booklets was his own marriage. A restless sort, several times Dozier abandoned my great-grandmother to ramble and preach. He left the final time in the 1940s in order to satisfy a desire to live in Oakland, California, where he resided on a hill a few miles from where I live.

According to cousin Joan, Dozier eventually got homesick and wandered back home to Texas at some point in the 1950s. He spent his remaining years living a scant two blocks away from my great-grandmother in the small East Texas town of Mexia. Both in poor health by that time, they never lived together again or, apparently, spoke to one another. I think Dozier would have liked to, but after decades of enduring his careless treatment, my great-grandmother had no further need for him.

"It's a shame, isn't it?" said Joan when I visited her in New York a few years ago. Joan is the only one of Dozier's grandchildren to leave small-town life behind, and the only one to wash her hands completely of the hard-shell religion into which Dozier fitfully drifted in and out all his life.

To his credit, Dozier was not entirely self-absorbed. When he wrote, "I have many things to be sorry for," I have a feeling he was issuing a tacit apology to his wife, children and others he disappointed.

I can imagine Dozier bent over a notepad writing his booklets, scratching out thoughts he carried around for years, while great-grandmother battled consumptive heart failure a couple of blocks away.

Even if his wife wouldn't take him back, Dozier could find a "satisfactory acknowledgement" by writing the booklets. They were his way of explaining himself to family and the world, including descendants he would never meet. Once he finished the booklets, all the old charges brought against him could be dismissed and fellowship restored.

That's my hunch, anyway.

Another perfect day is dawning in Alameda, cloudless, fogless, crisp but en route to a hot one, a rare meteorological occurrence around here. The garden approves. The zinnias, sunflowers and bean plants are poking out of their greenhouse cell packs and seedlings from last year's crookneck squash are making a guest appearance in the lettuce bed. I expect tomato plantlets soon will be springing up all over the garden as well, now that I've stopped upsetting the earth with the Mantis, the most efficient little rototiller you could hope for. I found the Mantis by doing a search on the Internet. "What do we need that for?" Paul had asked. "It will save me hours of hoeing," I replied. "The salesman said it would bury itself." And it does. Its little blades till and till un-till the Mantis is up to its two-stroke engine in dirt, and the blades are still small enough that if the Mantis ever decides it has had enough of slave labor and turns on me, the damage won't be too bad. No higher than the shins and not much worse than stepping on a hoe. (One always has to acknowledge the possibility of a coup staged by overworked garden implements.) Despite its hint of danger, or maybe because of it, I am in love with my Mantis. I want to show it off and walk it through the neighborhood like a new puppy.

I like the way the beans sprout. Their stems break the soil first, like tiny sea serpents arching their necks. Little Loch Ness monsters. It's not until the next day that the first set of leaves pops out. The new onions - all types, it doesn't matter, green, red or yellow - look like pale winter grass sprouting. The corn usually teases us by looking robust at first, then it stops growing at about waist height, forms a few deformed ears only Louie likes, and turns brown. If we have enough hot days like this, it will do better this year, I'm sure of it. The zinnias, they were Mom's favorite summer flower (in the fall, it was mums), and now I'm growing them for the first time. It feels like a tribute to her and that makes me happy, too. The box hedge's fragrant white blooms take me back to childhood, too, when butterflies and bees kept up a busy hum in our backyard.

So, so long, computer. Hasta la vista deadlines and postings and all the e-mails. I'll miss the kind offers to enhance/inflate/lengthen/ body parts, Viagra to prop them up, requests from Mozambique for Urgent Assistance, and I May Have Won a Dream Vacation!!! I already have one, thanks, in my own back yard. I'm shutting this thing off and going outside.

You guys - ParrotChronicles.com readers - often surprise me, usually by what doesn't seem to surprise you. Take the latest article, for instance, the one on freeflight. I expected at least a few letters by now from shocked readers who can't believe there are owners out there who let their birds fly around the yard loose. It sure as heck shocked me, until I learned more about it. Now it seems okay. Maybe. For other people. I still don't think I could do it. Maybe everyone else is having the same reaction - by the time you get to the end of the article, it makes enough sense that you're no longer compelled to shoot off an e-mail. Or maybe you completely agree with the freeflyers. Maybe you are a freeflyer. I'd be interested in knowing.

Or take the article on the controversial bird trainer Ken Globus, posted some months back. I thought for sure there would be lots of letters about that one, but I didn't get a single who-does-he-think-he-is? missive. The most popular (judging from the number of e-mails) ParrotChronicles.com story ever? The one I wrote last year about my backyard aviary. You also liked Laura LaFay's wonderful article in the March-April issue about feral parrots, among others.

So this much I know: you seem to like lighter stories better than controversial ones. But I still wonder what you think about the rest of the stuff in every issue - like Parrot People, First Person, Mailbag, Reviews...

