“Sensei I have a gift for you.”

It’s Monday evening around 6:15 pm when Zen-Do student, and part-time Instructor Extraordinaire Hussain Al-Fardan walks up to me and says, “Sensei I have a gift for you.”

“Is it honey?” I reply.

“No” he says, “it’s a surprise.  It’s in your office.” He says this with a rather smug expression on his face.

The reason I asked if it was honey is because Hussain has kind of become my official, pure Iranian honey supplier.  He’s also one of the most generous people I know.

Anyway, I stepped in to my office and there it was, sitting in a small blue cage, a brand new yellow canary.  The canary seemed just as surprised and confused as I was.

There was an awkward silence as bird and human stared at each other for a few moments.

I then started laughing and thanked Hussain for his gift.  I teased him and said I’d call the canary Hussaino.  I should have blogged about wanting a new Ferrari!  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my post entitled The Dead Canary.)

I asked my Senior Instructor Vinod Joseph to take the canary home.  As he left I called my wife and I told her I was sending her a surprise courtesy of Hussain.

“Is it big?” she asked.

“Um… not really.  You’ll see.”  I said and ended the call.

A few minutes later she called back and was laughing too.  “You should have blogged about something more valuable, like a Ferarri,” she said.  I smiled…

The New Canary

Well, we now have two canaries in the house again.  A yellow fronted canary, and a just-plain-yellow canary.  According to Wikipedia (the world’s most reliable source of information), the breed is called Serinus flaviventris.

I’m not sure if it’s male or female.  So far the bird did not sing, so most likely it’s a “she”.  Anyway, I decided to give the bird a unisex name just in case.

I spent a few minutes online searching for interesting unisex names and came up with “Shikoba”, which in Choctaw native American means “feather”.

Shikoba doesn’t look as frightened and as nervous as the old bird, so I decided to try and hand feed him, to gage his receptiveness.  He seems fairly outgoing (as far as a bird can be outgoing).

It turns out little Shikoba is also cheeky and quite smart.  He managed to escape from the cage while I was trying to feed him!

Here’s the video of me trying to lure him using a piece of banana!  Notice his expression after I caught him

[wpvideo hMGU5c4g]

How did I catch him?  Remember I’m a martial arts master and I used my Ninja speed

Talk to you soon…