Tyson Parker and the Aloof Dish Towel

Ok, this was just too cute not to plaster somewhere and my blog just seemed like a really good idea.

Today, instead of church, due to the weather, I opted to stay home and clean my tiels cages--5 tiels, 5 cages--each cage is 2 foot by 2 foot by six foot tall. Mostly it was a normal cleaning day. I clean the tiels trash the room, perfectly normal. AsaMina hit Worthington with three dried apricots and he promptly bombed her back with four raisins (note to self, remove raisins and apricots from their seed/pellet mix for my safety). She then responded with a raisin and a green squiggle pellet, missed and hit me instead. Worthington, never to be out done, didn't even bother to aim for AsaMina and just hit me with two dried apricots. Yup, totally normal house cleaning kind of day. (picture is of Worthington ducking behind a toy on the jungle gym after I glared at him for hitting me with a raisin)

With cages finally squeaky clean (we won't discuss the floor at this point), I did as I always do, picked up Worthington, AsaMina, and Tyson Parker and took them into the kitchen with me The kitchen is a rare treat for Tyson Parker because he's not 'potty trained' like AsaMina and Worthington are. Yes, 'potty trained'. You can teach a bird to go 'potty' in a trash can, the sink, anywhere but you or other such places, like the kitchen counter. Worthington and AsaMina are both quite good and let me know when they need to go, so I have next to no accidents with them. Tyson Parker, on the other hand, doubles as a loaded weapon. So, the only time he's allowed on my kitchen counter is when I need to sterilize it anyway, like on house cleaning day--today. So, there we were, the four of us in the kitchen. Tyson Parker on the counter and Double Trouble (AsaMina and Worthington) on my shoulders doing their best to dismantle yet another ponytail holder. Normally Tyson Parker just sits on the counter admiring his reflection in my microwave---but not today. Today he opted to flirt with my dish towel and boy do I wish I had video of it!

I am Tyson Parkers third home. In his first home, someone had apparently taught the little sweetie to whistle when a white paper was waved in his face. Tyson Parker, getting lots of reinforcement for being so weirdly cute, has taken this to another level. Any fabric of any sort or any print in his face he'll talk to. To watch him you'd think he either had a screw loose or he speaks fluent fabric language (both hypothisis are still up for debate). So, today, with a clean dish towel down on the counter to absorb the water coming off the water bottles I was washing, Tyson Parker went into 'weirdly cute' mode.

Apparently finding said dish towel quite attractive, he slowly approached it. Towel didn't bite him or threaten him back, so he continued. He tapped his beak on the counter several times letting the dish towel know he found it quite cute. Dish towel didn't respond. So, he begins doing what all tiels love, preening. He began lavishing the dish towel with his best skritches and preened the terry cloth loops into a total frazzle--the dish towel was still being quite rude as it had yet to respond to Tyson Parkers amourous advances. He preened the dish towel, he blew kisses at the dish towel, he called the dish towel [and I quote], "Pretty Birrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd!" The dish towel remained silent and very aloof. Undaunted, Tyson Parker continued trying to get the attention of the dish towel by doing his best flirt dance. No luck, the dish towel still refused to respond to his amorous advances.

Having gotten the point, and me accidentily dropping a water bottle top in the sink as I tried to wash it while laughing hysterically, Tyson Parker leaped, slightly startled by me dropping the bottle top, off the kitchen counter and onto the floor. He then, feeling totally rejected and not too sure what to make of all my giggling, waddled off into hubby's den for a bit of male bonding and consoling.

Oh, and if in this last picture it looks like something is missing, it is. Tyson Parker can't fly due to clipped wings, but it hasn't stopped him from trying. Every attempt to fly just causes him to land on his bottom instead of his feet, thus slowly but surely breaking off one tail feather at a time. So, instead of a beautiful 10 inch long tail, the little angel has a feather duster instead.