EP81 - Elvis

[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs. [00:00:07] Today I'm going to tell you share with you the story of Elvis. [00:00:13] Elvis was my pet cockatiel, and he was an amazing bird. [00:00:21] If any of you have listened to my story about my friend Wanda. [00:00:26] Elvis is a bird that came to me after my friend Wanda had passed away. [00:00:33] So I got Elvis the cockatiel, and I got two canaries. Those are. Those were the things I adopted after she passed on. [00:00:43] And we had the canaries for a long time. But part of the problem with the canaries is they kept laying eggs, and then we would get so excited, and then the eggs would never hatch, and so we'd never have baby canaries. I think this happened, like, four or five, maybe even six times, because I kept saying, something's wrong. I took them down to the pet store to ask them, and they were like, now, this is very common with canaries. You buy them and they do breed, but then the eggs never come to fruition with baby birds. [00:01:18] So I'm like, oh, I can't handle that. [00:01:21] So we ended up giving the two canaries to one of my youngest daughter's friends, and they lived out a great life with her, so it worked out perfect. [00:01:33] Elvis was a cockatiel. [00:01:36] He was beautiful, but his right front foot was. [00:01:42] It was, like, paralyzed, almost. [00:01:45] Like, I look at him and I would think, oh, he had polio when he was a baby. That's how I described him, because his foot just didn't wrap well around the perch. [00:01:57] He. He couldn't open his toes up. It was just, like, limp. Almost like he had a stroke in his foot. Okay, well, we'll put it that way, since I'm a nurse, but nonetheless, I love that bird. I love that bird. And if you knew my friend Wanda, she was a pet rescuer. That was her whole M.O. [00:02:19] so she would rescue stray dogs, she would rescue stray cats, she would rescue birds. When she knew she was dying of pancreatic cancer, she started rescuing birds. She had so many birds. The fact that I ended up with three was a miracle, because I probably could have taken a lot more. [00:02:39] But I did take Elvis, who was debilitated. [00:02:45] So we were living in a big house in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, at the time Elvis came to live with us. [00:02:52] And we had a sun room there that was. Had terracotta tile on the floor. [00:03:00] So I decided that I was going to put his cage in. In the sun room. I thought that would be a perfect place for him. [00:03:10] I didn't hang it up. I actually put it on a really low to the ground stool because I was afraid if I hung it up and he tried to fly he would have a hard time because of his foot. [00:03:25] So I didn't want to cause him any trouble and I thought if I kept him lower to the ground that would work out all right. [00:03:34] It took him a long time to get used to us. He moved in with us in March and I would say it took until May for him to come into his his own and realize he is going to be fine. [00:03:53] And the day we realized he was going to be fine we had gone out shopping. They have BJ's Wholesale Club there. So that's where we went for our groceries and we went shopping and I had fed him and gave him clean water, checked the papers underneath, just make sure everything was all set. [00:04:15] And it had the glass doors into the sun room. And that day I decided to leave the sun the doors open. [00:04:26] I don't know why, I thought maybe it would get too hot in there cuz the sun had really started to shine and the weather was warming up and I didn't want him to be uncomfortable so I actually opened the doors. [00:04:39] So off we went to the grocery store, my husband and I and my mom came with us too. My mom was living with us at that time and we went to the grocery store. It's never a short trip if you go to Sam's Club, BJ's Wholesale Club or Costco. Let's be honest, that's a trip where you're going to restock all of your supplies. And of course you always can end up getting things that you don't really need to buy. But they're there and they're such a good value. How are you going to pass them by? [00:05:12] Don't lie. I know you've all been there with me. We're all the same when it comes to those clubs. [00:05:19] So anyhow we left probably about 10 o' clock in the morning and we finally ventured back. It's about one o' clock in the afternoon. [00:05:29] And I remember opening the door to come in through the front door and I hear a noise. I'm like what the heck is that? [00:05:36] What the heck is that? [00:05:38] And then my, my husband and my mom are like following me behind. I go, what is that? Craig goes, I think that's Elvis. I go, Elvis? My mom goes, elvis is singing. I go, what are you talking about? [00:05:52] No. Because he had been silent the whole time for two months since we had brought him there. [00:06:01] So we Walked down the hall into the kitchen and there is Elvis. And I am not kidding you, walking around the kitchen singing at the top of his lungs. [00:06:14] Just walking around. So he had flown down from his cage onto the floor into the sun room and made it. Walked into the dining room and kitchen area, and he was walking around on the hardwood floors singing at the top of his lungs. [00:06:33] And then we were all like, oh my God, this is awesome. [00:06:39] From that moment on, we absolutely adored the bird. It's like he felt like he was so comfortable that he could just walk around the house. And that's exactly what he did. We let him walk around everywhere and sing and he was so darn happy. [00:06:59] Well, things always change in life, don't they? [00:07:03] And both of us. [00:07:06] My husband ended up getting laid off from his job and I had taken a part time job as the bone marrow transplant coordinator. Well, we can make it on my salary, my part time salary. [00:07:18] He was