Come on; I know you're out there. There are 1500 of you on the mailing list now. One thousand visit this site every day. You send in great questions to the Ask Dr. Harris and Behavior columns. I can hear you breathing.

Write. Me.

There are lots of things I miss about Nelson. One was how she kept the house filled with wild bird sounds with her swooping whistles and ear-splitting screams. At night, after I had turned out the light in her room, she would hop onto the sleeping towel in the corner of her cage and squeak and trill as I stroked her. It was my favorite part of our routine, saying goodnight. She made such sweet sounds, I often thought about recording them, just in case something happened to Nelson. I never wanted to forget them. There still isn't anything I can compare those trills to.

I miss the way she chased jingle balls on the top of her cage. I miss the wandering spot of red I could see from the kitchen window as she happily explored the vines in our back yard aviary. Nelson loved the aviary, a lot more than Louie does. I miss Nelson's fruity smell and soft feathers and the way she liked to sit in my lap and play with my hands. She would burrow as far inside my fist as possible and gently chew on my fingers. She would bounce up and down, her chortles echoing inside my hand like someone with a bucket over his head, muttering. What a sight! Funny bird.

There's a loose-weave sweater that I kept just for Nelson. With neurological problems interfering with her ability to grasp with her feet, she never could find a purchase on most of my clothes. T-shirts and blouses were too slick; she would slide right off my shoulder. But when I wore the sweater, she could dig her toes into the nice loose weave and hang on just fine. I would put the sweater on, walk up to her cage, and she would eagerly climb on, confident she was in for a thrilling ride.

Nelson and I spent hours working in the garden this way, with her hanging off one shoulder, sometimes clinging to the sweater with one foot, intently observing my weeding. Sometimes she chewed my ear and chortled while I worked. Sometimes I helped her climb down so she could hop around the rose garden for a few minutes, chewing this interesting leaf and that, enjoying a bite of dirt. I got yard work done and we got to spend time together. She was excellent company. Whenever I see the sweater, now stuffed into the back of the towel shelves in the laundry room, I think of those days. The sweater's 20 years old, too ragged to wear in public. I can't throw it out.

The last week or so of her life, Nelson seemed to need me more. I don't know, maybe it was my imagination. But she began a ritual of greeting me when I walked up to her cage of rubbing her face against mine, one cheek and then the other, like lions in a pride. It was thrilling, this new way of hers of expressing affection. She had never done this before. I miss that especially.

So I was pleased when I received a letter a few weeks ago informing me that my veterinarian, Dr. Fern Van Sant, had made a contribution to to the RARE Center for Tropical Conservation in Nelson's memory. RARE works in developing countries to help save local species and their natural habitats.

What a nice footnote to Nelson's life. Her little life mattered a lot to me. Now it matters to an organization that can help creatures like her remain and live happily in their natural homes. Of all the ways I will remember her, this one may be the most satisfying. Thank you, Dr. Van Sant.

Perhaps 200 of us gathered into the tiny Diego Rivera Theatre on the City College of San Francisco campus. We were there to see The Parrots of Telegraph Hill documentary and its creator, Judy Irving, and its human and feathered stars, Mark Bittner and his flock of cherry-headed conures.

The free screening, the second, "fine" one, before the film's release this summer, did not disappoint. Set to whimsical original music and the backdrop of one of San Francisco's best-known landmarks, Coit Tower, the film was a captivating look at one wild flock of parrots in this country and the people who care about it.

As Bittner promised, we laughed, and we cried a little bit, especially when he spoke about Tupelo, one of the flock members he took into his cottage when she became ill with some type of degenerative nerve damage. I was glad these were only still images, pictures of him carrying Tupelo about in one hand because she could no longer get around on her own. And her final night, when Bittner thought he could sense strong emotion coming from her - gratitude at being cuddled, and disapointment when he put her away for the evening, unknowingly allowing her to face the end alone. How can one not think of some regret in the past, when one should have been there for someone in their hour of need, animal or human, and were not?

I hope Irving does complete her film in time for Oscar contention. I wonder, though, how much of a chance a relatively upbeat documentary has against more serious fare. And one about birds to boot? Whatever its notices, The Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a delight for parrot owners.

Are you a parrot lover? Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Then you probably won't want to miss a free showing of "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill," a new documentary about San Francisco's wild conures and the man who took care of them.

The film will be shown Wednesday, April 2, 2003, from 7-10 p.m. at the Diego Rivera Theater at City College, 50 Phelan Avenue. Come meet the filmmaker, award-winning documentarian Judy Irving. Mark Bittner, the man behind the famous flock, should be there, too. For more information, call (415) 239-3580.

