November Raindrops

Farewell November. You’ve always been good to me. Thank you for your cloudy days and torrential rain. And the people who amused me with their words.

“MJ. he seems to defy gravity. kinda active at night and likes to hold hands and play” – Lee shares what playtime with slow loris pet MJ is like.

“i like punching in the code. i feel like im in some kind of super secret place. a place that james bond would like to enter” - Hana on numeric keypads at the office.

“No.” – Rooney rules out on Italian-Indian fusion Pavaroticanai.

“oi shut up poo, im not green or grouchy!” - Adrian Ron on being nothing like Oscar. Hah.

“But. I waer boots everyday :( And that wasn’t a typo.” - GrammarNaziLili on boots. And possibly crack.

“They call it devolution of the species.” – Fuzzy makes me feel better about getting old.

“reindeer steak..yumm. i shall join you in spirit, while counting ’shiny’ things in my tiny purse” – Cousin eats rudolph for dinner because she can’t find her pot of gold.

“2 from the left lamp and 44 north!!” – Ames spills the beans on where we buried it.

“i believe the right word is “lisajous” but i guess lisa’s juice is much more convenient” – Future professor Manoj recounts ECD lectures and proves why engineering remains a heavily male dominated field.

“my professor always asks the girl from korea about china” – Colleen on blind professors.

“but i dont like the yellow man” – Bender’s reason for not changing service providers. Yellow man hate trumps love for ducks.

“you just have to poke really really hard at the food! that technique is very difficult with rice and steak though, but very good if your diet consists completely of marshmellows” – Brandon teaches me how to be a better asian chopstick user.

“I’m keeping my dirty old German” – Farah and her first aid kit. Maybe.

Sillies.

Oh oh, what do Pirates take when they’re feeling feverish?
… Parrotcetamol! (:
Or they should because really, parrot’s the best cure there is when you’re a pirate. Arrr!

Feel better soon.
-parrot-

All swells end well sandy, salty and rummy.

Scruffy, warm, tough-looking too
And reflective strips for easy visibility
With pockets and a dual-way zipper it is my Bloo
Bloo is the source of my creativity

But lately Bloo has been missing
Skies have been grey, words and smiles just don’t come to me
I hope Bloo is ok surfing the swells long travelling
And that he’s not lost or eaten by the sea

Because that would be a tragedy
For what a tough search it would be to find him
With an ocean so vast and a Parrot so tiny
Finding a Bloo in the blue, chances are slim!

And bloos don’t like to be wet much
They actually come with yellow raincoats and such
I hope the waves bring him to shore soon
Safely to the place where Parrot has been marooned

Parrot is lonely without her Pirate
The long months of waiting for the ships return
But with inspirational Bloo around she can survive it
She’ll stay up under the stars and compose the nocturne

Patiently,
Parrot

Cloud Painter on Nov20: Thank you Ralph and Lisa, this was exactly how my Bday went (:

Nov 20 is Purple Parrot’s Day

Last Minute Great Things you can get Parrot:

• gummy bears
• post-it notes or sharpie pens
• a piece of paper with ‘dear nuri, this piece of paper with my one of a kind handwriting is your birthday gift. Enjoy! – from (your name here)’. All handwritten and signed by you. Feel free to improvise text.

Parrot is quite possibly the easiest person to gift for, no? But if you’re looking for something she will treasure to the absolute max, get her 1 on 1 quality time with you. Events of last year at this very time really made Parrot realize just how precious time is.

-parrot-

Thanx to those who made today AwesomusMaximus. I wuv yous.

Waffle Squirrel Leaves Suede Boots

Hello November. November has always been my favorite month. It after all falls in my favorite season, Fall!

I love fall. Autumn. 3 reasons why:

1. It’s when all the sweaters and boots and coats come out. I’ve always been a sweater and jeans person, even as I live in the tropics – I cannot, will not, give up my love for fall fashion ever, with socks on my feet and hands in pockets.