doing some construction work and that was going pretty good. He was actually building decks for a lot of the doctors that I worked for. That wasn't a bad business. [00:07:29] But we were both like, is this what we got to do? I'm probably going to have to get another part time job because we're going to need the insurance, you know, that whole thing that goes along with work. [00:07:43] And at that time, that was the time when my mom was kind of getting sick of Maine. [00:07:48] She didn't like it, really, because she always came during the school year. [00:07:54] And so that is when, of course, we have daylight savings time. And it would start to get dark at 4 o' clock in the afternoon in Maine. And she found it very, very depressing. [00:08:07] She did not like it. But the girls were in school so we had to, you know, what can we do about that? We can't just not change our clocks back, mom. Sorry. You know, so she's like, I want you to come back to Michigan. [00:08:20] And I'm like, okay, okay. [00:08:24] Yeah, we decided we're coming back to Michigan. We both get good jobs back here, but we're traveling back with a dog, a bird, two girls, my husband, me, my mom, and two trailers full of household goods. I'm like, oh my God, what are we gonna do? We've got this bird in the car. [00:08:52] He did travel well. I got to give it to him. He traveled just fine. Okay. He made it. [00:09:00] So we get to our next house in Michigan and upstairs we had a little room, a bedroom for my mom. So there was like a little sitting area where she could have her own tv and Then she had her bedroom there and she had her own bathroom. And then for meals, she would come downstairs and eat with. With the family. So that way, you know, she could have some time away from us. I'm sure we could get on her nerves after a while. Not that I would understand that or anything, but she needed her own space and she loved the bird, so she wanted the bird up in her room. [00:09:39] So we would put Elvis up in her room. [00:09:42] Now, I think his foot became a little better maybe because he walked around on it so much. I know this sounds so crazy, but he did. He would walk all over that kitchen and dining room in the sun room. He just loved that area of our old house in Maine. [00:10:02] And the room that we put him upstairs with her. I put him on another low bench. It was really bright and sunny up there. So we figured this is going to be an easy transition for him. [00:10:13] Well, what happened here is he would climb on the top of the cage. He would get out of his cage, we'd leave the door open, and he'd fly or climb up to the top. [00:10:25] The front or the one paw? It's not really a paw. His foot, bird foot would get stuck in the railing. Sometimes he'd get up to the top and he'd want to fly so bad off the top of that cage. But that foot would wrap around one of the rungs and it couldn't open and shut like normal people. Like a hand, you couldn't just open and shut it. It would get wrapped around and then he couldn't get it back open. [00:10:55] So a couple of times he would try to fly, and it would finally get unhooked from the thing. But he would end up flying and then laying flat on the ground, I believe, like, oh, my God, he's dead. You know, I would be so upset. [00:11:11] But he. He did fine. He really did fine. Well, my mom would go home in the summer, so she wanted Elvis to go home with her. Like, you got to be kidding me. Two and a half hour drive. We're going to take the bird. He's already traveled from Maine to Michigan. Mom, can't you just leave him here? No, I want that bird with me all the time. He really became a companion to her. She had her dog with us. [00:11:40] She had the bird and the bird and the dog got along really great. They were fine together. [00:11:47] So I'm like, okay, we're gonna drive the bird down to Hillsdale. If that's what you really want to do. Yes, I want Elvis with me. We drive the bird down There. [00:12:01] And in her house in Hillsdale. We put the bird in the kitchen. [00:12:06] In the kitchen, she had a little rocking chair. I still have that rocking chair. Put the bird in, the bird would fly out of the cage, and he would sit on the rocking part of the chair, on the legs, the rockers, and he would just sit there and whistle all day long. I'm not kidding you. And my mom was so happy. She was so overjoyed to have him with her. [00:12:38] And he would whistle, like. [00:12:43] I don't know if you can hear that. Almost like a rooster. I'm not kidding you. It sounded like a rooster, but it was so loud, and. And he was so happy. My Aunt sue would come over, and they would have coffee in the dining room, and Elvis would just sit there on that rocking chair and he would whistle the whole time that they were together. [00:13:05] They got the biggest kick out of that bird. But it became a big joke because the bird was like the traveling bird. Like the sisterhood of the traveling pants, right? That's what Elvis was. [00:13:18] He traveled from Maine to Michigan. Then he traveled from Rockford to Hillsdale. Every year for, like, three or four years. The bird traveled back and forth to be with my mom, and it didn't bother him a bit. [00:13:34] And I was like, the whole time, I'm thinking, are we. What is the matter? [00:13:38] Obviously, I have gone mad. [00:13:41] I am driving a cockatiel around to make my mother happy. That really is the story behind all this, because my mom absolutely loved that bird, and there was nothing I was gonna do to change it. [00:14:00] I thought when we got him back to Spring Lake, the first time, we were actually living in Spring Lake, not Rockford. And when we got him back, I'm like, well, me, mom, let's just keep him in the living room. Oh, no, no. The. The bird could not stay in the living room. He had to be upstairs with her. [00:14:20] She. I think she really liked the fact that he