Posts Tagged ‘cag’

…and while it’s true that he’s not likely to clean up after it, neither does my daughter, so six of one, half a dozen of the other, right?

Anyway, I’ve learned that Zulu being bored is a bad thing. The more he has to occupy him the better. He’s happier, and less nippy so I get to keep more of my blood on the inside, which I’ve come to appreciate is a good thing.

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Blech.

First up, bad allergy day. Drugs, groggy, grumpy. Ick.

Second, Robert Jordan died. You likely have no idea who he is. He wrote a Fantasy series called the Wheel of Time- 11 books out of 12 were finished, only one to go.

And he died. Of all the nerve.

8236 pages invested. 6.7 MILLION words. God knows how many hours.

I’m cranky. And yes, selfish. Absolutely.*

Perhaps Zulu’s caught my mood, and he ran at the camera this morning. The pic is a good representation of us both; the fluffing and head down charging thing is his “back off, I’m not in the mood” pose.

Anyway, maybe I’ll edit photos and suchlike instead today and let my ever-industrious assistant Nancy do the day’s asskicking. Works for me!

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*Well, not entirely selfish- it was a long, hard struggle for the man, and I?m sure his family?s going through hell. Jordan actually died of a horribly painful, rare blood disease called cardiac amyloidosis- prognosis for someone diagnosed with it is typically 4 years, tho he only got 18 months. Donations to the Mayo Clinic in his name have been going on for some time. He wasn?t the best writer out there, but he could still grab and hold on to you, and it’s hard to not appreciate someone like that.

So I’d been thinking about getting an African Grey for a while now, and my b-day was coming up, so I dropped a few hints to Charlie, which were well received- likely even anticipated. There happened to be a bird show coming in about a month, so I figured that’d be where the deed would be done.

Except that after dropping my daughter at the airport I noticed a place that specializes in birds that I must’ve passed a hundred times, but since it really didn’t apply to me until this very moment, it just never registered. I figured, what the heck? I’ll stop in, get to handle a bird or two, make sure this is something I’m really interested in.

The place is just off a major commercial road in the area, in an old cinderblock building. I parked and went in, expecting, with a name like Birds Unlimited to find…well, unlimited numbers of birds.

Not so. Walking in, there seem to be unlimited cages,foods, treats. No birds. Except for this woman, Joann. She’s no more than 5ft tall, and there’s definately something avian about her; thin, wrinkled, sharp eyed, she immediately knows me for the novice I am.

Most likely against her better judgment, she points to the far corner of the store where the actual birds are. I tell her what I’m looking for as we enter the room, whereupon all hell breaks loose. Everything from three massive macaws down to dozens of teeny finches make an unbelievable cacoughany. I wince, barely managing to not cover my ears.

“Greys?” she says. “No greys right now. (pause) Well there’s this one over here, but he’s already got a deposit on him, so I can’t let you handle him.” She brightens. “I’ve got a brood I’m hand raising now, they’ll be ready in about six weeks.” Hmmm. I was really hoping to get to see (read:play with) one today.

“Well,” she says reluctantly, “there’s this one.” Read the rest of this entry »