I let Ninja out as soon as I got home from work this morning, and instead his usual routine of partying on top of his cage, he took it into his little blue head to FLY FLY FLY OMG FLY around the house for a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't get any in-flight shots, but this is almost worth it. After the better part of a year with full wing feathers, he's still not an expert aviator. He can cirle, turn, accelerate, decelerate, ascend, and descend competently, but he only has one landing style, and it rhymes with "gnash". At least he usually manages to aim himself for something soft. Curtains are a favorite, but while I was cleaning his cage today*, he managed to stick a landing on top of the curtain rail.



( Find the birdie! )

Following the Innocent Face up there, Ninja decided to check out upstairs, and got a little too interested in the cat5 cable that leads to the XBox 360. BACK IN YOUR CAGE, DEMON.

Additionally, the hot weather is taking its toll on the mammal pets. Specifically, it causes them to make ( DURRRRRRRR faces. )

* Flighted parrots, even accident-prone ones, get into less trouble than you'd think. Nevertheless, Ninja's closely supervised when he's flying.

I don't usually like to post single parrot pics, because they are Boring, but. If you have a parrot and a camera both within arm's reach, you will inevitably point the latter at the former. It's like a law of nature. Even though the lighting is terrible, I still find this picture of Ninja weebling around on the play cage to be hilarious:

( One Second Before the Dog Got Up and Left. )

*FLING!*

I've been slacking on the bird pictures lately, for several reasons. 1. Firefly still believes the New Camera might eat him, so photos of His Conureness tend to be Very Pointy. And 2. everyone else is currently explodamolting and looks as though they're suffering from either an acute parrot moth infestation, or possibly the plague.

A bath sequence is okay, though. Bathing parrots always look like they're delighted to be coming down with leprosy, so explodamolt won't matter. (Sorry, bloolark.)

( The ancient shamans were next called upon to do the Hokey Pokey and turn themselves around. )

Additionally, if you missed this the first time it cycled through Livejournal, here's Take On Me: The Literal Music Video Version, which just never stops being funny, even if you watch it three or four times in a row. AND THERE'S A BUNCH MORE NOW! White Wedding: The Literal Music Video Version. 'Scuse me whilst I LOL across the universe.

There's also a Literal Music Video Version of "The Boy In The Bubble" by Paul Simon that makes me laugh whenever I see it, but it's, uh, the actual music video. LASERS. ELEPHANTS WITH LASERS YOU GUYS. (Confession time: I love that song. But... elephants with lasers!)

This ad made me wibble a bit. $2000 for a cockatoo and cage is on the high end of reasonable, I think: somewhere beyond "we want to make sure she finds a good home with the financial wherewithal to support a large cockatoo" and into the land of "we want to recoup her purchase price/ use her to cover our moving expenses". More than that, though, is the photo. Ugh, plenty of people on Craigslist use the "that's not THE bird, it's just a bird that looks the same because I don't have a picture of mine" trick (I see it all the time with cockatiels, canaries and lovebirds), but why would you choose to represent your bird with a photo of a plucked cockatoo sitting on a hideous round cage in an ugly room? I'd like to sell my gray Toyota Tercel; this isn't the car, just a car that looks like it."

Also, I don't care what you say, ( my conure is the prettiest. )

I dunno. Stuff. *waves hands vaguely*

I gave Kalu a new toy yesterday which included (yes, past tense; she's ferocious) some colored wood blocks. Naturally, she immediately dragged the toy around -- we're talking about a big wooden block that must weigh more than she does, by the way -- so that the end would trail into her water dish, and it turned the water a lovely shade of Tidy-Bowl blue. Since she loves doing this and has done it several times before, I should have known better: I cleaned up the mess, unhooked the toy, moved it somewhere else, and went on with my life.

Except that I have two blue-headed parrots now. Well, one blue-headed, and one that's just blue in the face (and the feet).

( Photographic evidence to follow. )

So, yeah. At least with the "new" job, I have more time to spend with my parrotfaces and doghead. I'm still in that overwhelmed stage, though, where I feel like I have too much shit to remember and I'm terrified of screwing up; I know it'll pass, but it's making me twitchy. Adjusting my sleep schedule to get up at 4:30 a.m. isn't helping, but I've done it before. Life experience is for the win. So many things are possible when you've done them before. Ten-Years-Ago Me would have been terrified out of her mind about this.

