Our housekeeper went home over Chinese New Year and brought back a live chicken. This is pretty common as the countryside chickens are both cheap and tasty. Well, the chicken went to live under our balcony and after a day or so started laying eggs. Semi wild neighborhood cats came around but never went after our chicken, soon to be named Clucky Sue sorta after a ginea pig on Elmo’s World.
Cluck’s been around for about 3 months now. All the kids like checking her out. Both twins Audrey and Serena like getting the eggs, although at 27 months, they tend to drop the eggs. We also toss over bread crust scraps for the chicken. So we kinda have a pet chicken in the heart of Shanghai.
Our upstairs neighbor, a 50 something European lady (German I’m guessing) complained to me today. Said the chicken was a little loud in the morning (she is, especially when the cats come around), and but more afraid of bird flu. Now I tried really hard not to laugh about the bird flu part, as aside from headlines, bird flu is not the next Black Death to wipe out 1/3 of the human race. However, I did have to concede that Clucky is a little loud some mornings.
Long story short, we lied to China Bambina that Clucky Sue was chased by a dog and flew away, and our housekeeper took Clucky to the market and eventually became a really nice soup at dinner tonight.
We’re gonna have to get a turtle so the neighbors won’t complain.
RIP Clucky Sue