JAKE

Well, since we are talking about birds, I thought I would pay tribute to my dearly departed parrot, One-Eyed Jake. Jake was a big bird. He was a good bird. And yes, he had only one eye. You see, apparently the owners before us weren't very nice to Mr. Jake and Jake tried to pay them back one day by latching his humongous beak onto his owner's finger. Now you can imagine how that probably doesn't feel too nice, so his former owner, sadly, beat Jake in the head with a stick to get him to release his grip. The blows to his head caused his eye to sink into the socket, lost forever. Technicially his eye was there, but you'd have to look really closely and there was definitely no way the bird could see out of it. Anyhow, besides the fact that he was strangly disfigured, Jake was a good bird. He would talk and sing and laugh and make kissy noises. Now, his second owners, according to my step dad who retrieved him from the second owners weren't the best people and they taught him a lot of foul language. So Jake would, from time to time, shout curses or nasty phrases. But he was still a good bird, just mislead in a sense. I liked him most of the time, but there were those times when he scared the crap out of me. It's almost as if he knew I secretely feared him. One day, when no one was home and it was dark outside, I heard a small, quite raspy voice say, "Hey Natalie.....Natalie......come here Natalie." I totally freaked out. Especially when I realized it was Jake. I responded with a "Shoosh, Jake. Close your beak." But he continued on....and in a freaky tone, too. He didn't even sound like a bird. "Come here Natalie.....come closer.....I won't bite......come here......." It totally freaked me out. And he just kept going saying he was a good bird and he wouldn't bite me and for me to come closer. He kept calling my name. Anyhow, I was totally freaked out. I mean, had he done it in a regular bird-like tone, it would have been fine, but his voice like dropped and it sounded quite human. Very scary. Anyhow, Jake did that quite often when no one was home. He did it to my mom a couple times too. Our little possessed bird.

Anyhow, Jake is no longer with us. This is quite sad because, despite the scary events, Jake was a good bird, always singing, talking, greeting you when you walked in the door. He loved taking showers and he would even be loose around the house for a couple hours once a week. I remember that if you put a blanket over him, he would say, "Kelly girl, oh Kelly girl....come here....gimme a kiss...." Apparently someone was named Kelly before us. Anyhow, one day my mom was cookin' something on the stove when she got an emergency call and had to leave the house. Unfortunately she forgot to turn the burner off. Luckily, the house did not catch fire, but it filled with smoke. My mother realized what she had done and rushed home to find the house full of grey colored smoke. She opened the windows, turned on all the fans, trying to air it out as best as possible. She heard Jake making coughing noises, but she just didn't put two and two together. Jake died later that day from massive smoke inhalation. My mother still feels guilty about the whole thing. But it's ok. I'm sure Jake is having a great time, with two eyes, talking dirty to the angels in heaven. =)

Anyhow, that was a long story, but I felt like it needed to be told. Oh, and for my mom's birthday I bought her a new bird. Her first bird since Jake. His name is "Little Bird." He is a parakeet. Since then, my step-dad bought Little Bird a friend; Whitey. They like eachother.

That's all.