A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2004 Bad Bird!

Last night me and Barleychown were talking about our parrots, and she asked me what my favorite thing was that Lola did...

I don't know if she picks up vibes from me that I'm stressed (holidays!) and uses that to her advantage, but she's really been runnin' wide open!

Today in the shower she kept getting off her perch to bite my toes! Every single time I'd close my eyes to wash my face or hair, I'd feel a very sharp beak grab my toe, and then a very mean laugh! She thinks it's funny.

I finally got my hair washed and was rinsing it out, eyes closed and soap all over my face, expecting to be bitten again, but it didn't happen. And, usually when I block the water from hitting her she's screaming "More water!"
But, there was silence.

When I opened my eyes, she was climbing up the shower curtain liner as FAST as she could. Not good. If she makes it to the top, I'm screwed. That's when we have to play "King of the Mountain" for the rest of the day, only she's "Queen of the Bathroom"!

She made it to the top.



So, for the past two hours, every time I try to get her down, she flops upside down like a bat and grabs the curtain, flapping her wings while laughing hysterically.

I wouldn't mind her sitting there all day...it would give me a chance to clean the pumpkin pie off the wall where she threw it today when she got mad at me for taking the whipped cream away from her.

But, she will end up chewing a big hole in my Battenburg lace shower curtain if I don't get her down soon.

So, Barley...what's the MEANEST things your parrots do?



Cindy

lol sorry but that's funny! maybe you could try to coax him down with some cheese nips or something? and a hamster and a dog at my grandfather's house but hope to have some type of bird in the future though!

Oh, my, that's funny!
Did you know African Greys are supposed to be like the 3rd or 4th smartest animals? SOME people say, anyway. I think there's still debate over it. (Behind dolphins and chimps, and I think maybe elephants...)

That was so funny! I love hearing funny stories about pets. We cant have any in the apartment we live in. :p

That's true...
But, you can't verbally ARGUE with a dolphin, chimp and elephant!

Now, that IS one of my favorite things...
...arguing with Lola!

The other day we got into a fight over some cashews (she won, by the way!). She wouldn't let go of the cashew can, and told me "NO!".
I said "You'd better watch it!"
And she said, "No, YOU'D better watch it!"
Then laughed her butt off!

Cindy and Lola
What a great relationship

you may not have a conversation with a chimp, but l bet Lola would

Doreen.

I just couldn't pass up reading this post about Lola and her naughty self.....

Someone has to give you a hard time Cindy, may as well be Lola.... :p

I couldn't even imagine arguing with a bird....it would be pretty cool, but kind of freaky too....I bet you have days where you're wishing she had an on/off switch aren't there?

Today was that day!

Do you punish her somehow when she's been bad.....like put her in a cage or something? I doubt you do because I know how much you love her, but it sounds like a toddler that needs disciplined....lol Does she ever tell you she's sorry?

I don't remember if you told me before, but how long can they live for?

Yes! That's why I can't punish her!
And when she says "I'm sorry" and then snuzzles up against my face and says "I love you, mommy!"

What can I do?
No, she never gets punished!

An African Grey has a life-span of around 70 years.

Cindy

And she's only 6 now??? :rolleyes:

Let's do the math here!!

Weezie

I have to admit, I'd love to meet the both of them, would be quite fun I think!!!!

omg i love reading about you and Lola and all ur adventures, ms. cindy! They're so fun ^.^ I wish Magic could talk, but she just kinda divebombs you when she wants attention. And then when you give her attention, she'll fly away, cuz its not the "right kind" of attention

~Phoebe

Hmmm...I wonder if Cindy was Lolas pet in a previous life and shes just getting her back!

G-Mom

That could be it Karen!!!

70 years is a long time!!!!!! And that's so funny that she tells you she's sorry. No wonder you can't punish her.

I would've answered the post last night but the stupid computer froze up on me, and I'm too impatient to wait for it to reboot when it does that.....

What's wrong with that?

