The other day Bruce and I were talking about Harley's longevity — how he could outlive us both, how intelligent he is, how important it is to keep him occupied. Sure, I'll probably be making him snacks wrapped in tiny squares of paper for the rest of my life, but I'm going to have to find lots of new places to hide them. New toys, new games, and I want to start training him — to do something, anything. As long as it's new.

New foods are useful too, although I still think it would be nice to convince him to eat all the familiar, healthy, organic, and so-far-untouched foods I present to him every day. Still, when Bruce offered Harley a bit of pie crust the other night I didn't complain too much, even though pie crust rates as "bad" on the list of things you can give a bird as a snack. But oh! you should have seen Harley's excitement! He ate a bite, his eyes pinned, he climbed down from his perch to get to the piece that had fallen, he ate some of that, his eyes pinned, and I quietly took the rest away, leaving him pinning over a leftover crumb or two. Pretty funny, but no pics.

Sometimes Harley gets into moods where he turns into a Klingon: he doesn't want to do anything specific, he doesn't want to be anywhere, but he wants to be with one of his people. This can be awkward when you're trying to do, you know, just about anything. He isn't a shoulder bird (which is fine, since a big bird on a shoulder leaves the human face pretty vulnerable to bites), so you're stuck with a bird on one hand. Sometimes you can scrape him off onto a perch; sometimes you can lure him off with a snack, but sometimes you're stuck. Occasionally, I'll dump him onto the floor — Harley isn't a floor bird any more than he's a shoulder bird. So he wanders around a bit, gets occupied with his new surroundings, and a minute or two later I can pick him up without fear of Never Being Able To Get Him Off Me Again. But Bruce made the mistake of trying this trick in the bathroom, with bare feet.

What is it about Birds Who Love Toes? And I don't mean "love" like he'll sing to them every morning, and regurgitate tasty bird barf, or anything sweet like that. I mean "love" with the unwavering need to run after them, bite nuzzle them with his beak, and test their squishy chewiness: chasing, screeching, flapping and lurching with glee. Since the two of them were in the bathroom when Bruce tried the floor experiment, he didn't have a whole lot of room to run away, and ended up hopping back and forth from foot to foot. Again, no pics. Too bad.

The last picture you'll never see is of Harley sleeping: it's too dark. Harley sleeps on a cotton "Comfy Perch." You can pop up a picture here. These come in several widths and lengths. Although they're generally packaged in this horseshoe shape, they actually can be bent into various configurations. However, we left a short one of these in a horseshoe for his cage, and Harley sits on it quite often; including when he sleeps. He sits in the curve of the perch, tail waaaaaay up, head waaaaaay down, and — miraculously — sleeps. It's the craziest thing, it really looks like he'll fall off.