An Introduction to Eddie

I need a break from thinking about Stella. I tried to take a picture of Eddiebird but as you can see, she was uncooperative. Around and around the cage we went but Eddie was not going to let herself get photographed. I think she wants a well thought out formal introduction well separated from anything about Stella. I don't blame her. 

But I will explain the name Eddie since she is a girl, not a boy.  And to make things even more confusing in this post, I'm going to post some pictures of my brother's house soon, and my brother's name just happens to be Eddie too. 

So here goes...I met Eddie, the bird, almost 15 years ago. I was taking care of Liz's pet rat Diva over Christmas and wanted to get Diva a Christmas treat which meant I had to drive to a pet store. I always like looking at birds so I went to the back of the store and visited with the birds that were there. One of the parrots got very excited when it saw me. I swear the sound coming from her sounded like my name. She and three other parrots  had been brought to the store because their previous owner had passed away. I don't remember what kinds of parrots the other two birds were but I do know that the third bird was a yellow nape amazon who hated me but could sing every verse of "Hello Dolly." He'd have to get himself worked up into a spinning state on the floor of his cage but when he got to the right speed, he'd belt out five minutes of a perfectly performed "Hello Dolly (I'm thinking he listened to a lot of Ethel Merman)." He was incredible. But like I said, he hated me. Eddie is a double yellow headed amazon (one of the best mimickers when it comes to parrots, Eddie however, is not one of them). 

I had heard that sometimes birds will pick the people they want to live with and that is exactly what Eddie did. I was not looking for another bird. I already had Stella  and Stella is a formidable attention demanding bird. But I was entranced. I returned to the pet store nearly every day that week and every single time, Eddie would spy me coming through the front door even though she was way in the back of the store. And when she saw me, she would scream out something that sounded like my name. I loved her. I wanted her. I had no money for her. But my sister sent me some money and I upped my Visa card limit (I had just bought a house, really, I had no money!) and brought her home.  I am so thankful she made the decision to come live with me because I still just adore her and she loves me.

When I asked her her name in the pet store, she said "Eddie." She was clear on that. But when I got her home, and after listening to the few things she could mimic, I found out that her real name must have been Bobo. When she came to live with me, she gave herself a new name (and I don't blame her!). And she calls me Judy. That's not my name but if I don't wake up early enough on the weekend I will hear a "Judy?......Judy.......Judy?....JUDYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!" The really funny thing is that when my mom was a little girl she loved the name Judy so much she named all of her dolls Judy. So I guess we both now have the names we should have had all along. :-) Eddie also likes to call herself Eddiebird and when she's being extra sweet, she calls me Judybird.

I don't know who adopted the other two birds that used to live with Eddie but I heard that the yellow nape that hated me got adopted by a man who had no idea that he was going to have to share his life with a bird. Exact same story. The yellow nape fell in love with this man  and made it a point to let the guy know that they were meant to be together. I'm sure the guy has learned the words to a lot of show tunes by now. Maybe he sings them while spinning around in a circle too. :-)