Catching Up!

Despite what it may seem, I have not forgotten about this blog! I am still a bit angry with myself for not posting more often, as I'd love to be able to look back and see what's been going on in my life! Yet again, I will try to post more regularly...starting NOW!!!

But, first...I must catch up with the past few months. I'll miss a lot, but hit the highlights relating to pictures I took.

In September, I ran a 50K race with one of my best friends.  She's someone I knew before I found out about Thomas's cheating, barely.  We both volunteered for our local marathon, but I never became friends with her due to Thomas's weirdness and the fact that since he didn't have any friends, he begrudged me mine.

She really stepped up, and we've become so close over the past two years.  In fact, tomorrow we are going trail running, touring a winery, and watching our NFL team at her house as her boyfriend makes us vegetarian chili. Score!

Usually, I run my own race, but we agreed that we would run this 50K (31 miles) together.  It was so much fun!  Here is what we saw near the beginning:

It turned out to be a gorgeous day, and we became even better friends due to this experience.  We crossed the finish line holding hands and collapsed in a giant hug.

Two more pictures of what we got to see during our run:

In early September, Steve Earle came to town!  I've been a big fan ever since I saw him on The Wire (best show ever to appear on TV, in case you're wondering.  I am watching Season 1, episode 4 as I write this post.)  As an aside, on a terrible first date, I met George Pelecanos, one of the writers on The Wire.  He was absolutely amazing, and made me love the show even more!

Steve's live show was every bit as wonderful as expected.  I went with my parents; I've become much closer to them throughout this ordeal, which is one of the many silver linings of finding out I was married to a sociopath and getting divorced:

This is the dessert at one of my new favorite restaurants.  I first shared it with one of my best friends (and fellow parrot-enthusiast) a few months back -- brownie with salted caramel gelato, nuts, cherry, etc.  I went back with another friend, and once I showed them the picture I had taken of my dessert earlier in the summer, they agreed to make it for me, even though it was no longer officially on the menu.  Yay!

Here's my good friend near finishing her first triathlon!  Surrounded by geese, which I loved.  Another one of our friends and I chased her around on our bikes with signs, cheering her on.  It was such a great day!

I had been on yet another bummer first date, followed by a lake cruise with friends.  I feel so lucky to live in such a fabulous city!  The views more than made up for the bad first date!

I cat-sat for my good friend and her husband.  Sprecher was watching me!

And the two of them, eating their food:

This blog was originally started to chronicle the antics of my parrots, so we will now enter that portion of this entry!

Here's Max, eating something (shocker!)  Andreas's tank is in the background.  Speaking of Andreas, he has become so much more personable recently.  He asks for me to pet his head!  I'm starting to think certain animals really can recognize evil people, which is why the parrots and Andreas are so much happier now!

And, Beeps: eating some food as well.

Calypso had climbed into Max's cage and was eating her food!  Since I always supervise, this situation was resolved without bloodshed.

Max, perched on some blankets on the couch.  She likes to be near me as I read after work.

Beeps, again.  He's actually not done as well in our new life.  I had begged Thomas to take him, since he never got along with the other birds and would prefer to be solo, but Thomas refused to take any of the parrots, or (not so shockingly), any responsibility for anything.  I had to figure everything out alone, and made what I thought were the best decisions for the parrots were at the time.  I think he feels abandoned, and hasn't rebounded as much as Calypso and Max have.

I'm still trying to eat healthy; here's a pan full of zucchini!

At my new job, I frequently have to go to fancy fundraising events.  This is a shot from a recent one.  The local professional hockey team were our servers; it was pretty exciting to be out there, sitting on the ice!

The meal (vegetarian option) was pretty, but not as tasting or filling as I'd hoped...

Also during the fall, I dog-sat one night for my closest friend and her husband.  They live only a few blocks from me, which is so convenient!  They currently have two boxers (sadly, one is nearing the end of his life.)  They have adopted me as one of their favorite humans, which is so fun!

I was trying to take a picture of Hans, but he jumped up on me and made a good picture impossible!

He always grabs a toy and tries to get me to play tug-of-war:

He wanted to go inside, but since I wanted to make sure they didn't have any accidents, I kept them outside a little longer!

