The Bird Did It: Share Real Stories, Lay People Won't Believe

[Talon]

My kids , ages now 24, 21, 18., and 14 were taught cursive on elementary school. It when they reached 4th or 5 th grade. The teachers asked them to do all their homework on the computer and pri t it out cause they said their handwriting was too hard to read , instead of the teacher making them learn to write better and more legible, the teachers were lazy and gave up in my opinion.

[Grumpy]

Yes, those nasty teachers are always to be blamed

[JeffNOK]

JeffNOK. How much do you think your training as an English teacher to foreign students has helped Gracie's remarkable grasp of contextual English? You cannot get much more of a foreign student than a parrot!

 

Steve n Misty

 

I think my profession has been helpful. I try to be very consistent in the words I use and try to associate those words with objects and contexts and allow her to touch and see while I'm talking.

[JeffNOK]

Grumpy, that cat is beautiful. Gracie is not a fan of cats, but she likes dogs. We have a student at my school from Belgrade. I haven't made it to Serbia yet. I have been to Croatia (Pula) and taught for a year in Romania. Maybe one of these days I can make it to Serbia, but my traveling days are limited now that I have Gracie. Since I got her, the longest I have been away was three days and she stayed with my parents. She loves my parents, so I think I could manage a week away if they cared for her. I miss traveling.

[Grumpy]

Grumpy, that cat is beautiful. Gracie is not a fan of cats, but she likes dogs. We have a student at my school from Belgrade. I haven't made it to Serbia yet. I have been to Croatia (Pula) and taught for a year in Romania. Maybe one of these days I can make it to Serbia, but my traveling days are limited now that I have Gracie. Since I got her, the longest I have been away was three days and she stayed with my parents. She loves my parents, so I think I could manage a week away if they cared for her. I miss traveling.

 

That's only one of the three (cats), though I belong to the dog people in the first place.

The first cat arrived to make company to my AB (American Bulldog) when my mother passed away, for the dog not to be alone while I'm out working.

The second one arrived to make company to the first one, and the last addition was when I was forced to give my beloved dog away, due to a traffic accident which put me on my sick leave for almost a year ...

I was desperate and thought I'd never have a dog again until one day, when Zuca (the Yellow One) aka MoJo walked into my life nad heart altogether, being my precious adoptee

Here's another cat, Snookey, the oldest one ...

Regarding travel business, need not to tell me anything, I forgot when it was last time I'd been abroad ...

PS.

Couldn't help uploading Zuca's pic as well, and there's the gang of 4

Sorry for spoiling the thread ...

[Timbersmom]

Good looking group!

[Muse]

Both our Greys have had their moments. I had some papers from a training class, and an evaluation paper that I had to have my charge nurse complete after I'd been there a few weeks, that were lovingly perforated by a naughty little parrot beak. They were in my nurse bag, on the sofa. He climbed on the back of the sofa and reached down in and put darling little beak marks all up and down the papers. I photocopied the evaluation, so it would not have beak marks, but the training papers were bound together in a booklet and I didn't want to take it all apart so I had to explain that my parrot was investigating it.

 

Both Greybies assaulted daddy's keyboard. We have matching bluetooth lighted keyboards. Mine is on a tray that slides under the desk. The birds were in the office when we were sharing one room, and both of us were in and out doing things. I heard a commotion and ran back to find both birds pulling keys off the keyboard. The Z key seems to be very popular with parrots. They'd only popped a couple off when he caught them. So he orders a new one. This was one of those times when he thought I was keeping an eye on them and I thought he was... he returned to the room to find Mar sitting on the monitor (he learned from the last time, evidently) and Megan gleefully ripping the NEW keyboard to shreds. He said she looked up as he walked in and took the key she had in her mouth and tossed it in his direction. No shame, that girl! He walked out of the room for a minute, but came back in and said "I can't be mad at them. This is what they do." Luckily he did manage to salvage the Z key from the destroyed keyboard (which was the only permanently damaged key from the first keyboard, and put it back on the first keyboard.

 

The cockatiel is probably the worst. He destroyed several picture frames. He is famous for landing on curtain rods and chewing the blinds and curtains (surprisingly, NOT in the new house - yet!). He is far more sneaky and less obedient than the Greybies and being smaller so he is harder to catch at making mischief because he gets into places the big birds won't fit. I was at the vet (with the budgie AGAIN) and while they were doing x-rays, I was reading some pamphlets they had for pet owners. One was about cockatiels. The first line was "Cockatiels are relatively quiet, non-destructive birds...." I had to laugh.

[Acappella]

This isn't a story of destruction, but it is a "I can't believe that was a bird" story.

 

I was working in the garage a few years ago, and my dad came out and, with some drama, exclaimed "I've been talking to you for 1/2 an hour!!!!" He hit the wrong key on the tv remote, and the screen went snowy. He thought I was in the basement so he went to the top of the stairs and yelled, Marguerite, could you come and fix this TV? "I" answered "Coming upstairs", so he went back and sat in the tv room to wait for me. This happened three times, with my dad getting more and more annoyed with me. Then he heard the circular saw start up in the garage. That's when he realized I was in the garage, and he'd been talking to Dorian all along.