So I'm taking an acting class in Berkeley. Becoming an actor or screenwriter is a requirement of living in California. I moved here 14 years ago. I am way behind schedule and the Lifestyle Police are beginning to tail me. It's a terrible thing, having to pretend to look over your shoulder all the time! Especially when you can't act your way out of a Whole Foods grocery bag. Hence this night class. It should keep the acting fuzz off me for a while.

I have seen many, many movies. I know some of the lines by heart. Just ask me what Clark Gable said to Vivien Leigh at the end of Gone With the Wind! Ask me what Renee Zellwegger said to Colin Firth during any part of Bridget Jones' Diary! Obviously, when one is this well-versed in movie dialogue, one is bound to be a natural stage actor.

I've gone to six classes now, and I am waiting for my teacher to recognize the enormity of my talent. I'm sorry to say that, well...let's just say that her directing skills obviously lag my craft.

When my scene partner and I stand before the class, scripts in hand, all she can think of to say to me is, "Bigger! Bigger!"

Does she not know that my part, that of a hysterical wife, demands subtlety? Besides, you would never want to raise your voice, stride around or gesticulate in a crowded theater. You never know what might happen.

When we finish our scene to the polite applause of the class, all she can say then is, "You've picked a challenging part." I have come to learn this is director-speak for, "My lord, you two stink! Will you ever get any better?"

No matter. Directors come; directors go. You've got to have a thick skin in this business. I haven't survived these past six weeks of my career without learning that, God knows. When she's moved on to her next piddly little Academy Award-winning feature film or Sundance award-winning documentary or whatever it was her bio said in the coursebook, I'll still be here, honing my craft.

As for my fellow actors, I have nothing but good to say about them. We became a family on the set; it was a joy having this experience with them. Every day was such fun! They are all so generous. I would jump at the chance to work with them again.

I don't know why I was surprised to hear from several readers who wanted to send Lisa Bocchiaro a check to help her pay her huge veterinarian bill. It only makes sense that ParrotChronicles.com readers, a devoted bunch to their animals and each other as there ever was, would want to help a fellow bird lover who has been through so much.

If you've read my story in the latest issue of ParrotChronicles.com, "Who will pay the vet bill for birds?", you might remember Lisa as the desperate owner who spent almost $7,000 trying to cure her African grey, Sampson, of aspergillosis.

Once Sampson died, in December, efforts back east to help Lisa with a special fund all but dried up. Now, with new interest generated by the article, she and her lawyer have set up a fund to receive your donations. The money will be used to help pay off the remaining $4400 Lisa owes at the Animal Medical Center in New York City, where Sampson spent much of November and December. I thought I would post it here, in case you miss the update added to the end of the story.

If you want to help Lisa, mail a check to Clifford R. Lundin, Attorney at Law, 378 Maxim Drive, Andover, NJ 07821. Make your check out to Hopatcong Animal Haven. Your contribution is tax deductible.

Yes, yes, I know there are already 43 versions of that delicacy some people like to make for their parrots called birdie bread circulating the 'net, but so what? I've invented the better mousetrap, at least for Louie, now our only child and deserving of all types of spoilage.

After several attempts that only resulted in brick-hard concoctions he wouldn't touch (I tried to use up all the mash he won't eat anymore), I've hit on something he likes. It's a version of home-made banana-nut bread with all the sugar and salt removed and some other stuff added. I think it's probably pretty healthy for birds, so allow me:

2 tablespoons water

I've always rebelled against sifting flour and mixing ingredients in a certain order except to make it the easiest on me, so approach this any way you like (maybe liquidy stuff first, then add a little of the flour and pellets, then bananas, then the rest). Grease and flour loaf pan and cook at 350 degrees for about an hour and ten minutes.

The result is moist and banana-bread-looking-tempting enough for human consumption, but unh unh unh! Unless you've developed a taste for Harrison's, it's for birdie only. Louie loves it. At least until he decides he won't touch this anymore, either.

Goodbye, Nelson

---

February 19, 2003

There's nothing I can say about losing a pet that hasn't been said already. But I'd like to try. All animal lovers want to try. Because we hate to think that a life we cared so much about could pass unnoticed by the rest of the world. But that's the way it goes with animals, and let's face it, with most people, too. There are just too many of us, too many passings, too much other business the living have to get on with.

This is for Nelson, a small red bird that somebody captured in Indonesia 14 years ago and shipped to the United States for the pet trade. I don't know how she was trapped - pulled out of a nest or shot through a wing, perhaps. Or by whom - probably some dirt-poor local just trying to feed his family. But I do know that she should never have been here, not in this country and not inside a cage inside my house. The pity is there are thousands more like her.

