Yankee Bird

I am sure that there is a lot of folks out there that just can't imagine why after our kids left home and we had a nice quiet life that we decided to get an African Grey.. It has been a dream of our to have a bird that talked, we don't travel, or visit much, don't go snow mobiling, party or anything really interesting, Larry has always wanted exotic animals, eg a giraffe, orangutan, chimp, raccoon... so settling for a African was a real easy choice for me..We have owned him for exactly 4 years, and what a character he is.. We got him from the daughter of a friend, we had been talking about it for a year or two, so we had got to know Laurie really well. She pick one out of a clutch of 3 for us, and delivered him to us, as we had been waiting so long, we got first choice, turned out the one she picked for us, didn't like me, he bit me twice in the matter of 15 minutes, but when we walked into the room, the other little guy was ringing the phone..so i gravitated to him as he was already copying sounds...so i brought him home, had him in the house for an hour and he got his head stuck in the cage... so here i am all by myself with a baby bird with his head stuck... lucky for both of us, he let me get his head unstuck, which wasn't an easy task as i need one hand in the cage to hold him up and the other on the outside to get his head unstuck...He started talking within the first month, and has learned so many words in the last 4 years. When he first started talking it would take him a month or so to figure out how to say the new word, now it takes him 2 or 3 days...and he picks up words off the TV .. He almost drove Larry nuts during his two leg surgeries... poor guy couldn't get away from his noise.. Larry would tell the bird to "give me a break", which Yankee says more than several times a day now, but he changes these kind of phrases to his own...he now says "give me a BRIDGE" the only thing we can figure out it that we watch the Global news in the morning and he hears the traffic reports about the bridges, as we never ever say Bridge in the course of a day..He sneeze and then says "bless you", i have trying to get him to say "bless you" when i sneeze, but he hasn't figured that one out yet.. right now he coughing like an old man, asking to come out, asking me what i am doing, chirpping like a wild bird, asking for kisses, saying "what a bird", then "what a pigeon", hi cleo, do ya want out, cough, cough, bye bye, see ya, Dixie, dixie, come on, get out, bad bird, come on, what a mess, do ya want out, Meg, hello, dixie,dixie, get out..dixie, no, come here , dixie.. whistle..cookie, do ya want a cookie, cookie please,micro wave beep, Jackson, bark bark,bark.. cookie please, Dixie, no.. bad dog, do ya want out..dixie, come here, good boy, bad bird, come here... hi cleo bye, bye, see ya, what a bird, what a mess, what a vulture, Yankee's a good bird... hi how are you,... okay see ya man..goofy newfy, what are ya doing..Dixie, smarten up... cleo....(i am typing as fast as i can as he talk) , the funniest thing he says now is when i bring out the vacuum to clean up under his cage, he yells at me "What a mess"... it is just too funny...we don't cover him up at night, as he usually talks till we go to bed, and is very quiet till we get up in the morning..Don't know what we are going to do with him when we get too old to have him in the Seniors home.. neither of the boys want him, D in Law hates birds..although she is getting better with him...parrots don't live as long as some people think... usually about 40 years.. oh well, i hope we find someone to look after him..he does swear a bit, not much, Larry gets excited when we play cards, and Yankee copies him for a few days... guess this enough about the bird... he is quiet now... I can hardly wait till we can put him outside, he loves it... see ya