It all began with a trip to Venezuela,

… my wife’s six year old niece, Gabriela, and a healthy fear of Dr. Seuss.

As a 6 year old, Gabriela was a merciless tease who at the time of my first visit to Venezuela had just started her English lessons.

Commendably, she insisted on practicing English with me at every possible opportunity. At 6, her English vocabulary already far exceeded my command of Spanish. But, for some reason, her favourite phrase, and the one she liked to practice with me most, went something like: “you look like a grumpy parrot square face”.

This was, of course, a disturbing revelation. What? How so? What did she mean? Was it my hair—which at the time was still rather reddish (and something of a rarity in the leafy suburbs of Caracas). And it’s true that my nose was, and still is, a bit beaky. And as for grumpy? Me? Anyone who knows me … , well, I might need to concede that point. But beyond that, I was stumped.

Despite my best efforts to ignore this unjustified and incessant harassment (by hiding at the bottom of my mother-in-law’s garden whenever Gabriela was around, which was all the time), the “grumpy parrot” part of the phrase still managed to find me and stick. It has since become an acknowledged nickname and over time a cherished part of family lore.

On later visits to Venezuela, Gabriela tried less successfully to rebrand me with a new term of endearment through  occasional (and by “occasional” I mean frequent) comparisons to the “Lorax”, a lesser known Dr. Seuss character who is covered in bright orange fur.  In retrospect, I do see the resemblance—as this was still before the onset of premature greying.

Anyway, when looking for a website name, both of these labels came to mind along with this charming little backstory. In the end, obviously, I decided on Grumpy Parrot. Of the two contenders, Grumpy Parrot is: i) unique, and most importantly, ii) avoids an ugly copyright brawl with Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

Gabriela is now a grown woman and, at the time of writing this story, is already in her penultimate term of a chemical engineering degree. She’ll be soon moving to Spain for a final work term before graduating.

She has also become an accomplished musician.

No surprises there.

The family couldn’t be more proud of her, including the Grumpy Parrot.

Bolivar Square, Baruta, Distrito Federal, Venezuela

There is, however, a real grumpy parrot in Venezuela and it belongs to my father-in-law, Manuel. It’s name is Do Re Doh, and its vocabulary would make the most hardened Tren de Aragua sicario break out in a cold sweat and cry for his mother and a priest. So don’t let the smiling eyes fool you.

The Real Grumpy Parrot

The fowl mouthed Do Re Doh