bird slave

There are days that my birds will drive me crazy.

Seriously, I have to give myself at least an extra ten minutes before I can leave the house with a clear conscience. Every time I am ready to leave the house-even to just food shop- somebody has just pooped in their water, tore up their papers, knocked over their food dish, or somebody is squabbling with one another, etc... and I've got to stop and tend to their needs before I depart.

I am their slave.

Forget about having a uninterrupted telephone conservation too.

Linus will delightfully serenade me as I try to interpret what the caller is saying to me.

Sometimes it is Linus, Patches AND Louie all singing at the same time.

Eddie sometimes likes to sleep with me but she can be a pain sometimes too. She will snuggle under my chin but after two seconds of being convincingly cute she will pinch me in the neck with a "love bite". This will shock me out of the snooze. Or she will stick her beak inside my nose. This will have the same wake up effect.

I am at their every beck (beak?) and call.

Twice a day I check and clean the pigeon's face and nose of debris. Seeds get stuck up his nose and I clean them out. He will then sneeze or cough phlegm in my face. I've learn to face him in the opposite direction out of his line of fire. I also have to wash his feet because he will haphazardly step in his own poop and then try to perch on my head. After he is all cleaned up he will cuddle up to me on my lap and fall asleep..

I can not begin to tell you how many stick vacuums and hand held dust-busters I burn through, or how many paper towels I use or stacks of newspapers I go through.

The birds do make me eat healthy because they ALWAYS have to check out what I am eating.

They love carrots and brown rice.

Actually, anything I am eating they find appealing so it has to be healthy and safe for them to eat.

I have heard my husband screaming for me to "get this bird out of my bowl of oatmeal!"

I will usually find a bird( or two) sitting in his bowl with oatmeal stuck to their beaks and head.

Louie loves black berries. I'll give him a few but I mentally prepare myself for "the black berry massacre" that will follow all over the walls and floor.

I watch out for their safety too in my daily activities. All birds are locked in their cages when I cook. Doors are always closed. Toilet lids are closed down. House hold cleansers are nontoxic environmentally friendly biodegradable. Cooking pots and pans are stainless steel. My blankets are cleared of loose strings so they don't get their toes caught in it.

Well, I have to end this post because I hear Princess calling for me.

I've been upstairs too long for their liking.

They all want to watch "Judge Judy" and then take a nap afterwards while I prepare their dinner.

Are they spoiled or what?

it's a guy thing

Guys....

Really...?

I've spotted at least three trucks with (see above) testicles hanging below as they were driving on route 1.

This is a total gross guy thing.

Sorry dude but scrotums are ugly!

Gasp!!!!

I've had this major snail population explosion in my fish tank.

What is ever is in my water supply is making the snails grow at a rapid rate and they are multiplying like mad. I think there is a high level of calcium. You can see white crust around the electric teapot from what I believe is calcium residue.

I don't mind looking at the snails. They eat the detritus in the bottom of the tank. My husband hates looking at the snails. I think they gross him out. He wants me to take the snails out and chuck them in the trash. I refused to do so, so we reached a compromise to control the population by getting a snail eating loach. Clown loaches eat algae and small tiny snails. They seem to be peaceful so they would get along with the other fish in the tank as well.

So off to the pet shop we went.

I picked out my loach and paid for my purchase at the counter. As I stood there I noticed a bird cage on the counter and to my horror I saw a two headed budgie in it.

I gasped.

What the F*&^!!!!?

(*It was a stuffed two headed budgie. I don't know if some taxidermist pieced this together as a joke or if it actually existed at one time and they had preserved it. Either way it was gross)

I turned to my husband and said, "why in God's name would these pet-shop guys put something like this on display!?!"

He simply answered, "because they are guys!"

Oh the horror ...the horror!

February vacation 1969

We had gotten a little bit of snow this week.

Thankfully, so far, this winter has been mild.

As a kid, I would be thrilled that it was going to snow.

