Long denied, but not forgotten

I have been neglecting Manzi's journey on the road to fame by not posting in far too long. Currently, we are doing frequent flight indoors, but have still not flown outdoors. My nightmares of Manzi getting taken away by a hawk or eagle has me continue to make excuses of why I haven't brought him outside. Manzi is getting more and more agitated as we go on walks with beautiful weather and him being stuck on my hand by a leg leash.

Here is a funny story: Manzi always wants to be on my shoulder when I am in the kitchen. I allow him to be there for a while, but he never fails to get overly curious and began reaching to items that I have in my hand. This is especially prevalent while washing dishes. I finally got tired of him hanging from the front of my shirt trying to reach dishes, so I put a lot of soap on a dish and let him bite it. He right away grabbed it in his beak, but half a second later dropped it and shock his head as he tasted the soap. He did not learn his lesson. Within a minute he was grabbing for dishes again. I repeated the soap trick. After several times, he stopped grabbing for dishes; But, the next time I was washing dishes he did the same thing. I soaped up the dishes and gave them to him several times per day over the next week. This morning when I was washing dishes, he flew to my shoulder, but he did not try to grab the dishes. I even held up a tempting wooden spoon and he just shook his head (something he does when he doesn't want whatever it is that I am offering him). I was amazed that he finally learned that he is going to get a mouth of soap if he grabs at the dishes I am washing. Now I can happily wash dishes with him on my shoulder and not hanging down the front of my shirt grabbing at everything.

Does anyone sabotage their children's efforts in a similar way?

Manzi the terror

I should count how many times I refer to Manzi as such. This morning he has been terrorizing my house. He is back to going after the bathroom trash can, with a vengeance. Luckily, I found his stuffed animal and that occupied him for a good 30 minutes, but now he is back to the trash can as I am typing this.

This morning after I was finishing a long walk, I saw a peregrine falcon almost take out a crow. Luckily for the crow, it dogged the bullet and then recruited some friends to harrass the falcon until it finally flew away. It leaves me concerned.

Also, Manzi has been extremely regurgitational. Multiple times last night and then first thing in the morning. If you already get grossed out by animal grossness, stop reading here.

When regurgitating, he usually just brings food up into his beak and then re-eats it. Every so often he will actually spit it out. He spit the food out last night, then went about his ways. A couple of minutes later he noticed the chunks of food on the ground (I had yet to clean it up) and proceeded to eat it as if he found a real treat. I myself found it disgusting. I am glad I'm not a bird, especially a female one who has to act happy to receive such a gift.

Doll

Manzi got a new doll/stuffed animal recently. It has given him hours of entertainment as he is working very hard on destroying it. He has pulled the freckles off the cheeks and has dislocated the hands/paws. Since I am getting rid of a lot of belongings, Manzi is competing with Goodwill to claim my old items. If he looks really interested, and not just interested in it because he can't have it, then I will let him destroy it. Unfortunately, it often happens that just when it is no longer donatable to Goodwill, he will be completely uninterested and never want to touch the item again, even though there is still a lot of destroying left in it.

I still haven't taken Manzi to the gym. Maybe that will happen next week, or maybe not. I haven't seen many hawks by the park where Manzi used to fly, so now I need to take the leap and fly him outside again. It is still a scary proposition for me though. Manzi is overly eager. I have been taking him on walks outside again every day and he is getting more and more frustrated that he is not allowed to fly around. I wonder how well he'll fly after not being outside in so long.

Manzi and my brush

Manzi just loves my brush. Due to that, I usually brush my hair when I see he is occupied and not paying attention. Otherwise, he flies to my shoulder and tries to get the brush to scratch him instead of having it wasted on my hair.

Shower Curtain

Manzi follows me around the house all day and won't let me out of his sight. Today, while getting ready I was in the bathroom. Manzi usually hangs out on the rug or plays with the inside of toilet paper rolls. (I have something in every room for him to play with instead of getting into trouble although he often still gets into trouble) Anyway, today Manzi went for the door handle. He tried landing on it and slipped off and made it to the top of the shower curtain rod. He has rarely been up there before. He was interested in the shower curtain hooks and saw that with one swift motion he can unhook them. Within 10 seconds he had half the shower curtain hooks off with the curtain hanging down. By this point I stopped him, much to his disappointment. Sometimes I try and figure out what is going through Manzi's head. Often I come to the conclusion that he is thinking, "What can I do to cause the most amount of trouble and make Adele work hard to repair, replace or clean?"

On another note, I have been selling lots of belongings on Ebay in preparation for my big move this summer. Due to that, I have items strewn about the house in boxes ready to be shipped as soon as I have a buyer. Manzi can barely contain his curiosity. About once per an hour he goes to the ground and starts walking around. I keep a good eye on him. As he begins to eye an item, he will step closer and closer to it while continuing to glance in my direction as if asking me, "Can I please chew and destroy this?" The answer is nearly always, "No." Manzi will get close enough to touch it and then I tell him, "No," after which he will, with much disappointment, fly back to his play stand or cage.