I'm back in San Diego. I won't go into details about the idiotic mistakes I made relative to my flight details. Or the idiotic mistakes made by British Airways. But I am home, feeling groggy and still a bit sick--I don't normally weep over movies, on the airplane or anywhere else, but I did weep off and on from London to LA, so I must have been tired. Paul Bowles' story/essay "All Parrots Speak" from Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World did me in:

"Two parrots live with me now. I put it thus, rather than, 'I own two parrots,' because there is something about them that makes them very difficult to claim as one's property. A creature that spends its entire day observing the minutiae of your habits and vocal inflections is more like a rather critical friend who comes for an indefinite stay" (p. 155 in the 1984 Ecco Press edition).

Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue is not Paul Bowles at his best, but it is still very good. It reminded me how good he is at creating visual texture and describing sounds.

Lester is in good health. He sang and went through his verbal repertoire from the time we picked him up to the time I'd finished putting his cage back together. Now he's sitting in his food dish, eating and singing. He also took a bath even though it's quite cold. I can't say if he missed me or not, but he was certainly glad to see us, and seems very healthy and well-adjusted. I think he was in good company while we were gone. According to the woman at the font desk, Lester's cage was next to that of a Sun Conure, and they spent a great deal of time talking with each other.