Lola eats all her meals at the table.
She eats whatever I eat, which is much healthier for her than anything else. She gets all her vitamins and her extra calcium she needs right from eating "people" meals.

Here's how it works...
She has her own little plates and bowls and cups.
I put a little bit of everything on her plate, and she sits on my shoulder and I hold the plate up in front of her with my right hand and eat MY food with my left hand. When she wants a drink, she tells me and I hold her milk, or whatever, up and she drinks. Last night she ate broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, ham, corn, and a roll. She enjoyed this meal, so most of it ended up eaten. If she gets mad because I won't give her another roll before she's eaten her vegetables, she throws her vegetables in the floor. Very simple. Yesterday she had pumpkin pie for breakfast, with whipped cream. She ate the whipped cream off and wanted more. I wouldn't give her anymore, so she threw the pumpkin pie all over the place...then asked for more. I guess she figured I'd get her another piece of pie with whipped cream. She's pretty smart.

I know...
I guess I could get a job or something, but what fun would that be?
And, I'd have to hire a babysitter for Lola!


Cindy

uhhh.....now you know why they call me the crazy bird lady!

Ummm, yeah, we already knew!!

We think you're a nutcase for a lot of reasons, that's probably the least of them!!

Don't you dare get a job that takes you away from us!!

Is this one of them?

That'll work

G-Mom

Cindy,
I thought of you and Lola today in church. Our pastor was telling us a joke about a man who's uncle died and left him a full grown parrot in his will. Well, the man brought the parrot home and put his cage in the kitchen. The parrot was a really rude bird and every other word was an obscenity, and if it wasn't one of those, it was a rude comment. The man tried to speak politely to the bird hoping that the bird would pike up on the nice, kind words, but it did no good. One day the man was at his whit's end. He took the parrot out of his cage, the parrot swore at him. He yelled at the parrot and shook the parrot, all the time the parrot was swearing back at him. So, finally, in frustration, the man put the parrot in the freezer. For a couple of minutes he heard the parrot yelling and kicking and then....silence. Afraid that he had hurt his uncle's beloved parrot, he opened the freezer door. The parrot came out and sat on his arm and said "I am truly very sorry that I was rude and said those bad things. Please please forgive me. I will never again act like that". Confused, the man forgave the parrot. The parrot then said,"May I just ask one question? What did the turkey do??"

I still laugh when I think of that!!

Ummm...I thought of you because it was about a parrot and the parrot was being bad!

LOLA??? BAD???

THIS is what I had to clean up before 8:30 a.m. this morning...

A shredded styrofoam cup...


...and cashews all over the chair!
(She snuck into the cashews while I was cleaning up the other mess!)


Cindy

She must've been mad at her mommy to do that!!!LOL What did you do to her!!! What does she call you by the way? Mommy, Mom, Cindy????

Actually, she WAS mad at me, because I kept making her leave Freckles alone. She had him so worked up by calling for him constantly, that I was afraid he was going to attack her! I ended up having to put him outside.

She calls me "Mommy"!
She says it so sweet...
...until I ignore her, then she yells "MOTHER!" real mean!

Cindy

LOL, yelling mother is always sure to get the attention that's wanted. I do that to my own mom when she isn't listening to me.....

I knew she had to be mad at you for something...my friends cat chunky is litter trained very well but when she's mad at her mommy she is always sure to go potty right in front of the door....

Your Lola stories are always so funny....Where does she sleep????? Okay, since she eats with you, and showers with you does she also share your bed???

No, but I'm almost ashamed to admit that she has her own bedroom.


She has to go to bed a lot earlier than mommy does, so she has her own room that is quiet and dark. With a special cage in there especially for a sleeping parrot! Her cage in the living room is huge...5 feet wide, 5 feet tall. Too drafty in it for her to sleep in there. Her sleeping cage is 20 inches square, and 24 inches tall. Nice and cozy!

