What to do when BOTH Mom & Dad abandon you...

So, I recently wrote about Mom going away for work and stuff. Little did I know that a week later both Mom AND Dad would leave… True, it was only about 28 hours… but this Murph panics when his food bowl gets low.
Lily (Grandma's Dog) Went to a Dog-sitter and me and the kid sister were left here… ALONE. now, aren't there some laws about this stuff????  (There isn't, Mom is, as usual, yelling at me from the other room… 28 hours is, in fact, perfectly acceptable for us to be abandoned… I mean left overnight.) I suppose me being 15 plays into this… but make no mistake, a Murph's gotta eat, and the three food bowls and two water bowls that were left for me were getting kinda low. Sure, Lucy's bowls were FINE. It figures, she's always gotta make me look bad.
…OK OK - she just doesn't eat as much as me… or panic about food… (I have GOT to write this stuff when Mom isn't around to Yell at me! SHEESH)

Lucy and I DEF have different eating habits. But, this Murph asks you… how was I to know that they'd be home in 28 hours and not like, next week? (OK MOM, I KNOW you told us when you left you would be home late the next night… sigh.) A guy still gets a little nervous when the sun goes down and his parents are still gone! Lucy was enjoying life without the Dog running around. They have kind-of an interesting relationship. Lucy loves the dog over-all… she follows her around… EVERYWHERE. she likes to play with the laser-thingy with her… they take naps in the same room… (tho, she won't take one next to her yet… just with me) but also, when the Dog barks, or runs in for food (the Dog is a Food-stealer) or she gets kinda whiny, Lucy freaks out - Lucy is kind of a mellow kitty for the most-part, but she is STILL a cat, and that means a little mild form of OCD going on, and Dogs are pretty much GO GO GO and they don't plan ahead. LUCY is a planner… she plans EVERYTHING. A day in the life of Lucy while Lily is spending some time here kind-of goes like this;

Lucy's Log:
8 a.m. - Mom is still asleep, Dog is in her Dog-bed. Brother is still asleep. Must explore downstairs before anyone sees me.

8:15 a.m. - begin downstairs window rounds…

8:17 a.m. - Dining Room Slidey door… all is well
8:19 a.m. - Living Room Window #1…all is well
8:21 a.m. - Living Room Window #2… all is well
8:23 a.m. - Living Room Window #3… all is well
8:25 a.m. - Living Room Window #4… all is well
8:27 a.m. - Kitchen Window… all is well

8:35 a.m. - check food bowls… note that there are not any smooshies in bowl, but there ARE crunchies in other bowl…

8:42 a.m. - go to basement gate and gaze through longingly, wishing I was on the other side of it…

8:50 a.m. - decide it's time to go upstairs and make sure Dog hasn't moved yet…

9 a.m. - after staring at Dog for a long time, making sure it was still asleep, climb on top of Mom, stretch out, and lay there for a few minutes, shifting weight every so often as to apply pressure to her bladder…

9:11 a.m. - jump up and run to bathroom when Mom finally gets up, waiting for her to turn on the bathroom sink.

9:15 a.m. - Whine a lot so that Mom lets me OUT of the bathroom

9:17 a.m. - check on Dog again and ignore my brother

9:20 a.m. - go back downstairs, hoping that Mom gets the hint and comes down quickly to feed me…

OK - so this is only like a little over an hour of a day in the life of my sister… she is high maintenance, I am just saying… now ME on the other hand has a slightly different schedule…

8 a.m. - STILL BE ASLEEP because it's still an unGodly hour to be UP…

9 a.m. - be annoyed with my sister because she's staring at the Dog…

9:11 a.m. - begin "Operation Squawks-alot" in order to get Mom's attention while she is getting up so I can get some grape-action going soon…

9:20 a.m. - KEEP squawking, making SURE Mom knows I mean business…

And so-on and so-forth… you get the idea. In one of my earlier blog posts I believe that I discussed the importance of being right AND doing things in a simple way… I want food: I SQUAWK MY HEAD OFF. I am hungry, there-fore I must eat. I am a simple Murph… I require food. Lucy gets all into being mysterious and spying on everyone, and sneaking around… making lists… keeping track of stuff. NOT ME. I just want breakfast… I don't need any entertainment to go with it… well, I suppose once-in-awhile I enjoy a good episode of Sesame Street while I eat - but it isn't necessary - I can eat in silence. I can eat with loud noises… I can eat while watching a show. I can eat while Lucy is whining. I can eat while Dad is running around and yelling about stuff. Long story short: NOTHING prevents THIS MURPH from eating.

