Have you ever had one of those days when your PMS craziness is happening at the same time as your parrot's extra-crazy birdness? Trust me. It happens. And it isn't pretty.

That's the way today has been going.

It started during the morning bathroom routine, during which Harley wanted nothing to do with his usual activities, and everything to do with New! Something New! What's That?! Is That New?! Can I Drop It Into The Garbage Can?!?! Finally, I pulled out one of our classy storage boxes from under the bathroom sink, and let him go at it for awhile.

This is actually a good toy idea. Dimensions and objects will vary depending on your bird's interests and size, but the general idea is to put the bird on something he can't climb off of, that contains things that will hold his interest for a little while. Specifically, this is a wine carton with the top cut off, partly filled with miscellaneous bathroom stuff that was mostly out of Harley's reach. I was watching him the whole time, but when you try this at home, you'll fill your box with bird-safe toys instead of scissors and extra razor blades, right? For all his hard work, I let Harley chew on the box of band-aids for awhile.

Yeah, next time I'll plan better for this. But still, it's a pretty good toy.

The moodiness continued over lunch time, when Bruce went Upstairs! To The Bedroom! Without Harley! To put some "business casual" attire on so he could meet some people for lunch. Without Harley! Needless to say, Harley's unhappiness was loud and continuous, to the point that I pulled out some sharp knives.

I've already mentioned my ongoing struggles to encourage Harley to eat the whole-grain, organic "food" I lovingly sprout, cook and chop for him every day. Just this week I've decided to substitute cooked grains for sprouted grains. Since Harley and I were on our own for lunch, I sliced up a carrot and a pepper, sauteed them in olive oil and curry powder for a few minutes, added some frozen spinach, some already-cooked buckwheat grains, and pasta sauce from a jar, and set it out for lunch.

Harley liked it pretty well. Here he is hulling some grains of buckwheat. (Yeah, Harley is one of the few big birds I've heard about that hulls his hull-free human-grade grains.) He totally flicked the pieces of pepper away (Can I Drop Them Into The Garbage Can?!?!?), but he ate quite a bit of carrot. So overall, it was a success.

I thought it was okay, although I've been known to eat plain, raw tofu. By choice. So I'm not the best gauge of this sort of thing. Besides, I know where the humans keep the chocolate.

Extreme food close up:

Or, Bruce Said Two Really Funny Things Today

I think this is Part 3 in the Harley-eats-corn progression, but I could be wrong. I'm having a hard time searching for things tonight. Whatever.

Harley has decided that one of the best things since toast is corn on the cob. Here he is, standing on one of his Stand-On-And-Chew toys on the Harley Bar, eating corn on the cob.

Lately, usually, he stands on the kitchen table and eats corn on the cob from one of our plates. But that's a different story. He really likes to eat corn, but a lot of the fun comes from ripping the corn kernels out of the cob.

Bruce says "didn't you notice that it has the consistency of human flesh?"

On a completely unrelated note, earlier today we were discussing the anti-joys of getting older, and I noted that even vegans who practice yoga can get cancer. Bruce's translation: even virgins who have sex with Yoda get cancer.

I don't keep water dishes everywhere that Harley sits, since that would mean yet another water dish for me to wash, and I'm really lazy. So instead, I bring the water dish from his cage to him when I think he might want a drink, or if he says "You ready for bed" really loudly when it isn't even close to bed time.

I offered him a drink on his tree this evening, and he decided it was time for both of us to have a bath. Baths are much better on his tree than in his house (picture pops), since those pesky cage walls aren't in the way. No video, sorry, but if you scroll down pretty fast you'll get the same effect. The bath lasted more than five minutes:





































We're both very clean now!

Freezie Pops, or Squeezie Pops, as they're often called in our house, are a summer confection that — despite the package's claim that they contain some fruit juice — probably have no redeeming value. I'm pretty sure that food packages can claim fruit juice content even if there's only a tiny bit of actual juice in there, and I'd bet a dollar that's the case with these. Frankly, despite their Cold Summer Fun, I'm pretty sure they might even be bad for you, since I think my urine turned ever so slightly green after I ate an orange one the other day.

Even so, Harley likes them:

Now that we've learned Harley likes frozen sweet things, we'll make an organic all-fruit smoothie and put it in a cleaned, used plastic sleeve, and see what happens. He'll probably ignore it.

