Merry memories
Jul. 22nd, 2009 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugee"Whaddayah doin'? Come 'ere!"
"Gotta go!"
"Love you."
"Budgie, budgie, budgie, budgie..."
"Nice little parakeet budgie bird."
"Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry!"
"Want tea?"
"Need drink."
Me: "What are you doing?"
Merry: "Try'n' t' bite."
"Merry Crickus! (Christmas)"
"Trick or tweet!"
"Trick a keet!"
"Weird bird." (Talking about Oskar the cockatiel)
"Hello, little bird."
"Come 'ere, bird!"
"Please eat seed tea."
"'Top it!" ("stop it", usually something he heard us say to Oz when he was screaming or being really noisy)
"Cute baby!"
"Thank you!" (which we said to him often when he kissed us on the nose)
"Nice little tweety beak."
"No!"
"Don't bite me now!"
"No nipping!"
"The bird says 'Tweety, tweety, tweet!'" (My dad teaching him a line from my old "The Farmer Says..." Mattell toy)
"The bird says 'Ha!'"
"Owch!" (heard this a lot when he bit us)
Laughing, coughing and sneezing sounds. Sometimes it was a snarky "Ha-hah!" other times it was a happy/amused giggle, which made my mother laugh and he'd start laughing even more.
"Bird is the word" (from an old 1950s song: he only said it a couple of times)
Trying to imitate the call of the wrens who hang around our yard.
"Where's Renee?" (when I wasn't around)
"'Top 'creamin'! (stop screaming)" (Something we said to Oz, a lot, so it was no wonder he picked it up)
"Ave Maria."
"Que pasa?" (I guess this made him multilingual)
"You're a cutie!"
"Cute baby."
"Baby bird."
On Christmas eve, 2005, as I was decorating the tree, he took one look at me and said, "Geek!" I don't know where he learned that, but he only said it the one time.
We'd started putting up orange lights and plastic jack o'lanterns in our yard at Hallowe'en; Merry looks out the window that evening, and he says? "Crickus? Crickus? Crickus?" I guess he thought the lights were Christmas lights (we think he liked Christmas the most: he probably liked the pretty lights).
Merry: (To my mom) "What are you doing?"
Mom: "I'm just finishing up my letter."
Merry: "Wheee!!"
And his crowning achievement: "To be or not to be". Which he sometimes tweaked into:
"To beak or not to beak" (I am not making that up!) and
"To be-be-be!"
How we nearly named him Pip or Pippin, after one of the Hobbits in "Lord of the Rings", because he was so teeny.
The time we let Merry and Oskar out of their cages at the same time, and Merry promptly flew up to Oz, startling him. Oz flew up the stairs to our second floor and Merry tried to chase him, succeeding only in getting as far as the archway in the dining room, where he was hanging upside down from the molding, puzzled as to where Oz got to.
The "pretzel parakeet" acrobatics he used to do climbing all around his swing.
"Bird kisses": little tiny nibbles on our noses.
Flying over my mother's head, startling her and landing on Oz's cage. Mom scolds him; Merry replies, "Rah! Rah! Rah!" like a little dog barking and with the freshness of a kid being sassy to his mother.
Circling my dad's head, trying to land on it.
Chewing his cage cover when he was wide awake and wanted to get up.
How he regarded my fingers as his chew toy.
Getting scolded by my mother for biting me, and how he'd duck his head like a little kid who knew he was in trouble... and how he'd stop biting me for a day or two afterward.
The time we put his cage near the kitchen window so he could see the family of wrens in the birdhouse on the back deck... and how much he clearly loved watching them. I don't think the wrens could quite figure out where this blue bird with the hooked bill came from and why he didn't fly away. They got up on the windowsill and even hung on the window screen trying to get a better look at him.
How much he loved toy bells: ringing them, talking to them. He could never figure out, though, why the bell would whack into him if he pushed or pulled it really hard: the look on his face was comical! I called him "the bell bird" and we used to refer to his bells as "the bell buddy" when we were talking to him.
Nibbling Oz's toes if Oz was out and landed on his cage.
The time we gave him a mirror for Christmas, and he started getting very territorial (we had to take the mirror away).
The time he bit a scab on my hand and drew blood, earning him the nickname "The Vampirekeet"
Another nickname "The Piranha-Keet"
The time he bit my hand hard enough to make me jump, as I was trying to change his seed, whereupon he escaped, flew into my dad's collection of model cars and promptly got a scare.
Another time he bit me when I was giving him fresh seed and he caused me to drop the entire dish of seed. My mother took over seed duties after this.
Gnawing through the wood on his swing. He went through about five of them before my dad didn't put the swing back up for three days after Merry had gnawed through it, and that seemed to put the fear of losing the swing into him.
Toy-flinging. He seemed to get a certain amount of glee out of unhooking his toys and watching them bounce off the floor, then waiting till I put them back up again so he could unhook them again and watch them hit the floor... Till my dad hooked them on with plastic zip ties. Which Merry then proceeded to chew on.
The way he would hang upside down from his all-wood clothes peg perch and swing his upper body back and forth, all the while he'd be singing and chattering to the clothes peg.
