If you've just dropped by or random'ed into me, please leave a comment and say hello.

Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

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weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		9.0°C
mood	:		stoked

   

It looks like I just asked them to "come over here" and stand on the mark so that I could take their yearbook photos.

The reality is, it took hours of painstaking, sneaky, cajoling camera work with muscle spasm inducing patience in between each of the approximately 100 shots... then more post-production work.

But I love these two pics of them. =) In case they ever, like, go to school or grow up to be on the Senior Management Team of some Fortune 500 company with a professionally designed website, they'll have photos already done. =)

weather	:		lovely
outside	:		16.9°C
mood	:		amused

We decided that Skippy, being A Bird™, needed to learn how to swing. No, I guess she didn't really need to learn. It was just funny. =D

• Swing Lesson 1
• Swing Lesson 2

She starts off steady, then wobbles a little, then swings faster and faster while we laugh our asses off.

We haven't been doing it often. Only every few days and few times each time. I don't want her to develop calluses on her feet.

By the time we thought to take an AVI, she'd already started getting better at it. The first few times were the most hilarious.

weather	:		raining
outside	:		8.4°C
mood	:		worried

Skippy's back from the vet and sleeping upstairs with a towel covering her cage right now.

We noticed that she'd been shredding her own feathers. This behaviour is what the avian community calls "barbering" and it's something that a lot of bird owners struggle with.

We first saw it about a week or two ago... around the time Husband Guy had successfully move both of our birds from an all-seed diet to an all-pellet diet, but it could have been going on much longer than that. She picks at the feathers underneath, so when she's sitting with her wings folded in, you don't really see it. We noticed when we saw one shredded one sticking out.

I only really saw how badly it was damaged when Dr. MacDonald stretched out her wings completely today. And it looked REALLY bad. Skippy has destroyed most of her flight feathers and a lot of her glide feathers too. We could see that she couldn't fly properly, but JEEZ.

The important thing is that she doesn't have dust mites. Dust mites can cause much itching and skin crawling which would have made her crazy.

The problem is more likely psychological though. Skippy is moulting right now. They lose a whole bunch of feathers once or twice a year and grow new feathers in. She may just be out of sorts with the diet change and moulting. All the same, Skippy is getting tested for Giardia (which could cause skin irritation), blood tests, kidney, liver, etc. done just in case. Test results should be in on Thursday. The shredded feathers have been trimmed as much as possible, she got a vitamin injection... and it's been a long day for her. =(

Dr. MacDonald said to move her back to an all-seed diet. Skippy may just be one of those birds that has a psychological attachment to her food. So, we're going back to mostly seed with a little bit of pellet mixed in and plenty of food all around her cage.

And more toys. *sigh* I'd buy her all the toys in the store if she would actually INTERACT with them. Notice I didn't say "play with them". I said "interact with them". By "interact", I mean more like "kill", "maim", "destroy", "maul".

I'd be okay if she even just ignored her toys, like Sid does because there'd be a chance that she's actually doing something with them when we're not looking. But I didn't want to be spending $10 per toy when she's just going to get scared of them and have a cage fright episode. I can understand that she might be afraid of things that are bigger than she is, but when she comes out of her cage, she's not afraid of other things that are also much bigger than she is either... like my laptop and the remote control. =\

She likes to chew things up, like business cards, glasses and our couch, but she won't go near the things that were specifically for chewing. Feh.

[Update - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - 2223h]

So, guess what? The little girl has completely stopped shredding herself. Or at least we think she has. We don't see the barbered bits of feather at the bottom of her cage anymore. She also destroyed about a quarter of this new toy I bought for her. I saw the torn off wood shavings and all the beads from one leg of it blasted all over the bottom of her cage. XD

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		19.0°C
mood	:

I've been writing irregularly. I'm trying to make a bargello stitch pattern with the hyperlinked and not hyperlinked days on the calendar in my main journal view.

No, I'm not... I just didn't want to spout cliché like: "I haven't written in a while. I've been busy." like some bloggers/journallers out there who miss two days in a row. Yes, I can see you haven't written. It's really not that big a deal.

