TGIF!

The garden continues to come back, with a pretty, orange rose

and my bouganvillea.

We're slowly making progress with Freddy; however, he still won't let my hand any where near him, so as you might guess, we're not bonding while he rides around on my finger or shoulder. My bevy of parrotlet and parrot books are not much help except to advise being patient instead of sticking your hand in and making a grab for him. (No sh*t, Sherlock, thanks).

I fill his dishes with a fabulously nutritious mix of enriched pellets (which the books recommend should be 60-70% of his diet), dried fruit and mixed seed mix. Freddy picks through this, and eats sunflower seeds. Keep in mind, I'm supposed to limit his intake of sunflower seeds because they are high fat and not particularly nutritious.

Sigh . . . I've kept him alive for four months, he's not obese, nor are his feathers falling out, so I figure it must be working out some how despite my ineptness.

Since I really enjoyed Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy, I picked up To be Good. In To be Good, the narrator of the story, Kate, has a tough time adjusting when David, her angry, negative, sarcastic husband is transformed by a guru into someone who is too good to be true, and definitely, to good to live with. David unilaterally donates the kids' computer to a shelter where it is needed. As they're sitting down to a Sunday roast beef dinner with Kate's parents, David is moved to pack up the entire meal and take it to the park to feed the homeless. (Kate convinces him to just take them lasagne after the meal.)

Kate is struggling with her inner self; she considers herself to be a good person (she's a physician working in England), but where do you draw the line? Can you be too good?

I like Hornby's writing, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this is resolved.