19 September, 2008

Yarrr! (A Timely Apparition)

I arrived at the office this morning, docked my laptop, and booted up the coffee pot. I had barely begun pulling down the day's latest code changes when I heard a noise – kind of a creaking screech, and only once. About 15 seconds passed before I heard it again.

Great, I thought. The A/C system's about to start making a racket again.

The third time, I stood up to try and locate the source of the sound. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some movement over at the window and stared in disbelief at the parrot staring back at me. A parrot, sitting on the narrow lip outside the window of my office building.

Inconceivable!

You just don't get a lot of that sort of thing in Frisco, so I grabbed my phone/camera and snapped a couple shots. They didn't come out particularly well, what with the glare from the fluorescent lights inside; but it's kind of a moot point since I don't subscribe to the value-added phone service that would allow me to upload them to this blog. However, thanks to Google, I was able to browse parrot pictures until I found a couple that looked like “my” parrot. As near as I can tell, he's a Jenday Conure and looks very much like this one.

By the time I'd ID'ed my little friend, he'd flown off. Later still, I recalled hearing somewhere that today is annual Talk Like A Pirate Day. How cool would it have been if I'd been able to make contact with my little friend and get him/her to ride around on my shoulder while I squinted one eye and announced to anyone within earshot, “Yarrrr! I'm a software pirate!”

Yes, there's a special place in heaven waiting for long-suffering bride as a reward for putting up with me.

Now playing: Zero7, Simple Things

2 comments:

Gwynne said...

Now, that is serendipity, a parrot arriving on Talk Like a Pirate Dat. And you are hilarious.

Are parrots native in those parts of the country, because I'm wondering if someone's pet flew away.

Foo said...

@gwynne: In recent months, there has been some talk in the news about exotic birds being smuggled into Texas from Mexico, but my guess would be that this one was someone's pet that escaped. I've lived in this area for nearly 20 years, and this is the first time I've ever seen a parrot outside of a cage in someone's house.

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