The last macaw

For those of you who've had the pleasure of visiting us in the past six months or so, you know that our neighbors (not the ones we're attached to, but the other ones) have inherited some type of tropical bird. For quite some time, it has been inside the house squawking. We would not have known what it was if we hadn't run into the wife, Hillbilly Harriet we will call her, at a local watering hole with my folks. They only really talk to my dad. For whatever reason, they never engage in conversation with us, which is fine by me. They probably think we're snobs because we put up an eight foot fence so we wouldn't have to look at their junky compound.

So, Hillbilly Harriet tells us that it's a beautiful large bird. Her brother, Jailbird Joey, told us the cage was so big he could fit in it and it felt just like home. Hmm. So, we listened to it squawk from inside their house, many times feeling like they were prodding it with hot pokers, as it more often sounded like a velocaraptor than a bird of paradise.

For those of you who don't know, our dining area has a window that looks directly onto their front porch. We are three feet apart, and often they will sit out there, talk loudly to each other or on the phone and smoke directly into our window. I find this to be generally unfair because they have a property the size of twice of ours, with a large deck and pool, yet choose to sit in as close proximity to us as possible. Sometimes living in Bridgeport has all the charm of a world-class sewage system. Thankfully, this is the window we've put our air conditioning unit in and I have to say, we could not have made a better choice.

On Saturday, I was delighted to come downstairs in the a.m. to see that Kevin had made a discovery. "Look out the window," he said. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a giant cage holding a very large white bird captive, its beady black eye peering into our house. Brilliant.

With the air conditioning on, we really can't hear it in the front room. But the rest of the house, with windows open to ventilate the scant breeze that exists in our concrete jungle, resounds with the cacophonous song of this thing, which I now believe to be a cockatoo. Last night, they taught it to say "Aflac." They've also purchased three smaller, colorful parakeets that I'm sure will add to the glee. It's turning into quite a little menagerie, as they already had two small dogs and at one point, an enormous groundhog in a cage. This is all in addition to the general melee which takes place there on a regular basis, which last evening involved a lot of screaming obscenities and "I hate you!"s. My home, my haven.

I don't know what we did to deserve this, but I sure wish I did so I could take it back 100-fold. If this doesn't make you want to visit us soon, I don't know what will!!