Instead of finding a fine fellow of a lory husband and raising a feathered family every year in the wilds of the Moluccas, Nelson came to California and got hurt. Somehow, somewhere along the way she broke her spine. After I found her on the highway 10 years ago next month, she had to learn to walk again. She never flew. For years she refused to let anyone touch her. But finally she decided to let me be her friend. Then it was a new life for both of us.

How much was instinct and how much was Nelson's regard for me was hard to tell. When she lightly ran her lory tongue - a tickly apparatus equipped with bizarre elongated taste buds - over my face and hands, I like to think she was doing more than searching for nectar. When she trilled sweetly in that inimitable lory voice (that could just as quickly turn into a ear-splitting shriek), I like to think it was her way of greeting an esteemed companion.

Hiding beneath and preening my hair - pure nesting instinct, probably. But no one can tell me she wasn't happy to see me when I picked her up from the vet's in November. I know she was happy by the way she danced on my shoulder and rubbed her beak against my cheek. She had to be happy because I couldn't remember being so giddy myself in a long time, just to hold her again when I thought I had lost her.

So I got three more months with Nelson and that was a very good thing. I knew she was feeling low these last few days, but I couldn't admit to myself how bad it probably was, and that's probably a good thing, too. There was nothing more the vet could do. What I wasn't prepared for was the way she went, screaming and thrashing as if something inside her had finally burst. If I had known it was going to be like that, I would have done something else. What, I don't know. We piled into the car for an emergency trip to the vet's, but halfway there we turned back. It was no use. Back home, we sat in the driveway, Nelson in a towel on my lap, her life ebbing. Then we went inside and lay on the bed and stroked her and cried and talked about what a good bird she had been. Before we took her outside, I had to bury my face in her feathers one more time. That sweet-musty scent that perfumed our house for all these years. I'll never forget it.

If I could have changed one thing for Nelson, it would have been to somehow restore her old life. Knowing her gave me great joy, but what was in it for her? She could have done spectacularly without humans. All we did was muck it up, take her from the life she should have had, and for what? To force the square peg of her wild instincts into the round hole of captivity? So much frustration on all sides, such a waste of what could have been.

I only hope that as she lay looking up at me today, Nelson saw a friend, a fellow creature whose presence brought her comfort.

Thank you, blog readers, for caring about Nelson. And Paul, honey, if you're reading this, thank you for loving her almost as much as I did. It makes it bearable. I'm lucky to have you.

Blade

---

February 6, 2003

Fifteen years ago a friend let me try on his in-line skates. They were the latest thing, back then. Instead of two-by-two rollers, these skates had four in a line, like iceskates. I loved them, and vowed to get my own.

So what if it's taken me 15 years? Fifteen years of my balance going downhill, my bones not getting any denser, my nerve not getting any stronger. Two weekends ago, still remembering that long-ago thrill, I finally bought my first pair of inline skates.

"You'll want these," the kid in dreadlocks at Big 5 said, handing me a pair of wristguards. "These will keep you from breaking your wrist."

I wanted to say: Why are you suggesting these? Do my wrists look old and weak? You know NOTHING about my wrists, young man! My wrists could wrestle yours any day and win!

Instead I pulled on one of the wristguards, upside down.

"Actually, your thumb goes through that hole," said my salesperson. "Yeah. Now you got it."

"These look really cool, don't they?" I said, thrilled with the way the tips of my fingers poked out. "They kind of have that Charles-Dickens-Oliver-Twist thing going on, don't they?"

"Uh, yeah."

Next he found me some kneepads, which even I would readily admit I wanted, very much. No sense in getting that knee replacement until absolutely necessary.

"To be honest, you really don't need elbow pads," said my kid, whom I was growing fonder of by the moment. He was smiling and indulging my stupid old-person jokes, and supplying me with the equipment I would need to survive road burn. And now he was acknowledging that he actually thought there was a part of my body that could stand up to a death-defying rollerblade spill - my elbows! He obviously had noticed I had strong-looking elbows.

"People hardly ever fall on their elbows, even older skaters," he said.

Stupid kid.

I didn't tell Paul about my purchase. He has a bad back and I couldn't see dragging him along on my skate-fetish and feeling guilty when he wound up in a wheelchair for life. But it turned out he wanted to commit suicide by rollerblade, too, so the next day we went back to the same store and bought him a pair. My kid was there. After the way we had bonded the day before, I expected him to wink conspiratorially and say, "Well, I see you've brought back another victim!" or something similarly clever, to show he could appreciate our sense of adventure, even though we were obviously near-term candidates for the rest home. But he just smiled and rang us up.

We decided to go skating at the closed naval air station in Alameda, where there are miles of flat, relatively smooth asphalt. Hardly anyone was around. It was a beautiful day. We were scared to death.