I've been making jewelry for awhile, and this past weekend I was a vendor at my first formal art show, Art in the Park in Lathrup Village, Michigan. (You can read a bit about it here.) This was, I think, only my third time away from Harley since he's moved in with us. Here he is, helping me pack:

Needless to say, Harley was very unhappy to have me gone. Apparently, he leaned Bruce around the house a few times, looking for me. Friday night, when Bruce tried to put him in his cage for bed, he hurled himself around the cage a few times, and he finally slept on the wrong perch. Saturday night he fell asleep on the perch in the window of the bedroom, woke Bruce up (who was dozing on the bed) at about midnight for about an hour of scritches, and finally went to bed in his cage, several hours late. Needless to say, when I walked into the house on Sunday I pretty much dropped everything so I could pick Harley up and tell him how much I missed him.

No obvious grudges, we're fine now. Um, except I have a four-day show next week. And Bruce has to go to DC for work for two of those days. So, uh, if the world ends, you'll know why. If that's any consolation. Sorry.

The world almost ended this morning.

You're lucky if you didn't realize it, that adrenaline rush is rarely fun unless there's a pony waiting for you at the other end. Here, though, we couldn't avoid the terror.

You see, once Harley wakes us up (rather closer to sunrise this time of year than one might normally want), Bruce goes downstairs, lets Harley out of his cage for his Enormous And Inspiring First Morning Poop, starts the hot caffeinated beverages for the humans and the hot herbal beverage for the avian, puts together Harley's breakfast, and sets the bird and the food on the top of his cage. By this time I'm downstairs, just in time to see Bruce go into our basement office for work.

Today, however, Bruce came back upstairs almost immediately to see why Harley was making an Enormous And Terrifying Din. Although some of his vocalizations can be quite piercing, Harley isn't usually loud, so this morning was quite unusual. Loud. Very loud. Incessant. Angry. Loud. Did I mention loud?

Bruce came upstairs full of questions, but I had a pretty good idea. "Did you give him toast this morning?" I asked.

"No." Bruce replied. "What does that have to do with all this noise?"

"I'll bet you a dollar he wants toast. He got toast yesterday, right? So he wants toast today."

Guess who quieted down once he got toast? Guess who got a dollar? Guess who gets toast every morning from now on? Because we'd hate to be responsible for the end of the world, after all.

And aren't you glad we didn't forget his tea? I'd hate to imagine the repercussions from that one!

There was a moment, when I was steeling myself to insert the entire top half of my body into a space that is about 21" by 9", when I realized I'm not losing a little weight so I'll fit into my jeans better, or to get rid of the beginnings of old-lady-turkey-neck, but because I have to do this, every so often, and I HAVE TO FIT. Getting out is a little trickier than getting in. As is the case with many things.

I know, Internet Friends: this photo would have been much better if it actually depicted me half inside the cage, since there's nothing funnier on the internet than pictures of people's asses. But if I'd called Bruce up from the office to take a picture, I figured I may as well have asked him to hold a sheet behind me so I could open the big door, and avoid the ignominy of my ass in all your faces. So I gritted my teeth, climbed in, swept the finch cage with a brush — TWICE: that is, left side AND THEN right side — cleaned the trays, added many, many (many) layers of poop paper, and walked away for a few months.

I haven't done this too often since we moved to our new place, I'm pretty sure when we first moved here I added so many layers of paper the Finsters barely had room to fly. Since then it's been a crap shoot (uh-oh, out of paper, gotta add more, what do I have on hand?). But after this one, I think I'm back to so many layers the Finsters can't fly. Maybe I'm getting older, maybe the bird dander is starting to get to me, but really: this is not a job you want to do very often.

Either that, or we move back to a 600-square-foot crappy apartment where the birds don't have far to go if they escape from their cage. But Harley wouldn't like that very much.

Harley really likes warm weather. You know: shorts, T-shirts, sandals.

Bruce: maybe not so much.

I'm not sure why.

It could be all the preening.

Bruce is out of town again for a few days, so of course Harley is once again STARVING. TO. DEATH. Here he is eating a box because he's sooooooo huuuuuuuungry:

Not really, of course. He loves to chew boxes up into spit balls, but he doesn't eat the bits. He leaves those behind for the humans in his life to clean up, occasionally flapping his Mighty Wings of Flapping to scatter them into the four corners of the wind. To, you know, make it a fun game for us. He's very thoughtful that way.