This meant, of course, the possibility of having a day off of school. Even during February vacation week it was OK to have snow. Sometimes my mother would send me up to my cousin's house. There, up "in the country", the snow reached 80 feet high, of so it seemed.

My cousin and I would dig tunnels in the snow and make snow forts. We would play inside these igloos for hours-either with our wishnik dolls or just reading comic books.

If I were to spend the week at home, we would go sledding at Hill's hills. There was no "parental supervision", no hovering "helicopter" parents suffocating us like the little pussy kids are today. Our parents would boot us out of the house so that we didn't "bother them". We would then find inventive ways to entertain ourselves.

Hill's hill was a high icy furrowed patched path coming downside a hill. I can still picture "Brian M" standing on top of his sled with it's mighty red blades. You would soap the blades with soap to make sure you would go down the hill all the more faster. Brian would hold onto with one hand on the reins of his sled and his other hand holding a hair-brush as he would bellow the Neil Diamond's song "come on baby light my fire". He would fly down the hill on the sled like a surf board only to come crashing into a snow bank, rocks or a tree. The patch were he crashed would be splattered with mud and blood. You could hear him sobbing. After three minutes, he would wipe off the blood, snow and snot from his face and do it again.

One year, I was signed up to go to art classes at the Mill. I would trudge over to the Mill a good mile away with my art supplies. I can still recall the smokey smell of the place. The place smelled of linseed oil, a wood stove and musty wood. It was a welcoming smell. It was a bit cold and damp but they always had hot chocolate, hot cider and hot cinnamon donuts waiting for you.

I loved going to those art classes. The teachers were so nice and patient.

Every once in awhile I can still smell the Mill.

It brings me back to 1969.

the wild pigeons of salisbury beach part 51

As I was walking Mattie this afternoon I came across a disturbing sight. (*see above photo I took with my camera phone)

I found a couple of dead pigeons scattered on the lawn as is they just fell off the wire where they usually perch. Mattie sniffed them and backed away. It must of happened either late last night or early this morning. There was no sign of injury due to a cat or a hawk. They were puffed up as if they were sick or sleeping-except they had no pox marks and they were pretty robust looking.

What the heck happened? I generally see the same flock of pigeons perched on this spot every day. Except for today, no pigeons, except for a couple of fully intact dead ones.

What could of happened? They simply dropped dead from the perch.

Poison?

Electrical shock?

Something leaking from the Seabrook power plant?

Avian bird flu?

It was disturbing, regardless.

**UPDATE**

This morning on the beach, I found a dead pigeon on the sidewalk. It was the same thing: no hawk strike. The bird was fully intact and visually appeared to have been healthy.

I contacted the Seabrook health department and animal control but nothing happened. They didn't appear to be all that concerned. I just wanted them to make a note of it, regardless.

another "Mack & Myer for hire" story

As I was taking a bath I was gazing up at the ceiling. I had noticed that the aquarium fish border was starting to peel and buckle. It has been six years since I put it up. I figured it was time to replace it with a new border. It would probably take me about half an hour or so to take it down and replace it. It would probably only cost about $15.00 to jazz up the bathroom a bit.

OK stop me if you had heard this one before......

You know where this is going.

Five hours later I still could'nt get the f*&^ing border off.

I bought some wallpaper remover to ease up the job but I must have really glued this baby on with super glue, or something. Meanwhile, during the process, I had gouged the shit out of walls.

I was off to the hardware store for wall spackle to fix the holes and a can of new bathroom paint.

Hey, what the heck, the walls needed to be repainted anyways.

I thought I was very careful painting the walls but evidently I got wisteria coloured paint on the white trim AND on the tiles.

I was back to the hardware store for white trim paint.

After three and half days, I finally finished the painting. I noticed as I was scraping the paint off the tiles that some of the grout had cracked and shrunk.

Yup, back to the hardware store for repair filler for the grout.

In the meantime, when I removed the fixtures from the wall I noticed the bathroom light fixture was encrusted with baked bugs and the "metal' was rusted and pitted.

Again, back to the hardware store for a new light fixture. This time I recruited my husband to help me since he is more 'electrically knowledgeable' than I.