What's been happening with me... nothing that I want to write about.

The Husband Guy wanted to bring Skippy to work with him because he works long hours and misses her. Aaaawww... =) He asked me to get a medium sized travel cage so that she'd have something big enough to be comfortable in but small enough so as not to be cumbersome.

The one that I got is actually listed as a parakeet-finch-canary cage. The doors are a bit small, but it's just the right size for Skippy, so it works quite well. It's purple. It's a very lovely, slightly deeper than lavendar purple. This cage has very ornate heart-shaped and curlicue/flourish designs on the doors that you can't quite see in that picture, but it's very pretty.

However, Skippy is yellow and totally clashes with the purple XD I couldn't get a black or a white one. The owner at the store said black and white always get sold first. Purple, purple and blue were the only ones he had left. The blue didn't look as nice.

She isn't too pleased about being in this cage and you'd be really hell-pressed to get her through the door at all. I had to open up the roof, quickly zoom her onto the perch and slap the lid on top before she has time to think about what just happened. It will eventually take two people to do it when she gets wise to it XD

I locked her in it for about half an hour to 45 minutes last night just to get her used to it. All she would do is run back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, generally being the biggest nuisance she could manage to be from just scurrying around.

The Husband said she did that all morning too. He said he was so on edge that she might kick up a ruckus that he didn't feel tired at all today =D

I went over to bring them lunch this afternoon. Two chicken wraps for us, two spinach leaves and a giant sliver of red bell pepper for Skippy. The three of us ate in his office. She hadn't eaten all morning from the seed cup so she was hungry and snarfed down the veggies I gave her when I got there.

I think I might get another cage so that Sid can come to work with me. Or I might just get two new ones on account of the purple clashing with my two birds XD They're not too expensive.

And if I get two black or two white keet cages, I might just give this purple one to the Exec. Assistant Lady to bring Chloe, the Pudgie Budgie™, into Work =D

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		5.1°C
mood	:		content

Late one afternoon, shortly after I was hired at Work, we all hear a loud YELP coming from the disproportionately large, glass, corner office in the suite we used to be in. It was The Big Boss, of course. It was 4:30pm and he realized that he had totally forgotten about his wedding anniversary. =O

I remember there was a little bit of a commotion as he and his Exec. Assistant Lady scrambled to find a nearby florist where he could quickly grab something on the way home.

He's still alive, so I guess it was all good. =D

So, this year, on my first Ass-Not-Fired-Yet Anniversary at Work, I e-mailed him to thank him for a great year and to remind him that HIS wedding anniversary is coming up very soon. XD I know he's been married for twenty some odd years, so I thought I'd give him the heads-up just in case this was one of the big ones. =} He told me this year wasn't a big one, but he appreciated the thought nonetheless.

Yay me! Yay Big Boss! XD

On the subject of anniversaries, there seem to be a metric butt tonne of them around this time.

February 08 was the 5th anniversary of the creation of my LiveJournal. I've been spewing nonsense here for over 5 years.

March 16 was My Little Bugger's Hatchday.

March 20. Today... well, this morning at 10:26am Pacific, was the beginning of the Vernal Equinox. Yay, daylight.

And coming up:

May 22, Victoria Day long weekend, will mark two years since Sid has been with us.

And of course, July 7, but that's a little further out, yet.

weather	:		drizzling
outside	:		6.9°C
mood	:		amused

Dr. MacDonald had confirmed that Skippy is, in fact, a girl while doing her checkup yesterday.

She's a very loud, very brightly coloured Lutino girl that acts like a total monkey boy and stands in her cage with one leg up on her side bars in sort of a Captain Morgan pose... TERRIBLY unladylike.

She must get it from me XD

We'll need to move her to a pellet diet, or a mostly pellet diet. When she starts laying eggs, the seeds won't provide enough nutrients for her. I really want to get her a new cuttlebone, but the ones I've found have smelled ... off, to me. We'll ask Dr. MacDonald if she has fresh cuttlebone next week when we bring Sid in for his appointment.