     2.    The scenery.
                     The breeze.
                              The squirrels and rustling leaves. (:

• Waffles. Belgian Waffles. Sure you can get them any time of the year, assuming you’re in Belgium, but they are especially good during fall. Walking down the city streets, the scent draws you in. The vendor picks a nice fresh golden one from the racks. You take it in your hands and feel its warmth. You bite into it with a crunch and a melt. So soooooo good.

I want one badly now ):

Oh, meet the man of my dreams.

Like really, he comes to me in my dreams.

Decent looking Pirate, no?

-parrot-

Pet Peeve For Sale

I’m a grumpypants when woken up the wrong way, say when the phone rings before the sun shines and on the other line is a voice so unfamiliar, so coarse who so rudely says ‘blahblahblah’.

Ok, to her credit, she didn’t blah, but she spoke a language that is foreign to me and the accent made my head hurt. But I gathered shes looking for a guy named ‘Mutt’. Ever the polite parrot, I responded curteously, ‘I’m sorry, you’ve dialed the wrong number’.

This is where people NORMALLY apologize and hang up. She however demanded to know who I was and insisted I put Mutt on the phone, annoyed that I didn’t connect her right away the first time. As if I’m some secretary. She even started to talk down to me as if I was 5. All in her language too. Not the language of the country we’re currently in, but HER language. I don’t speak it but I can understand it. As rude as she sounded, all I said was ‘Sorry, wrong number’ and hung up.

But she called back. I diverted the call, hoping she would get the hint. She didn’t. Twice. The poor daft woman must think if she keeps dialing the same number she’ll eventually get Mr. Right Mutt. I thought of switching my phone off but I didn’t want my voice mail to be flooded with her ‘Mutt? Mutt!’ so I picked the phone up out of self preservation pity.

By this time I was one ruffled parrot. Grr. I had half a mind to yell at her but parrot does not like to shout. Instead in my best automated voice and attempt to speak the language said: nombor yang anda dial is salah (wrong I know, but shut-up, you try speaking a language you’re unfamiliar with at 7 in the morning)

She pauses. Before she could ask for Mutt again or more likely laugh at my mispronunciations,

The number you have dialed is incorrect.
She asks me who I am. (As if knowing who I am will help the situation)
El numero que ha mercado no es correcto.
She asks for Mutt, a tinge of confusion in her voice.
Le numéro que vous avez composé n’est pas correcte.
She starts muttering to herself, wondering where Mutt is and what this strange auto-lady voice is doing.
Det nummer du har ringt är felaktig.
She pauses.
… ruff!
She quickly hangs up.

She has not called back since. Thank God. I had run out of languages to throw at her. I giggled myself back to sleep.

Pirate, I wish you were here, land creatures are nuts.

(:

-parrot-

Depth and Inclination

Sail sail sail the boat
Up the River Panj
Merily merily we shall float
To Tajikistan

*pause*

That was awful.  Useful for if you’re going on a trivia gameshow though. Oh well.

I’ve been trying to incorporate the word panj into parrotpoetry
Because it’s my favorite number to say in Punjabi
Whenever I say it I have to spread my fingers out wide
Starfish like / twinkle star like, it’s the number 5!

I don’t know when I’ll ever get to use it
Numbers are the same in principle, no matter what language
And as parrot has observed during her travels around the globe
In markets during bargaining, traders yell numbers 
… and ‘finger-numbers’ follow

So it doesn’t matter where one is from and what he/she/it speaks
When it comes to numbers, it’s no brain-tease
Pirates will always be able to get their numeric intent across
But learning the language always lessens the chaos

-parrot picks up punjabi-

(:

Power of the Badger

Many a turn of the calendars ago, someone gave me a ‘delightful’ link. 4 years later, it put me in a situation which either saved me or could have had me killed.

