The first few weeks of their lives was inside an old handbag, filled with cotton wool, to keep them warm, they had to be fed every couple of hours so we would syringe food down their throats, the problem was during the day, my daughter could not take them to school, definately to distracting, i can just imagine the look on some of the teacher faces, so i had to take them with me to work, and they would make such a noise when they wanted food.......... that such a noise would come out of such a tiny thing is amazing, obviously having to call loud so that the mother or father bird would hear them, luckily it only took a few minutes and they were happy again.....
One day our MD was in my office, and they started to tweet like crazy, he stopped talking and he asked me whether i wanted to get my cell phone, he thought the noise was the ring tone on my cell phone, i had such a smile, i did not like to tell him i was "stealing" company time to keep these little pieces of skin alive.......... so i said no don't worry they will leave a message............... whew ...............
One of them kept getting a big blister on his leg, apparently because of the fall, and we would have to keep on popping it with a needle, so his name became Bubbles, and the other one had a problem with his legs, he obviously damaged them in the fall, he could not stand at all, he died a few weeks later, but Bubbles lived on......... there was no way that he was giving up, he had the fighting spirit.........
After a few weeks, Bubbles progressed to a hamster cage, and a few weeks after that he progressed to a bird cage, and there he spent his days ............. it always worried me it was so small, but we just never got around to buying a bigger cage ...........
Bubbles said his first words at about 6 months, his first sounds was the sound of someone " pooping" this was a definate indication of what my daughter does all day in her room..................... next he started saying "Hello" but you could quite easily distinguish the difference in the tones of all three of us in the house, then he started barking like the dog, calling the dog, he started calling Ma, and i would get so mad , thinking my daughter was calling me, and when i got there is was just the bird, who also started to laugh just like my daughter, then he started making the sounds of the cell phones, the home phone, then he started miaawing like the cats, and then well then the swear words started, not from us i hasten to add, but from our housekeeper........... Then we decided since he had lived for so long and chances were he would live for a few more years he really needed a bigger cage, and he needed to move outside, and so we bought him an avairy........ just a small mobile aviary, but about 20 times bigger than the bird cage he was currently in.
The day we put him in the avairy was so funny, at first he sat on the top perch, looking very confused, he did not touch the food and water in his new shiny bowls, and after about 3 hours, when he still had not touched the food and water i put in his old white bowls, and he ate, drank and took a full blown bath in his water bowl, i think that he needed something which was familiar, something that would make him feel at home ................
He would have some water on the one side of the cage and then hop over for some food, and then hop back, over for some water and the hop back over for some food, it was almost as if he was counting the steps to make sure that he was not dreaming............... he was used to almost being able to reach both sides of the cage at the same time and now he had to take 10 hops, it was like he was confused ...............
Then whenever he jumped to the bottom of the cage he would go "crazy' on the wire, so i put some newspaper in just like his old cage and he was happy again.................
the vet told us that Mynah birds do not like change ........ that they are creatures of habit, and boy this bird did not like change............. now a week later he has settled in, and is happy really happy he does not stop talking, it is almost as though he is smiling and the cherry on the top for him ......... is he even gets visitors, two mynahs come every day to talk to him , it is the funniest thing, they are "talking " in mynah language and he is saying "hello" "hello" "hello" ........... they must think that he is from a foreign county................
It really made me think how we are just like this, how we do not like change, and do everything possible no matter what to keep things the same, to keep things the way they were, to keep everything ship shape in our comfort zones..............
But life is about change, new idea's , new experiences, new relationships, new friends,
take the challenge in both hands, be thankful for it, enjoy every minute of it, because it is only in change that we grow ................. it in in change that we experience life.
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