My wife tells the story of her piano teacher from her childhood. She lived in a small town in Montana. The piano teacher lived in a nice house within walking distance. (Everything was in walking distance in this small own). The teacher owned a parrot that was fond of greeting everyone that came to lessons and was a favorite with younger piano students.
Once, during a piano recital in the home, someone was playing a delicate piece. It may have been Chopin or Liszt or some other composer. The performance went very well and when it ended there was a thoughtful silence as everyone basked in the mood of the music. The parrot thought it was too quiet, so he interrupted with “Sid, where’s my girdle?”. Everyone laughed.
Now, we own an African Grey Parrot (pictured). Her name is Beignet (ben-YAY) which is a french pastry. She is somewhat talkative, although we haven’t yet been able to get her to talk in response to our voices. Mostly she talks when we are in the other room.
When the “where’s my girdle” story comes to mind, I try to think of funny things to teach our parrot. Today I was repeating “Clean the house, company’s coming!”
