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Posted by Zoom! on February 4, 2011, at 2:49 pm |
Here are some of my babies.
 Kazoo and Duncan 
 Baby Birds
The theme of the group art show currently at the John Patrick Mills Gallery on Hinchey Street was LOVE. I should have created some living lovebird art. I didn’t think of it until we were already there.
Here’s Jennifer, who works at the art program where GC and I volunteer with at-risk kids. We run into her everywhere.
 Jennifer Cook at the vernissage last night Here’s Jennifer’s piece of art, which was part of the show. I love the caption at the bottom.
 Jennifer's art, which made me laugh out loud I don’t know this guy, but I thought you might like to see his hair.
 Hair at the vernissage
Posted by Zoom! on February 2, 2011, at 10:58 am |
GC and I went to see Black Swan last night. It’s a psychological thriller about a ballet dancer. It was quite riveting even though most of the time we had no idea what was going on. We couldn’t tell what was real and what was imagined, who was crazy and who was sane, who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Everybody was twisted and distorted in one way or another. There were some self-mutilation scenes where we both squirmed and looked away. Anyway, if you’re looking for a creepy movie, I recommend it, even though I didn’t get it.
We saw The King’s Speech last Tuesday. We got that. It was pretty straightforward. Guy with a speech impediment has to make a speech. I didn’t find it as enthralling as The Black Swan, but it was good.
Before the movie last night I made us a good healthy dinner from my new Clean Eating cookbook – chicken almondine with green beans. We ate that and then went to the movie and pigged out on popcorn and Smarties.
Anyway. It’s snowing out there. The way the media’s carrying on about it, you’d think we lived in Texas or something. The weather looks pretty wild in Australia, though. Category 5, batten down the hatches. People are being urged to take shelter in designated shelters, but the designated shelters are full.
And how about the revolution in Egypt? It’s like my friend Gene used to say: The right of way belongs to whoever takes it. Same thing with human rights. You can’t just sit around and wait for someone to hand them to you – sometime you have to go out and seize them. Power to the Egyptian people!
Posted by Zoom! on February 1, 2011, at 8:48 am |
Does anyone else feel that this winter is whizzing by? Usually by February 1st I feel like winter’s been going on forever and I feel totally mired in it and I’m miserable and calculating how many days til I think it might end. I’m usually sick of all the layers and the cold and the wind and the messy sidewalks and shoveling the steps. I’m fed up with putting on my boots and taking off my boots. I’ve had enough of root vegetables. I feel oppressed by the monochromatic colour scheme. By February 1st, I’m craving light and air and colour and warmth.
But this year, not so much. Winter’s whipping right by. I feel like it’ll be over soon. This winter feels qualitatively different from all the other winters. Easier. Lighter on its feet. Warmer.
I hear there’s a storm coming tomorrow. Maybe that’ll fix me.
Remember I was taking part in a challenge to walk the equivalent distance from Adelaide Australia to Whyalla during January? I did it. I walked about 395 km, or 505,432 steps. Yay me.
Kazoo cracked us up the other day. As you may recall, I have a few mannequins around the house. One of them, Genevieve, stands next to the dining room table. Kazoo’s perch, where he eats dinner, is next to her. He often eyes her with interest (she’s very pretty, and I think he likes the fact that she doesn’t make any sudden moves). The other evening he tried to strike up a conversation with her. He looked at her and said in his most conversational tone, “Hello.” She didn’t respond. So he tried again in his sexiest voice. “Hellllllooooooo.” Genevieve is a little standoffish, but I think it’s only a matter of time until he starts melting her icy exterior.
What else is new? Hmm. The baby birds are coming along nicely. They are eating real food now, and only get hand-fed twice a day. One of them has weaned himself completely. They can all fly except Jeebus, but he can perch now. I love feeding him. He is such a focused, tidy and appreciative eater. I remember when I first started feeding him, I had to wear glasses in order to see his tiny little beak, and he’d be a formula-covered mess by the time I was finished. Now he sits up straight in the bunnykins bowl and does almost all the work himself, hardly spilling a drop.
