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.