I might as well fess up right now and tell you...
She also has her own 31" T.V. that is on the cartoon channel or Discovery all the time, unless she is watching "Finding Nemo" or "Paulie" video!


Cindy

LOL Hey, nothing wrong with that.....my friends cat Chunky has her own bedroom too.....I guess the TV for lola is a good thing....gotta keep that intelligent mind of hers active!

Did you buy her any xmas presents yet?

Ya know, I would think that it is strange to give your animals their own room, except that our cats usually end up sleeping in the room that will be the nursery. For some reason, they like to lay against the scratchy "sand" paint. ...or maybe its the fishies on the wall...?

Not yet! I spend about $60. a month on treats (Avi-Cakes) for her, so I don't go all out for Christmas!
I think I'll get her a few more of these rope coil things, though. She seems to like it pretty good, and every minute that she is on it, she's OFF of me! :rolleyes:


Cindy

Do you ever let her up wrap the gifts?? LOL!

Weezie

Believe me when I say I will have pictures!

She likes to wrap more than unwrap!
When I am wrapping stuff she gets right in the middle of it...literally!

Cindy,

I've been reading your entertaining post about Lola now for several weeks and am thinking it might be nice to have a parrot. (I must do LOTS of research first because it is a LIFETIME commitment!!!)

A couple questions keeps coming to mind as I view pictures of your beautiful girl:

Does she leave many ummmm..."wet presents" but brings home smaller birds ).

I had friends years ago who had an african grey - when they had a baby, after a few weeks they thought the baby had multiplied into twins because the parrot cried whenever the baby did!

Well...Lola is potty trained!
She never poops in her cage, and as soon as I get her out in the morning I hold her over her trash can and she poops. When she's on my shoulder she lets me know when she's fixing to poop, and I get her over a trash can. If I'm busy and not paying attention to her, she will poop on my shoulder. But, a little poop never hurt anybody!

Lola did fine with my little chihuahua, Tiny.
Lola was the dominate one of the pair!
She would sneak up on Tiny and bite her on the ear, then laugh her butt off!


Freckles tries to catch her, and he would kill her in an instant if he ever does. It makes me a nervous wreck. Right now Lola and Freckles are barking at each other, and it's driving me crazy! (Lola still barks like the chihuahua!) She doesn't realize that Freckles is dangerous, and she calls for him constantly "Freckles! Come here!" Like, right now every time he lays down, she calls him, and if he doesn't come, she starts making the sound of his sqeeze toy, so he runs in here.
The inside cat gets along fine with Lola, but the outside cat would love to have her for dinner.

Cindy

Hey Cricket...
Me too! I've never really liked birds. But this past week, I took care of Larry, my across the street neighbor's bird. I don't know what kind he is. Bob calls him a Conyor...is that just a bird or is that a type of bird? Anyways, Larry doesn't talk or do much of anything. Althought, yesterday when I gave Bob his key back, Larry was hanging upside down on his hanging toy in his cage. But since we are trying for kids, I don't think I will push the thought of getting a bird. I definately don't want 2 things crying!!! Its going to be hard enough getting our 3 furbabies used to a new crying thing!

Cricket is right on with this...
So many people get parrots and don't realize what a big responsibility it is, and they are locked in a cage for life, with no real companionship other than a hand coming into the cage every now and then to put some food and water in. It breaks my heart. they had it there, and she said they bought it because it was so beautiful, and didn't realize how noisy it would be.
Can't even talk about that without crying...

Cindy

I love hearing all the stories about Lola! A friend at work has a parrot simular to yours and she is always telling me stories. I would love to have a parrot, but it would be to muck work right now.

G-daughter.

Remember me? Cindy's cousin.

Lola has a fetish for my husband. Everytime we go over, she flies, walks, whatever straight to him when he is sitting in the living room. He has been tempted to pet her, but Cindy reminds him that she could snap his finger off! (and this is her baby?!?!)

I stay as far away as I can....

It is pretty funny to hear her answer the phone like Andy... and then picking on Cindy and LAUGHING HER *** OFF while tormenting her.

