Massive update! Things are fantastic!

Tons of embarrassment over here for it being nearly two months since my last entry! I'm not going to even attempt to make excuses, but I will promise (again!) to try to do better. I know I am sad that I don't have a nice record of this past year.  Because it's been fabulous!

Winter, on the other hand, has not been fabulous.  I saw way too much of this:

Which made running quite difficult.  I still managed to (mostly) get my miles in, but they were slower and slippery-er than I would have liked.  Luckily I have some great running partners who help get me out even when it's cold and windy.  I'm running a 50K with some friends in about 6 weeks, and we have a marathon next week, so those races will test my winter running preparedness!

Here's a look at the path on which I walk home from work on occasion.  Proof that I was not the only one out there on this wintry day:

Almost home!

I love this time of night, when everything looks so magical:

Work is going really well.  It's still more hours than I would like, but nowhere near as bad as it could be.  I've made some fantastic friends, and will celebrate my one-year anniversary there in about two weeks.  I'm up on a high floor; here's a picture of my building enveloped in fog:

I would have taken a picture out of my office window, but all you would have seen was white.

The parrots are still doing well, though I have been remiss in photographing them!

I had a box on my dining room chair that I was planning to use to send a care package to a friend.  Max had other ideas, as she jumped in and started ripping up the box.  I did remove her as soon as I took this picture, as I do not want to encourage nesting behavior in her.  Perhaps she was trying to teach me a lesson about procrastination.

Max is as sweet as ever.  She still gets jealous of the caiques at times, but she loves to follow me around the house, like a dog, shouting "HELLO!" whenever we enter a new room.  It melts my heart every time.

The caiques are also thriving.  I hear frequently from Stella's new owners, and she continues to do very well there.  Rocky is also very much loved and hopefully in his forever home.  Of course I still feel guilty that I wasn't able to be that forever home for the two of them, but I know they are in better situations than they would have been had I tried to keep them.

On a personal level, it is tricky trying to balance social outings with making sure the parrots have enough time with me.  Since they go to bed rather early, I'll frequently head out after they are asleep.

I'm looking to buy a house!  After owning one for 12 years, adjusting to apartment life has been unpleasant, to say the least.  Especially with the parrots, as I'm always worried they'll be too loud and I'll get kicked out.  So far, over a year in, there have been no complaints.  Anyway, I have a very narrow geographic range where I want to buy, and there hasn't been a lot of inventory.  I'm hoping that more will come on the market as it warms up, and we can be in our new place in the next few months.

I almost put in an offer on one, until I discovered there were major structural problems with it.  I'm now trying to decide whether I like another house enough, despite its flaws (one bathroom, small kitchen, baseboard heating), to make an offer.  That one has a perfect location and tons of charm (built-ins, original wood in perfect condition, butler's pantry.)

On a totally unrelated note, I was at a running social last week and they had the cutest spring cupcakes:

As for the dating scene, I have decided to take some time away.  Too many guys wanted to be in an instant relationship (though I do have some funny stories that I will post here at some point) and it was really starting to stress me out.  We have been on two dates!  Stop asking me when we can go on a weekend away together!

After being emotionally and verbally abused for so long, being single and surrounding myself only with wonderful, loving friends has been such a relief.  I do date-like things with them (movies, museums, dinner, concerts, etc.) so it's a lot of fun.

Literally the week before Thomas confessed to having an affair with his mom clone/married coworker, I had ordered a bunch of yarn in colors that complemented his skin tone.  That yarn had just been sitting in a box, until I recently decided that I should make the hats...for me!  Here is the first one:

The time has just been flying by.  I've been in my apartment for over a year now.  I've been at my new job nearly a year.  It's almost spring again!  A year ago, if you told me I'd not only be happy, but happier than I had been in years, I wouldn't have believed you.  And yet, that's exactly what has happened.

Now, back to more regular stories and updates instead of trying to cram two months' worth of activity into one entry!

Famous friends

How excited was I yesterday as, while reading the paper, I came across a glowing review for Wendy's latest book?I told Thomas, "I kind of know her!" He thought I was making this up, but no. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Wendy in person, but we've exchanged blog comments and e-mails. And I've knitted hats from a pattern in her first book.

My knitting is so rudimentary (scarves and hats only, even 3+ years later!) I wasn't planning on getting this book yet, but I think I will, if only to serve as inspiration for me to branch out a bit.

