Why Bug Needs to Get a Damn Job

So.

So, it's getting colder--frost on the windshield, frost on the grass, the leaves almost fully off the trees. And I've turned on the heat in the house.

Before Bird, or BB, as we shall call it, we used to turn our thermostat at night to 59, close the bedroom door to keep the heat in, and pile a ton of down comforters on. Now we have this tiny creature, used to thick, humid air, and well, warmth.

So now we keep the thermostat at 64 most of the time; higher when we get up in the morning and when we get home. But mostly, it's a full five degrees warmer all the time.

Oil ain't cheap. But you all know this. But Bug doesn't.

So he should get a damn job to pay for the extra heat.

But he would protest, recounting an event last winter. Last winter I came home one day to the house at 47 degrees. I freaked. The little one is dead! He wasn't, but his tiny, scaled legs were cold and he was all fluffed up. (A bird can tolerate cooler temperatures if they don't fluxuate--for goodness sakes, Chicago has it's own population of Quaker parrots!) The pilot light on the furnace had gone out and a friend came over to rescue me in my icy panic. Soon, it was getting warmer upstairs, and everyone thawed out.

The mammals of the house, besides the humans, have fur. Yeah, they were cold, tucking their tails over their noses, but they got by. The bird, he's practically am exothermic/ heat-losing being. The smaller you are, the faster you cool. Smaller body volume to surface area ratio.

And now the air has dried out and he's sneezing--sinusitis? I got him a humidifier last winter to ease his nostrils. But it puts out cold steam--what a drag. He does twiddle and screech from the shower rod when I am in the bath, so he gets some tropical stem.

Sometimes I imagine living somewhere warm, where he could have an outside cage. I think he'd like the warmth but hate the isolation. He says yes (well, djesss) a lot when he's excited, but outside, alone, even where it's balmy, I think he'd scream til he was hoarse.