Les

Like pulling my hair out?
And you think that's FUNNY?!


Cindy

"Someday we’ll look back on this, laugh nervously,
and change the subject."

Like our trip back from Richmond?

Uhhh.....

Well... Let me think of something else.

OMG! I can't even THINK about that without laughing out loud!

Hmmmmm.....might not have been such a good idea to invite you to join the forum!
Don't start spilling your guts about the REAL me!



Cin

Oh, now, it is REALLY not nice to tease us like that. Come on, spill!

I just banned her from the forum!

Cindy

Walmart...3am...I thought you didn't like going to wallyworld

G-Mom

Well......
Lots of twists and turns ended us up at Wal-Mart at 3 a.m.
The experience was memorable for us...
...as well as a lot of other shoppers, I'm sure!
It has something to do with "that" bra in the shopping cart...long story! When I look back on it now I wonder how in the world we got through that night without incarceration!

Cindy

Hmmmm...

I'm not talking!

Leslie's not talking!

And, Lola wasn't there, so she's not talking!

:p


Cindy

There was this one time last april fools day when we all went to walmart to buy some pranks. I went to the girls section, cuz there's a guy on our floor named Ron who likes the color blue, and flames, so i grabbed a pair of blue panties with flames on them, and a bra with flames on it.

But ya, we were gonna put that in Ron's bed. So after that, we were gonna cover Donat's door completely in duct tape, so when he woke up he would open his door to a wall of duct tape. But not only that, when he would go to push it down, he would push his hand into a wall of duct tape with about an inch of Vasciline all over it ^.^ yay!

So ya, we went as soon as april fools day started, and we were in Walmart till about 4:00 in the morning looking around. And when we got to the register, the lady was sitting there, looking at 4 guys, 1 girl, and a shopping cart with blue flaming female underwear, duct tape, and vasciline When he woke up in the morning, we heard "What the F***..." and the door slam behind the duct tape wall lol. Then he opened it again, and he pushed it, and went "AWWW WHAT THE F***!" and i took a picture when he finally pushed the wall over and was covered in Vasciline ^.^

As for the panties and bra... Well we put em in Ron's bed... and we never heard about it... we never saw em in the dumpster either... and we asked him what he did with them... and he said he kept em, cuz he thought they were mine o.O I think all my friends want to have sex with me >.<

But ya ^.^ That was april fools day last year! *thinks* wow that had nothing to do with this thread... Oh well, its all good!

~Phoebe

Phoebe, you crack me up!

Hmmm...
You think so????

After that story, you'd be right at home with me and Leslie in Wal-Mart! We would have gotten through our bra ordeal a little easier if I hadn't started laughing so hard at myself! And once I got started, there was no stopping! I just about had to get down and roll around in the floor! (Much to Leslie's extreme embarrassment!)


Cindy

Yep, you're right about the embarrassment. at 3:00 a.m. and we didn't even notice until you had pushed all over the store and back.

Uhhhh....hello, Leslie!
We were just talking about you!
...or was it me?



Did you have a nice visit at my house tonight?
The pets didn't scare you, did they?

Cindy

Why do you think it's been so long since I've been over?!!!!! :rolleyes:

Sorry you had to witness the many incidents of my beloved pets attacking me! I think I could have used a stitch or two where Lola got me! The sides of her beak are like razor blades!
And I have a big purple knot on my hand where Freckles nailed me!

That does it!
I'm calling Animal Control!


Cindy

I'll be looking for a BIG jar for you!!!

They're coming to take me away..hee,hee,ho,ho,hee,hee
The men in the little white coats...hee,hee,ho,ho,hee,hee

G-Mom

That's right ^.^ They'll put you in this pretty white room with nice pretty pillows all over the walls, and you even get your own lightbulb! Plus, if you get cranky, they'll give you this nice coat to wear so you can hug yourself alllllll day

~Phoebe

Cindy you kill me, hope the animals dont do the same to you