I first met Kippy in a pet store about 35 years ago. He wasn’t old enough yet to eat regular food, so he couldn’t come home with me. In the meantime, I visited him regularly. When he was finally home, he would ride around the house on my shoulder.

One day, I forgot he was on my shoulder when I answered the doorbell. Kippy went flying out and down the street on his first ever flight. He was so confused that he landed at the feet of two surprised ladies a few houses down. That expedition caused him to have his wings clipped.

The wing clipping was to Kippy’s advantage, however, because he was then allowed to be in the back yard where he could climb around on shrubs and trees. When it was time for him to come in, I’d call him and he’d come down to me. I never kept his cage door closed during the day, so he could climb up and play on top. I attached a small dead tree to the side of his cage that he liked to climb on.

Kippy had a varied diet, as parrots do in the wild. He ate a variety of seeds and nuts, plus whatever we were eating. I’m the cook in the family, so Kippy had a low fat, low salt diet, the same as us. His favorite foods were rib-eye steak, pasta, and pizza. I enjoyed spoiling him, so Kippy’s breakfast was steak, scrambled eggs, and blueberries. If we ate out, we always brought a “doggie bag” back for Kippy.

When we went out of town, Kippy stayed at a parrot rescue facility. The people kept him in their house with other boarding birds. They were entertained by his vocabulary and he learned new overheard comments from them.

For travel, Kippy had a cat carrier that was the perfect size for him. However, when we moved from Albuquerque, NM to Custer in 2015, he rode most of the way sitting on a broom handle between the front seats where he could see out the windshield.

Kippy was happy in our Custer home, where his cage was centrally located. He always knew what was going on and would frequently comment appropriately in many ways, some not repeatable. He would say “hello” when someone came in the house and “get out of here” when someone was preparing to leave. He would make a zipping noise when we donned jackets to zip up. Kippy would laugh right along with us if someone said something funny or there was something funny on TV. He would even occasionally still repeat some of the comments he heard while boarding at the parrot rescue over ten years ago.

We thought Kippy would outlive us, so we had provisions for him in our wills to go to one of my daughters who loved him. One evening just before we were going to say goodnight to him, we found Kippy laying in the bottom of his cage.

Kippy was such a vital part of our family, that it’s now oddly quiet in our house. We dearly miss interacting with him during the day and hearing his happy little voice in the background no matter what we were doing. Rest in peace, dear Kippy. We will always love you.