GC and I had such a good time at the museum of Nature on Saturday. Have you been yet, since they renovated? It’s quite spectacular, the way they’ve blended the old and the new. We loved it. Even the rock exhibits, which always bored me in the past, seemed pretty amazing. Here are some of the things we saw:
Posted by Zoom! on January 28, 2011, at 11:08 am |
 On Wednesday night GC and I attended the 3rd annual Everybody’s Art Show at Irene’s Pub. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s brilliant and it goes like this: everybody, especially the regulars, is encouraged to submit works of art to the show. You don’t have to be an artist; in fact, most people aren’t. But it’s amazing what creative non-artists can make. There was a lamp fashioned out of an old clarinet. There was a bicycle fashioned out of a single piece of wire by Peter Conway, proprietor of McCrank’s Cycles, next door to Irene’s. There were paintings and assemblage pieces. Some people, instead of making art, donated art from their own collections.
On the appointed evening, there is a silent auction of all the submitted artworks. Final selling prices tend to be affordably low, and all proceeds go to a good cause. This year the good cause was the Glebe Neighbourhood Activities Group, for the creation of a community art project.
In previous years, GC and I submitted art. But this year we didn’t hear about it until a few days ago, so we didn’t. We did, however, bid on – and win – some art. And we had a couple of drinks and soup and sandwiches and a lot of fun. Everybody’s Art Show is one of my favourite art events of the year.
 GC got a fabulous painting of a cow by Kate McCartney. The cow saw some pretty intense action among several determined bidders, but GC triumphed.
I got a piece called Space Cop by Dan Martelock. Dan’s got a show happening down at the Shanghai Restaurant at Somerset and Bronson right now; we went to to his opening last week. I like his stuff, and have been wanting to add a piece to my collection for awhile now, so I was very happy to win this.
I also got a piece by Albert Misner. He created it using a pseudonym, but his true identity was revealed in the program. It’s an assemblage piece called PHZZZ, or something like that. It’s made of a wooden box, a bottle, a cork and a whole bunch of wire. It looks like a celebration in a box. I have these two built-in recesses in my bedroom wall, which need tall skinny things to be displayed in them. One has my tall skinny recorder collection. The other one now has PHZZZ.
And I got a painted guitar called Hip Crankster Johnny Cash, by John Sekerka, Guitar Artist. It was what you might call an impulse bid. Something just came over me. I watched in wonder as my hand reached out and wrote my bidder number and bid on the bidder’s list. At any rate, it’s mine now!
Lots of fun. You should go next year!
Posted by Zoom! on January 27, 2011, at 9:44 am |
First, a little background:
Of the three six-month old lovebirds, Oboe has his own cage, and Piccolo and Banjo share a cage. Banjo has been impossible to live with lately. She’s been aggressive to both me and Piccolo. She bites easily and she bites hard. I can’t even put food in the cage while she’s in it – I have to let her out first, or she’ll attack me. I’ve actually been wondering about her mental health and have considered the possibility that she’s suffering from heavy metal poisoning. That bird used to be crazy about me; now she’s just plain crazy. Piccolo’s scared of her too.
So I tried to move Piccolo in with Oboe a couple of weeks ago, but Oboe wouldn’t have him. That experiment lasted about five minutes, until I rescued Piccolo and returned him to Banjo, who took him back but made him live in the water dish.
Yesterday, I let them all out of their cages. I was starting to remove the paper towels from Piccolo and Banjo’s cage when I noticed something on the floor. There’s always stuff on the floor but this was different. I mentally ran through everything they’d had for breakfast – brussel sprouts, peas, peanuts, rice, granola, kale – and it wasn’t any of those. Slowly it dawned on me what I was looking at: a little white egg about the length of my thumbnail. Nearby I found a second egg.