sang. [00:14:25] But finally, after this had been going on for a couple years, I'm like, what is your name? Why are you so enamored with this bird? What is it about Elvis? And I finally got to the bottom of it. [00:14:41] She said when she was growing up, she used to go stay with my Aunt Eldie, and that was my grandma's oldest sister, and she liked to go stay with her because she had a bird. [00:14:53] So she loved that bird, and it was one of the reasons why she would continue to go back there. None of her brothers and sisters ever wanted to go stay with Aunt Eldie. It was during A time where you had the outhouses in the back so they didn't have indoor plumbing back then. And so none of the other kids would go, but my mom would always go. And the reason why she went is because she had a bird. [00:15:22] That made me start to think a lot too. Because when we were growing up, she wanted a bird. And I do remember she really made a big deal about getting a bird. And we actually ended up getting a bird. Sammy the parakeet. We had him for a couple years and she always left the door open on that cage too. [00:15:43] And Sammy would fly all over the living room. I remember my dad was so mad. First he was mad not because the bird was flying around, but the bird pooped everywhere. Okay, he doesn't want bird poop in the living room. But my mom didn't care. She's like, oh, such a small mess to clean up. Who cares? You know what I mean? He goes, well, you cannot have that bird in the kitchen. It has to be in the living room. [00:16:10] So we're like, okay, we can keep the bird in the living room. So when I really stopped to look back at what, why she was so enamored with Elvis, I realized the real reason is that she had always liked birds and I just never paid attention to it. [00:16:31] She saw the birds at my Aunt Eldy's house, and then she had Sammy the parakeet. We were probably maybe 10, 8 and 10 when we had Sammy. I think he was short lived thanks to my, my dad. My dad didn't really like the bird, but we nonetheless, we had him for two years. [00:16:52] And then Elvis came along and it just reignited her passion for birds. [00:17:00] She had Elvis with her all the way up until Elvis finally died. And it was really sad. It was another one of those incidents where he had tried so hard to unhook his front claw from the, the railing of the, of the cage. [00:17:21] And he, he would try so hard and it would be stuck and then finally he would get it loose. And when he got it loose, he would fly across the, the room and then he would just. It was almost like he passed out and he would just land. [00:17:36] And then he would lay there and we'd be like, is he dead? You know, that happened at least five times. At least five times. And every time we thought he was dead. [00:17:47] And finally the final time, he actually was. [00:17:51] But since Wanda had passed, we had him for at least five years. [00:18:00] And he had the greatest life. [00:18:03] And he made my mom so happy. [00:18:06] The girls loved him, the dogs loved him. The dogs didn't even care. And he didn't care about the dogs either. It was so easy to take care of him. [00:18:16] And Elvis, my friend Wanda had named him Elvis. And Elvis was such a perfect name for him because he sang all the time, loudly. [00:18:30] He probably was the happiest that he's ever been because he was the only bird we had. [00:18:37] He got all the attention all the time. [00:18:41] Everybody would walk up to him, everybody would talk to him, and he was just the happiest bird. [00:18:50] So I have no regrets whatsoever at all that we kept Elvis and even the canaries. That was a whole learning experience, too, for me. I mean, because I wanted to have baby. Baby canaries. I thought that was going to be the coolest thing. And the girls were young then, and all of their friends would come over. Oh, my God, there's five eggs in the. Yes, it really is true. [00:19:18] And so Elvis was great. The canaries were great. We're living in our house now in Rockford. [00:19:26] When we first moved here, my aunt sue gave me a flower arrangement in a basket that you hang on your front door. [00:19:37] And she says, do you want this? I go, yeah, sure, I'll take it. Right? [00:19:42] So I put something like that out every year. [00:19:46] But what do you think happens every year? [00:19:50] The birds make a nest in that basket on our front door. This year we had five little wrens in my flower basket hanging on the door. [00:20:01] And. And they all. And they all flew off. They. They hatched, the eggs hatched, they grew up and they flew away. And it happens every year. And every year I think say, oh, my God. They're kind of messy. [00:20:15] They don't really poop that much. It depends on which kind of bird it is. This year it was the wren, so it wasn't so bad. But we've had other birds in there. They make a mess. And I'm continually trying to spray the front door down. My husband's like, why do you even put anything out there? I go, I don't know. There's something about this. Why do birds keep coming to my front door? [00:20:37] Why do birds keep showing up in my life? [00:20:40] I think there might be a message there from God because nobody else in the neighborhood has this problem. And believe me, I have asked everybody, do you have birds hanging out at your house? You know what I mean? No, I have birds hanging out in my house, hatching baby birds here every year on the front door of my house. [00:21:03] And it just reminds me so much of my mom, Elvis, Sammy, my Aunt Eldie. All things in my life that were good. Good memories. Good things to hang on to. [00:21:19] And for some reason, birds follow me. [00:21:24] Maybe because I'm a little bird myself. Right. [00:21:28] Well, I hope you enjoyed the story today. It's kind of a crazy one. Elvis. There was nobody like him. I loved him dearly. [00:21:40] Until the next time.