Attack

On New Year's Eve, we were on the couch watching TV. Thomas had his head in my lap for some scratches (he had just come off of a 30-hour shift).

After a few minutes of this, Stella flew over to the couch, landed on the arm, and started nudging me for head scratches of her own. I was able to satisfy both of them for a while (and this is a bit more complicated than it sounds because each one required different kinds of scratches). Then Stella decided she didn't want to share.

You can hear Rocky laughing and moaning in the background.

Also, you can see the end of a pink scarf I've recently finished (sometimes I wear them around the house for a little extra warmth).

The final attack, right at the end, is my favorite. If you look at her feet, they both come briefly off of my leg in order to land a more forceful attack.



Thomas was not injured in the filming of this video.

End of the week -- again!

I wanted to capture the back of Calypso's tail because, as you can see, there is much orange and yellow in it. When he first came to us, almost 5 years ago now, it was entirely green. Beeps's tail is almost entirely green -- he has tiny specks of yellow on the bottom of one or two feathers. I asked their vet about this, but he said he didn't know. I suspect it might have something to do with aging, but I'm not sure. We got Calypso when he was 9, and he's 13 now; Beeps came to us at age 8 and he is now 10.But of course I couldn't crop Max out of the shot. She always has to keep an eye on things! Thomas calls it "creeping us out."

In our house, the parrots always have to know what's going on, and are almost always are creeping us out. Some evenings, I'll be sitting on the couch, reading or knitting. Time flies by, and it will be several minutes until I look around to make sure that all of the parrots are OK (my ears are always alert for parrot trouble, but I also like to frequently visually confirm that everyone is where they should be). Every single one of them will be looking at me, even if they're also playing with a toy or eating. I'm curious if this is always the case, or if they just sense I'm about to look at them, so they look at me first. Even though they're prey animals, I hope they know I'm not going to get them!

Speaking of Beeps, I forgot to post this story earlier! Monday evening, Thomas was on the couch, watching TV. He had just come off of a 30-hour shift, but didn't want to nap because then he's unable to sleep at night. I was in the kitchen, and the greys had followed me in there. Everyone else was in the living room.

Despite his best efforts, Thomas fell asleep. He remembers dreaming, and also slightly conversing with me (I had asked him if he wanted some french fries with his nut burgers). For some reason, he awoke with a start, and it's a good thing he did because Beeps was about an inch from his face, eyes flashing red, doing the mechanical posturing he does before an attack. He managed to get Beeps to fly back from his cage, and resumed his nap with the hood from his sweatshirt protecting his face.

In the header of my blog, I mention that I may occasionally discuss my knitting efforts. I don't do so very often because I am the slowest knitter ever! Who wants an update -- yep; finished another 2 inches on my scarf last night! But, I have finally finished a project!

I think part of my problem also is that I usually have several projects going at once, and I've been making scarves with small needles. But still, my output is ridiculous! I love to read Wendy's blog, and I am always amazed with her speedy knitting. Yet, she does not trade quality or artistic-ness (is that a word?) for her speed. Wendy, when do you sleep? And when Stephanie goes on a knitting spree, it's the same thing!

In any case, here's my latest object. It's a neck warmer.
I've branched out from scarves and hats, but only barely. This is kind of like a mix between the two. One of the jackets I've been wearing lately has velcro on it, which means my scarves have been sticking to it. So my neck has been exposed when I wear that jacket since I don't want to ruin a scarf. I made this with yarn I bought from Stephanie's destashing (she has more yarn available here, if anyone's interested).

Now I'm knitting like crazy to finish a scarf for my mom for Christmas. She asked for one last week -- are you kidding me? A scarf takes me longer than that! Luckily, I was almost done with one in the color she was requesting, so assuming I get my act together, it will be done in time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! It's very cold here, but should be warming up a bit (to the 30s) for the weekend, which means we hope to get some cross-country skiing in.

Brooms

One of the things that I love about having several parrots is that they each have their own personality. From living with them, I've usually got a pretty good idea of how each particular parrot will react to a situation, although there certainly can be surprises!

We try to only sweep when the parrots are in their cages (I think I've mentioned before that Beeps and Rocky both hate brooms). However, the other day, Thomas decided to sweep while all 5 of them were in the kitchen with us.

As expected, Beeps got really excited. This means he starts pacing in a determined way (he starts marching), his eyes flash red, he makes beeping sounds that are sharper and louder than normal, and he starts jerking his head around. These all lead to him flying at someone and attacking (in this case, the person with the broom).