"Gotta go!"
"Love you."
"Budgie, budgie, budgie, budgie..."
"Nice little parakeet budgie bird."
"Merry, Merry, Merry, Merry!"
"Want tea?"
"Need drink."
Me: "What are you doing?"
Merry: "Try'n' t' bite."
"Merry Crickus! (Christmas)"
"Trick or tweet!"
"Trick a keet!"
"Weird bird." (Talking about Oskar the cockatiel)
"Hello, little bird."
"Come 'ere, bird!"
"Please eat seed tea."
"'Top it!" ("stop it", usually something he heard us say to Oz when he was screaming or being really noisy)
"Cute baby!"
"Thank you!" (which we said to him often when he kissed us on the nose)
"Nice little tweety beak."
"No!"
"Don't bite me now!"
"No nipping!"
"The bird says 'Tweety, tweety, tweet!'" (My dad teaching him a line from my old "The Farmer Says..." Mattell toy)
"The bird says 'Ha!'"
"Owch!" (heard this a lot when he bit us)
Laughing, coughing and sneezing sounds. Sometimes it was a snarky "Ha-hah!" other times it was a happy/amused giggle, which made my mother laugh and he'd start laughing even more.
"Bird is the word" (from an old 1950s song: he only said it a couple of times)
Trying to imitate the call of the wrens who hang around our yard.
"Where's Renee?" (when I wasn't around)
"'Top 'creamin'! (stop screaming)" (Something we said to Oz, a lot, so it was no wonder he picked it up)
"Ave Maria."
"Que pasa?" (I guess this made him multilingual)
"You're a cutie!"
"Cute baby."
"Baby bird."
On Christmas eve, 2005, as I was decorating the tree, he took one look at me and said, "Geek!" I don't know where he learned that, but he only said it the one time.
We'd started putting up orange lights and plastic jack o'lanterns in our yard at Hallowe'en; Merry looks out the window that evening, and he says? "Crickus? Crickus? Crickus?" I guess he thought the lights were Christmas lights (we think he liked Christmas the most: he probably liked the pretty lights).
Merry: (To my mom) "What are you doing?"
Mom: "I'm just finishing up my letter."
Merry: "Wheee!!"
And his crowning achievement: "To be or not to be". Which he sometimes tweaked into:
"To beak or not to beak" (I am not making that up!) and
"To be-be-be!"
How we nearly named him Pip or Pippin, after one of the Hobbits in "Lord of the Rings", because he was so teeny.
The time we let Merry and Oskar out of their cages at the same time, and Merry promptly flew up to Oz, startling him. Oz flew up the stairs to our second floor and Merry tried to chase him, succeeding only in getting as far as the archway in the dining room, where he was hanging upside down from the molding, puzzled as to where Oz got to.
The "pretzel parakeet" acrobatics he used to do climbing all around his swing.
"Bird kisses": little tiny nibbles on our noses.
Flying over my mother's head, startling her and landing on Oz's cage. Mom scolds him; Merry replies, "Rah! Rah! Rah!" like a little dog barking and with the freshness of a kid being sassy to his mother.
Circling my dad's head, trying to land on it.
Chewing his cage cover when he was wide awake and wanted to get up.
How he regarded my fingers as his chew toy.
Getting scolded by my mother for biting me, and how he'd duck his head like a little kid who knew he was in trouble... and how he'd stop biting me for a day or two afterward.
The time we put his cage near the kitchen window so he could see the family of wrens in the birdhouse on the back deck... and how much he clearly loved watching them. I don't think the wrens could quite figure out where this blue bird with the hooked bill came from and why he didn't fly away. They got up on the windowsill and even hung on the window screen trying to get a better look at him.
How much he loved toy bells: ringing them, talking to them. He could never figure out, though, why the bell would whack into him if he pushed or pulled it really hard: the look on his face was comical! I called him "the bell bird" and we used to refer to his bells as "the bell buddy" when we were talking to him.
Nibbling Oz's toes if Oz was out and landed on his cage.
The time we gave him a mirror for Christmas, and he started getting very territorial (we had to take the mirror away).
The time he bit a scab on my hand and drew blood, earning him the nickname "The Vampirekeet"
Another nickname "The Piranha-Keet"
The time he bit my hand hard enough to make me jump, as I was trying to change his seed, whereupon he escaped, flew into my dad's collection of model cars and promptly got a scare.
Another time he bit me when I was giving him fresh seed and he caused me to drop the entire dish of seed. My mother took over seed duties after this.
Gnawing through the wood on his swing. He went through about five of them before my dad didn't put the swing back up for three days after Merry had gnawed through it, and that seemed to put the fear of losing the swing into him.
Toy-flinging. He seemed to get a certain amount of glee out of unhooking his toys and watching them bounce off the floor, then waiting till I put them back up again so he could unhook them again and watch them hit the floor... Till my dad hooked them on with plastic zip ties. Which Merry then proceeded to chew on.
The way he would hang upside down from his all-wood clothes peg perch and swing his upper body back and forth, all the while he'd be singing and chattering to the clothes peg.