Friday, January 27, 2006

A sprinkling of news.

I'm really coming to like the new "web clips" that Gmail's been using lately instead of the traditional Google ads. I almost never clicked on the ads, but more and more I find myself intrigued by the web clips' headlines. Like today, I found this:
Mexico scraps plan to give maps to migrants

Like, wow.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Gary the Bird: in memoriam

Gary the Bird died on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 from unknown causes. He is survived by Susan the Bird.

Gary was always the noisy one. When I came home and turned on the lights that day, I was a little surprised I hadn't heard from him; usually the sound of the front door sets him off. I set down my bags and turned toward the cage, where I saw them sitting together at the back of the cage. Except Gary wasn't sitting, he was lying down with his eyes half open, and Susan was huddled up behind him, just like she stayed close to him a year ago when he hurt his wing and I thought he was going to die then.

TM suggested I take him to the top of one of the mountains in town and bury him there. I thought it was a little silly then, but now I wish I had.

It's taken her a while, but Susan's gotten a little chirpy again. She liked the Vaughan Williams I played last night. I tried to find her a mirror, but the pet sections of the home supply stores I've been to don't have any. One of them sold a strange plastic parakeet bobble head—just the head—but that was just too depressing for words. I mean, it was purple; even if Susan wouldn't have known the difference, I would have. And probably even Susan wouldn't have been fooled. So I just play music sometimes. We both like that.