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31st December, 2003 - Birdy num num

I'm looking after my friend Jade's parrot for the week. Jade and I went to the same high school in England, and our paths crossed again when she moved from Hong Kong to Toronto 4 years ago. She is one of the nicest, sweetest people I know. Her bird, Zazu, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. The first day, he bit my finger. Then he took a chunk off my ear. We're gettting along much better now that the bleeding has stopped. In fact, just today, Zazu performed one of his famous tricks for me.

Jade usually puts him on her shoulder and instructs him to fly. Zazu then circles the room and comes back to her. Easy enough, I thought. So I tried it, but upon uttering "Fly, Zazu, fly!", the parrot just sat there. I reached for a little treat, made sure he knew what I had in my hand and repeated, "Fly, Zazu, FLY!". Still nothing. Nada. Zip, zilch, zero. Hmmmmm. I was obviously missing something. I put myself in Jade's shoes. Was it some kind of body language? The tone of her voice? Some subtle nuance, a tilt, a smile, a sign? Suddenly, I had it.

I looked Zazu directly in the eye and said, "Fry, Zazu, Fry." And sure enough, he took off, flew around the room and settled back down on my shoulder. I was jubilant! Wait until I tell Jade about this. She'll die raughing!

As for Zazu, if I were a bird and someone mentioned the word "fry", I would take off faster than you could say "KFC". But then I guess he's blissfully unaware of my reputation with birds.

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