My bird, Toots...

We used to have 2 parrots, Winnie and Toots, who came to live with us in 1988 and 1989, respectively. Winnie passed away last year, sadly, but Toots lives on and is a relatively young 21 years old. "The girls" have always had a strong sense of self-preservation, especially with cats and dogs. They were always tolerant of the house pets as long as they kept their distance, but woe betide the critter who approached the cage. Ungodly shrieks, groans, screams and wing flapping have frightened each in our long string of 4 footed family members into keeping a respectful distance. The screaming then died down, unless the animal was bold enough to get too close again.Toots is perhaps more protective of her safety now that Winnie is gone.

For little Max, however, they made an exception.

Max is a 55 pound Lab/Shepherd/something with a curly tail ball of energy and excitement.When he came to live with us at the age of 6months, he immediately approached the cage - - and the parrots seemed fine with it. Never screamed, never threatened. They allowed him to stick his head in when I had the door open, and they even seemed to throw food out just for him. As a pup, he even put his paws on the side of the cage to get close enough for a sniff. The response has ever been one of benign tolerance. After Winnie died, Toots has remained friendly. Max is permitted to stand right up against the cage while he looks out the window - never gets chased or nipped (I say "nipped", but it's really a full out "chomp"). I guess I thought she'd mellowed.

Wrong.

This week, we have a house-guest - a very friendly, quiet, mild-mannered hound named Bella - about 2 years old and somewhat interested in what's in the cage. Not aggressively interested, just curious. Is this permitted? No, it is not. Toots growls, snarls, screams, and makes threatening wing flapping gestures every time sweet Bella approaches. She walks away and it stops. Max walks up alone to eat the kibble off the floor and Toots is quiet, almost friendly. I know Toots is a small creature and very concerned about self-preservation - who could blame her? - so I shouldn't laugh. I think she can tell the difference between me laughing with her and at her. It is pretty funny, though. Bella comes to me for reassurance that she's still an ok dog. Once she gets a pat, she tries again. I think she's finally given up now and will simply stay out of the sunroom. Toots sits in the sun on her perch and shreds vegetables. All is right.

Usually this type of sign/symbol is associated with circular traffic movements, but in this case it is used by historians to describe the seemingly complicated but, in reality, rather simple peregrinations of three of the great proto-Germanic peoples that occurred during the great migratory period of the fourth century c.e. The peoples were, of course, the Regurgilites, Cololites, and Coprolites. All of these tribes originated in the bowels of central Europe and moved slowly at first, and then quite rapidly towards a sudden termination at the great battle of Cloaca, near the present-day city of Merde, France. The symbol represents not only the physical movements of the different peoples, it also illustrates the tendency of these great warriors to merge, diverge, and submerge their identities among, between, and within each other. This complex set of relationships was first elucidated in 1873 by Col. (retired) Francis Lawton-Bliss, a talented amateur fly fisherman with almost no interest in any pursuit other than catching trout in the wild and generous rivers of western Scotland. Fortunately, like Martin Luther, a distant relative on his mother's side, he experienced this insight, a sudden illumination of the mental faculties akin to satori or nirvana, while expelling the remainder of a large meal, though by what manner we do not know, near his campsite. Two years later he was made a Knight of the Garter for his achievement and shortly thereafter he was eaten and digested by the natives of the Outer Hebrides while he searched for a fish of supposedly unbelievably large dimensions.

Family of Linguaphiles

We are a family of people who love language and languages. I was thinking about this the other day, mentally tallying up the various languages represented in our family. It is a fairly long list. Including my parents, siblings, siblings' significant others, and nieces and nephews we have the following covered (with varying degrees of fluency): German, Russian, French, Korean, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Lithuanian, and a smattering of Polish and Malay.

Pretty impressive. At least, I'm impressed.

My brother has a room dedicated to the study of German. One niece has been teaching English in Korea for several years, her sister is a budding German/Spanish high school teacher, and their cousin (also my niece) has taken just about ever language offered in her school.

The most recent accomplishment is held by my nephew-the-Marine who just aced his Korean language test. Congratulations, kiddo!

Personally, I took five years of German and I have a Spanish lesson book. I may not be holding up my end of things. Perhaps some studying and podcasts are in my future.