So I will try to make this very long story short. A friend who lives a ways away from me called today to see if I would like to have lunch. I was thrilled as I don't get to see her as often as I would like. So we set a meeting place between her house and mine. Then I drove with her. She said she has a surprise for me so I assume it's going to be a great place to eat that we haven't been to before.
We start heading into a residential neighborhood and she begins to tell me about this lady she met who golfs with her husband. She goes on to tell me this lady is very much the socialite. Right away I am feeling let down a little as this is where it turns out we are going for lunch. I am a pretty down to earth gal and don't put much stock in hob knobbing but this is my friend and I love spending time with her so I figure I can remember to put my napkin in my lap and use the right fork for one afternoon anyway.
So the house is lovely, tastefully and expensively decorated. Greeting us at the door are two perfectly horrible, perfectly manicured lap dogs. Not sure what kind but moppy hair, smooshed faces with ribbons and painted toenails, and I think oh geez I am in trouble.
Now thankfully my friend told her I was a vegetarian so we had shrimp cocktail which I didn't have and a fancy salad. I was told at least twice that it would have been a much grander affair if I ate meat! Yeah okay!
Mean while I am shooting questioning daggers at "my friend". After lunch the conversation turns to parrots as my friend has 3 rescue birds and strict orders from her husband that 3 is a full house! I start talking about my eclectus and the woman says would you like to see mine? Of course! So we go into a room that truly doesn't look as if it belongs in the same house. Clutter every where and two beautiful male and female eclectus each in their own cage but I kid you not the cage is 12 inches across!! Only seed in the cages, filthy water, no toys and she had lined the bottom of the females cage with wee wee pads for crying out loud. The girl had of course torn them to shreds! So now I am freaking out and really trying to keep my temper in check, again wondering why my friend would want me to see this knowing how upset I would be.
So we are standing there and I am politely explaining the care that these birds need while periodically running my hands through my hair to make sure the horns I keep carefully hidden aren't showing. She proceeds to tell me that she saw them in a New York pet store and thought they would look so "pretty" in her living room. But they are messy and loud and she just doesn't have time. Mean while her yappy, pampered pedicured dogs are pulling at my pant leg and I am resisting the urge to give them a gentle nudge off my leg as one had humping on his mind!
So I tell her I will take them, at first she gives me the price she paid the pet store and wants me to pay for and take the cages. As kindly as I can I let her know the size is more appropriate to much smaller birds and I would have no need for them. I let her know I would not be paying pet store price and made a reasonable rescue offer, explaining that I would have to vet them to safe guard my birds, even though she insisted they were fine.
At first she refused, we left the room and was wrapping up saying our goodbyes, at this point my heart is breaking for these beautiful babies. They both just turned a year, have never been given fresh foods except the occasional bite of what they were having. I am not sure what they are though because they are much larger than my SI but smaller than my RS and I don't see the blue eye ring on her, there is some yellow to her tail but not truly like a VOS.
Anyway as we are leaving she takes my offer. So 2 makes a six pack of eclectus! I know I am crazy and my husband really should be nominated for sainthood. Turns out my friend kind of figured this would happen and since she couldn't take them knew they would have a great home with me.
The girl gave me a nice bite coming out of the carrier, the boy was scared. I made a big bowl of warm yummy foods and it was HOURS before they stopped eating, poor babies! She never taught them step up, the girl knows her name, Lola the boys name was not something I cared for so he will be getting a new one. She said she really didn't like him as much
I will get pics once they settle in.
We start heading into a residential neighborhood and she begins to tell me about this lady she met who golfs with her husband. She goes on to tell me this lady is very much the socialite. Right away I am feeling let down a little as this is where it turns out we are going for lunch. I am a pretty down to earth gal and don't put much stock in hob knobbing but this is my friend and I love spending time with her so I figure I can remember to put my napkin in my lap and use the right fork for one afternoon anyway.
So the house is lovely, tastefully and expensively decorated. Greeting us at the door are two perfectly horrible, perfectly manicured lap dogs. Not sure what kind but moppy hair, smooshed faces with ribbons and painted toenails, and I think oh geez I am in trouble.
Now thankfully my friend told her I was a vegetarian so we had shrimp cocktail which I didn't have and a fancy salad. I was told at least twice that it would have been a much grander affair if I ate meat! Yeah okay!
Mean while I am shooting questioning daggers at "my friend". After lunch the conversation turns to parrots as my friend has 3 rescue birds and strict orders from her husband that 3 is a full house! I start talking about my eclectus and the woman says would you like to see mine? Of course! So we go into a room that truly doesn't look as if it belongs in the same house. Clutter every where and two beautiful male and female eclectus each in their own cage but I kid you not the cage is 12 inches across!! Only seed in the cages, filthy water, no toys and she had lined the bottom of the females cage with wee wee pads for crying out loud. The girl had of course torn them to shreds! So now I am freaking out and really trying to keep my temper in check, again wondering why my friend would want me to see this knowing how upset I would be.
So we are standing there and I am politely explaining the care that these birds need while periodically running my hands through my hair to make sure the horns I keep carefully hidden aren't showing. She proceeds to tell me that she saw them in a New York pet store and thought they would look so "pretty" in her living room. But they are messy and loud and she just doesn't have time. Mean while her yappy, pampered pedicured dogs are pulling at my pant leg and I am resisting the urge to give them a gentle nudge off my leg as one had humping on his mind!
So I tell her I will take them, at first she gives me the price she paid the pet store and wants me to pay for and take the cages. As kindly as I can I let her know the size is more appropriate to much smaller birds and I would have no need for them. I let her know I would not be paying pet store price and made a reasonable rescue offer, explaining that I would have to vet them to safe guard my birds, even though she insisted they were fine.
At first she refused, we left the room and was wrapping up saying our goodbyes, at this point my heart is breaking for these beautiful babies. They both just turned a year, have never been given fresh foods except the occasional bite of what they were having. I am not sure what they are though because they are much larger than my SI but smaller than my RS and I don't see the blue eye ring on her, there is some yellow to her tail but not truly like a VOS.
Anyway as we are leaving she takes my offer. So 2 makes a six pack of eclectus! I know I am crazy and my husband really should be nominated for sainthood. Turns out my friend kind of figured this would happen and since she couldn't take them knew they would have a great home with me.
The girl gave me a nice bite coming out of the carrier, the boy was scared. I made a big bowl of warm yummy foods and it was HOURS before they stopped eating, poor babies! She never taught them step up, the girl knows her name, Lola the boys name was not something I cared for so he will be getting a new one. She said she really didn't like him as much
I will get pics once they settle in.
