Word: birdness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...awoke one sunny morning last September to a strange new sound in my ear. Granted, in the soft days of Cambridge autumn, it’s not entirely unusual to hear birds just above the heaving and clanking of trucks on JFK Street—but this bird was not cooing at me from my window. It was as if I had literally bedded a cranky parrot, or kept a menagerie in my pillow...
...turned out, the bird belonged to my neighbor through the fire door. How he managed to keep a live animal in the House, and how I managed to go the whole year without speaking to him, I do not know. I do know that over the course of the semester, I grew more and more attached to that bird—or at least more intimately aware of its mood swings and squawking schedules. I realized the extent to which my life was inextricably tied to the two rooms through the fire doors in my Kirkland bedroom...
Which leads me to my next point: what to do when the “calls of the wild” coming from the room next door are, how shall I say this, a lot raunchier than the sounds of an unhappy bird. (Because when it comes down to it, I’ll take chirping over groaning any day of the week...
While my relationship with Parrot Boy never progressed beyond muttering my sympathies for his bird and his girlfriend, the fact that the boy through the other fire door in my room lived in the same entryway offered more opportunities for interaction. Our door refused to stay shut—which proved useful on the frequent occasions that I locked myself out and went sheepishly next door to gain access to my room. Establishing a relationship with the person through the fire door, even if it’s just one of convenience, makes the inevitable eavesdropping a bit less absurd...
...fears about a bird flu pandemic continue to mount, Harvard is preparing for a possible influenza outbreak and increasing its supply of seasonal flu vaccines. The bird flu mutation, avian influenza A (H5N1), has killed more than 60 people in Asia over the past two years, according to the World Health Organization. Recently, the virus spread to birds in eastern Europe. Avian influenza A is currently only transmitted to humans via contact with birds. However, an influenza pandemic could begin if the virus mutated, enabling it to spread from person to person easily, according to the Centers for Disease Control...