So, get this: we have to bake her birdie cookies. =)

Take the pellets, mix with hot water and mash it with a spoon until it becomes kinda gooey, but still kinda lumpy. Add some seeds. Mix. Spread on a small sheet of aluminum foil, sprinkle some seeds on top and bake.

They end up looking like itty-bitty M&M cookies with multi-coloured bird seed =) We gave Sid some too.

The things we do for these little squeakers... At least they're eating it. =D

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		3.7°C
mood	:		recumbent

Right. Nothing quite says "Vacation's Over" more loudly and clearly than your house falling apart the moment you come home.

The central heating is busted in our house.

And thus begins the phone tag with the Fix-It Man, rushing home early, waiting and waiting and waiting for him, not being able to buy the right part to replace, having to wait until today and now waiting and waiting and waiting, hoping he hasn't forgotten, like he has in the past... !!!

It's about 14°, but we can just put more layers on. The birds can't, though. They can die with more than 10-15° of a temperature change in a 24 hour period. With 5-6° they could get sick. We'll just have to watch them for sneezing and coughing in the next little while.

We moved them into our room last night where we ran a small humidifier/space heater the whole night. We left them both there all day today as well because the rest of the house was so cold. Even without the heater running during the day, our room would lose heat slower if we closed all the doors and things.

Skippy loves warm water, so I gave her some when I got home. I wasn't sure what to do with Sid. We know he prefers warm water too, but we rarely see him drinking at all and he's too afraid of our hands to drink from a cup we offer him. Maybe I'll just grab him for a warm bath later.

I haven't had the motivation to organize pictures from our trip. I've done some, but not all of them. There are pics that we're sharing with the family, but won't be posting online. The ones left are just scenery and there aren't very many that I like. If you Image Googled for the location names, I'm sure you'd get pictures that other people have taken that look infinitely better than ours. In fact, in my more aw-what-the-hell moments, I think I should just post the itinerary that the travel company sent me (it's a Word doc, so I'll probably export it to HTML or something). That thing has great pictures.

I still have to write up some of the things I wanted to say about the trip. I still don't know if I want to do a Day-by-Day trip diary. I have more "Misc." to say than anything else. Some days, lots of stuff happened, but some days were just a lot of sleeping and playing MJ.

I'm sleeping and waking up at proper GMT-8 hours now, but I'm still feeling odd and on the verge of getting sick, during the day. I used to feel this way when I pulled all-nighters.

It's so cold out now, the temperature is going below 0°C sometimes. I asked my Mother-in-Law to bring me back a face maskie thingie. I don't want my Asthma to come back again. =\

weather	:		mostly cloudy
outside	:		10.9°C
mood	:		highly amused

I'm 7½ years old again. I'm camping in the middle of a forest somewhere far far away from civilization. It's past midnight, I'm horribly lost, like Wrong Toin At Albuh-koiky Lost, it's now pouring buckets which is one step down from raining frogs, I'm soaked to the bone and freezing to death, ill dressed for this weather because it's all packed neatly into the truck that was supposed to be meeting me at my destination. I've only just finished pitching my tent, in the muddy, puddle-ridden ground, by the headlights of my car with nothing but a Phillips screwdriver.

Okay, okay. I'm just sitting cross-legged in bed with my head holding my comforter up and tapping away on my laptop. The wireless connection is surprisingly stable. I thought it would be a bit wonky because I'm two floors away from the router =P But Husband Guy just came upstairs and laughed at me and called me a silly head, so that's the amount of fun I'm having =)

Ever since I got my wireless enabled laptop, I've settled in the dining room as my workspace, at the end of a long table with ovalled ends. I'm there instead of in the computer area where we used to be. It's also closer to the bird's cages where I sit during the day.

Almost every day, I'll get into a "conversation" with the birds from my seat. My brain somehow decides for me that the house is too quiet and I'll randomly whistle or twitter a nonsensical tune as I'm reading or doing something.

Those two LOVE it when I start talking. They'll answer back enthusiastically. I think they're hoping that it means I'll come over and take them out to play. Skippy does sharp single chirps at the top of her lungs that are more like barking. Sid does short but multi-note phrases.