Well. Mom and Dad DID come home from their 28 hour vacation, I didn't starve - I still had some rice krispies left in my Bowl, and the Dog has come back to stay for another week & a half…

SO, I suppose I survived… but it was touch and go there, for awhile…

R2-Murph-2, Princess Lucy, & Lily Skywalker...

What to do when your Mom leaves you with your Dad while she leaves Town…

 OK. So once in awhile my Mom decides to skip town. Ok, she’s yelling at me from the other room. She has to go out of town for work. And then she leaves my sister and I with our Dad. Now, it’s ok for the Princess… I mean my little sister… because she has Dad wrapped around her little paw… but for ME it means being stuck up in my travel cage without getting out to stretch my legs… no little cake crumb treats or graham crackies… no talking to me and blowing kisses. In Short, these times SUCK. I am just saying. You can’t sugar-coat this stuff.

When Mom calls Dad to say hi and check in, I try to squawk REALLY loud so she hears my pain and agony, but Dad tells me to shut up and ignores me.

Luckily, sometimes I can open my travel cage by myself. These are good times. But a guy can’t be too careful –I have to make sure that I can get back inside before Dad comes home… I remember one time, a few years back, we were still in the apartment… Dad came home EARLY and there I was, on top of my cage! CAUGHT! Boy, did I get a lecture THAT day. And Dad called MOM and TOLD on me. And then he put her on SPEAKER  phone so she could tell me how disappointed she was and how she worries about me ALL the time, blah blah blah and then she CRIED a little. Sigh. So now I have to make sure that I can get back inside. I can’t stand it when Mom cries – it makes ME cry. I HATE crying – especially in front of people. A guy has his pride!

Tubby Time Fun!

Anyway, long story short, This Murph doesn’t get his treats when Mom isn't around… and that’s never good… I am still trying to figure out how to keep her HERE and not leave… but so far I haven’t come up with anything stellar in that department. I guess I have to just wait it out and hope Dad remembers to feed me every day!

Right now, my grandma’s Puppy has come to stay for TWO weeks. This is gonna be a crazy couple of weeks! I better get some sleep!

Home Shopping and other ways to amuse yourself…

Well, the time has come to talk about one of the things that amuses me the MOST. My sister, Lucy…

Now, I had already been around for 12 years by the time she hit town… I was 12. 12 is a big deal in bird years… ok, so it’s no Big Bird… he’s 45 (although he acts 6, it’s in his contract…) It’s interesting, too, because I am 15 now, and I am supposed to have the average intelligence of a 10 year old kid, but I can go higher. I am actually pushing about 18 in human years – what can I say? I think that we already covered that I am smarted than Big Bird in my first post…

Lucy is a climber. Nothing wrong with this – I climb myself. In fact, I like to think that when she was a baby, I influenced her climbing interest… it’s a big brother’s job to influence younger siblings… heaven help my mom and dad if I ever get a human sibling (heh heh heh) but what amuses me about Lucy is her ability to be stealthy and steal stuff. (ok, if I am being honest, I really think she gets THIS from me, too… I am just not out enough lately to really teach her the big stuff… YET.)

She steals stuff from milk rings to twisties to shiny little baubles… pieces of paper (boring) Barbie Doll shoes… hair ribbons, hair scrunchies, hair bands… (I sense a theme) and lately, gum. Dunno why she’s been stealing gum lately, but she licks it a lot, then bats it around the room.

Me & my sister Lucy

Anyway, when I am down in my normal cage, I enjoy watching what she comes up with. Sometime soon I will have to teach her how to steal me some snacks… a cracker… some cheese… a grape… some pizza crust… WAIT – sorry, I went off a little. OK, so I call this watching my very own Home Shopping program… Lucy shops around, our Mom runs around the house trying to find everything she swipes (once she took Mom’s Bluetooth when we lived in the apartment…that was cool! Mom FREAKED OUT!) and I get ENDLESS entertainment from this. The BEST is when I have a full bowl of sunflower seeds, or some rice krispies… then I sit back and enjoy the show. Yup. GOOD TIMES.