However, since he is a guy he refused to read the directions in the packaging. Needless to say, a ten minute job took three hours -with a lot of swearing.

The bathroom is just about finished.

I just have to get a replacement window dressing. Yup, you guessed it, the roman shade was a friggin' dust magnet with assorted mummified insects stuck in the crevices.

See what happens when you attempt " a simple project"?

Button's vet visit

I had to take Button to the vet for her second shot of doxycycline.

Last week I noticed her eye was red. I called the vet immediately. This had happened before in October. Her eye was bleeding as well as her throat. Her throat culture showed she had spirochetes. Spirochetes are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that are spiral shaped. The vet said it is unusual for a cockatiel to get a spirochete infection.

The question remains how did she get it ? Where did it come from?

There are basically six genera of spirochetes.

It is generally found in sewer or dirty water.

Treponema denitcola is found in the oral cavity known to cause periodontal disease.

Treponema pallidum is syphillus.

Borellia burgdorferei is lyme disease.

All of these are nasty!

The doxycycline cleared up the infection right away. But this was the second time she had this problem. The question also remains is what genera of spirochetes did she have?

I've caught her on the sink digging at crud around the edge of the sink. Could that have had spirochetes?

She bites at my mouth. I pride myself in keeping a clean mouth with constant flossing and brushing. This, however, does not eliminate the possibilities that my mouth isn't a swimming pool for potentially infectious spirochetes. Oh yucko!

Could she have been bitten by a tick?

Could it be my water supply? Patches was sick with another water borne infection last September. I double filter my water but that doesn't mean that bacteria and viruses don't slip through.

It remains a mystery.

the dating game

Whenever I listen to my sister's and my cousin 's "dating adventures" I cringe.

Thank God I am not in that "dating" realm.

If I were to become suddenly single I would not 'date". Shiver...

I am waaaaaaay too high maintenance, grouchy and paranoid.

Yes, I am the weird ol' lady with a lot of birds.

I think the whole rules of dating have changed too since the days when I used to 'date".

I don't even hear of people "dating" anymore but instead I hear of teenagers "hooking up".

That connotation is both crude and cold.

I can not stand the label I hear a lot lately either :"friends with benefits".

That is so disgusting.

Every once in awhile I can't help myself but will watch in stupefied amazement the show "The Bachelor/Bachelorette". It is wicked dumb AND a total train wreck.

Sometimes I just can't pull away. Maybe it's the girl's outfits, the silly drama or the over-the-top places they go on 'dates'.

Or maybe I find it subliminally hilarious whenever the "bachelor" frolics with one of the many beauties in hot-tub shananagans later to be interviewed having a straight face saying shit like, "it was really nice to have a one-on-one time with ( fill-in-the blank: "Jessie", "Chantelle" or who ever). I can really see us furthering our relationship long term".

The other day I was watching some nature show on PBS about the birds of Papau New Guinea.

It was fascinating to observe these bird's elaborate court-ship behavior. It was absolutely amazing. The male bird of paradise frills out his neck like a ballerina tutu and then sways back and forth, front and back. It was quite the procedure. He would also make sure his nesting site was perfectly swept and cleaned to entice a prospective lady to his love pad.

Just recently, I had "Princess' the cockatiel stay with us. She is a frequent guest here. "Patches" would sing to her but she would ignore or bawk at him. She would mostly reach out to try to peck him on the head."Patches' made sure this time any and all newspapers in certain cages would be chewed and arranged perfectly to hopefully to spark a little interest in Princess.

This time Princess didn't lunge at Patches.

She actually walked side by side with him around the table.

By the time Princess started to warm up to Patches it was time for her to go home. Patches screamed bloody murder for two days.

I kind of wish Princess could stay here for an extended period of time but then again, it might be harder for Patches when it is time for her to go home. Only time will tell what will happen between these two because they are taking it slow.

the wild pigeons of Salisbury beach part 50

I took these photos today of "Craow Dum". He is perched on the birdy play-stand looking out the window. As you can see he can not close his mouth due to his corroding beak.