I say something, they say something. I say something, they say something. And back and forth it goes. I continue these conversations almost unconsciously. I have no idea what I'm saying. I hope I'm not spouting hate propoganda, but there's no way for me to tell, really.

But because I have these conversations unconsciously, I've been known to do it in an environment where the birds aren't even around. There have been times when it's really quiet in the office at Work and I'll suddenly start twittering, out of habit. X}

weather	:		sunny-ish
outside	:		18.4°C
mood	:		okay

Wow, I haven't written about the birds in a while. They both need checkups soon. Soon.

Sid has gotten more adventurous about coming out of his cage. We usually leave his door open all day while we're home and let him wander out onto this little platform foyer =) Sometimes, we'll find him napping on top of his cage. Once, I found him on the floor by himself chewing on a pile of old newspaper. Oops. Recently, he's been actually walking up onto a flattened out hand but only if he's disoriented and confused. He gets adventurous, flies out of his cage into another room and then gets lost and scared. That's the best time to pick him up, sing and chat with him a little to build rapport. He is quite easily distracted with chatting and singing.

My Mother-in-Law found Grandma Jing-Tsun's old birdie play gym tree thing and assembled it. It's 14" tall and has dowel branches sticking out of it, a little ladder and a swing.

The first time the two saw it, they were freaked out. It was too funny. Sid won't stay on it. We couldn't get Skippy near it either. Her wings haven't been clipped in so long that she's fully flighted again. She flew away as soon as I brought her within two feet of the tree. I tricked her into standing closer to it by getting her to play with her water cup and then putting the water cup down on the floor next to the tree. Slowly, while her head was down, I'd shuffle the cup closer and closer. You could tell she knew something was fishy, but she couldn't quite figure out what, so she goes back to playing with her water.

One day, she was flying around and bashed herself against the wall or something. The silly little git lost about six height feathers on one side. None of them were bloody, so they were supposed to come out anyway. But that meant she was lopsided and unable to fly much for a day or two until she adjusted to having to flap faster on one side to fly straight.

The evil that is Me took advantage of that situation >=}

I put her on one of the top branches with one sweeping motion, too quickly for her to react. She sat there scared and frozen stiff. XD She didn't know what to do, she didn't want to play with anything, she didn't want to explore anything, she just sat there. And she'd try to get off it any way she thought she could without flying. As soon as someone went over, she would look at them like she was pleading for them to get her off the freaky thing. We were just laughing our asses off.

I brought the tree over to the table where I usually sit now and I'd let her just sit there in solitary confinement while I did stuff on my laptop. Mother-In-Law Woman would laugh that she was being punished.

We put seeds on the tray at the bottom and some on a flat spot at the top. Skippy seems to have gotten used to it a little. She's started walking up the wooden dowel steps.

There's a little swing on it too. Of course, she wouldn't get onto it herself, but Husband Guy put her on it. As soon as she stepped onto it, she lurched forward. As soon as she lurched forward, she had to compensate by leaning back. And what happens when you lurch forward, then overcompensate backward on a swing? Come on, it hasn't been THAT long since you've been an expert at Kid Physics, has it?! You build momentum and swing higher and/or faster. XD XD XD

BWAHAHA!! =D Oh, poor chickie, we were laughing at her so hard. I think we'll have to hold onto the swing for her and not let it swing too much when she's on it. But she's been ferociously averse to getting back on the swing.

We're also trying to move them to a pellet diet. Sometimes, birds don't recognize pellets as food and won't eat it. It can be a really long and involved process to get them to shift to a pellet diet without dying of starvation. Many birds can't completely make the switch, they have to be on a combination of seeds and pellets at the very most.

We're usually up at around 0730h on the weekdays, so that's when their food and water gets changed. Then some time during the day, we just blow the husks off the top so they can see the rest of the seeds and be able to continue eating. On weekends, we sleep in, so they usually get fooded and watered a little later.

