We don't do much about Christmas around here, but some of the people around us do, so we've had quite a few boxes at the house lately. Harley loves them.

The bigger the better!

It's already 2010 in places like South Korea and England, so: Happy New Year! We had a pretty good 2009 here — well, I didn't do so well selling jewelry, but still we did pretty well overall. But, many people on the planet had a hard time. So here's hoping your 2010 is full of tasty seeds, big boxes, and a little less stress than 2009.

You never know what you might find inside that next box.

Our condominium association was very slow to give us approval to replace the carpenter bee snacks wooden deck, so we really expected our Wee Deck Men to put the project off until the Spring. But I guess everyone needs a little extra cash these days, so Terry and Jim came by yesterday and today to build us a new one out of composite materials.

We thought Harley would be out of sorts from all the commotion, but he couldn't get enough. He practically flew out the sliding glass door to help, and spent most of yesterday morning overseeing the work watching.

Too bad it's too cold to go outside and use it.

Oh, and remind me to start taking more photos with the real camera.

Well, look at what I found hiding in the blog software? An entry I'd meant to publish on November 18th! Go figure! I blame Michigan Winters, I suppose. We still don't have new faucets, but since we got the new water tank (bigger than the last one) Harley seems fairly content to sit quietly on the counter — aerators ignored — enjoying the steam that collects in the bathroom while the humans shower. You know, so far.

Harley successfully removed the aerator screen from one of the bathroom sinks the other day. He squished it and squished it in his beak for awhile, me telling him to drop it the whole time. When he finally let me take it it was no longer a round bit of screen, it was a nice little lump.

Best game ever.

Here he is, pretending to "just drink the water."

In reality, the only reason he hasn't ripped the screen out of this second bathroom sink is because we've learned to leave the water running while he's playing on the counter. This has slowed him down a little bit.

After a brief foray into "chipping off the mineral deposits that have collected on two 15-year-old aerators" (we slowed this game down by soaking them in vinegar), his new trick is to unscrew the aerator itself. Yes, really. He totally understands the concept of "righty tighty, lefty loosey." I am not making this up. So every few days we have to re-tighten them. For a little while we simply removed the aerator assembly completely, but we soon discovered that this is a bad idea.

With all that water shooting willy-nilly, we started getting leaks under the sinks. Not fun.

So we've started shopping for bird-proof faucets. We're not sure they exist, apart from these incredibly ugly ones. (I mean, really. Talk about ugly.)

There are also some pretty cool models, many of which are made of glass, cost a thousand dollars, and seem either to be made for sink bowls or to be mounted on the wall. While we've talked about redecorating the bathroom (getting rid of the pink is on the list), the friendly people at the home improvement stores look at us funny when we explain we're looking for bird-proof faucets. I dunno, should we pretend Harley is a 90-pound dog? Besides, two thousand dollars (for two sinks) would buy an awful lot of bourbon. And really, we're waaaaay too lazy to redecorate a whole, entire room. No matter how small.

Instead, we've been trying to distract Harley with bath toys.

Sometimes it even works. That is, if you can count pushing the tub of water off the counter as "playing with bath toys." Harley thinks you can.

As it turns out, the furnace just needed a bit of cleaning. The water tank, unfortunately, needed replacing. Here's a photo of the old one leaving, taken from the balcony — Harley and I stayed upstairs in the bedroom during all the commotion (I left Harley in there while I popped out for the picture).

By now all four of my readers know that I'm a lazy slug, and lately — what with the grey days of Michigan Winters and all — I've been even less likely to update The Finster Log, despite all the photos I've been taking of Mr. Adorable. Unfortunately, it has taken just about this long — three weeks or so since Thanksgiving — for Harley to get back to being comfortable about going to bed after being so terribly startled in the middle of the night I mentioned so long ago.

Are all kids this fussy?

He hasn't slept up in our bedroom since that one night, but I've had to force him off onto the perch on his door a few times. His next trick was to step onto his Sleepy Perch, but then climb right off it once I turned my back. I'd hang around for a few minutes, encouraging him to climb back to the Sleepy Perch, but I wouldn't always wait for him to get there. Mean witch that I am. One morning I found him waiting for me on a different perch entirely, but I'm not sure if he climbed down in the middle of the night, or just as I came downstairs in the morning. Such a fuss! Poor bird.

Anyway, you'll be happy to know that two out of the past three nights Harley has stepped onto his Sleepy Perch and stayed there. So hopefully we're all pretty much back to normal sleeping patterns. Finally. Fingers crossed.