The top beak is almost nonexistent. What remains is a tiny bony peice. Peices fragment off daily. Up close "the beak" looks like sponge candy. It is covered with tiny holes and cracks.
He can still eat so long as his food dish is filled to the top. He uses his lower beak as a scoop. He has worked his mandibular beak so much that is starting to bend to the side a bit.




Here is his favorite place. The couch!
He will get up on the couch at 4;00pm and take a snooze. He loves his 'routines"!
I have to wash his beak and feet every other day like you would a dirty little kid.
He gets a full bath every 3 days AND he needs it. He gets kind of stinky. I fill a pyrex brownie pan with warm water with a green leafy bit. He will hop right in. Putting a green leaf (collard or spinach) in the tub makes the bath look more enticing. The other birds will join in as well.
Despite his rotten beak, he is doing OK.
Statistically, from what I have been following on pigeon-talk, not many 'rescued" tossed pigeons survive. I keep a watchful eye on him. He exercises routinely by flying and walking around, eats well, poops perfectly and he is carefully cleaned.
He will let you know when he is annoyed by doing his "bust-a-move" bit (twirling around and cooing really loudly and gravelly). He will bop his beak at you and/ or hit you with his wing.
He does this a lot when my husband is around.
He wants him to know that HE is the boss!

can you stand another poop story?

I remember quotes my sister would to say to me whenever her 3 year old kids would get themselves into some sort of a calamity. "Thank God they are so cute at this age because if not, you would want to kill them". "You definitely need a sense of humor when dealing with kids".

This same bit of philosophy definitely applies to pets as well.

My cousin called me up clearly annoyed by her 11 year old cocker spaniel. She would let her dog out to go to relieve herself but instead the dog would go out, look around and then come in the house only to crap on the floor. My cousin was at her wits end but said, "Oh I want to kill that Cuddles (dog's name) pooping on the floor all the time but then I look into her big brown eyes and go aaaaaaaaaw!"

Bottom line when you have pets, dealing with their poops is just a way of life.

My cousin and I always talk about the naughty and funny stuff our pets get themselves into. She had recently been to her chiropractor. She said she generally unconsciously wears socks with dogs depicted on them since she has multiple pairs of them. At this visit, she decided not to wear her "dog socks" mostly because her chiropractor would make comments about them.

When she was laying on the adjustment table the doctor said to her, "I am going to remove your shoes because there is something "doggy" on your shoes".

At first she was a bit puzzled.

To her horror she realized that what he was referring to was that she had dog shit stuck to her shoes.

I cracked up at her story and said that I had one for her as well.

Monday night I noticed "Button" ( my feather picker cockatiel) was starting to get some reddness at the corner of her eye. This same thing occurred last October. I never "wait and see" when it comes to the health of my birds. By the time they actually look sick it is too late for them. I called my vet right away and had an appointment the next day.

The first thing the vet will examine is a fresh poop sample to determine the health of the bird.

I checked in "Button's carrier to see if she had "done one". As I was describing the symptoms to the vet I had Button sitting on my shoulder. She pooped a big runny one down my back and I nonchalantly said to the vet, "oooh she just did a "fresh one. It's on my shoulder if you want to collect it". As I was telling my cousin this story, she burst out laughing."Oh my God!" she exclaimed.

We both agreed that this is what it means to have pets!

keepin' it real

Every 'new" year I vow to join some kind of class. This usually means an "exercise class".

My intentions are good but having to go out when it is cold and dark, never mind snowy or rainy or when I kind of feel kind of crappy, just isn't going to work for me. Like I said, my intentions and heart is there but not my body. I mean how many times to do I need to tell myself "are you kidding me!? Really? Do you really think you going to make it to a regimented class at some specific time every single day!?!"

One of the reasons I keep going to Bonaire to go diving is that I do easy shore dives only when I feel like going. There is no regimented schedule of having to be on a boat at a certain set time nor do I have to wait for anyone. I dive when I feel like it.