On Sunday, we were late in almost a major way. Oooops. So, when we gave them pellets, they were both so hungry that they just went right at it without batting an eye. Holy crap! They just faceplanted and started munching with conviction. XD

We tried to give them just pellets during the day, then give them seeds in the early evening. I don't think they ate much all day. =P We'll have to watch them and make sure they don't lose too much weight. =P

weather	:		clear
outside	:		16.6°C
mood	:		okay

1. Are you a dog or cat person?

Neither. I'm a bird person. I guess most people don't think of avian domestic pets.

2. How many pets do you have?

Two. Skippy, a one year old Lutino, and Sid, an eight year old Normal Grey.

3. What's the best thing about your pets?

Cockatiels are easier to take care of than larger animals. They're small, so they can't do much damage even when they bite and scratch. They're kept in cages if they're going to be left unattended, so you don't have to worry about them destroying the house while you're not looking. Most importantly to me, their feces is much lower in bacteria and sulphur content than larger animals. It doesn't smell as strong as, say, cat or dog poop.

4. What's the weirdest thing your pet has done?

They do some funny things that I've posted about over the last year and a half: flinging water gleefully, chatting with everybody's toes, being outraged at a missing water cup, acting like a retarded bat, etc. ... but they don't do anything especially weird, not for birds anyway.

I have some AVIs of Skippy eating spinach and getting green goo all over her face, but that hasn't been downloaded from the camera yet. =)

5. Plans for any more pets?

Not at the moment. A while back, I had very briefly thought about getting a third — another handfed baby. Sid is pretty grouchy and territorial. I felt bad that that was the only example of behaviour towards others of their own species that Skippy had. But I'm not sure if we can handle more than two.

We'll see, though. I'm not sure how long Sid will live. When we speak sharply at him to stop him from picking, he gets upset. I can't see the anger being good for him or his immune system. He'll eat carrot, corn and peas sometimes, but he's generally not open to eating new foods like Skippy is. He could use some leafy vegetables, for example. So, nutritionally, he's pretty limited. In that way, I don't think he'll live to be more than 15 years old, tops.

fridayfiver, July 22, 2005

weather	:		partially sunny
outside	:		17.9°C
mood	:		heartbroken

I was reading up on cockatiel social behaviour to see how our two are doing in comparison with others. I'd noticed that they had several modes of communication.

There's an "everybody talk at once" mode where they will chatter, squack and cheep all at the same time. It's usually while we're on the phone and/or needing to hear the other party.

There's also a "taking turns" mode where they say something, then we say something, then they say something. It's mostly Sid who does that. Skippy still doesn't quite get the "taking turns" thing =)

I came across Elizabeth Vaughn's series of articles on Communication & Social Behavior in Cockatiels. She's a counsellor by profession and she has a keen sense of behavioural observation. It sounds like she also has a pretty big flock in which she tries to let the birds have a community that reflects their natural lifestyle as closely as possible.

This paragraph, from Part I - The Cock's Song, stood out to me:

"Although hens do express themselves vocally, for the most part they do no [sic] develop song. I came across one exception however. A young cinnamon who was about six months of age when I acquired her, learned to imitate the cocks' songs very well indeed. So well, in fact, that I was sure she was a cock even though she failed to manifest any of the other male characteristics. As long as her singing continued, she was shunned by cock and hen alike. When she learned that her exceptional abilities were getting her nowhere, she silenced herself, and soon became accepted into the community..."

And sometimes, I really don't feel so bad about raising our two in an unnatural environment. Then again, sometimes, I just want off this planet.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		14.2°C
mood	:		okay

Skippy will walk over and kiss me on the lips if I make fish faces at her. It's just a quick peck or two before she's distracted and runs off again. She's like a magpie with shiny things =)

Sid likes faces better than hands anyway. If I make a kissy face at him, he'll run over and lean his face really close to mine... to within about an inch. But something about him makes me uncertain as to whether he'll give me a kiss or tear my lip off.