So he decided to rest on their patio furniture, waiting until he could go inside again:

I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to get both of them in the photo.  The older one was coming in for some attention when the younger one pushed him out of the way:

HELLO!

A few weeks ago, some friends and I ran a 5K race that took place entirely inside a corn maze!  It was a lot of fun (though a bit hard on my knees, with the twists and turns), I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen for a year, and I won first place in my age group!  To celebrate, we went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant:

On yet another bad first date, I had some more macaroni and cheese:

I am not even kidding that I could write a blog about all of my bad first dates.  I've had some good ones sprinkled in, too, so no worries!

My dad and I have season tickets to a local NCAA team; the games started recently.  We went to almost all of the games together last year, and it was so much fun!  We're hoping to make all of the games this year:

Last week Saturday, I ran another 50K -- my third of the year.  I wound up third woman!  The race was established in honor of one of my friends who is dying of cancer.  I took what I hope is one of many annual pictures with my friend and his wife (another one of my friends.)  The wife (also my friend) and I will probably run Boston together in 2015.  I have run it before, but was with Thomas (aka "The Dark Cloud of Doom and Gloom") so it wasn't much fun.  Next time, it will be for sure!

Gorgeous picture of me and my race partner running up a hill, at about mile 30.7:

After this recent 50K, there was a campfire to warm us and make us smell delicious:

After the race, my plan was to hang out at home, drink beer, and sleep in.  But one of my friends had another idea in mind.  She's in the process of leaving her abusive partner.  Since I have recent experience with this, I have tried my best to be as supportive as possible.  We went to a haunted house (even though I am terrified of them) and then did a zip line, pictured below:

Today, my parents came up and helped me to winterize my house.  We cleaned the gutters, put some plastic on windows, took out my window air conditioning unit, and played some cards. It was a great evening! 

More to come, on a more regular basis!

RIP Elsa

We found Elsa dead last night.  I didn't write much about the lizards, as their lives were nowhere near as interesting as the parrots'; here are the last pictures I had taken of her.

She'd recently had a well-lizard exam and had been declared healthy, with the exception of some worms.

We have no idea how old she was as she was an adult when we got her.  She'd had very poor treatment prior to coming to us.  In a way, it's a relief as though I tried to do my best with her, she never seemed very happy.  My vet assured me she was as happy as a captive lizard could be, but who knows. 

Andreas is still going strong.  I wonder if he can somehow sense that he's now our only lizard?

Worms, part 2

The lizards had their annual vet visit last week; they had worms, again  Luckily (for me), just the microscopic pinworms and not the giant, visible tapeworms they had last time.

They're going to a new vet (their old vet moved out of state), and he was fantastic!  I was very impressed with his lizard handling and knowledge.  The lizards were impressed with his efficiency and speed as they were back in their warm tanks quickly (their previous vet was very good, but very, very slow.)


In order to get rid of the worms, both lizards need 10 days of medication:

In an interesting development, Rocky, who has always been a parrot protector, is also now a lizard protector.  As Thomas medicates the lizards, I can hear him saying "Rocky, please stop biting me!  I am helping the lizards!" etc.  It is fake biting, but Rocky is letting him know his feelings on the subject.

I wanted to try to get a picture of Thomas medicating Elsa (the above two pictures were Andreas), but Rocky didn't want me to get too close. 

He takes his protection responsibilities seriously.  Almost as seriously as his wood-chipping and paper-tearing responsibilities, of which you can see the evidence behind him.

The lizards are still alive

Doing a recent search, I realized that it's been almost a year since my last update on the lizards.  They certainly don't provide the entertainment and photo ops that the parrots do!

In any case, as was the case last year, they are loving summer.  During the winter, I can go weeks without seeing them, but now, I see them every day.

They are reaping the benefit of our CSA as they are getting a wider variety of healthy greens than can be found at a grocery store.  They especially love anything that has yellow flowers on it (though I suspect dandelions are still their favorite.)

Here's, Elsa, thinking about trying these new greens out:

And, in mid-chomp:

They don't like their regular food to eat it out of my hand, so I make sure to feed them special treats like this at every opportunity.