 A stack of papers left on my desk This explains a lot about her territorial and hormonal behaviour of late. It also explains the feverish paper shredding she’s been engaging in (see photos). Female lovebirds shred paper for nests. But they’re not supposed to lay eggs unless they’re provided with an enclosed space, like a nest box, to build a nest in.
I quietly covered the two eggs with the paper towel and left the room feeling a bit queasy.
Banjo is only six months old; it’s not good for her to be laying eggs yet. She shouldn’t be breeding with her brother anyway, for genetic reasons. (I might have to name their children Dueling Banjos.)
And frankly, I’m just not ready for another miracle of life right now. I’m still hand-feeding Billie and Lester’s youngest five, and while they’re adorable and charming, I’m looking forward to them weaning themselves and going to new homes. I don’t need these new eggs turning into baby birds in three weeks. Also, I don’t even know if there’s a market for lovebirds; I haven’t advertised the babies yet. What if I can’t find any takers? It’ll be like the rats all over again.
 My Tickler File System, shredded A bird expert told me that what I should do is boil the eggs and put them back in the cage. Banjo will keep sitting on them until she gives up on them. If I just take them out and throw them away, she’ll keep laying more, and deplete her system of energy and calcium and so on.
I feel absolutely sick about the idea of boiling her eggs. I’m pro-choice all the way, but this is not about choice. Banjo would not choose this. This is like imposing abortion on her. I have good reasons for not wanting her to have these babies but I honestly don’t think I can bring myself to drop her eggs in boiling water.
What would you do?
Posted by Zoom! on January 25, 2011, at 10:43 am |
 I was out walking the other day, listening to an old episode of This American Life, the theme of which was parasites.
There was a story about a parasite called an isopod that enters a fish’s mouth (a snapper, to be precise), and devours its tongue. Then it turns around and sits where the tongue used to be, facing outward. Apparently it looks kind of tongue-like itself, so if you were to peer into the snapper’s mouth, it would look like he had a tongue with eyes. The parasite spends the rest of its life doing the work of the snapper’s tongue, while sharing a portion of the snapper’s food. Is that freaky or what?
 But that was just the warm-up. Then there was the story of Jasper Lawrence, who sells hookworms which he harvest from his own poop.
He went to great lengths to acquire his hookworm infestation in the first place. He had all kinds of debilitating allergies that were ruining his life, and he found out that people in third world countries have very few allergies, as do people who have hookworm infestations (there’s a great deal of overlap between these two populations).
He became so convinced that his only hope for a life without the misery of allergies and asthma was hookworms, that he went to Africa (Cameroon, I think) and walked barefoot through the festering latrines of twenty or thirty villages. He said it was absolutely the most repulsive thing he’s ever done. The stench, the sound of the insects buzzing, the hundred-degree heat, the humidity, the human waste oozing between his toes…
Then he returned to the States to wait for Spring to see if he was cured.
And lo and behold, he was!
He then dedicated his life (and his excrement) to saving others from their debilitating allergies and asthma. He believes hookworm therapy (helminthic therapy) may also be helpful for sufferers of other auto-immune disorders, including Crohn’s disease, arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Jasper says harvesting the hookworms is not that big a process, since the hookworms just ‘walk right out’. He cleans them up and Fedexes them to his clients. At the time of the original broadcast, he had shared his hookworm infection with approximately 85 people. Since then, the FDA investigated him and found him to be in violation of some laws, so he fled the US and is operating his business elsewhere.
I know it sounds like a wacky and repulsive thing, but before you write Jasper off as a complete quack, you should know independent scientific research isn’t writing him off just yet.
So…If you’d like to buy some hookworms, his website outlines the process. But I couldn’t find the price anywhere on his site. I guess if you’re sick and desperate enough to purchase a worm infection, you’re probably desperate enough to pay a lot of money for it too.