The rollers on rollerblades are 10 inches tall. I exaggerate, but that's how they feel the first time you stand up. Like you're on stilts that roll. And the boots are like ski boots, with multiple latches, laces and a big fat tongue. I knew it would be impossible to sprain an ankle while skating, a definite plus. On the downside, it felt like being encased to the hip in a cast. If they ever run out of cement overshoes, the mafia could do worse than rollerblades. I imagined rolling off a nearby pier, into the murky waters of the San Francisco Bay, the skates dragging me down, down. Would I have the presence of mind while sinking - that Zenlike calmness they always have in the movies, as if they have nothing better to do while drowning than leisurely undress - to undo the latches and untie the laces and pull the skates off so I could shoot to the surface? Probably not.

We sat on the tailgate of the pickup to suit up. "We've got to start keeping our stuff in separate bags," I said, sorting through a dozen guards and pads of various sizes.

"I think you have my kneepads on your elbows," Paul pointed out, correctly.

It took us about 20 minutes to strap on all our equipment. We had also bought helmets and I had decided to buy the elbow guards after all. Every sharp angle on our bodies was protected, including our pointy heads for thinking rollerblading would be fun.

Finally, we were ready to roll, except I had sat on the ground to put my skates on and now I could not get up. Every time I tried, my feet went out from under me. Paul, who has a better innate sense of balance than I, but - let's face it - not the strength of ten men, grabbed me by the armpits and rolled me over to a chainlink fence so I could finish pulling myself up.

While Paul glided tentatively around the parking lot, I did my best newborn Bambi imitation, stopping at every seam (yawning like canyons!) and pebble (boulders!) and stepping over it on trembling legs so I wouldn't lose my balance and fall. "Seam!" I warned no one in particular.

Miraculously, we did not fall. We did not fall that day or the next time we went skating. Paul still hasn't fallen. When I did finally fall, it happened so quickly and painlessly, it was not nearly as scary as I had imagined. I was so bundled in protective gear, it was almost impossible to get hurt. It was almost fun, like getting hit with one of those foam bats. I scrambled up (I was getting better at this, no longer requiring assistance) and inspected my equipment. Wow. My right kneepad had a big gash in it. My right wristguard had some scratches. Hey, this stuff really worked! My gear had saved me. I felt like a pro. I had assessed the danger, taken steps to protect myself, and I had both experienced the thrill and survived it.

Of course, it helped falling from a virtual standstill, crouched like Artie Johnson in Laugh-in. I had been attempting to brake using the right heel stop, and I had slowed down so much that a large pebble had tripped me instead. I've read that not being able to master the art of stopping is the number-one reason why most people give up skating. One pro said it had taken her nine frustrating months to learn how to stop. Beginners are advised to bend their knees, extend their arms, stick the right foot out and point the toe up, sort of like a particularly unattractive Tai Chi position, except you're rolling uncontrollably, usually toward a concrete pylon at 20 mph, while doing it.

Paul and I spent one entire afternoon on the abandoned runways (where the first bombers took off for Japan after Pearl Harbor, actually) practicing the Tai Chi stopping position, to no avail. The 15 mph wind in our faces did a better job of stopping us than our foot brakes.

But we will worry about stopping later. Who needs stopping when you look good? I can now stand upright and skate, casual-like. I can crouch and skate like Eric Heiden, at least until a clump of grass or passing seagull throws me off balance and I windmill and stagger until, emergency over, my heart can resume beating normally and I can carry on as if nothing happened. (Nothing to look at here, folks! Keep moving!)

Once, I skated out to the far end of the runway and lost sight of Paul. Where the heck was he? Had he finally fallen? Was he hurt? Was he lying bleeding in a seam somewhere, calling for help? Finally he reappeared, a flailing speck in the distance.

I fell on the final run of the day, last weekend. Paul had quit already and gone back to the pickup to de-gear. I was having too much fun to stop and had decided to make one more round.

When I fell, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. There was a man in a nearby parking lot who was putting something into the trunk of his car. I was sure he'd heard the clatter of multiple safety pads hitting the pavement and was not staring just to be kind. I tried to get up and flopped back down like a wounded animal. The man still didn't look up, bless him. Finally I figured out how to lay one leg flat and get up on one foot. I skated back to the pickup.

"Well, I'm christened," I said to Paul, who was sitting in the truck listening to a CD.

"You went down?!" he said, his eyes wide with excitement. "Are you okay? What was it like?"

"It was fine," I said nonchalantly, hopping up on the tailgate to take my skates off. "It wasn't scary at all. You'll see."

He will.

