Cottage Grove Sentinel
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THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 18, 2021
Humor at the Speed of Life
Pet Tips
‘n’ Tales
James Kazad — (Remembrances of life before COVID)
By Mary Ellen
“Angel Scribe”
Professional fishing parrot
Your home’s
underbelly is no
place to be manly
T
here comes a time
in every man’s life
when he must set an
example for his son
by crawling under the
house to fix something.
This must be done
with apparent fearless-
ness even though he
knows whatever needs
fixing is going to be
located in the darkest
corner of the home’s
underbelly,
probably
behind a spider web the size of
a commercial fishing net.
Several years ago, I used ply-
wood to seal up the underside
of our home and stop what I
suspected were nightly “rave”
parties hosted by our cat.
These parties generally start-
ed around 11:30 p.m. and were
held directly beneath our bed-
room floor, where it sounded
like 20 cats playing Twister.
Naturally, I had no choice
but to break up these parties by
getting out of bed and shoving
our 60-lb. Labrador headfirst
through the crawl space in our
closet floor.
My point is this: Sealing
things up stopped the cat par-
ties. Unfortunately, it also
turned the crawl space under
our home into a frightening
black void where, thanks to
evolution, a species of hairy,
sightless, spider-like rodents
with large fangs and the abil-
ity to mobilize telepathically
has nested, colonizing into the
hundreds.
Possibly even thousands.
I know this because I’ve
shined a flashlight down there
and — this is not an exagger-
ation — I’m pretty sure I saw
something move.
It was this thought (along
Koko travels on her parents’ fishing boat as far away as
Hawaii and the International Dateline.
with how I might turn a bu-
tane lighter and a can of my
wife’s hair spray into a flame
thrower) that came to mind
last weekend as my son and I
stared into the dark opening of
our crawl space.
“Is Mom making you go
down there?”
“Of course not,” I said. “As
man of the house, it’s my duty
to do things no one else wants
to do.”
My son thought about this
a minute. “But Mom tells you
what those things are, right?”
“Pretty much,” I said, then
dangled my feet over the open-
ing.
“What are you going to DO
down there?”
I explained that one of our
bathroom outlets wasn’t work-
ing, and I thought it was be-
cause something had chewed
through a wire.
“What chewed through it?”
Even at age 12, my son wasn’t
ready for the truth, which
was that hordes of slobber-
ing, milky-eyed creatures were
waiting in the dark, excreting a
web-like substance from their
bulbous posteriors and com-
municating with each other
telepathically that a 180-lb.
Happy Meal was about to be
served.
So, to preserve my son’s in-
nocence, I made something up.
“Probably a squirrel did it,” I
said.
His expression relaxed as he
handed me the flashlight, then
offered a final piece of advice.
“If a squirrel lets you pet him,
he probably has rabies.”
“Good tip,” I said and eased
down into the crawl space.
Moving on my hands and
knees toward our bathroom,
it wasn’t long before I had
passed the point of no return.
This, of course, is when my
flashlight decided to blink out.
Throttling it with both hands,
I shook it back to life just long
enough to illuminate the area
above me — including a dead
squirrel dangling from an elec-
trical wire by its teeth.
Sure, in retrospect, attempt-
ing to defuse the situation by
screaming uncontrollably may
not have been the “manly”
thing to do. However, I credit
that mind-numbing howl with
scaring off the spider-rodent
creatures long enough for me
to dislodge the squirrel and re-
pair the exposed wire.
Unfortunately, in all the
commotion, I also dropped
my wife’s hair spray — which
means I’ll have to go back.
But only if she makes me...
Support for students, parents available through online program
The COVID-19 pandemic
has impacted students’ mental
well-being in numerous ways.
Prolonged school closure and
online learning pose some chal-
lenges for students such as loss
of in-person connection, Zoom
fatigue, lack of access to stable
internet connection.
Further, these transitions have
presented parents with new
challenges as they interact with
and support their children.
Center for Community Coun-
seling will be offering support
groups to help elementary stu-
dents with mindfulness-based
coping skills for online learning,
as well as mindfulness-based
support groups for parents who
desire to strengthen their skills
in supporting their children
during this time.
If you’re a student or parent
who is interested in these ser-
vices, call 541-344-0620 for
more information.
Groups on a sliding scale fee
with scholarships available.
Rolling start dates through
February. Group format will be
online, with limited spots for
in-person groups.
LORANE COUNTRY NEWS
Contributed by
Lil Thompson
for The Sentinel
• Several have re-
ceived the latest Terri-
torial Rd Update from
Becky Taylor.