Since they've been out of their hides more, Rocky has renewed his interest in Elsa, as her cage is at his level when he's walking on the floor.  Pretty much every day this week, he's gone up to her, greeted her, and then fake ate her (making chomping and chewing sounds and motions in her direction.)  She is oblivious to this, and he gives up after a few seconds.  I'd love to get it on video, but since it happens so quickly, this is unlikely.

Quick post

I brought the wrong camera with me today, so the posts I had planned for today will have to wait until tomorrow.  Here are a few random pictures instead:

Basil loves eating his greens every day!

This iguana was confiscated by animal control; I just happened to be wearing a green shirt when I met him.  Isn't he adorable?  Don't worry; my rational side prevailed and we won't be taking him home, even if we do match.

A picture of the sweetest macaw I've met in quite some time.  I am in love!  But I don't have room, so she will not be coming to live with us, either.  She gets so excited when she sees me or hears my voice, so the feeling is mutual.  She's been at the shelter a long time, but we think we're close to finding her a home.

I just love the 25+ year old blue and gold macaws.  I've threatened to stick Rocky in her cage during the night and take her home with me instead, but they'd immediately know it was me and they know where I live, so Rocky is safe.  Maybe he'll calm down a bit once he turns 25?  Only one more year to find out...

Lizards

We changed the substrate in the lizards' tanks on Sunday. We use pool filter sand for them. These lizards are just so unlike the parrots! Thomas used the shop vac to suck up the majority of Elsa's old substrate; she just stayed in her hide, not even peeking out to see what all the noise was -- my nosy parrots would have been trying to destroy the vacuum hose.He put her in her upside-down hide while he finished vacuuming and then cleaning her tank:
Unfortunately, her bag of sand was wet (Andreas's was dry), which could cause her major health issues as uromastyx need very low humidity environments. They had to spend the night together; neither one ventured out from their hides overnight (you can see Elsa's head poking out, and Andreas's tail):
The next morning, despite a heat lamp, Elsa's sand was still wet, so I had to remove the sand and she's temporarily on newspaper. We'll be more careful to make sure the sand we buy is dry next time -- if it doesn't dry by tomorrow, I will have to buy another bag as I don't want to keep her on newspaper for too long.

Short stories

When I got home from work yesterday, Elsa looked like someone had inflated her as her top layer of skin was molting off. Though this picture doesn't entirely capture her molting, you can kind of see what I'm talking about:Here she is, post-peel. So much darker and skinnier! She went under her heat source for a while after I peeled her:
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Shoes + towel = Happy Rocky
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Here's Steve, eating dinner, while we were in the room!

Lizards

The lizards love summer! They seem to be able to sense when it is summer, and they become much more active. Additionally, we buy them many different kinds of greens at farmers' markets -- stuff that isn't available in the grocery stores.

Last week, I came home and Elsa was resting by hugging a piece of wood that's in her enclosure. I had never seen her on it so completely before.Andreas came over to the front of the tank as I was taking Elsa's picture. Sometimes he runs into his hide when he sees me; other times, it almost appears as though he's interested in what's going on and wants to see for himself. So I took his picture.

More lizard peeling

I have a very hard time photographing the lizards, but you can kind of see Andreas's skin peeling off -- especially on his left cheek. His nose is also ready to come off, and did shortly after I took this picture.Elsa is peeling a bit, too, but not as much as Andreas. I'm assuming she'll start up in a few weeks.

The sneak attack

Andreas needed some help with his molting. We're especially concerned about the dead skin around his feet, as if the skin is not removed, it can constrict the blood flow. He lost two toes to this during his vet visit the day after we purchased him.
Rocky followed Thomas into the kitchen where he stopped to take care of Andreas. He wasn't the only one keeping an eye on things. Max was also around (though the picture I took of her was too fuzzy to post), as was Stella:After Andreas was back in his tank (and sulking -- he immediately went in his hide), Rocky pulled one of his sneak attacks on Thomas. I love how he gets so much joy out of this! He pulled a sneak attack on me once, years ago, when I was drying my hair and didn't realize he was out of his cage. I am now very careful, as I wouldn't put it past him to turn one of these fake attacks into a real one. As a runner, the last place I would ever want a parrot bite is on my feet!