And cockatiel breath smells nutty. It's really cute. =)

weather	:		raining
outside	:		7.9°C
mood	:		happy

Hippo Birdies, Skippy!!! She turns 1 today. =)

weather	:		mostly sunny
outside	:		10°C
mood	:		happy

I gave Skippy a drink of fresh water from her water cup one day and she started playing with it. She picked up a beakful of water and flung it around, being a little sprinkler. It was sooo cute. Of course, by the time I got the camera out and ready, she was wise to me and stopped. All I got was an outtake (1.5M AVI) for the blooper reel =P

I tried again. She started bowing multiple times (4M AVI) like she had just done something wonderful and was reacting to the applause and ovation.

And a random clip of her destroying a piece of tissue (4M AVI) while Sid watches, horrified, in the background.

Sid does funny things as well. Here he is squacking like a metronome (4M AVI) to the beat of me snapping my fingers.

Birdy Transcription/Subtitle Contest

Take a look at this (4M AVI) and tell me what he's saying. =D =D =D

weather	:		rain
outside	:		3°C
mood	:		optimistic

I think I've accidentally figured out how to instill some table manners in The Little Pain In The Ass.

She would pick up a seed from her food cup just like every other bird you know. But instead of shelling it and eating it right there, she'd hold it in her beak and run around her cage. Usually, she walks over to the door in hopes that someone will take her out to play.

Sometimes, she actually eats the seed successfully. Most of the time though, she would drop the stupid seed. Then she'd have to go back to the cup, pick up another seed, walk to the door and either eat it or drop it.

She was wasting more than she was eating. Grrrr. Which isn't good for my finance induced depression episodes. Especially not when I'm in the middle of the incredibly depresso task of tallying up expenses for our 2004 income tax reporting. And realizing that there were a whole bunch of things I could have put in if I knew about them and kept the receipts. But that's not the point.

I got a package of Parakeet Honey Treat Sticks last week and finally decided to try it. After vacuuming up around their cages this morning, I put one in Sid's cage and one in Skippy's. Sid munched on his for a while and ate a good chunk off the bottom.

Skippy, on the other hand, wouldn't touch hers. I have no idea why. She does eat in the morning, but she somehow didn't recognize this as food. She must have been famished by the time I realized she didn't have any. I quickly filled her seed cups and put them back in.

She ate and ate and ate with her head down in the cup. She didn't spill A THING. The floor around her cage has been almost as clean as it was when I first vacuumed, it's quite amazing.

Of course, looking at the ingredients now, I'm not sure I want to give it to them anymore, so it's no big deal if she really doesn't like the stuff. But maybe this will make her to eat more carefully/thoroughly.

[Update - January 18, 2005]

I gave her seeds, but I left the honey stick in her cage as well. I came home last night to see that she had eaten about HALF of the whole thing and not touched her seeds all day. O_O

Dumb Chicken. I TOLD you it was good stuff. It's honey, like c'mon... jeez.

weather	:		light drizzle
outside	:		5°C
mood	:		mischievous

I was changing Skippy's water the other day and I brought her with me to the kitchen on my shoulder. As I was rinsing out her cup, she climbed down my arm and seemed very interested in checking out the sink. I put her back in her cage for a bit while I scrubbed it clean, then brought her out again. She jumped and flew right in. Sometimes, she just has no fear at all.

I put her cup down at the bottom and turned on the tap with warm water. We usually give the birds filtered water, the same stuff we drink, but our water is drinkable from the tap. I left the sink unplugged so there would only be a small puddle. She skittered around, drinking every once in a while, but mostly just hopping around in the puddle.

Skippy playing in the sink (4M uncompressed AVI; 27s; see comments).

Then I plugged the sink and let the water level rise to about her chest. I was watching her the whole time and could scoop her out if anything happened. She didn't know what to do. She had her wings out the whole time for balance. But it was most hilarious to see her trying to run through the water and not succeeding. XD She just ended up bobbing around slowly, her tail and wings all fanned out.

I tried to get an AVI of it, but every once in a while she'd flap her wings and sploosh me. I was afraid she'd get the camera wet, so I stopped. I brought her out after a few minutes. She was so cuddly with me when I was towelling her off. =D

weather	:		raining
outside	:		12°C
mood	:		amused

We've been hamster-sitting for Hammy, gtimomo's 1½ year old teddybear hamster while they've been on vacation. Hammy is so much fun and looks completely hilarious when she's cleaning her face.