Rocky, on the other hand, is determined to get as far away from the broom as he can. On this particular day, he ran over to the other side of the kitchen and took solace in his plants.
Max, Calypso, and Daphne are not phased by the broom.

Then, Thomas took out the vacuum cleaner. We rarely use this in our house as only our stairs and upper level (where the parrots are generally not allowed) are carpeted. We never walk on our carpet with shoes, and are rarely on our upper level (basically just for sleeping) so the carpet doesn't get very dirty. Also, we are definitely not neat freaks!

Rocky was terrified. He was quite agitated and wouldn't stop screaming. I tried putting him in his cage for him to feel safe, but that didn't help as he could still see Thomas with the vacuum cleaner on the stairs. Finally, I tried putting him in the bathroom (his favorite place) and he calmed down enough even to sing as the vacuum roared in the background. Funny guy!

In other news, I have finally finished knitting this scarf. I started working on it on the plane to Madrid last February and have been slowly making progress since then. I tend to have at least 3 projects going on at once, so maybe if I were a bit more focused, things would get done sooner.

I still have to block it (I have never done this before, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out!) but am in no hurry since the weather is finally warm enough where scarves are unnecessary!

I made this with the intention of giving it to Thomas, but he thinks it's a little too skinny for his taste. I guess we'll see what happens after the blocking (the edges do tend to curl in a little), but otherwise, I'll have a new scarf that, with its color, will match just about anything!

Leave my food alone!

Last night, we had chili for dinner. Thomas placed his bowl on the floor in front of the couch and left the living room to make another trip for his drink. (Yes, we eat in the living room. I was not brought up this way! But it's easier because the parrots behave better on their cages than if we tried to get them to stay on stands in the kitchen).

Rocky, seeing an opportunity, ran over there while the bowl was unoccupied, grabbed a saltine cracker off of the top, and ran back under his cage and started eating it (you can see the crumbs under his cage and on his beak). I wish I had this on video!

An entire cracker is a MUCH bigger portion than he would normally get, so he thought he'd hit the jackpot. Thomas didn't want him eating the cracker under the cage because of the crumbs, so he convinced Rocky to come out, and then gave him a portion of the cracker after he perched on his cage.

The negotiations:

Then, this morning happened. Thomas usually has left for work before I get the parrots up in the morning. This morning I was done running early, so I let everyone out about 20 minutes before their usual wake-up time.

They were so happy to spend time with Thomas before he left. However, because of the chaos they caused, I had to promise to not do this every day!

He couldn't read the paper and eat his breakfast in peace:

I swear that photo is not posed. Max, Rocky, and Beeps, seeing cereal was being eaten, all flew or walked over to the table and took turns taking bites. In this picture, Beeps has a Grapenut in his beak. This is why we eat dinner in the living room!

I've still been knitting away: hats and scarves. I made the brown hat on the right as a surprise for Thomas last week. Then, I decided that I didn't like a light green hat that I'd previously made (on the left). It was too big, and I had made a few mistakes. So I decided to unravel it and knit a new hat (in the center). I'm probably not doing this the "right" way, but I am knitting from one hat to the other. I hope I like this one better as I don't want to knit 3 hats out of the same yarn!

Things are pretty much back to normal

For the first time since we've returned, Calypso readily stepped up for me and was soliciting attention without freaking out. That means it only took him 2 1/2 days to get over us leaving him. I think that's an improvement from last time.

Here is a recent picture of Max, taken yesterday. As you can see from her pictures, she has some feather destruction issues. They started January 2, 2006 when she bit off about 30 feathers at the shaft, leaving her with a down chest. That winter steadily worsened, as she removed all of her outer feathers on her back, chest, and legs. Pretty much everything she could reach, with the exception of her wings.
She had a clean bill of health from the vet. It was at this point that we switched her diet, and tried MANY other things. Then, about a year later, I read that, in greys in particular, when they bite the feather off (as opposed to plucking out the whole feather), it's often due to lack of humidity in the house. Max's plucking coincided with the first winter in our new house, so we got a humidifier, which greatly improved things. Every winter, she has continued to bite off a few feathers, but nothing like that first winter!

In any case, she is molting now, and has, so far, been leaving her feathers alone. This is the most fully-feathered she's been since January 1, 2006.