The same thing has worked for me as far as working out in cell block #9 (my basement). I work out when ever I feel like it which usually means 6:00am right after I go running. I haven't fully woke up yet so before I realized I worked out or that I have to work out I'm already done.

This works for me!

I know some people are motivated by being around other people to get their 'workout mojo" going on. That is why they like organized group workouts and set schedules. It seems most people also like to work out in the evening or afternoon because at that time their muscles are warmed up. Seriously, this is when my body cools down. I wake up in the morning like a peice of toast popping out of the toaster. If I don't workout at this short window of opportunity then it isn't going to happen.

This year, I had realized I needed to step up my workout and thought about (actually fantasized since it would be a fantasy) of joining some kind of workout class. I kept thinking back about two years ago when I took a pilates class with my cousin. I enjoyed doing something with my cousin but at the same time it was excruciatingly painful to motivate myself to drive somewhere in the cold dark night to workout. The whole time I kept thinking to myself ,"Ok when does this class end?".

So this year, I bought myself a mini trampoline to jog on while I watch "judge Judy" on TV.

This is soooo working for me. This little 24 inch in diameter "jogger" is perfect. It is quiet, it is portable, and it does not require batteries or electricity. It is "pet safe". In other words, my birds would not get hurt climbing on it like they would with a treadmill or stationary bike. In addition to my regular workouts I've added jogging on this thing for just 30 minutes 5 days a week.

Another thing I've added to my "health improvement" new year is a supplement called "ovega".

My doctor ,as well as every health guru you see all TV tells you to incorporate omega-3s in your diet. Well, omega-3 is basically fish oil. And guess what? I'm no taking that shit no matter what. It was suggested to add flax seed/oil as a vegan alternative. Well, flax oil smells like fish oil!

Not only does it smell like yucky fish oil but also when flax oil is heated it turns in to the toxic chemical linseed oil! (This is a major compound used in oil paints).

Just recently I was reading this hippy dippy health magazine and there was an ad for "ovega". It is the real vegan alternative to omega-3. It is the algae plant food that fish eat that constitutes the main source of omega-3. So I went online and bought a bottle. There is no smell, taste or after taste. I am going to give this a go.

These are just two small steps in trying to improve my health.

Just two small realistic steps.

I am keepin' it real

baked apples and ant-eaters

I told my father I was writing a blog. I told him I've been writing about him in it as well as daily stuff going on in my life.

My father had been a policeman for many years. He never talked about his work as I beleive most policemen do not.

But ever once in awhile, I'd get a sliver of a story or two.

He had been injured on the job twice that I know of.

While sitting in a cruiser for a detail duty some lady plowed into him with her car without stopping. His ribs were broken as a result. I think he was mostly pissed that he had spilled his coffee but he was a hurtin' puppy for quite sometime after that.

Another time while investigating a gang of out-of-control trouble-maker teenagers drinking and smoking dope. A group of them tipped over his cruiser while he was in it. He was injured as a result of that as well.

Most of the kids I knew liked him because he never bothered him (so long as they didn't mouth off to him.) From what other kids said about him, he wasn't one of those hard-ass cops out to prove anything. He was a pretty fair guy.

One day my mother made baked apples. To me, they looked delicious all buttery and steaming.

She thought she made the family "a special treat". She took the apples in a tray and offered one of them to my father.

I thought he was going to puke.

Typical of my mother, she persisted, shoving them in his face repeating, "here, have one! They are good!" Do you want one? Why not? They are delicious! Here have one!"

His face twisted in horror.

And he started gagging.

I later found out that on one of his calls there was a an elderly lady who was found unresponsive. He had performed CPR on her which included mouth-to-mouth.

She had been dead for over a week.

On her kitchen counter was baked apples sitting in a tray.

Decades later he still can't look at baked apples without puking.

He also hated getting animal control calls. Years ago, whenever there was a wildlife situation people would call the police to do something about it. He still gets the willies even looking at a hamster since he has had to patrol warehouses where inevitably, rats were involved.

