A character sketch - Pickle

When I was young, I used to walk home from school with my Walkman blaring - and I would select songs that seemed to fit the weather, my mood and the day because, after all, my life was a movie, and wouldn't showing a girl like me walking down the street be a really interesting opening scene of a movie?

Not really, but I thought so.

Since I believed that this would be the most amazing scene, I would imagine the camera starting off low, focused on my shoes as I walked through leaves, or mud, or water, or snow (I used to have to walk uphill both ways to and from school, in the snow, in my father's pajamas). Then it would pan in and take in my awesome 'flared' jeans, courtesy of Suzy Shier. All the way up until it zoomed out, an establishing shot- it would show my long, long, long walk home (I was so hard done by).

My favourite song to play while I was walking home at night was Warehouse by Dave Matthews. I swore it was the most climactic song ever, and people would be scared for what would happen next. And then, maybe I would walk through a warehouse and wouldn't that be clever!?

Today, remembering this, and thinking about how sometimes I feel like my life would be entertaining enough to watch that I could totally replace the Jersey Shore and everyone would be all "Snooki, who?", I thought to myself - I should introduce the cast of my life to my readers!

So I'm starting with:

Pickle

Meet Pickle:

He isn't a very polite eater.

Pickle is currently the super hero of my life. What? He is! He can fly! Okay, actually, no he can't - his wings are clipped - but he could fly if his wings weren't clipped, and he can climb like nobody's business.

Pickle is a Lineolated Parakeet. That's basically just a small, tiny little parrot. And he's awesome.

If I don't talk about Pickle all the time it's because I'm making an honest and constant effort not to have every sentence that comes out of my mouth start with "oh, you should've seen Pickle the other day.." Seriously. I'll be designing a project and someone will say "What colour are you using?" And I'll think to myself "the loveliest yellow - bright and cheerful. Just like the outside feather on Pickle's wing". Okay. I'm striking that out because it makes me seem like a total weirdo.


Anyway - Pickle peppers my daily life with so much awesome. Linnie's aren't squawkers like a lot of birds. They're pretty quiet. They can pick up things that you say or teach them, but they're super shy. It's totally normal to walk into the room and hear Pickle quietly mumbling to himself - practicing something new he's heard. Once he gets comfortable that he's saying things correctly, the volume will pick up. You should hear him sing the theme song from Inspector Gadget. He's a regular Elton John.

His current roster of sounds includes: wolf whistles, Inspector Gadget's theme song, the sound of sirens (we live on a busy street), "Pickle, Pickle, Pickle," "Step up," and the sound of a bomb (you know - a long whistle with an explosion at the end? I taught him that.). I'm trying to teach him to say "You're pretty", because, really, who wouldn't feel awesome if they walked into a room and had someone tell them they're pretty, over and over? Right? When he is learning a new phrase or sound, he sits as close as he can to your mouth super still and listens with the most earnest little expression on his face.. it's really hard not to bite his head off (I tend to want to eat really cute things. Hide yo' kids, hide yo' wife).

When he's hanging out by himself, he doesn't chirp or sing the way regular birds do. You know - Robin's sing their weird song, budgies chirp and sing like crazy. Pickle sings, but he sings like a person. He'll sing "dooo dee dooo dee dooooooo" to himself - but like a person, people. Like he says the words. And how cool is that?

Pickle also likes me more than theGuy which is kind of awesome for me, except when I don't feel like having a bird climb up my head to perch there like he owns it. He'll sit by my feet when I'm making dinner, like a dog, and he gets so excited to see me, his wings start to vibrate. He is adorable and perfect and I love him.



So there you go. Pickle. He's kind of a big dill.