Sunday, September 27, 1998

Aviary friends, among others, make it lively

By Sharon Randall

When I went out to get the paper this morning, I had a revelation. The street was quiet with the usual sounds of fog dripping from trees, the distant roar of the ocean, the muffled barking of sea lions and an occasional passing car.

But as I bent to pick up the paper, I heard screeching -- a chalk-on- the-blackboard, frog-in-the-throat kind of racket. It sounded as if it were coming from my head. I thought I was having a stroke.

Then I looked up and saw half a dozen red and green, stubby-winged birds, flapping and squawking over my house as if they were laughing at me or some bawdy, inside joke.

"The parrots," I thought, "they're still here."

I wrote a story about the birds some years ago, when they were first discovered in the area. I was told they were Mexican redheads, a species native to the mountains of Mexico. How they ended up on the foggy coast of Northern California was anybody's guess. General consensus said they were pets that had either escaped or been set free. The charm of that story was how they'd found each other, formed a small clan and nested in the tall pines near my house.

Not only did they survive, they are thriving, or so it seemed this morning. Don't know much about birds, but I know a good time when I see one; these birds were having the time of their lives.

That, however, was not the revelation. Something about the parrots reminded me of the weekend I had just survived.

Coerced to tag along

First let me say, it was not my idea to go to Phoenix. My friends, Sue and Davey, planned the whole trip and coerced me to tag along.

Why did I go? I had never been to Phoenix; I was fond of Sue and Davey; and apparently, as my mother often told me, I have a knack for foolishness.

So the three of us hopped a cheap flight from San Jose to Phoenix, where the temperature in the shade was 110.

First day, we tried to sit by the pool. Then we smelled smoke and noticed our hair was on fire. So we went shopping in an air-condition mall, bought stuff we didn't need.

Second day, ditto.

Third day, footsore and flat broke, we drove across a desert to Sedona, ate lunch on a deck by a red rock canyon, then headed back to Phoenix to catch the last flight home.

That flight was canceled. So we flew first-class to San Francisco, took a shuttle to San Jose to get the car we had left at the airport and got home just after 2 a.m.

That pretty much sums it up. Except to say that we had fun. And ate an awful lot. We talked and laughed, squawking like parrots, then talked and laughed some more.

Sue and Davey are sensible, professional middle-aged women -- who sat in first-class snickering like teenagers and pelted me (and the poor guy next to me) with pillows when I pretended not to know them.

That's what happens when old friends get away together. It makes you feel young and free and a little foolish, maybe, if only for a weekend.

And the revelation? I think the parrots flew here together for a getaway and had so much fun they never went back.

That's not hard to imagine, is it?

Sharon Randall is a winner of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and the Best of the West commentary awards.

Scripps Howard News Service