Oh! This little girl knows how to open the door latch of her cage and get out!! =O She's escaped once that way before. Hammy also knows how to stand up on her hind legs, stick her paws through the ceiling bars to push things out of the way of the door. They watched her open it.

We put her in her plastic ball and let her run around in the room we're in. We have a box that blocks the entrance to the room so that she can't wander too far. Every few seconds there's a *donk* or *thump* or sometimes, even *clang* of the plastic ball bumping into something.

Then suddenly, it's waaay too quiet in here. She's rammed the box out of the way and has rolled into another part of the house!! We brought her back and set her on the floor again. That's when I saw her charging the box.

Sometimes, we'll take her out of the ball to play. She'll scurry around on our hands and arms. She's the opposite of the birds, she keeps wanting to go downward. Even from 4 feet high, she'll try to jump onto the floor. You kinda have to play treadmill with your hands to let her have a perpetual running platform =)

The funniest is when I flipped her over into one hand and cupped my hand so she's on her back, like a stranded beetle, four limbs-a-kimbo in the air struggling to get up and out of the cupped hand. =D =D It doesn't take her very long to wriggle over and out, so we had to take pictures of it really fast.

• Who? Wha?
• Struggling to get up

*          *          *

Sid actually understands what "up" means. He knows that when I say "up", I want him to go ↑ this way =)

Sometimes, he climbs down to the bottom of his cage and plays with his poop (which, apparently, is not as big a deal for them to do as if we touched our own poop, but it just grosses out the humans) >K{ I say "no" and then "up" to get him to climb back up.

The other day, he was very slowly climbing downwards. I caught him and sharply said "Hey. UP." He stopped and studied me. I said, "uuUP" again and he climbed back up to one of his perches.

A few moments later, he tried to sneak down. He went down one rung at a time extra slowly while looking at me with his head slightly tipped =D He thought he was being all sneaky and cautious, it looked SO CUTE. But I couldn't let him. I said, "Sid. Up." He stopped and just sat there on the side of his cage. I stared him down. "UP." He went back up. =)

I think he also understands that "up" means I want him to step up onto my arm. He doesn't always want to, but I think he knows that's what I want him to do.

*          *          *

Skippy has learned to attack her tassel tree and squeak angrily, just like Sid. She's learning a lot of behaviours from Sid. *sigh* She's becoming a pissy little thing, but Sid has gotten a lot sweeter since we got him.

She likes flying onto juky's head. We figure it's because his hair feels like a nest to her =D But she'll get so mad when you try to take her off of his head. She also hates being taken off of his shoulders as well. Skippy has been like that since she was only a few months old. She'll walk and climb over to wherever he's sitting, fly onto his shoulder, walk onto his face, etc. It's bizarre. He doesn't even like her and she keeps going to him. =D =D

Skippy is super scared of Hammy and will run away when she sees Hammy coming over to her. It doesn't even look like Hammy notices Skippy exists. =) I would have let Skippy run around on top of Hammy's cage, but they didn't want her pooping on Hammy's head. =\ Ah well.

weather	:		mostly cloudy
outside	:		9°C
mood	:		happy

We finally caught Sid doing ( the most hilarious stuff. +4 )

In order: 1) big black angel wings; 2) looking like a retarded bat; 3) phase shifting in and out of this universe; 4) a headless ball of feathers (he had his head bent backwards cleaning feathers on his back).

It's kinda sad to see how bald he is in his armpits because he's been plucking his own feathers out. He'll be cleaning himself under the wings and suddenly you'll hear this *SQUACK!*. When we hear him, we call his name sharply and he'll stop to look up at us. Sometimes, he goes back to it, but other times, that's enough to stop him. We'll try to go over and chat with him to take his mind off picking. It works when we're home and actually doing it, but I think he still does it when we're not around on the weekdays during the day. It's better now that Mother-in-Law is around, but she can't always be there to stop him every time either. ={

What's really interesting is I noticed Skippy chirping sharply at him when he picks too! =O =D She did that twice yesterday when I was doing dishes. I yelled "SID!" a few times from the kitchen to stop him. Then I heard:

