Hey Lady!!!

Pretty baby!
Scared again!

I just washed my hair and I can't do a thing with it!

Hello Cutie was Cassie's favorite phrase. Cassie is an Umbrella Cockatoo. Snowy white with a pale yellow on her underparts. Such a pretty and delicate little girl. She too came from my friend Randy. I am *such* a sucker. I had looked for a companion for Max for some time, and had not found another big bird that I liked. I stopped by Randy's to pick up some vaccinations, and saw Cassie. She was so pretty and sweet. He picked her up off her perch, and handed her to me. She immediately latched on to the front of my jacket and snuggled up under my chin. Dang. Sucker. It's written large across my forehead! I was hooked.

So, I coughed up a considerable sum of money for this little jewel. The day I went to pick her up, I was chatting with Randy and Kim (his wonderful office manager/assistant), and I heard the most gawd awful sound! Geeze, what the hell *is* that??? Randy smiled. Kim looked everywhere *but* at me. Oh dear. Yes, it was Cassie. Now a macaw can scream. They can scream loud enough to be heard outside a shut up house, all the way into the street, but a cockatoo... Holy sweet mother! I have never heard anything as deafening as a cockatoo screaming. They like to scream. They scream at sunrise, and of course sunset. They scream when they are happy, or sad, or pissed. Oh my dear lord!

Here is this relatively small (compared to the macaw) bird who is just as lovely a little person as she can be, and she is screaming her fool head off. Randy just laughed and said, "oh, she does that when the sun goes down". Great, I muttered under my breath. I was sorely tempted to choke him and make him cough up my $$$. He couldn't get us out of there fast enough :-)

Home we go. I felt really good about it actually. Here was a bird that was not aggressive, and would be a fine companion for Max. HA HA! Max detested her on sight. The same Max who would sit on my husband's arm and croon at him suddenly became rather pissy, and occasionally violent. My DH refused to handle her any more after the biting incident. Oh dear. Poor Max was jealous that her "flock" had been invaded by this white screaming meenie. Cassie on the other hand was in love. With all of us, Max included. She was absolutely the sweetest bird I have ever seen. She would walk up your arm to your shoulder and turn her head towards you, and rub under your chin, giving you a hug. Just adorable.

Cassie had a pretty large vocabulary for a U-2. She said: HI, Hello (sexy voice) Hey, Hey kid/cutie whatcha doin'?,and Hey Lady!!! When she said Hey Lady, we soon learned that it was time to go back to her cage. That phrase meant that she was soon going to explode into bad behavior. I am glad we learned the key word! She liked to rock and roll. She would bob her head and at the same time, with each bob, she would raise her crest a bit more until it was fully up. She looked very scary when she did that, but it was a game.

Why are all of my animals such chickens?? Cassie had several phobias. One of them was eyeglasses. If you had glasses on, she would just freak out and scream. If she was close enough, she would try to grab them. She also had a fear of anything round. This included soda cans. If you had the timerety to drink from a soda can in her presence, she would bite you. Not hard, just enough to show her disapproval. So there! She was also horrified by anything that had the appearance of a snake. We were watching a nature program one evening and there was a snake that was stalking a flying squirrel up a tree. The squirrel flew to the next tree, and the snake jumped out of the tree after it. Cassie *flipped* out! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh in a voice we had not heard before. It sounded exactly like a human being being murdered. She spread her wings and every feather on this little girl was standing straight out. She got very big all the sudden. She swayed from one foot to the other hissing. Scared us to death. Sheesh! She would often puff up and rock when she was unsure of a situation, or if something scared her. Big old chicken. She was hand raised...where do you suppose she'd ever seen a snake? Instinct I guess. Oh, I forgot to mention that she was afraid of her own shadow too. Here she is checking out her shadow on the wall.

She cursed too. You could always tell when she was cussing because she would whisper. Whoever owned her previously must have cursed a lot. It was hilarious. When she would get frustrated she would mutter "shit" under her breath. She said that a lot as she was edging closer and closer to Max. She desperately wanted to be friends. She was so persistent. It was very interesting to watch her break Max's resolve over time. Eventually, *they* bonded, and I would find them sleeping together in the mornings, with Cassie under Max's wing. I had no idea that this was unusual, and that most macaws will not tolerate another species in their space. I was just happy that the plan had come together, and they had each other.

When Max died, I thought for a while Cassie would die too. It was awful. I started a search for a new companion.... more on that later.