Christmas music

---

January 28, 2003

Instead of giving our nephew, John, the usual Toys R Us gift certificate this year, we made him some mixed CDs. At Thanksgiving he had mentioned that he didn't know anything about music or like it, really. At first I was shocked. How could a 12-year-old not care about music? At that age I was rolling out of bed every school morning to Led Zeppelin and the Carpenters. I wouldn't trade for anything all the Talent Fridays in our junior high choir class when an entire roomful of young voices earnestly sang along to Three Dog Night and the Osmonds. Pop music, and later classical, blues and jazz, was the soundtrack to my adolescence, young adulthood, my life now.

But John hadn't been raised around music and they probably didn't even have music appreciation at his school anymore. So we decided to save him. We would make him a treasure trove of oldies and newbies on the chart, our own - and now his! - personal collection of favorites that would, within two hours, bring him up to speed on all that was important in music. Lucky, lucky boy, to have an aunt and uncle like us!

We spent Christmas eve morning, before we were to go over to Paul's sister's house in Pleasanton, compiling and making the CDs. Soon we had about a hundred discs scattered on the living room floor.

"Okay, figure about 15 songs per disc. How many discs do we have time to make? Pick your favorite song, maybe two, from each disc," I said, laying out the game plan. We tore through our collection, a few minutes before so carefully alphabetized. "James Taylor? It has to have at least one James Taylor. Boz Scaggs' Look What You've Done to Me? Perfect! Great choice, dear!"

I let him have his pick when it really mattered to him, like the Eagles' Desperado. He let me have mine with the B52's Love Shack, Hall & Oates' Wait for Me and REO Speedwagon's Here With Me. We gave each other high fives over Elton John's Your Song (of course!), Jim Croce's Operator (a classic!), Loggins and Messina's House on Pooh Corner (magical!). So John wouldn't be hopelessly mired in the past, we included Toad the Wet Sprocket's Crowing and Duncan Sheik's She Runs Away. John Denver, Rod Stewart, the Smithereens, Joe Jackson, Queen, and the Moody Blues all made an appearance.

Paul burned the first CD. I looked over the lineup. "Where are all the female artists?" I asked. There wasn't a single one. "John has to have female artists!" I said, and hurriedly threw together a second CD that included Tracy Chapman, Sarah McLachlan, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt. "He needs some angry women, not just all sweetness," I said, adding Alanis Morrisette.

I deeply regret that the only Beatles number on the collection was a Paul McCartney song off the relatively new Flaming Pie, and the only ethnic contribution was an Irish medley from a Rob Roy soundtrack. The only quasi-classical piece was Andrea Bocelli's Resta Qui. (He may be opera lite, but like the woman in the commercial he makes me, too, want to cook a feast in olive oil.) I'm thinking now I wish we had room for something off my world music CD, which includes a children's chorus half-singing, half-shouting a delightful song in Swahili. I wish we'd had time to cut lots more CDs with more than a taste of lots of other artists. I'm sorry, even, to have left out Michael Jackson.

"Do you think he'll like it?" I asked Paul. He shrugged. "Once Kay realizes we included Whole Lotta Love, she may not let him listen to any of it," he said.

"Yeah, I wondered about that. But you can barely understand the words. It's Led Zeppelin that matters."

Before heading for Pleasanton that evening, we ran out and bought a Toys R Us gift certificate as a backup, just in case.

"Cool!" John said, unwrapping the Toys R Us gift certificate later that night. "Thanks," he said, unwrapping the CDs. "Ever played a music CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive?" I asked him. "Here, let me show you how." We went up to his room and I started a CD, turning up the speakers.

"This is some of the best music from the last 25 years," I said, and then, realizing how completely lame that probably sounded, and maybe even frightening to a preteen, I added in my best Ronco imitation, "and some of the best songs from today, too."

John sat on his bed. We listened to the first half of the first song. "I'm not that into music," he said apologetically, and got up and ejected the disc.

We headed back downstairs for Christmas Eve dinner.

"I think he was just shy about playing the CD in front of me," I told Paul later. A couple of weeks later, we got a thank-you note from the boys for their Christmas gifts.

"It says thanks for the Toys R Us gift certificates," said Paul.

"Nothing about the CDs?" I said.

"Nope."

Would I have listened to an album full of my parents' songs, ancient musical history, when I was a kid? No way. I didn't even like the Joni Mitchell album one of my uncle's girlfriends brought me, and Joni Mitchell was cool at the time. And of course, I never bothered to write the girlfriend a thank-you note, because I was 13.

So it doesn't really matter all that much that John didn't like his music CDs. Maybe he'll like them later. Long after we're dead and gone. After it's too late - much too late! - to thank us. Kids today!

In the meantime, Paul and I had one of the best Christmas Eves together ever, walking down a musical memory lane, discovering again how much we loved certain songs, remembering what we were doing and thinking the first times we heard them. Dream on! dream on! dream on! dream until your dream comes true, ooooh, oooh oooh oooh!

