bastish.net

obligatory

home
mfop2

recent

March 01, 2003 07:25 PM

Last night I came home from work late to find Guri dead of what appears to have been a chronic illness. For several months she has been puking up most of what she eats. I am surprised and glad she made it this long.

It sounds silly, I know. But for some silly reason I really felt close to Guri. Not close like you can be with a person, but close in the sense that if she had a little more brain power, she would have worshiped me less. Meaning she seemed to have lived for me. (I don't even know she if was a she )

Of course I only feel sorry for myself, because I really loved half waking up, opening the cage and having Guri flying around crazily as I drifted back to sleep, only to have her land on my face and wake me up just at the critical moment that decides if I will get to sleep that extra 20 minutes.

I often woke up with poop on my face. I always go to work with poop on my shoulder. I was just thinking that I should wash my fleece, but now I am having second thoughts.

When I first got Guri we were amazed at how much she craved attention and loved to be caressed and held. Although she craved attention until she croaked, somewhere along the line she grew to hate being touched... or at least she thought she hated it. If I would grab her and force her to undergo a head rub, she would squirm and scream until after about 7 seconds, when she realized she liked it and stayed there until I got tired of it.

She loved to take showers, though not directly under the shower (as Awii does). Guri preferred to stay on the edge of the tub and run in and out of the mist and spray. I think her favorite bath was in the fern though. I wish I would have kept a fern around more often, but I didn't because they always die after a few weeks. Even so, 300 yen every month for a plant that Guri loved to play in was not asking so much I guess.

Her death didn't catch me off guard. She has always been close to death, from the time Tomoe tried to boil her, and her poop hole got burned so bad that the poop wouldn't slide out as it should, and we had to clean her butt every day, to many vet bills over the year and a half. I have spent more on her doctor bills in 1 1/2 years than I have on my own in six. I have come home from work several times to find her stuck at the bottom of some small tube or crevice... maybe she fell down there nine hours earlier when I left for work.

She had her adventures, and one brief taste of freedom. As I was sitting at my computer working. I noticed how peaceful it was and had been for the last couple hours. After a frantic search, I discovered the window open less than an inch (I still don't know how she managed that). I went outside to search, and just as I was about to give up, a bright blue streak came out of the sky and flew into a tree across the river. I thought I would never see her again, but luckily she was powerless against my charms, and after standing under the tree making smooching sounds for about five minutes, to the wonder of passers-by, Guri finally, mesmerized, couldn't help but come down and land on my shoulder, where she stayed the entire five minute walk back to my apartment. She spent most of the remainder of her life in her tiny cage in the corner.

Other than the pet shop, my apartment, and her brief taste of freedom, Guri has enjoyed trips to the office, where she amazes everyone with her outgoing personality. I am under the impression that many birds would be nervous and afraid around strange people, but Guri's biggest problem was scheduling all the shoulders to land on into her short stay. She also spent some time in the care of my boss' daughter, Kiana, where she was welcomed for the most part, but i am told the fact that she loves to hang out in the kitchen while people are cooking caused some trouble with Kiana and her mom.

Figuring she was lonely when I was at work, I brought Awii home. Guri hated her, and Awii hated Guri. I have ben afraid that they would kill each other, but now i wonder if Awii wont actually be lonely all day alone. It's probably just my imagination, but Awii is unusually quiet tonight...

Anyway, the coins are still on the floor, where Guri loves to throw them. I'll leave them there until I move I suppose. Before I confined her to the cage (because she was eating pencils and wallpaper when I was not at home) She use to stand up on the top of the shelf and drop coins on the hardwood floor, making as much clatter as possible to wake me up. Oddly enough, hearing her there, and later feeling her climbing and pooping on my face made me feel so much more comfortable, that waking up became so much more difficult.

Guri's name appears 387 times on this site, with 102 photos. The bastish net totals only 220 posts. I feel like an idiot for not having written more about her when I wanted to, because I felt like an idiot for writing about her at the time.

Probably only Tomoe cares, but I have made a page with every photo of Guri.

I guess there's nothing left to day, except that, no matter how silly it sounds to people who have never had a great pet, (or probably to people who have devil-birds too) Guri was a huge joy in my life, and I will miss her.