See with any other work week, I zombie it to work, head still in the clouds all parrotlike. I arrive at the building, leave the comfort of the car, ready to tackle the flight of stairs, when my thoughts were interrupted.

‘A snake! A snake!’ cried the parking attendant.
‘A snake! A snake!’ said the man in the car.

The women ahead of me shrieked as they saw it slithering towards them and dashed into traffic, receiving the screeching halt, honk and curses of clueless drivers and one ‘apa lu!’ motorcyclist.

A snake! A snake!

But all that went through my head as I saw it slithering slowly in my direction was: badgerbadgerbadgerbadger mushroom! mushroom!

And calmly with a smile, and a subtle badger-dance bop, kept distance and went my way as the  f a t  scaley black 3-footloooooooooong snake detoured into a nearby drain.

1.   I didn’t head recklessly into traffic and be roadkill. Good.
2.   I also didn’t act as alarmed as fellow bystanders. Byrunners? Bad.
3.   The damn song looped over and over in my head the rest of the day. Bender, I hate you.
4.   Pirate, I’m ready to face sea monsters with you. Arr!

Speaking of monsters, Cookie Monster on google’s homepage! Love.

-parrot-

Unpacking. It’s rediscovering treasures.

As I write this, Pirate is packing for his month long stint at sea. Again. And since I can’t tag along for this mission, I did the opposite. I unpacked. Sorta.

It was a box left unopened for many years at the bottom of my cupboard. A box of things marked Turkey 92. In it was mostly drawings, paintings and stories I had written during my first years of school, all signed with my name, complete with the backwards ‘N’. Priceless pieces of work there.

But they were not the treasures of the day. In the corner of the box, in a plastic pouch, were my collection of hotel key cards. Yes. I kept all the key cards for all the hotels I have ever checked into. Why? As peices to document the evolution of technology.

Ok no. At age 6, opening a door with a card that resembled a slice of swiss cheese was almost magical. I kept it of course and I’m glad I did. It happens to be the only ’slice of swiss cheese key’ (proper term: mechanical key card) I ever used. The rest are what we know today, magnetic stripe ones.

Sheraton's clickbeep: '92 '95 and '99

Hurry up hotel door-lock technology and evolve. In the meantime, I’ll be digging through more boxes.

As you read this, Pirate is unpacking.

(:

-parrot-

Muddy Boots on a Monday

The nature of my work occasionally takes me away
To construction sites atop a hill and there I would stay
To soak in the surrounding view of the city
And wait for the sun to set and the sky to get starry

After an afternoon of trudging through mud (:
Skipping manholes and ditches, this is my reward
To watch the sun go down, eaten by the city skyline
And see the hues of purple and blue mix as Nature’s design

Of course there was the city lights that made the sky glow
Thereby softly illuminating the hill and casting shadows

Parrot felt really tiny perched on that hill
Away from the city seems like everything was at a standstill
And it pretty much was in that clearing miles wide
Nothing around us, except sand mounds and the blanket of sky

Then generators started moving, humming with all it’s might
And crane operators turned on their bright lights
It’s back to work, hard hats go back on
Navigated back to the site’s foundation (rhymes if said with a french accent)

Once work was done Parrot looked at her boots
I guess you really can’t take her away from her roots
Because Parrot’s brown work boots were still clean and not muddy
*shrugs*

I can’t help but be parroty and walk over things gingerly?

*tiptoes*

-parrot-

Sunday = BBQ on deck

Days of Sun / Sundays
Just calls out to you, tells you to  l a z e
Under the shade, in a hammock
Or soaking up the sun, with the boat docked

But as Sunday evening draws near
Dark clouds will form, bringing fear
Pirates don’t like them, for they spell trouble
Parrot doesn’t like them for it bursts her bubble

Dark clouds and Monday mornings
One and the same for they both bring warning
Of thunder and lighting and unpredictable winds
To paperwork and site walk and work-related meetings

Grr.

 

-parrot-