Saturday, July 16, 2005

Birds Behaving Badly

We have visitors in town for the next several days. Grandma Barbara (Eric's mom) and her fiancé Cannon are visiting from Cincinnati. So we took them to the Oregon Zoo yesterday to ride the cool train and see some animals.

Our very first stop was Lorikeet Landing which is always Eric's favorite. You buy a small cup of nectar, step into the aviary, and within seconds you become a human landing zone for the hungry lorikeets. It totally gives me the creeps, but the kids get a kick out of watching dad covered with birds. Yesterday, however, the birds were on some serious crack. One bird unloaded what seemed like a cup full of pee right onto Max. This is the kid with the dramatic flair, who remembers every tragic, scary, embarassing, sad or frightening event that has ever happened to him in his four and a half years of life. He crumbled into tears, ran out of the aviary, and has promised us all that he will never go in there again for all of eternity. Another bird tried to make a nest in grandma Barbara's hair, and a third one ate a hole in Cannon's straw hat. There were peckings, poopings, and pluckings practically every step of the way. People were perplexed and partaking in loads of anitbacterial wash as they fled, screaming from the place.

At least all was made better in the evening when we had a lovely engagement party for Barbara and Cannon at my parents house. Lashings of champagne, cake and ice cream with fresh raspberries, soothed our lorikeet-rattled nerves. All is now right with the world.

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