Posted by Zoom! on January 23, 2011, at 5:03 pm |
 This is what I look like at 39 degrees below zero with the wind chill. That’s celsius and farenheit, because the two scales converge at -40.
You can see my frost-crusted hair, MEC jacket, neckwarmer and fleece-lined hat but what you can’t see is that I’m also wearing regular socks, thermal socks, gortex boots, regular underwear, long underwear, jeans, a turtleneck, a thermal pullover, a clapotis scarf, and seriously warm wind-proof mittens given to me by Julia.
I had to go out because of my commitment to virtually walking from Adelaide to Whyalla, Australia over the month of January. That’s about 380km. I’m about 77% of the way there, but I can’t afford to cool my heels just because it’s cold outside. After all, this is Ottawa, and it’s January. It’s supposed to be cold.
I’m curious though…those of you who live in more temperate climates, what do you make small talk about? Here, our small talk revolves largely around the weather. We have 52 words for cold. What do you chit chat about if you don’t have weather?
Posted by Zoom! on January 21, 2011, at 3:49 pm |
 It was an accident. I really didn’t mean to throw the baby in the garbage. It’s just that the cage was so poorly designed, and changing the paper has to take place through a little 3-inch square, and herding baby birds is a lot like herding cats.
So if you’ve ever thrown your baby in the garbage, don’t feel bad – I’m sure it has happened to all of us at one time or another.
It was Duncan who found Number Three of Five in the garbage. I was horrified, of course, and puzzled as to how he got there. I thought maybe he’d fallen, or maybe he’d flown, or maybe somehow Duncan put him there, even though I was in the room the whole time. GC suggested that maybe Number Three threw himself in the garbage – the birdie equivalent of escaping in the laundry cart. But no. I’m pretty sure it was me, while cleaning the cage.
The good news is that Duncan alerted me to this interesting treasure in the garbage almost immediately, so the baby was only in there for a few minutes. And he was none the worse for his adventures.
They’re getting to be quite a handful now. They were in a little blue recycle bin until a few days ago when I moved them into a cage. Then today I moved them into a better cage. There was nothing for them to do in the recycle bin except sleep and poop. In the cage, they can climb the bars, practice sitting on the perch, and jump off the perch while flapping their wings. They can also try climbing the ladder and playing with toys. They can build forts out of towels, and they can see the rest of the room. They like it a lot.
Oh, Number One of Five started flying the day before yesterday, at the age of one month and a day! The rest of the birdies are green with envy.
Incidentally, they now weigh 56, 56, 56, 54 and 34 grams. I don’t think Sweet Baby Jeebus is going to grow much more. He stalled for three days at 32 grams, and then gained two more grams. I took his orthopedic device off a couple of days ago, and his legs aren’t as splayed as they used to be. I was so impressed when he was one of the first to try climbing the bars of the cage. I think he’ll live a normal life, even though he’ll always be a miniature lovebird.
The baby lovebirds will all be ready to go to new homes by Valentine’s Day or sooner. Consider getting one or two for your sweetie or your kids or yourself – nothing says I LOVE YOU like a hand-tamed baby lovebird! ($75 each, or two for $125, plus I have a couple of cages for sale – cheep! – if you need one.)
Posted by Zoom! on January 18, 2011, at 7:40 pm |
 You can see Jeebus' orthopedic device in this picture I’m basically lurching from one bird cage to the next, feeding, cleaning, cuddling and talking to birds all day long, so I haven’t got much to blog about, except birds. But I don’t want you all thinking I’m turning into a bird blogger – first of all because I’m not, and secondly, because that’s not what you signed up for. You signed up for knitting and a humongous cat, right?
But first let me tell you about my birds.
1. Most of my baby birds are now bigger than they’ll ever be again. In fact, they’ll need to lose a little weight in order to get themselves airborne.
