Tortoise, then Parrot , then Difficult pronouncing

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Przemyslaw Plaskowicki"
<przepla at i...> wrote:

<< And  I am quite proud of my tortoise. He's with my family for over
11 years! >>

It seems to me that 11 years is not long for a tortoise: don't they
live to be 150 years old? My friend Lyndon has a cute little wood
tortoise named Yard, and I mean "little", my estimate is not much over
six inches long, and he told me that she is at least 75 years old by
counting growth rings in her shell.

Another friend of mine has a green macaw (?) named Martha who is 75
years old and will live to 150. She explained that Martha was the pet
of an old lady who loved her and taught her a great many words, but
the lady died and her heirs didn't care about parrots, kept Martha in
a cage and fed her regularly and cleaned the cage occassionally and
otherwise ignored her, so she forgot all her words. My friend found
out about this and rescued/bought the parrot from them, and Martha
said "hello" and "good girl" when I met her. When my friend (who is,
like me, over 40) told me that the parrot is 75 and will live to 150,
I did math in my head and replied: "Then she will outlive us." My
friend said: Yes, that is why I have already found a little girl in 
my nieghborhood who loves parrots to learn to take care of Martha and
inherit her when I die.

Speaking of difficult pronouncing, if "Przemyslaw" is Pshem-Y-suave
(or /SHEH-mih-swaf/, same difference) and Tomek is Tomash, then what
is Pshemekan? 1) if rz and k are both prononced sh, then what is sh
pronounced like? 2) Until Amanda's comment, I'd been assuming that k
was pronounced k. (That Tomek rhymes with Selleck, which is close
enough to rhyming with stomach for nasty children).