His eating habits with Bruce out of the house have changed a bit, though. First up is breakfast, which consists of what I will call "Food" plus chopped apple bits. "Food" is the mix of whole-grain, organic ingredients I lovingly sprout, cook and chop for him every day. It looks like this:

As far as I can tell, all Harley really eats for breakfast is the apple (unfortunately, not the most nutrient-rich food in the mix). Then, he climbs around his house, looking for any hidden snacks he might not have found yet. Then he starts fussing so I take him to his tree in the living room, where he looks for any hidden snacks he might not have found yet. Then he starts fussing so I take him back to his house, where he looks around for any hidden snacks he might not have found yet.

Harley is ever-hopeful when it comes to finding hidden snacks.

Then, he has his Second Breakfast, which — as far as I can tell — consists of picking through the "Food" for any bits of apple he may have missed during First Breakfast. And then he looks around his house again for any hidden snacks he might not have found yet.

I know! Poor Harley! So sad! So pathetic! So hungry! And the rest of the day pretty much goes like this, although later in the day the not-so-nutritious-thing-that-he-eats (apple) gets substituted with a few not-so-nutritious-things-that-he-eats (peas) and some very-nutritious pomegranate arils.

So sad.

Don't worry, I'm really not trying to starve him to death, I'm just trying to wean him from wanting so many snacks. "Food" really is food after all! And don't worry, I give him plenty of snacks. Foraging Box Toy Number Two is about halfway destroyed already, he demolished his skewer toy yesterday, plus he's totally figured out what used to be the hardest hiding place on his tree (I'm going to try to get a video of that this weekend).

But, yeah, everyone will be happier when Unlimited Snack Monkey Bruce gets home later today.

To be a little enigmatic: Bruce has been a technical consultant for a legal issue connected to a sector of the US government for about two years now. Vague enough for you? Most of the time, he's been commuting to Washington, DC for the work; believe it or not, it's cheaper for him to live in Ann Arbor and commute to DC than it is to buy a place in the city. But a few months ago the Barack Obama transition team got offices in the same block that he was working in. Traffic got busier, Secret Service guys started showing up everywhere, and everyone realized they would never get plane tickets or hotel rooms for the week of Inauguration without paying thousands of dollars. So the folks Bruce was working for finally got their IT guys to provide everyone with secure, online access, and since the week Obama was sworn into office, Bruce and the guys have been able to work from home. Thanks, Obama administration!

Of course, this means that Bruce has been home, spoiling Harley, since late January. And this means since Sunday, when Bruce had to go to DC for a few days for a meeting, that Harley has been STARVING. TO. DEATH. Because Bruce isn't around to give him snacks whenever he wants them. Bruce is very weak that way.

It's not that I never give Harley snacks. It's just that I don't give him unlimited snacks, and I make him work for them. Here's a pretty complex foraging toy I made for him a little while ago:

Two kraft paper boxes, the smaller one is four inches square; organic timothy hay (the Finsters get this to build their nests) and crumply paper strips for filler; various toys and snacks to hide inside. The long black things are big twist-ties that I string through the holes I punched in the boxes to attach the whole thing to Harley's cage. Here it is, almost done:

You can see I cut lots of holes into the boxes, so Harley would know there were things inside. Also, because he can be pretty lazy when it comes to destroying toys, so I had to get him started, and make it a little easier for him. Here it is, in place:

And here is Harley, sitting on top:

You can see where he's torn it up a bit. The thing is, his laziness not only keeps him from ripping apart the kraft paper (it's too haaaaaaard!), it also means he only attacks it from certain spots. Specifically, from that rope perch next to the box toy, and from the top of the box. Not from the two sides eminently approachable if only he'd climb around on the top of his cage — no, not at all. After a certain point, he was smart enough to figure out that if he chewed up any more of the top of the box, he'd fall in. But he wasn't quite smart enough to figure out that he might get stuck on the top of the box — which he did, twice. Badly. So stuck that I had to rescue him. Poor guy. So I moved it to the opposite corner of his cage, so he'd have that whole front bar to climb on. Despite the occasional new snack I added, this spot wasn't very popular either.

That is, until Bruce went out of town for a few days, and suddenly Harley started STARVING. TO. DEATH.

TO DEATH. I say. Death. Really. The box had been sitting in this spot for almost two weeks, practically untouched. But once Bruce went out of town for the first time in months, and Harley realized that I wasn't miraculously going to turn into his Unlimited Snack Monkey, it only took him about ten minutes to empty it out completely:

Don't worry, I've been weighing the poor starving bird, and he isn't wasting away. Partly because he helped me eat my risotto with artichoke hearts the other night. It turns out he's quite the foodie! You know, except when it comes to the whole-grain, organic food I lovingly sprout, cook and chop for him every day. That stuff he pretty much ignores.