Sometimes we Play Dress-up, but if you tell anyone
I will have to punch your lights out… I still have
the frying pan, don't test me...

However, all good things must take a break, and Lucy likes to nap. I, myself, and not above a nice little nap. Naps are 2^nd best to snacks! That’s right folks… a little snack… a little nap – wake up and take a nice bath… yell really loud when you’re done so your Mom gets you clean water… have a little drink… sit back and crunch your beak and make happy noises. This is the life. WAIT – I did it again… what were we discussing? YES  -  Lucy takes naps. Then I get bored. When I get bored I make games up. You know, like getting my dad in trouble… or trying to blame something I did on Lucy… or spending my energy trying to figure out how to trick my Mom into letting me out of my cage so I can hang out. This is always a good option if it works because if I am out, Lucy makes herself wake up from her nap and she comes and plays. And even tho I pretend she annoys me, she’s actually kinda fun to play with! Sometimes, she will shop around the house and bring me things to play with together. It’s pretty cool. Unfortunately, she gets so excited that sometimes she licks me. Then I am DONE. Finished… fin-uh-reeto… and I go back up to my playhouse on top of my cage, grumbling about it the whole way. MUSH. I HATE MUSH. Why do sisters haveta ruin perfectly good playtimes? Which reminds me – have I mentioned how many cousins I have? GIRLS. All of them but one. Poor Dad and I am SURROUNDED. Some of them were over the other day. I am sad to say NOBODY remembered THIS MURPH and gave him a snack. I blame my parents for this, tho. They stuck me up in their room because of the remodeling. Oh well… they came up to say hi (empty-handed, by the way… not a crumb amongst them.) which reminds me, I have to add “re-teach cousins how to bring #thisMurph snacks!” to my "to-do" list...

Well. There is a rumor on the street that Dad did some painting today, so I am hoping this means that I am closer to getting back down to the real world.  WOOHOO! Another thing I enjoy to amuse myself is watching TV. I love the Walton’s. I love Little House on the Prairie. I love Big Bang Theory and Friends… I love the View. I also watch a lot of CNN… (Hey, a guy’s gotta keep up on what’s going on in the world…) The last thing that I do to amuse myself is to chew up my Blue Fuzzy Bed. Ok. Yes, I know, I LOVE my fuzzy bed. But sometimes I am bored. And a bored Murph leads to a Murph getting in trouble. I TRY so hard NOT to get in trouble. But somehow, it always happens anyway. Well, it’s last on my list of things to do to amuse myself… but it’s on there. Hey, I get a new one to chew up…I mean sleep in… every year for Christmas. So we’re all good…

Me & my sister, Lucy, hanging out...

OK. It’s time to chew… I MEAN SLEEP now. So I will catch ya later!

Murph

Squawking til your beak falls off…

Ok. So we’ve discussed food…books…FOOD. Faking a fever, food. Today I would like to mention anger. This Murph has a lotta bottled up anger, I’m not gonna lie. I am a pretty cool guy mostly. Laid back… munching on snacks, watching my TV shows… playing with my cousins or my little sister. It takes a lot for me to get angry. BUT. Once I am there, you can’t calm me down. I mean I will squawk for an hour straight, NO MATTER WHAT you try to do for me to make me feel better. Advice to all of you out there – I Don’t WANT to Feel Better. I. Want. To. Be. ANGRY. So you should let me squawk it out. Once I am finished, I move on and life is cool again… I wish my parents would just get this – because I get yelled at…they throw a sheet over me…because, YOU KNOW, that will work well. They move me to a different room… they don’t learn to let me be til I am done. I dunno – maybe some day they’ll get it, but I have my doubts about that.

NOW I have been banished to the bedroom because they have decided to paint the living room and dining room…and some other work. They SAY they will do this. However, I was moved up here WEEKS ago and I am still waiting. I am all smooshed in my travel cage. Which is fine for a parakeet, but I am a Murph, and I have become accustomed to a certain way of living, and this is kinda cramping my style. 

By the time they finish the house I will be collecting Social Security. If anyone out there knows them, be my guest to give them a not-so-gentle nudge towards getting somewhere or I won’t ever make it back down there. As it is I don’t think that I will even recognize it when i DO get back down there! My little sister Lucy comes up now and again to fill me in. too bad I can’t stick a webcam on her – it’d be a lot handier.

 WELL. It’s time for spaghetti. This Murph is signing off… for now!