For those who ha-
ven’t, plans are to re-
sume construction on
Stoney Point in May
and finish that area by
summer.
Plans for the next
phase have been de-
layed until sufficient
funding is available.
They will keep us up-
dated.
• Lorane Grange
hopes to meet again on
Thursday, March 4, at
7 p.m. Fundraisers for
the grange are on hold
for now until our coun-
ty COVID-19 numbers
are down.
• Applegate Elemen-
tary appears to be run-
ning smoothly.
The Crow High Scool
volleyball and cross
country teams plan to
start practice on Feb.
22.
All athletes need to
have physicals and pa-
perwork turned into
the office prior to that.
For more informa-
tion, call the Crow High
School office at 541-
935-2227.
• Work on CG Lorane
Rd is delayed for a short
while. Still watch out
along that area.
Please
everyone:
With this rain, slow
down especially on the
corners.
Speak your peace. Write a Letter to the Editor today.
Email Editor@CGSentinel.com
F
ew four-pound, African Grey parrots have trav-
eled as far as 23-year-old Koko — especially on an
open sea.
Koko sails on her parents, Judy and Harvey’s, 74
ft. albacore tuna fishing boat, up to two months at a
time. The couple drags 12 fishing lines catching tasty
young tuna close to the ocean’s surface. When a fish
grabs a line, it rings a bell and Koko yells, “Fish on.”
The boat’s hull has freezers and the fish are canned
at their Wild Pacific Seafood cannery and sold online.
“Koko loves her life on the wild side,” said Judy.
“On deck, her cage is surrounded by wind-protecting
plexiglass, but inside the cabin she roams freely until
she puts herself to bed in her ‘bedroom’ cage.”
For some, parrots can be annoying. Koko is con-
stantly chattering, asking questions or tossing knick-
knacks onto the floor. One day, she asked, ‘What is
that?’
Judy kept pointing and naming items and Koko
kept asking until Judy named the wastebasket. Koko
also asks, “What are you doing?” over and over until
she is answered.
Their bird perfectly mimics their cell phone, micro-
wave and smoke alarm. Once on the boat, the engine
alarm sounded. “She perfectly mimics our cell phone,
microwave, and smoke alarm,” said Judy. “Once on
the boat, the engine alarm sounded. Harvey, in a pan-
ic, ran down to the engine room. He saw no problems.
He climbed back up to the wheelhouse. The alarm
sounded again. He took off running again. After the
third alarm trip, he realized it was Koko. At home, it’s
the smoke alarm. No one can tell the difference be-
tween Koko and the real article.”
Once, Koko yelled in a panic, “What are you do-
ing?! What are you doing?!”
Judy ran to her and Koko was looking out the win-
dow into the field where a man was shearing sheep.
“The man was holding a sheep and Koko kept yell-
ing at him. I told Koko ‘Sheep getting bath,’” said Judy.
“She understands bath and so stopped yelling and just
watched, but you could see she was still concerned,
but quiet.”
Quiet never lasts long with Koko. She bangs two
drinking cups together and makes “music.” She also
recognizes birds on YouTube and mimics their move-
ments.
“It is obvious that pets can recognized TV images,
because she and our dog clearly do,” Judy said.
When the two adopted a puppy, Koko made it clear
from the start that she is not into dogs — so they ig-
nore each other. But Koko created a dog joke, asking
“What does dog say?” Then answers herself: “Tweet,
Tweet. No, woof, woof ” and then giggles.
Koko sits in her cage while docked so she’s eye lev-
el with the fishermen and tourists. She gets a big re-
sponse with her sense of humor, especially when she
wolf whistles at people.
They laughed and commented so she keeps it up.
“Our fisher friends all know her and we walk her
into town,” said Judy. “One day we went without her
and store clerks did not recognize us.”
On one walk, Koko flew off and into a treetop. The
couple could not see her.
“Thankfully, we play, ‘Peekaboo’ with her and she
answers back — so we called until she gave her po-
sition away, responding, ‘Peekaboo,’” Judy said. “She
would not come down, so the next morning we car-
ried our breakfast to the tree. She insists on eating
with us, and what we do, so she flew down to join us.
“She’s also invented a new term for eating Cheerios
with milk and says, ‘Mmmm. Drink of cracker.’”
The couple gave Koko a gender neutral name be-
cause her gender was a mystery until at the age of sev-
en, when she laid an egg. In 23 years, Koko has laid a
total of three eggs.
Once on land, Koko freely roams and flies around
the house — at night, putting herself to bed.
Tell us about your pet! Write: angelscribe@msn.com