Softer landings

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January 23, 2003

Nobody tells you what to do about a parrot that can't fly. There are reams of advice on how to stop a bird from flying. How to clip, when to clip, what to clip with, and how to stop bleeding if you accidentally clip too far. But nobody's out there telling you how to keep a flightless bird determined to commit suicide by swan dive onto a hardwood floor reasonably active and happy without shutting her inside a cage all day.

The answer is padding. Lots of it. Last week I visited Foam Creations in Berkeley, a retail wonderland for anyone involved in a foam-related project. They have thick foam, thin foam, foam with deep egg crates, foam with shallower valleys, and foam in all sizes of beds - twin, queen, king. Foam in all different colors, too - yellow, tan, blue, green. I bought a twin-piece egg crate two inches thick in bright yellow, spent the evening on the front lawn trimming it and encasing it in clear plastic, and now it surrounds Nelson's cage by a couple of feet on all sides except the back, which is against the wall.

Now I can leave the door to her cage open all day and not fear hearing that sickening thud she makes when she leaps or falls, like I did last week, for perhaps the 20th time since I've had her these nine years. I was on the phone downstairs when she came wandering to the top of the stairs, making her pitiful where-are-you?-I-need-you cry. Damn it! I thought. It happened again. If I didn't do something about this, this bird with a possibly already-cracked spine was going to do herself in.

The padding's a pain. We have to walk over it to get to the closet (can't even open the closet door all the way, actually) and service Nelson's cage. It's like walking on a bed close to a wall in order to hang a picture. But it's worth the peace of mind.

Play ball

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January 12, 2003

As the Niners line up today to have their butts kicked, probably, by Tampa Bay, Nelson is playing her own ball game with a vengeance.

After she came home from the bird hospital, recovered from a blocked cloaca, Nelson's prescription included exercise - to keep her active and more likely to void on her own. Threatened with having to stick a Q-tip in her vent several times a day otherwise, I ran out and bought a fresh assortment of toys I thought might encourage some bird aerobics. (Lest you think I'm violating my own toy-making advice in the latest issue of ParrotChronicles.com, these are toys I can't make myself.)

Along with a bouncy rubbery thing with seashells attached (for the calcium the vet said she's lacking), I bought a new mirror and several small balls. I got a red rubber ball and teal pimple ball for dogs, and several of those plastic multicolored spheres with bells inside they sell for cats. Nelson ixnayed the rubber balls, but decided she adores - or hates, perhaps - the plastic balls. I cleared the top of the play area on her cage, tossed the balls out, and she went to town, striking at them with her fast, sharp little beak and chasing them from one side to the other.

Morning, noon and evening, frantic jingling sounds followed by plastic thwacks emanates from the bird room. Sometimes I go up and join in, tossing a ball to Nelson. She sends it back with a jab of her beak. Sometimes a ball flies over her shoulder, causing her to look momentarily confused like a soccer player who's lost control of a play. Other times she leapfrogs a ball in mid-pursuit because she can't stop in time, or, like a feathered pool cue, scatters all three balls simultaneously with one ferocious stab. She pounces, rocks back on her tail and tumbles. I laugh, I cheer. Nelson only occasionally confuses my fingers with a ball that needs biting. I wish I could clear and paper the entire room for a soccer stadium. (Disclaimer: small plastic balls are safe for Nelson because she won't break them. Personally, I wouldn't give them to a larger bird that likes to chew.)

Playing ball and daily walks seem to keep Nelson operating normally. The vet said I was coddling the birds too much, temperature-wise. So every sunny day above 55, Nelson gets an hour or two in the aviary, where she goes up to the wooden platform and warms herself when she's not clambering about the vines or bathing in her bowl. If it's misting - the usual wimpy kind of rain we get around here - I quickly walk her around the garden path so she can at least flap her wings. She returns to her cage lively and alert, an improvement over the depressed little lump she can become when no one plays with her.

In the past, I let too many days go by giving Nelson nothing more than a quick scratch on the head. I know my inattention didn't make her ill, but it feeds all my deep-seated fears about being a bad owner that by ignoring her I almost lost her.

Now her life depends on close attention. I have to check in at least every four or five hours each day; usually we play much more often. If we have to go away for a day or two, Nelson will stay at the vet's. I was afraid all this would be overwhelming, but it's okay. This will work. She's worth it.

He's gotta have it

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January 7, 2003

I hate gender stereotyping (guys like beer and football, women like Oprah and shopping, blah, blah, blah), but owning a pickup seems to top the to-do list for many men, even the sensitive types. Why is that? This Christmas, Paul gave himself a great big shiny new toy: a 2003 Chevy Silverado 4X4.

