Living with a parrot, even if she is the prettiest girl in town, has its drawbacks. Yesterday I turned around to see her chewing on the wooden window frame for the first time. She has lived in the same area for two years and three months without doing that. "No," I said. She took a defensive posture and glared at me, her pupils dilating and retracting, dilating and retracting. She doesn't like to be told "no".

I offered her a popsicle stick as an alternative chew treat. She took it and threw it off the cage, then returned to chewing the window frame. I finally had to move the cage over so she couldn't reach it.

The damage isn't so bad that it can't be handled with a little sandpaper and paint. Lyman gave her a short lecture on not chewing her house down, and we all seem to be on good terms now.

But you should have seen the look in her eye when she heard "No".