2. Kazoo, the Amazon, is cuddly. That’s right. He snuggles into me and I pet him and he chortles blissfully.
3. When I take a shower, Oboe (the littlest of the triplet lovebirds) likes to sit on my head. He also likes to look in the mirror, so he flies back and forth between the mirror and my head. I try to wash my hair during the mirror’s turn.
4. When I take a bath, Oboe likes to stand on my stomach and drink bathwater.
5. Oboe and Duncan take turns accompanying me at bath time, because Duncan likes to balance on the edge of the tub and drink bathwater too.
6. Banjo, of the triplets, used to absolutely adore me. Now she bites me – hard! – if I put my hand in the cage while she’s in it. It’s because I haven’t been handling her enough since the new babies arrived. She bit me so hard the other day I cried. (It did hurt, but I think I had a touch of PMS too, and my feelings were hurt.) All three lovebirds flew to me when I started crying. Oboe picked the tears off my face with his beak. It was so sweet I cried even harder.
 The Quints on January 18 7. Duncan likes to lie on the art room floor while I feed the baby birds. He likes to visit the triplets in the office. He likes it when Kazoo comes down from his lofty perches to fetch a dropped peanut or something. I don’t trust him alone with any of the birds, though he’s generally pretty good with them. Today I accidentally shut him inside the art room with the babies after a feeding. A little later I heard something fall, so I went to check. There was Duncan, sitting on the table beside the bird box. He’d knocked the top off the box and was peering in at the little mound of baby birds who were silently crouched in the corner, playing dead.
In knitting news, I’ve taken up needle felting!
Posted by Zoom! on January 15, 2011, at 9:55 pm |
The baby birds now weigh 58, 52, 52, 48 and 26 grams. The older ones look like full-fledged birds now and are starting to eat crushed pellets, millet, and veggies chopped into impossibly small pieces. They’re also flapping their wings a lot, which means they’ll be flying pretty soon.
Jeebus, while doing better than he was, is still much smaller and younger than his big green siblings. Not only that, but he has splayed legs. They stick out at odd angles. I did a little research and discovered that he requires immediate corrective intervention. Ideally, it should have been done before he was two weeks old, because then the bones start hardening. He’s three weeks old today. I’m hoping that his bones are as developmentally delayed as the rest of him. If I can’t fix his legs, he probably won’t be able to fly. (Well, technically that’s not quite correct. He’d be able to fly but unable to land without crashing, so he’d probably opt not to fly. And he’d be unable to perch, so he’d require cage modifications and a lot of human help.)
I spent part of yesterday fashioning an orthopedic device for him out of an unused kitchen sponge. I cut it down to size, poked two holes in it about an inch apart, and then forced his squirmy, uncooperative little feet through the holes. Other materials were used, too: pipecleaners, gauze, surgical tape. It was very traumatic for both of us. Tears were shed. And an hour later, when I checked on him, he had liberated himself from his orthopedic contraption. I put him back in it several times over the course of the day, with the same results.
Today I bought a package of makeup sponges, which are much denser. I repeated the process. It was even harder to get his poor little feet through the holes. (Baby lovebirds have four toes, two pointing forward and two pointing backward. And their feet are gigantic compared to their bodies and their spindly little legs.)
He hasn’t escaped from the orthopedic makeup sponge yet. But I did find him tipped over on his back and fast asleep, no doubt after much helpless thrashing and flailing about and attempts to right himself. Lovebirds are not fond of being on their backs. He probably passed out eventually from exhaustion, poor little guy. (I’ve since placed him in a small bowl nested with soft kleenex, so he can’t tip over.)
Also? His head is flat, his toenails are clear instead of black, and his beak is kind of funny.
But you can’t help but love him. He’s had such a rough start in life, and I want him to be okay. His siblings include him in everything they do (not that they do much yet), and I often find one or another of them gently cleaning him or pretending to preen him, or tending tenderly to him. I love them for that.
I’m still trying not to get too attached to these little guys.
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