How To Tell That Your Vet Clinic Does Not See A Lot Of Flighted Birds: Handed back to you after a ten-minute* nail trim, your pionus is unusually rumpled and has a bit of peeled-back cuticle next to his nare which shows signs of recent bleeding. Apparently the tech that turfed him out of his carrier thought that a freaked-out bird plunked onto a strange perch in a strange room would stay there, instead of zooming around the room several times before crashing into an IV stand.

( Ow, my face. )

He's a lot more comfortable getting around his cage now. Like Gojira, his nails don't really get sharp, they just get long, so "parrot scabies" like Kalu's nails do to my shoulder if I let her go too long without trimming isn't an issue. (Also that he doesn't normally sit on my shoulder. He's a hand bird.) Also, the nail trim was a freebie. It was nice of them to waive the fee, even if it was motivated mostly by not wanting to say "Yeah, we screwed up and chased your bird into some medical equipment before we got his nails done, that'll be $15."

Ninja remembered Rupiper's voice from his checkup two weeks ago. He was fine hanging out in his carrier, but started doing the "OMG WTF LEMME OUT" flail as soon as the doctor started speaking. Spaz. As long as he blames the vet, and not me.

In other bird news, foster lovie Ocean is starting to settle in after a week and a half, and I would be amazed at how much noise a bittybird can make, if I hadn't spent the past two years living with Goji. Ocean's quite cheepful, even if he's not sure he wants to be friends with Big People yet, and there's evidence of toy-shredding and water-flinging in his cage. He's a pretty happy little bird, considering. He wasn't thrilled with the camera in his Q cage, but let me snap a few photos between the bars.

( And he's cute, too. )

We're not pushing too hard with the hand-taming yet, mostly for ease of maintaining quarantine, but I'm sure he can be won over with the judicious application of millet and safflower seeds once he's out of Q. He'll make someone a sweet, loud pet someday.

Someone other than me. No matter how bloo and cute he is. :>


* Admittedly, my vet likes to take his sweet time, so the duration of the nail trim was of less concern than the way the cacatuine shrieks of protest stopped suddenly, before resuming a couple of minutes later.

Forgive me, O Livejournal, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last ( parrot photo post. )

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THERE'S A CHEEPY IN MY BATHROOM.

It's okay. That's Ocean, from Mickaboo, our new foster-in-quarantine. I haven't posted updates, though I should. Even the sad ones. Those of you who read selasphorus's journal as well already know that of the four Mickaboo budgies we began fostering in March, Cirrus was adopted some months ago, and Frith, sadly, passed away over Thanksgiving, leaving Halo and Squall budging merrily along. As I posted recently, when Mickaboo sent out a call for lovebird foster homes, selasphorus and I kind of looked at each other and went "We-ell, we could make it work..."

And the rest, as they say, is history. Monsieur la Mer has been Silent Bird so far, sitting on that knotwood perch in Firefly's travel cage and nibbling on millet when no one is looking, but hopefully he'll realize in a few days that we're not fattening him up to eat him and become the loud, obnoxious, demanding parrot I know he can be. He's ferociously cute; I imagine he's ferociously ferocious as well. It's a lovebird thing. Stubby African p'lets that they are.

It's been a productive Saturday. We got a nice bit of housecleaning in before Rochelle from Mickaboo came by to drop Ocean off, and went out to do some luxury shopping. I took all of the animals with my name on their paperwork in for their annual checkups, bloodwork (birds) and shots (dog), and everyone came back 100% super-healthy, especially Kalu. Firefly and Ninja's blood counts were well within the normal-healthy range, but Kalu was textbook perfect. I told her that her blood was so nice, the vet wanted to have some more as an example to others. She gave me an unusually querulous "Meow?", I think. :> In case I lose the paperwork and need to refer back, I'm going to quickly note down everyone's weights here:

Luck: 49.2 lbs.
Firefly: 69 g
Kalu: 138 g
Ninja: 220 g

Anyway, with everyone vetted and clear (and for less $$$ than I thought, too! Woo!), and all my bills paid, I actually don't feel bad about spending some money on myself, so we went to two of the nice adult stores in the area and I splurged a bit. Absolute non-necessities are still, sometimes, nice to have. Mmm-hmm.

eclipsegryph is loudly playing Endless Ocean, which is a mellow little exploration game: go diving, see all sorts of sea creatures, open up new areas, pet lionfish (srsly) and make dolphins your diving buddies. Apparently, the game has a feature where you can invite your Wii friends to dive with you, and seabhacson and tenaya_owlcat are demonstrating that feature with him now. Could be fun, I suppose.

I'm a little late to the Wii party, I admit. If it wasn't for my heroic efforts (that is to say, standing in line in front of Gamestop at 6 a.m. so we could get a pre-order) and $50 deposit, eclipsegryph and selasphorus wouldn't have gotten a Wii on launch day, but it didn't really suck me in until just recently. The culprits? De Blob and Monster Lab.

De Blob is a quirky game about a colorless world where art and music and highly chromatic Raydian culture is suppressed by the evil and occasionally hilarious INKT corporation. You play as a little blob (well, yeah) of paint that rolls around turning white buildings into red, blue, yellow, green, purple, orange or brown ones. It's... strange. And compelling, too. There's actually a hell of a lot of fun to be had, rolling around the world gathering paint and smacking the hell out of ink blots. The music is possibly the best part. We'd rented it before, and I played quite a bit, but Eclipse gave me my own copy for Christmas. It is of the whee.

Also of the whee is Monster Lab, another rental. A game where you play as a mad scientist? I'm there, regardless, but it's been fun so far. Even the frustrating bits are fun, because if the plot gets annoying, you can always run back to the castle and make monster parts until you're having fun again. Some of the minigames are a little weird, control-wise, and there are a few games of the "shake the wiimote to move something on the right side of the screen, shake the nunchuk to move it to the left". Which is fine, until I forget to switch hands (I hold the Wii Remote in my left hand) and confuse the hell out of myself for five seconds. Sadly, the game doesn't have a "play lefty" option. But I forgive it, because science is best when it's MAAAAAAAAAAAD. As Eclipse says, "It's like Pokemon, without the stupid parts."

Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon is kinda fun so far, too. At least the flying/exploring parts, with Spyro (Player 1) and Cynder (Player 2, or AI) swooping all over a pretty Technicolor landscape.

Of course, the real reason to have a Wii is so you can play the wickedly hilarious Sam & Max adventure games from Telltale from your couch.

Happy 2009, y'all.

( The Blue-Headed Pionatoo vs. The Big Bad Wolf. )

No extravagant wildlife this morning. It's raining in that particular Pacific Northwest way that's really more of an emphatic mist: you can't see it or hear it, but you certainly get soggy if you stand in it long enough. It's not the drenching downpour I've been longing for, but it's certainly welcome, and better than nothing.

Halloween is my favorite of the available holidays, but my involvement this year will probably be limited to passing out candy to Trick-or-Treaters, although there's a definite appeal to the idea of eating something hot and seasonal with cocoa while watching an appropriate movie. I'm sure I can do something with a pumpkin other than pie or a jack-o'-lantern.

Think, think, think.

I might have neglected to mention that Mr. Pionusface is also a born forager: a conure, presented with a treat and a puzzle toy, will attempt to snatch the treat from your hand. Ninja, however, will sit and wait patiently while you hide the treat in a toy or wrap it up in a puzzle for him (and this isn't him being shy of grabbing things away from you: he's more than happy to snatch the treat from your fingers once you've wrapped it up).

He's also still not very interested in eating mulch, so here's a new tactic.

( Ooh, look at the bird owner who thinks she's clever. )

Kalu and Firefly, of course, are ears-deep in mulch as soon as I set their bowls down. They used to shriek at me in the morning when I left the room, but now all I can hear when the door shuts is NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.

Birds.

ETA @ 12:36 p.m.
Gotcha!

I tried and failed this morning to get Kalu on video saying "You're so weird"; she went all Michigan J. Frog on me whenever I pointed the camera at her (and then, of course, "You're so cute! Beeps! Hahahahaha!" as soon as I turned around). Contrary little spud that she is. I'll try again later.

( So have a video of Ninja being un-cute instead. )

I'm so mean.

( In the absence of actual content, here are two videos of Ninja mumbling and saying 'bird' a lot! )

We now return to your regular scheduled programming.

Rather than bitch about ongoing clear skies and HOT when what I really want is a drenching downpour, I've opted to make the best of it by using this opportunity to get my birds out into the sunshine while the weather's still amenable. Unfiltered UV is good for parrots; it helps them synthesize some vitamins and absorb more calcium from their diet. Plus, it shows them with their real colors, which camera flash and indoor lighting never manage to do.

( Mind you, not all of them were thrilled about this. )

Next on "All My Cockatiels": Will Aya discover that Aki has been cheating on her with a man from another species? Will Aki be forced to make a choice? Can they come to an arrangement, or is this the end of their relationship? Tune in next week, same cockatiel time, same cockatiel channel.

Oh, yes, those bird pictures I promised.

( A medium-sized parrot, a small parrot, and a wee parrot woke up one morning... )

This Livejournal post has been brought to you by the Coast Guard, in cooperation with Pi Sniffers Anonymous.

Around midmorning on September 14th, my new niece entered the world, and now rejoices in the name of Sophie May. I started to object, on the basis that "Sophie" is a nickname and not a complete name . . . but then I took a look at the hospital's Web Nursery, and decided to simply be grateful that my sister and her husband did not pick "Psalm Etta-Rose", "Destiny Sioux", or "Zeppelin Rylye" as a suitable moniker for their child (and not a D&D character). So, hooray for Sophie! Welcome to the family, kid!

I've been amusing myself lately playing the PlayStation2 game Primal, which I scraped off a bottom shelf at the video game store for $10. It's in the running to be one of my top ten video games ever; I'm about three-quarters of the way through, and the stuff I really love about it vastly outweighs the bits that I want to stab to death and leave in a hole. So, uh, win! A more complete review will probably follow once I finish the game. If anyone's interested.

So there's that. Work has been cranking me off ferociously: management is having Communication Issues over what exactly will be happening with my department as we head into fall, which is leaving me with a lot of conflicting instructions and pointless repetitive busywork. Also, spending the last two days putting up shoddy Christmas decorations has not filled me with joy: grr, fucking penguins. But today was mostly occupied with the hard physical move-large-object-from-point-A-to-B-using-muscly-muscles ant work that leaves my mind free to wander, so I feel pretty good about the world and my place in it. Additionally, I have Thoughts which will hopefully culminate in a parrot_lovers post tomorrow.

Speaking of parrots, mulch is being consistently devoured to the last component atom by Firefly, Kalu, Goji, and Mori. Ninja still prefers his pellets, but will eat the mulch sort of absently, which is a start. It's almost exactly the same as what he was eating before, of course, just all mushed together instead of neatly diced, so he can't pick all the [beans/peppers/squash] out and ignore the rest. He'll get used to it.

Anyway, have your PPOD (Parrot Picture of the Day):
Ninja watching the hummingbird feeder. (Photo taken before selasphorus picked up the wind-tossed patio chairs.)

Making Nutritious Mush last night was much more work than I expected, what with all the cooking and processing and mixing and portioning. Actually, since it's characterized mostly by greens and grains, it might be more accurate to refer to it as "mulch". However, serving it up this morning was a snap:

Step 1: Remove baggie from freezer.
Step 2: Plunk baggie in bowl of warm water. Attend to Assorted Morning Tasks.
Step 3: Divvy up baggie. Feed birds.

Firefly greeted his mulch with Dubious Noises rather akin to a highly skeptical didgeridoo. Kalu, in contrast, looked at her bowl, then looked at me with a politely curious expression, like "Interesting abstract sculpture. So when's breakfast?" When I left for work, I didn't hold out a lot of hope that my time and effort had been well-spent.

Approximately the last thing I expected was that they would not only EAT it, but LIKE it. Firefly and Kalu loved it and ate every last bit (well, every last bit they didn't drop onto the cage liner. They're still parrots). Ninja was less enthusiastic, but he also a) got twice as much, and b) didn't have his portion as long, since he doesn't wake up until ten at the earliest. At least he tried it.

I rock.

(Also, I don't know how Kalu always knows it's the first day of my period, but she always does.)

( D'awww parrot . . . wait. Ow. Huh. )

In other parrot news, I'm going to devote the evening to cooking for the birds. I've been wanting to try this mash recipe, but it always seemed like more work than just chopping up a handful of fresh veggies every day. However, having three parrots to feed instead of one has finally tipped the convenience balance over to the innate appeal of a) being able to make a month's worth of bird food at a time, and b) freeing up some 'fridge space for ANYTHING other than greens, greens, greens. Aagh.

At which point the people who read this journal and don't have parrots, assuming there are any left, are undoubtedly questioning my sanity. So for the rest of you: The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Good wholesome fun. Also great if you're on a diet and trying to resist the urge to snack.