One time, a lady called complaining of what she thought was a raccoon on her front porch. He entered the porch with his noose-pole to capture the animal.

It wasn't a raccoon.

He said,"hey lady! This isn't a raccoon. It is an ant-eater!"

In those days, he didn't have much training, if any, in wildlife management. The cops just had a duty to respond to all the calls. As he got the noose around the neck of the critter it went wild. It wasn't a raccoon but a really pissed off possum.

It was a miracle he never contracted rabies. If he got a call involving bats he would just grab the bat with just his bare hands and a towel. He said bats were the ugliest things he had ever seen in his life. He still gets nightmares from looking at their faces. As he would say, 'bats are as ugly as a bastard".

I had never heard anyone use that expression (ugly as a bastard) before until I met another city cop just recently. I burst out laughing.

Maybe it's a "cop" expression.

the lava lamp

About a year or two I had read two decent books.
"Water for Elephants" by Sara Guen and "Twenties Girl" by Sophia Kinsella.

Perhaps I mentioned in a previous post that I read these books. Both of these books bring to life the colorful and significant history of aged individuals. Although these books are fictional, they portray these vibrant individuals with such colorful pasts only to be ignored, forgotten and disgarded when they are old.
I cringe when I read in the paper about cost cutting measures in the government. The first thing that is cut is services for the elderly. I see these "occupy Boston"idiots camping out in protest of , I think ,but who the hell knows, wall street and other such nonsense. It is too bad they didn't use their passionate energy into halting elder abuse instead.

I know many people avoid older people for some reason.

I tend to gravate towards them. I think it is because I don't have any grandparents.

Whenever I hear grandparents gush and brag about their grandchildren, I admit, I get pangs of jealousy. I wished I had grandparents who posted bumper stickers on their car that said "ask me about my grandchildren" and boost how proud they are of me. Those kids do not realize how lucky they are. I often wonder if those same grandkids will give a shit about grandpa/grandma when they are no longer capable of 'spoiling" them.

Over the years, I've watched my father fail. The Parkingson disease is remarkable in it's progression on how it continues to take away from a person. Half the time I do not know what my father is talking about. I have to guess and try to interpret what he is trying to convey.He will have illogical outbursts as well. These along with the physical breakdown is a part of the parkingson's disease.

I try to take my father back in the time machine by talking about stuff in the past. I think it helps jar his memory. For Christmas, I bought him a lava lamp. My Aunt Joan (who had passed away 11 years ago) had a lava lamp. My Aunt Joan was my father's older sister. We used to go there many years ago for Christmas eve when I was a little kid. She had this red lava lamp sitting on her TV set. It had this soothing effect when you watched it. My father was so happy when I gave him this lamp. He said he 'loved the lamp" . It helps him sleep at night when he watches it bubble up and down in it's glass bottle. It is relaxing to watch.

We talked about Christmas at Aunt Joans and her tin foil Christmas tree with the revolving colored light that my mother hated because it "wasn't traditional and ....gross!". Those Christmas's seemed almost unbearably cold especially having to dress up wearing a velour Christmas dress and then having to sit on those cold vinyl seats of my father's big ass cadillac. Brrrr..... My father got a chuckle when I would complain how freakin' cold it was and having to wear those stupid dresses by refreshing his memory of those past days!

Just recently, he had lost his license officially because of his erratic driving. He would tell my mother he was just driving to the recycling station dump. The dump is the next street over but numerous times he would end up nearly hundred miles away on the front lawn of somebody's house.

As I drove his truck to my house for "safe keeping" I felt sick to my stomach.

Sure, we won the battle (getting the keys away from him) but lost the war (the reality that he will no longer be able to drive again) You try to make light of it trying to convince him (and yourself)that this is a good thing. "yeah Dad, now I am your private slave and chauffeur taking you places. Just think of all the money you will save on gas".

It just seems like yesterday when he celebrated his 50th birthday. I can even remember my Aunt Joan having a pool party for his 30th birthday. I can still hear her say, "oh my God! my baby brother is 30 years old!"