Beeps has been in a particularly playful mood since we've returned. He's been showing off for us, flying more than ever, and regaling us with exclamations of "Pretty baby cakes!" and "Hi Beeps!" I took these yesterday, as he was jumping back and forth between the rope figure-8 on his stand and the cup holder, doing flips on each of them.
His white chest has been kind of peachy lately. We can't figure out why. He doesn't have any new toys, and we can't see anything that would be rubbing off on him and dyeing him. Calypso is as white as ever, so I don't think it's anything in their diet. We're going to keep investigating and I'll report back if we figure it out!

On the knitting front, I've still been knitting. One of my goals for 2008 was to learn to knit a hat. I made the hat below for my mom, from some yarn that she'd bought for herself. It's a super-easy pattern, found here:

I have mentioned that we are bird sitting for my parents' quaker and pair of cockatiels while they are on vacation in Europe. Here are their cockatiels, Jill and Jack, eating millet. I have been having so much fun watching these guys. They are extremely bonded to each other and start frantically calling to each other if they are not right by each other. Occasionally something will scare them and they both go flying off their cage, and they sit there calling to each other, even though they could just turn around to reuinte! But perhaps the funniest thing with them is when they both want their heads preened. They will sit there and offer each other their heads until finally someone gives in and preens the other one first.

And here is their quaker, Alfie. He is a funny little bird, and recovering from some mutilation. My parents spent over $1,000 at the vet, and no reason could be found for the mutilation. They ended up adopting Jack and Jill, hoping to provide Alfie with some additional company, and ever since they joined the flock, he no longer mutilates.

I thought this was a funny picture. Thomas has not played video games for several months, but pulled them out again on Friday. I joked he was like the Pied Piper because as soon as he sat down on the floor, the birds went over to find him (except the cockatiels and Calypso!) Rocky runs over to Thomas any time he is on the floor, hoping to wedge himself in his clothes somewhere. He sits near Max's cage, so she goes over to that side of her cage. First she empties out her foraging bucket by throwing as many things at Thomas as she can; once it's empty, she hangs out on the side of her cage, near him. Beeps almost never leaves his cage, but he did Friday night, to go to Thomas, and then Alfie climbed down to find him as well! We rarely allow parrots on our shoulders because of the potential damage, but Thomas wanted to play video games and they wouldn't leave him alone, so I was able to take this picture!

And of course, a few pictures of Max. Here she is, eating a pellet. I wrap all of her pellets, and I think it is absolutely adorable how she uses the wrapping like a little shell to make sure that she can eat every crumb. What was even funnier about this picture is that she had a dish of seed and vegetables on top of her cage, but she apparently wanted a pellet as she climbed in her cage and found one.

Can you see the marble in her foot? I don't even remember how we figured this out, but she loves marbles! We call them her little treasures. We're not exactly sure what she does with them, but they keep her occupied for 10-15 minutes at a time. She sits there like this, holding it in her foot. Sometimes she rubs the marbles on her head.

Sometimes she holds them in her beak, like this. We hide a few in her foraging bucket and foraging drawers and when she finds one, it's so much fun to watch her ADD-self calm down and treasure her prize.

I am still knitting! Thomas and I are taking a trip to Prague in November, so I am making each of us a Prague scarf. I made mine first, out of this gray boucle yarn. I cast on 20 stitches, but somewhere in my novice knitting world, I ended up adding another stitch, so it was 21 for most of the way! I had hoped to do some sort of pattern, but boucle yarn is not the best yarn for novices to use, so I just did knitting. I didn't measure the scarf, but it is longer than I am tall (5'6"). On Friday, Thomas and I stopped at a yarn store and purchased the yarn for his scarf. My scarf in enveloping the yarn that will become his scarf.

Everyone has told me that once I start using natural fibers, I may become a yarn snob and no longer able to use acrylic. I fear they may be right! This is the progress I made on Thomas's scarf yesterday. I cast on 21 stitches and am doing a K1P1 pattern. However, I ran into a snag because after I had knit about 8 inches or so, the yarn had come apart and was knotted together! I wasn't sure what to do, so I just knit it in. You can kind of see in this picture that it then came apart! I was worried I would have to pull everything out and start again, but I managed to just pull out about 4 rows and get everything back to how it should be. However, my knitting for the night was paused as I do not know how to start knitting in a detached piece of yarn. My job today is to research that so I can continue knitting tonight (why don't I have the Internet at home!!!!)