We test drove a Chevy Silverado last year, so he could get this ridiculous truck fantasy out of his system. When we parked it in front of our narrow Victorian house, I shuddered at the combination. A half-ton gas guzzler almost as wide as our home, engulfing our petite 8-foot driveway? Unh-uh. No way. Yeech.

Besides, what did we need a truck for? We haul stuff maybe once a year (Louie's new cage was the last time). We don't ski. We don't tow. And we're not in college anymore, when every weekend someone moved into a new apartment.

But after a year of watching Paul salivate over glossy Chevy brochures and excitedly point out pickups he wanted on the highway - never the cute Toyotas but the trucks whose beds the Toyotas could roll into - I wasn't too surprised when he announced in mid-December, "I'm going to do it."

He had already printed out the model specs and directions to a Chevy dealer down in San Leandro.

The sales guy was a former dotcommer who had been laid off from three jobs in one year. He cheerfully brought the truck around in the pouring rain.

"Do a lot of hauling?" he shouted amiably over the downpour.

"Sometimes," Paul said.

"Oh, then do you ski?"

"No."

"Tow a boat?"

"Well, no."

With the expression on my face beneath the dripping hood of my slicker probably growing as dark as the skies, the sales guy finally realized this line of idle questioning was not improving his chances and he went back to features chatter.

"And here you can set your side of the pickup to the temperature you want, and he can adjust his own air."

Dual climate control. Now we were getting somewhere.

Ironically, it was me who had to drive the truck home from the dealer's. (I can drive manual shifts, but not Paul's Beemer. The steering is just too stiff for me.)

My first whack at piloting our new home-away-from-home (sleeps 12, if you include the bed!) was a tad unsettling. On the freeway, I was shocked to discover that I could look passing semi drivers in the eye. (Well, almost.) Every time I changed lanes, I felt uneasy: suddenly, after a lifetime as the squashee driving imports, I had become the potential squasher, able to dispatch three Volkswagons with a single swipe of my tailgate. Was the back of the pickup clearing the car behind me? Where did the @#$@#$ tailgate end, anyway? And how many lanes was I taking up? My fellow vehicles looked like so many Barbie accessories scooting down the road. I feared for them.

My disgust reached its zenith when it came time to buy our first tank of gas.

"Twelve miles to the gallon," Paul said. He pursed his lips. "It'll get better once it's broken in."

Over the holidays, the truck met all the family, making the rounds of the Bay Area, getting petted, ridden in, oohed and ahhhed over. And my hard heart started to melt a little. I had to admit, it was nice having a brand-new vehicle, my first in 11 years, and Paul's first ever. If you didn't think about the terrible mileage, exorbitant insurance, mortgage-size monthly car payment or the macho-looking exterior, and just concentrate on the new-car interior, it was great.

I liked having warm feet while cool air blew on Paul. I liked the digital temperature readout and compass directions in the rearview mirror, the CD player, the huge console that converts into a middle seat, the seven-person capacity.

Even the pickup aspect of it is working out. This past weekend, we threw the bikes in the back and drove out to Lake Merritt in Oakland. Next weekend we're going to go biking in Golden Gate park in San Francisco. We haven't had the chance to use the four-wheel drive yet (despite Paul shouting "We're offroading!" at every unpaved turnout).

"You know what the best part is?" Paul asked, as if I couldn't name a dozen or more things he liked about the biggest Tonka toy he's ever owned. "I don't have to stoop anymore." It was true. When Paul drives the Beemer, the top of his head grazes the inside upholstery. When he gets out of the Beemer, all 6'4" of him, it's like watching a circus act minus the clown shoes. With the truck, Paul finally has a vehicle that matches his own super-size.

As for me, I'm learning to enjoy my own guilty pleasure: that of being relatively impervious. I'm beginning to like the sensation of operating the four-wheeled version of an Imperial Landwalker. I no longer worry sliding beneath a semi in an accident - heck, semis are worried about sliding under me.

The only real problem so far has been parking. At the local shopping center, I worked at a slot furiously while three other cars sat waiting like the subcompact vultures they were. I backed up, I inched forward, I straightened and straightened until...I couldn't make it. I just couldn't do it without taking someone's mirror off. I slinked off to park on the fringes of the lot where there was plenty of room for plus-size vehicles like mine. Oh well, I can use the exercise. Or maybe I'll just start keeping my Schwinn in the back, so I can bike in from the outer lots.

So, I have to say that aside from some size issues I still have to work out - and, oh yes, the small issue of contributing to the unspoken excuse for war with another country - I have to say that owning a truck might not be so bad. I figure we're not as bad as an SUV - with an open bed, you don't block other people's view on the freeway too much. This thing makes him wildly happy, that's for sure. And hey, if you ever need help moving, just give me a shout.

A parrot lover's Top 10 New Year's resolutions

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January 1, 2003

This year, I resolve to: