The Crows are Up to Something

They are hanging around on corners, on the tops of snow banks, in parking lots, puffed up, leaning over and cawing, in groups, looking around, looking at each other, looking at you.

The winter weather is defining itself in a standard definition--grey, sidewalks slicked with ice, forty inches of snow--a record--already this year. Walking the dogs is like being enlisted in a physical comedy training school. Might as well as walk on the frozen lakes with plastic blade covers on your ice skates. I stay inside instead eating the sugar that's accumulated in different forms from the holidays: truffles, fudge, cookies, caramels, chocolate bon bons and bars.

It's not even the dregs of winter yet, when one would expect the crows to gang up due to boredom or sheer crankiness from a season gone on too long. It's barely winter, the solstice just last week.

Ah, it's snowing again. A fine, sideways recipe. The feral, tough band of house sparrows is fighting over the pile of sunflower seed husks under the feeder. A female cardinal holds pole position above them at the main seed dispenser.

As I type, Bug is regurgitating while gently grabbing the pinky of my right hand in his beak. He loves me, thinks I need wooing and/or dinner. He lost a feather on my keyboard, a greyish-green chest feather. Then he presses his forehead into the desk once. He clicks his beak along with the sound of the typing keys. He's a mystery.

Mostly, he's looking for something to do, like those crows. Eat a spine of a poetry collection? Why not. Fly to his paper bag full of magazines? Sure. He's quietly crrrr-ing in response to something Jonesy is fixing in the bathroom--it sounds awful, like sawing metal. My teeth hurt.

I bet the Bug would like a neck cuddle but I got a new hoodie sweatshirt for x-mas. He ate holes in the last one, ate the hood ties, and he has a tendency to poop on your shoulder. I am going to try to keep this new one pristine as long as possible, which means, of course, it's doomed.

He and I have not had such a good week together. I was sick on the weekend, unable to monitor his goings-on, so he had to be in his cage, so that I could sleep unmolested, not fretting the damage he was inflicting upon the house while unsupervised. He screams, of course, if he in his cage if he hears you home. Upstairs in bed, I slept, the dogs slept, so he was quiet. Maybe he was napping, too. When Jonesy got home, the yelling started, and she let him out, so he was quiet again.

I had been keeping him off me since he bit me on the chin the week before. I felt like it was unprovoked, but I probably just missed the cues. With Jonesy, they're pals, they're goofy, full of colorful stories and braggery.

A bite, then the crrkk crrkk with the cute head bob. All I am going to say is we have conditioned each other's behaviors. If a bite gets you an operatic response and you love drama, then you know what, a bite's what you get. Maybe if I had a crow, I wouldn't get nailed as often.

I would need to clarify this with my phylogeny expert, John, but I am guessing that crows and parrots aren't that close in relation, despite their tendency for intelligence, and therefore, easily roused boredom. (I am such a dork and went upstairs just now to see if I could find one of those family trees of birds--who's branching off whom & when sort of thing. In my five ornithology books, nothing, though I found in the aptly titled Ornithology mesmerizing drawings, like the flight pattern of a hovering hummingbird, or the muscles of the syrinx, the vocal instrument of Aves).

Bug is preening himself next to my laptop. I do not want him on the desk but he keeps insisting, scuttling behind the screen, checking out pieces of paper, the drapes, pens with his beak until I make him stop with an ahem! He looks tired, scritching his neck with one of his feet, his head turned in pleasure, his eyes shutting. He's fluffed up like a baby, and we love the smallness, defenseless postures of the young. When I ask him to step up, however, he leans in to bite me, and then bobs his head. So cute, so true, our pattern of to and fro. He wants something to do. He might as well as be a crow.

What To Do?

I am a list maker, and I mean a real list maker. Real list makers almost always have a ‘to do’ list going, if not on paper, certainly in their heads. Those who occasionally jot things down are not list makers; they are forgetful and need reminding.

People have been making ‘to do’ lists for thousands of years. Crude representations on cave walls of bison hunts and camp fires are not attempts to tell stories, but a way of reminding early humans that first you hunt, then you kill, then you build a fire and cook. Likewise I’m sure there have been many other misinterpretations – hieroglyphics on a papyrus thought to mean “…in the summer of the third year of the reign of the boy pharaoh the gods blessed us with rain and we enjoyed a great harvest. We defeated our enemy, enslaved the strong ones and sacrificed the young and weak ones” could have actually said “…buy a slave (strong one from the last successful battle), sacrifice a 3-year old to the Pharaoh, water the plants and go to the market.” I have no scientific basis for this conjecture, but it seems plausible to me, even without bullet points.

As a list maker I delight in the completion of a task primarily because I get to strike it off my list. It is an earned moment, a joyful stroke of the pen. I love it so much that I sometimes add things that I’ve already done to my list and then immediately strike them off. I know that’s stupid, but I crave that sense of accomplishment so much that, like any other addict, I just can’t help myself.

For a person who makes a lot of lists, I’m not very organized. I usually have several lists going, none of them comprehensive and all in different places. At any given time I probably have a scrap of paper in my back pocket, a small yellow pad at home, a wedge of 2”x4” in the basement and a chunk of cardboard in the car, all covered in my block letter handwriting outlining the things I need to do in either agonizing minutiae or Herculean weight. Even worse, I often forget to look at them after they are made. List making for me is more of a pathological habit than a useful organizational tool.

My list might look something like this:
1. Shower
2. Coffee
3. Paint house
4. Decide on a career
5. Be a better person
a. Lose weight
b. Stop telling linear stories with too much detail – it bores people
c. Find a therapist
6. Stop making lists

Clearly, this is a form of mental illness. But does the Betty Ford clinic have a rehab plan for this addiction? How about a 12 step program, or does the enumerated format preclude the possibility? Is there an anti-list making drug available? If there is, I haven’t seen the commercial, but I can imagine there would be many potential side effects. They would probably include: twitching, constipation, headaches, weight loss, confusion and memory loss.

And of course, listlessness.

The Tai Chi of Carpentry

Today is December 1st. I can’t take a shower today. I couldn’t take one yesterday either. Or the day before or the entire week before that. Tomorrow’s prospects don’t look so hot either.
I guess, technically, I could take a shower. The plumbing works. Trouble is, there’s no wall around the bathtub, so the water would become rain in our basement. We don’t like rain in the basement.

The day we moved into our house I vowed to rip the nasty pink bathroom tile out and replace it. “Fixing up that butt ugly bathroom is my top priority,” I confidently told Sara and a bevy of our best friends as we sat on the hardwood floor of our new living room and drank bubbly out of plastic champagne flutes, boxes piled all around us.

Six years later the crappy pink tile was still on the bathroom walls, although some of it was barely clinging -- the result of a little moisture problem. Over the years the grout had become even skankier, pulling away in some places and holding fast in others due to the adhesive properties of a robust black mold. The middle of the wall bowed out as if it had a potbelly. The mold and mildew had genetically evolved so as to be immune to cleaning products. I envisioned colonies of icky organisms breeding behind the tiles.

I haven’t had a bath in six years.

Finally I admitted that I was never going to retile the bathroom. I didn’t have the time, and, the truth is, I was afraid I’d fuck it up and spend the next six years looking at wiggly rows of tile and cursing myself instead of placidly reading an LL Bean catalogue. I knew the only answer was to hire someone to do the job, but it’s hard for me to admit that I can’t do something, especially when there are people who say things like “I’d never even screwed in a light bulb before, but tiling the shower was so easy. It only took me half a day.” Or, “Retiling our bathroom was an easy weekend project.” Even though I know they’re lying I still feel judged for not doing it myself. To make me feel even more inadequate, I know several people actually capable of doing a project like this on their own, making it up along the way.

But not everyone has the patience and dexterity to pull it off. Patience, to put it mildly, is not one of my virtues. When faced with something fiddly I get easily frustrated and swear like a sailor in labor. My home remodeling efforts generally send the household into an emotional tailspin; Lulu hides and acts like she’s beaten daily and Sweet William gets excited and screams. Sara puts on headphones and, I suspect, tries to will herself to her happy place.

So, for all our sakes, my path was clear: suck it up and hire a professional tiler.

Newsflash: Professional tilers are really fucking expensive.

That’s how I came to hire my friend Tim to do the job. He’s a carpenter/handyman who I believe can handle most anything he tries. He told me that he works slowly and that he’s never done a job like this before so it would take a little time. He wasn’t sure how long. Big deal, I thought. It’s a tiny bathroom. How long can it take? Three days? Five?

After the deal was struck, but before he got started Tim let me know that, upon reflection, he didn’t have a problem tearing out the wall and putting up cement board, but he didn’t feel comfortable tiling, since he’d never done it. Before I could start rocking in a corner, Tim let me know that Jim, a guy he occasionally works with, could do the job. At first I was a little pissed off – here was a guy who I believed could do most anything and he was telling me there was something he didn’t want to try because he didn’t feel confident he could wing it. Wait a minute. I’ve heard this story somewhere before. Have I mentioned how much I like this guy?

I did the tear off. I started at 2 pm on a Sunday afternoon and was finished and cleaned up an hour later. It was gratifying to pop those hideous squares off the wall, as I’d wanted to do for the last six years. And, thanks to years of neglect, they were hardly attached at all, making it an easy job. It was a great feeling: phase one, complete.

According to plan, Tim showed up on Monday morning and got to work. By the end of the day the plaster was off, exposing the studs. By Tuesday night there was some mighty fine looking blocking installed (small pieces of 2”X4” stuck between the studs). Tim worked another full day on Wednesday, took Thursday off for Thanksgiving, and was back at it on Friday and Saturday. The bathroom didn’t look that much different.

My friend Tim is not a loafer. I have yet to see him take a break. However, it was almost a week into the project and I was still looking at a skeletal bathroom. On Saturday I stood in the doorway, made small talk and watched him work. His movements were deliberate and steady. He would occasionally stop what he was doing, sit back, look at his work carefully, then lean forward and continue the task. The unhurried motion was quite beautiful, almost meditative. He didn’t seem bothered that he’d been working in my tiny bathroom for days. He apologized for taking so long, but I don’t think there was a thought in his head that he should feel bad for taking his time. At least I hope not.

I’m the opposite -- I work as if I’m under siege, battling my way through every day. Always rushing, always apologizing for taking too long, always behind, always pissed off. There’s never enough time, never enough hot oil to pour over the wall. Work isn’t even about winning; it’s about holding ground. Maybe this is why I’m looking for another job.

Today is day 10 without a shower. Jim, the tiler is here. He’s not quite done, but we should be enjoying all the advantages of indoor plumbing by the weekend. After that, Tim will go on to his next job and leave my house much better for having spent time here. As much as I want a shower, I’ll miss having Tim around.

Tim’s Tai Chi-style of carpentry makes me realize that I want to be more deliberate. I want to enjoy my work. I want to be honest and unapologetic. The question, as always, is how do I make these fundamental changes?

Tim’s not exactly pulling in the big bucks but he enjoys what he does and maybe that’s the key. It’s a philosophy that easily fits on a bumper sticker: Follow Your Bliss. (After all the wonderful things Joseph Campbell wrote, that’s his legacy – a quip slapped on every ’89 Volvo wagon in America. At least the adhesive helps keep the rust bucket from falling apart.)

A friend once told me a parable about the two Hindu goddesses; Saraswati, goddess of knowledge, music and art and Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and prosperity. The upshot of the story is that if you follow the goddess of knowledge, the goddess of prosperity will become jealous and follow you. This tale is unconfirmed by Wikipedia, or any other internet source I could find, so either it’s not well known or my friend made it up. Either way, I like it. And, I’ll bet if I could figure out a way to condense the story I could make some solid cash by putting it on a t-shirt.

Windchill of 15 Below

I had forgotten about Bug's leg band he had when we first got him, a few numbers, a few letters and FLA. We had it taken off when he started to chew on his leg and wipe the blood on his face. It turned out he had mild bumblefoot right after his adoption, small sores on the bottom of his toes. He healed well once the band came off and had a short course of fruit-flavored liquid antibiotics.

Floreeeeda. Imagine. An outdoor aviary, perhaps a few avian psittacine friends to hang out with there, sounds of other birds, direct sunlight. This is why escaped parrots do so well there, too. Conures spotted at the Home Depot? A few African greys in the neighborhood? Well, they are certainly not saying they are moving to the Midwest, where today the windchill is -15F, the temperature -1F.

So Bug was born to a breeder in Florida and then ended up loose, flying around a construction site in WI in the middle of the summer. Between A&B, who knows? I tried finding the breeder he came with by looking up his tag number. This was not as easy as reported. We also placed a parrot found ad on the internet. (The lost bird ads will break your heart.) No response. I know a vet who got an African grey because it just happened to pick the tree in her yard. I know another who got an Eclectus because it chose a vet school where she worked to roost near. Apparently, these bird are no dummies.

I am afraid to go outside today. I am not ready for new weather pattern that arrived last night after a day of 40F and rain.

Right now the juncos and house sparrows are picking through the dregs of the sunflower seeds under the feeder and there is quite a bit of wind. It makes no sense how they withstand the cold, being minute, heat pouring off their bodies.

There is a colony of monk parrots that lives near the brisk lake in Chicago. They make these elaborate and large nests in trees (above photo by blogger, below). Maybe they line them with polarfleece and down. But what does a tropical bird eat amid the snow and ice and bluster?

You can read about them here: http://www.brooklynparrots.com/2006/05/photo-essay-fabulous-wild-parrots-of.html

That said, stay warm, stay inside, drink hot chocolate.

More Votes for Florida

It was so cold this morning that I cringed when my pants touched my legs. I don’t usually think of my legs as bare when I have pants on, but below 10° Fahrenheit, skin touching fabric leaves me with the understanding that under my clothes I am, indeed, naked.

I could wear long underpants but most places are so overheated that I fear spontaneous combustion. A piff and all that would be left is a puddle of ashes on a café chair, obliterated like one of Spinal Tap’s drummers. Besides, I’m outside for just beyond a nanosecond as I do my duck speed walk across the icy sidewalk to the car. Oooh aahh, oooh aahh as my skin brushes my suddenly cryogenic khakis. Honestly, if we’re going to have cold, I’d rather have snow. Somehow the white flakes seem jolly whereas the bright bracing empty air feels stark and painful; a cold bath in a steel tub.

In Wisconsin, preferring the white stuff is an unpopular attitude in light of the Sisyphean snowball of last winter. We got – we shoveled – 8 feet of snow last year. That’s 96 inches, some of it wet, sloppy, icy, moved from the sidewalk to the increasingly tall side-of-the-sidewalk snow mound. All in all there were 50 shovelable events, sometimes two or three a day.

Florida.

When I think of Florida I conjure up the image of a Bugs Bunny episode in which Bugs, for a reason I can’t recall, hunkers down on a rudimentary map of the US, cuts Florida off with a handsaw and finishes the task by kicking it free to float into the Gulf, just flicking it away like a giant hanging chad. I have no idea what Bug’s beef was with Florida back in the 50’s, but here at the turn of the century, I think of conniving republicans , the false reality of Disney Land, yahoos in the bayous, and Miami Vice. Just plain Loony Tunes.

But today, as the car thermometer registers 8°, I cast my vote for Florida. Sweet William votes for Florida (but he always does). Gracie, a dog with so little fur she is almost nude and hates her coat, absolutely votes for Florida. Taiko doesn’t care either way, as long as she gets plenty of snacks so Gracie tricks her into going outside and then votes for her by proxy. Even Sara, the Midwestern stoic, says ‘yay’ to the warmth of Florida.

So are we going to pack up and head south? If we did, I’d bet the farm we’d be heading back this way come July. Maybe we’ll just crank up the furnace and watch Miami Vice reruns tonight.

One Vote for Florida

It snowed today, and most of the southern part of the state stayed home from work and school. Something about ice and snow and sleet. My neighbors were out early competing for who could bust out the most snow on the first real use of the snowblowers for the season. Thank you neighbors, for saving my lower back. I had to dig the car out from where the plow tucked it in so nicely with packed snow. The snow from the morning was the light, easily moved kind, not glumpy or heavy or wet. Whew.

All the while I could hear Bug screaming, through storm windows, nonetheless, old ones. The song goes like this: MEmemememeMEMEMEMEME! Then da capo.

I spent a few minutes on Facebook reading today about my classmate who moved to Hawaii. Smart gal. The weather so far this winter is looking a bit serious.

And why do we have amnesia each December when it all comes tumbling down all white and cold?

I stayed home from work today, too, like many, out of the muck and slippery trouble. Instead, a nap, a dog walk in the snow, a cup of Mexican hot chocolate. And the parrot got a lot of one on one. Though the last few evenings he has been trying to take triangle (beak-shaped) chunks from my wrists. He hates sweaters and typing and generally not being adored every second. He is vocalizing his vote to move to Florida or New Mexico, Somewhere else, he says, so I can live outside and get some real sun. The members in the household may be a little low on the vitamin D.

It's tempting to run--well, to plan to run, to get a new job, sell the house, pack and move--all that exhausting schlepping of stuff from one abode to another, just to move closer to sun. But it just makes me tired. Instead, I try not to obsess about other climates while in the middle of a snow storm. It leads to a less than happy mental attitude.

And now, in a fit of distraction from the weather, I am taunting the parrot with a white rag, so he will chase it like a kitten after a string. I suspect he is really aiming for my wrists.

Holiday Letters, Honestly

It’s early December. After shoveling snow off our sidewalk for the third time this season I open my mailbox and, with effort, unstuff it.

I lay out the yield on the kitchen table like I’m dealing cards.

Sara’s pile: a Sierra Trading Post catalogue, something about a bird conference, a credit card transfer offer; another credit card offer (ACT NOW! it says. I quickly move it to Sweet William’s pile. Sara hates to be pressured.), a letter from her mom, an early Christmas card, and an insurance bill.

My pile: a postcard from the Subaru dealership making it clear we need to winterize now, a solicitation from the Equality Federation, a solicitation from the Best Friend’s Animal Shelter and a solicitation from The Nature Conservancy.

Sweet William’s pile: the Shopper Stopper, offers for cable tv, satellite tv and AT&T high speed internet.

The last piece to sort is a bright red envelope with a green Christmas tree shaped seal. It has a computer generated label addressed to both of us. I recognize the return address and immediately know what it is, causing me to groan involuntarily, which causes Sweet William to squawk. Although he doesn’t realize it, his reaction is spot on. I am holding a Christmas letter --an impersonal, mass mailed announcement outlining the successes and accomplishments of a given family over the past year. I put it in Sweet William’s pile. Then I take it out and put it in Sara’s pile. Then I move it to a place all on its own: the recycling. I pour myself a glass of wine, a fine Argentinian Malbec, sit down, stand up and take the dreaded thing out of the bin and put it back on the table. These letters are like the presidential debates: even though I know they’ll be painful to see, I just can’t help myself.

When Sara comes home I make her a cocktail of cranberry juice, ginger ale, a twist of lime, and the tiniest splash of vodka. After she’s had a few sips I show her the envelope and encourage her to open it. Like me, she feels bad that she doesn’t want to read it. But still, she uses it as a coaster. I goad some more and she moves her drink, tears open the envelope and reads the letter out loud.

Exactly as we imagined, it’s a boastful account of the achievements of the authors’ talented son, daughters and even pets. The admirable health of an elderly parent is also lauded.

Theoretically these are all good things, so why all the humbug? I’ll tell you why: there’s not anything less than complete success in these letters. They are deceptive. Through embellishment and omission their family is Cleaver perfect.

“Brittany was awarded first prize in the all school spelling bee.” (Not mentioned: she tanked in the first round at regionals.)

“Tyler scored the most goals on her soccer team.” (Not mentioned: The team finished last in the league.)

There’s a holier-than-thou conceit to almost all of these missives. The subtext being: our family is better than yours; our kids smarter; our careers better; our vacations more stunning, etc.

“Craig won salesman of the year for the fourth time in a row -- the prize this year was an all expense paid trip to Bermuda for the whole family. The hotel was fabulous and the water so blue. Little Joshua saw a shark and wasn’t even afraid!”

In case the reader hasn’t spewed by the end of the thing, the standard closing should do the trick. This is where the writer drives it home that their family is so wonderful that they want to share all their God given good fortune by bestowing a blessing on you and yours, because clearly, they have an inside line.

Nobody likes these letters. Anyone who says they do is only being polite. Just once I’d like to receive a Christmas update based on the opposite principle, which I imagine would look something like this ---

Dear Friends, Family and Parole Officers,

This year the Jones family experienced many events. Some were bad because the world just has it out for us. Some were good, which we attribute to just plain dumb luck.

Here are a few of the highlights:

Charlie is still in juvenile detention (he calls it ‘juvie,’ isn’t that cute?). Unless he pulls another stunt like the last one, he should be out next spring.

Celia was blessed with another baby, this time a little boy. Celia says he might look just like his daddy, only time and a DNA test will tell. The principal says she can return to high school once she’s finished breast feeding. She was such a smart little girl, before she got tits.

Danny was rehired at McDonald’s after it was determined that the deep fat fryer fire was not his fault. When he received the news he laughed hysterically. He’s such a good-natured boy.

My divorce was finally final so Mikey and I can get married again. He’ll be my first and third husband. Isn’t that special? His proposal was so romantic – we were screaming at each other about child support outside Warehouse Liquor, when suddenly we both looked down at the very same moment and found a $20 bill. Since we spotted it at the same time we were very adult and decided to buy a case of Schlitz Malt Liquor 40’s and split it. And here’s when it happened – the case of 40’s cost exactly $20. It was a sign. He dropped down on one knee and I said yes before he even asked. I didn’t find out until later that he was tying his shoe. But after we made a serious dent on that case he began to see it my way. By 11am that very day we were once again officially engaged. Even though he’s a d-bag about the child support I know he’ll honor his word and take me to the alter again.

Priscilla, my youngest, was convicted of grand theft auto. Hard to believe there’s a crime named after the video game. The judge accused her of ‘joy riding.’ I stood up and corrected him – nobody fuckin ‘joy rides’ in a Honda Civic. She was just fooling around, as kids do. He told me to hold my tongue and watch my language and of course everybody knows I do exactly the opposite of what ‘the man’ tells me to so he held me in contempt of court and I did a little time. Ain’t so bad, 3 squares a day and I got my teeth fixed.

I’d like to include news of all the rest of the kids, but I have no idea what the ungrateful brats are up to since they haven’t bothered to call all year. The ones in the pen I forgive, but I just don’t understand why the others wouldn’t want to be close to their mama. Kids these days, I swear.

To finish up on a good note, Grandpa Jim does not have the clap. The doctor isn’t sure exactly what it is, but it qualifies him for all kinds of medical experiments so he gets paid for just sitting around on his ass and watching tv.

Well, hell, I guess that’s it. Happy Holidays and all that good shit.

Best wishes,

Debra, Charlie, Celia, Danny, Priscilla, John, John Jr., Trip, Becca, T.K.La and the rest of the Jones/Stewart/Brown family

PS: We’re looking to borrow a little scratch for December rent. Anybody help us out? We’ll pay it back. Honest.

Sweet William is, A Punk Rocker

If Sweet William were human he’d be a teenage punk rocker. He’s happiest in cacophony and rages against authority -- no request is accepted without question or incentive. If he were forming words (that he understood the meaning of) I’m positive he’d curse like a sailor in labor.

“Turn that music down, son, and clean up your room.” He defiantly bobs his head up and down. No response. “I said,” unsuccessfully yelling over The Dead Kennedys, ‘California uber alles, California uber alles….’ (I would hope he’d have more eclectic taste than the DK’s, but he’s never been an eclectus, and I guess conures follow the flock. Besides, what is punk except conformity to a set of rules that calls itself individualism?) Raising my voice as loud as possible, “I said, clean up your damn room! It’s a pig sty in there, young man.” “It’s my fucking room, why do you care? All you do is try to make me do shit – I’m not your fucking maid.” Then I scream more, and he screams more. We both scream.

I walk over to his boombox and turn it off altogether. He shuts up and glares at me, hair short and spiky, jeans ripped down the thigh and held together with safety pins. I know this is the payback I get for doing pretty much the same thing to my folks, except I didn’t curse around them and we had a housekeeper, so, like so many of my crowd I was just mad they made me clean the pool.

He grabs his skateboard, “Eat asphalt, asshole” scrawled in black sharpie on the bottom, the ‘o’ embellished with the symbol for anarchy, and storms out of the house. I know he’ll skate for hours, taking flight off curbs and buzzing lightening fast through parking ramps. I have to confess it sounds amazing and if I could, I’d probably do it too. But I worry.

I look through his room and find he’s ripped every other page out of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” I’d given it to him as a present, thinking he’d identify with Holden Caulfield, but I guess he was becoming quite the critic. I know he read at least some of it because, if nothing else, he’d gleaned the new swear word ‘asswipe.’ I have to grin. When I read it, I too, was pleased with the addition to my vocabulary.

When he returns, having gone who knows where and torn up who knows what, he slumps down in front of the tv and turns on an Everybody Loves Raymond rerun, mostly, I suspect, because he knows the inane show makes me want to puke. He glowers, filled with more angst than anger. I poke my head in the living room, “Hey, how’s the mayor of the Island of Dr. Morose?” I get the eye roll.

“I made walnut loaf, topped with sesame seeds. Mangoes and grapes for dessert.”

He can’t help himself. Although he longs to break free, to skim over trees and to bask in the real sunshine and cool wind, he’s lured in by the temptation of his favorite food and the comfort of his home. Once fed and happy he cuddles up, ready to be loved.

Sir Sweet William. My little brat. I’d love it if he’d behave himself, stop screaming so much, stop ripping up everything from Jane Eyre to junk mail, but he has no choice, really. It’s who he is. He’s a wild animal contained by a quirk of fate. I can either love and accept him for that or lock him in a cage and neglect him. (Social services would really frown on that approach if he were human, but as it is he’s a bird and there’s no law against that kind of cruelty, even though there ought to be.)

As well as tearing shit up and shitting wherever he pleases, he wants to play and talk and snuggle. When he sits on my shoulder, bobs his head up and down fast and then laughs when I do, I fall in love every time. I do my best to keep him happy: I play loud music, give him seed balls and make sure he never runs out of things to destroy. And that's the best a parent can do.

Public Service Announcement

Durian fruit is not cheese but it smells like it. To be specific, it smells like aged bleu cheese thrice vomited – once by a person and twice by a dog. The only thing more disgusting than a dog eating its own puke is durian fruit.

In much the same way that Jerry Lewis is a comic genius in France and Cheap Trick rules the rock stages of Japan, durian fruit is considered a delicacy in parts of Asia. I have no first-hand knowledge of the fresh product, but I’ve been told that it has a custard-like texture and a delectable flavor so unique that comparisons can’t be made. (I asked, and it does not taste like chicken.)

In case you’re planning a trip and are unfamiliar with this Asian delight allow me to be of some assistance: Keep your eyes and nose alert at markets and street carts for an oval shaped fruit -- spiky on the outside, (making it look sort of like a hedgehog) and stinky on the inside (making it smell like the hedgehog has been dead for quite some time.) You might even see signs banning the fruit from certain public places, like hotels and hospitals. It seems unbelievable to me that anyone has to be told not to inflict this malodorous experience on patients in a hospital. People there are already sick; an olfactory assault like a ripe durian could set off a hospital-wide vomi-rama affecting health care professionals as well as patients and taking hours to get under control.

I have read that, in places where the fruit is common, there are two camps: those with durian shame and those with durian pride. Among the first group there is a movement to genetically alter the crop to create a less noisome fruit so it can be exported without embarrassment. And of course, the second group delights in the will power required to run the gauntlet of stench. The reward, they say, is all the more delicious because not everyone has the fortitude. I do suspect that some of the proud are not necessarily disciplined, but the victims of an accident leaving them without a sense of smell. Cheaters.

Even without going abroad, naïve Americans should be warned of this epicurean landmine as some Asian food stores in the states carry not only the fruit, but products made with it. The combination of durian and ignorance create a recipe, if not for disaster certainly for disgust. Here in the Midwest, most people have never even heard of the food, but if asked, would probably agree that Durian would be a great name for a Golden Retriever. In a haphazard way they aren’t wrong, especially if the dog is excessively flatulent.

Here in Madison, the managers of the local Asian grocery store understand the power of the fruit and warn unwitting shoppers with shelf labels that say something like: “If you do not know this flavor do not buy this food.”

I have a very adventurous “foodie” friend, John, who saw the label as a challenge. Despite the advice of those in the know, he nonchalantly tossed a package of durian fruit flavored sugar wafers in his cart. This was not an act of hubris. Hubris would be buying the fruit and slicing it open. This was a packet of cookies, which seemed to contain only trace amounts of the noxious ingredient, making it a good place to start.

When the package was scanned at the register an alarm bell sounded alerting the clerk to the potential shopping error. She picked up the cookies, put them aside and told John that he really didn’t want them. John stubbornly insisted that he did want them. “Do you know this flavor?” she asked, almost belligerently. “Can you eat durian fruit?”

Anytime the question is phrased “Can you eat…” rather than “Do you like….” there’s trouble. In Japan I was asked many times, “Can you eat natto?” Natto is a nauseating fermented soy product covered in soy snot so stringy that it hangs from your chopsticks, stretching from bowl to mouth as you try not to look but can’t help it. Admittedly the odor is not as powerful as durian fruit, but it is far from pleasant. I foolishly ate natto a total of three times; the first because I didn’t want to offend my hosts, the second because I was so plowed I ate it by accident, and the last because I am a patriot -- backed into a corner I had to prove that Americans are not wusses. (Hey, we all make sacrifices.) Rather than knuckling under pressure or admitting that I can’t eat the slime I finally learned to counter the question with a question of my own. The challenge: “Can you eat headcheese?” got me out of a lot of tight spots.

After paying the $1.19 for the cookies John brought them to our house hoping for an interesting culinary group experience. Sitting in our kitchen he told us the story of their procurement, of the warnings and of the clerk’s preemptory look of ‘I told you so.’ Naturally our curiosity was peaked.

John removed the wafers from the plastic shopping bag and we each examined the package from every angle as archaeologists would study a rare artifact. “I’m eating one.” he said. “Yea, me too,” I told him offhandedly with no idea of what could be lurking in the bag. After all, I have eaten natto, so how bad can this be? Sara's response was naturally, “Maybe.”

John cautiously tore open a corner of the package and stuck his nose near it. He pulled his head back, scrunched up his eyebrows and said nothing. I leaned in for a sniff, and swear I damn near puked in my mouth. I was stunned. How could a sugar wafer smell like a fetid carcass? I don’t know how Sara reacted as I left the room in a hurry. From the living room I braced myself as the rank cloud invaded the house like some evil presence from outer space. I looked up and John was in the doorway holding one of the cookies.

“Aren’t you going to eat one? I’m eating it,” he said like a firefighter says “I’m going in” when faced with a burning building. I was horrified. “What? You’re not serious. You’re not going to put that nasty shit in your mouth are you?” John is not a guy who backs down. “Hell yea I’m eating one. Come on, you can do it -- just a taste,” he chided. All I could do was shake my head and clamp my mouth shut in much the same way a toddler refuses to eat brussel sprouts.

He held the nasty little wafer toward me and threw down his final dare: “Are you telling me that you categorically refuse to eat this cookie? Are you totally backing out?”

“That’s right. I refuse. No fucking way am I putting that turd near my mouth.” John shrugged as if to say, ‘your loss.’ Then with the seriousness of a surgeon he took a single bite, made a face and then ate the whole damn cookie, barely chewing. I have to say, I was really impressed. Sara walked by, picked up a cookie, took a nibble, wrinkled her nose, and casually threw the rest of it in the trash.

I have no idea why they were so calm while I was on the edge of hurling just from the smell. Unable to bring myself to approach the bag I begged John to put the damn thing outside on the porch. Even then, the pernicious odor hung around all day and the kitchen still stunk the following morning. (Yes, I did take out the trash.)

Sara and John both agreed that it tasted a bit like bleu cheese and the after taste was not easily neutralized. Neither was damaged by the experience although both said they were not interested in trying the fresh fruit.

As for me, I’ve been abroad and eaten foods I did not find appetizing, but was able to swallow with a smile to please my generous host. I’ve eaten crickets, brittle-like candy with tiny dried fish in it, rattlesnake, parts of goats I’d rather not speak of, and vegetables and meats I couldn’t identify. But I met my match with the mighty durian. Without having even a smidge of durian in my mouth I believe it should all be buried under concrete with other toxic waste.

I understand that such strong feelings are not shared by all and to those of you with durian pride, I apologize for my scathing review. But, come on, how many foods come with a warning label?