Sid: *SQUACK!*
Skippy: *CHEEP!*

And when I turned to look, Sid had looked up from picking. That happened twice. =O =D Heehee, she's helping. Pretty nifty! =)

He's started playing with ... well, he attacks his toys, both the tassel tree (the loops made out of rope in his cage) and the plastic bell balls (in the upper left corner of the pictures). He does his angry squeaking when he's attacking it. I know he's pissed, but we have to ask Dr. MacDonald if it's better for him to be attacking stuff and possibly being stressed out or plucking himself, breaking skin and possibly getting an infection.

On a happier note: Sid has now added a laughing, giggling noise to his repertoire. This new one sounds like *KEEkeekeekeekee* *KEEkeekeekeekee*. It must be from all the laughing we do in the house around the birds. =)

And when he's being really playful, he and I will do the wolf whistle duet =) He did the first note, stopped and stared at me. So, I did the second note to remind him, stupidly thinking that he had maybe forgotten or something. He did the first note again. I did the second note. Then I did the first note AND HE FOLLOWED WITH THE SECOND NOTE!!! And we went back and forth like that. OMG, that was just SO SO COOL. =D

We brought them both out at the same time one day just to see if they'd socialize and play together. We took them both into the TV room and put them both on the floor so that they'd both be on neutral territory and on the same level (ie. neither was higher up than the other, so neither was given the height dominance). They largely ignored each other and played by themselves. A few times, Skippy tried to go over to Sid, but he got all defensive at her.

Another time we tried, Skippy was hopping around all over. She happened to skitter by him. She didn't even touch him, but it must have raised his blood pressure through the roof because we found a small drop of blood under him after he walked away a little. It must have come from a small picking wound on the edge of his right wing that had scabbed over, but not quite. *BIGSIGH*

But we did get a picture of them together... sort of. ( +2 ) And while Husband Guy lay on his tummy playing with Sid, Skippy climbed onto his butt XD

Skippy was being a sprinkler again. She dips her beak into her water cup and shakes her head, throwing water every which way. Of course, when you try to catch her doing it (4M; uncompressed AVI), she won't do it anymore. But the face plant and the squat-poop was funny =) Heh, this is the most recent AVI of her. Compare. =)

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		16°C
mood	:		aaaaaaawww...

baaaaabyanimals

Oh. No.

I've seen this community mentioned before, but I had the good sense to resist clicking.

Until now.

I caved. I'm not going to survive this cuteness. I may as well claim long term disability now.

Speaking of a-nee-eenie-meenie-mals, The Chubby Chicken is now 82g. Her face even LOOKS a lot like the A&W Chubby Chicken. =D

weather	:		sunny-ish
outside	:		14°C
mood	:		amused

We think Skippy might actually be a boy.

We won't know for sure until late October or early November when she finishes moulting. If after the moult, she still has yellow on white bars under her tail, she's a girl. If her tail feathers are solid, then she's actually a boy. Cockatiels are all born looking like little girls, with the yellow bars under their tails and the same colouring.

She hasn't been dropping many feathers lately, so she might be done. But it slowed down a bit earlier this summer and then started up again. So far, she still has two tail feathers on either side with yellow bars.

Skippy's quite vibrantly coloured (boy sign), but Lutino females sometimes are. She's a little too chatty to be a girl. Hens usually don't vocalize much at all.

She's also doing something that sounds like a wolf whistle which is very much a boy sign. It sounds so wrong it's hilarious, but we think that's what she's trying to do. She does two flat pitched squawks. The first note is consistently higher than the second note and there's an awkward half break in between. So we know she's doing it on purpose. =)

But she's starting to learn to do the pitch variance that we do and closing the gap between the two pieces so that it sounds more like a wolf whistle.

Sid's wolf whistling and flirting isn't working on her. The only girl in the house that it's working on, is me. =)

The only way to find out 100% for certain is a DNA test. A breeder might need to do this, but we don't need to know badly enough to pay for that. But, for now, I'll have fun saying that Skippy is either a Tomboy or a Metrosexual.