Posted by Zoom! on September 6, 2010, at 2:55 pm |
Female and male eclectus parrots
This is a pair of Eclectus parrots. The red one is the female, and the green one is the male. I want one. I think about them all day and I dream about them at night. They’re great talkers, they’re gorgeous and they have really nice personalities. You can’t ask a whole lot more than that from any bird.
I know some of you are wondering how Duncan would feel about living with a parrot. No problem – Duncan’s just as obsessed with birds as I am!
The very first thing he wants to do every morning after he wakes me up is go to the bird room. He used to like going to the kitchen first, but now it’s the bird room. He jumps up on my desk, right next to the bird cage, and watches the baby lovebirds. And they adore him. They race across the cage to greet him. They peck at his fur. They have absolutely no fear of him, which is charmingly naive of them.
I allow him in the bird room only when the birds are in the cage and only when I’m supervising from an inch away. Duncan tries really hard to curb his predator instincts. As soon as his tail gets too twitchy or he tries to stick a paw in there, he’s instantly banished from the room. My hope is that he’ll spend enough time with them and learn enough self-restraint, that eventually he’ll get bored with them.
I’ve been letting Duncan go outside a little bit lately. Just for a few minutes at a time, and only when I can keep an eye on him. Last night he traveled over to the neighbour’s garden. GC scooped him up and was lugging him back home when a car stopped and an old man rolled down his window and said “Good lord, that’s a big cat!”
It’s funny, you know, I don’t really think of him as such a big cat anymore, especially since he lost a few pounds. However, I do still think of all the other cats I meet as small. And I guess if strangers pull over for a closer look when they see him, maybe he is a big cat.
An Eclectus is a lot bigger and tougher than a baby lovebird, but a lot smaller than Duncan. Nevertheless, I suspect the Eclectus would very quickly teach Duncan to back off. Size matters, but it’s not everything.
Many, many years ago, I lived in a bachelor apartment with my son’s father. A friend of his came over late one night with two amazon parrots in a cage. I think he had robbed a pet store. He asked us to look after the parrots until he found a buyer, which turned out to be a few weeks. We had two tomcats at the time and I was a little worried that the cats would hurt the parrots. But my fears were very short lived. The birds immediately established their dominance and from that moment forward, the tomcats gave the cage a very wide berth. (Those birds were so cool. Between the two of them they could sound like an entire pet store – cats meowing, dogs barking, puppies playing, canaries singing, cash registers ringing, etc.)
Posted by Zoom! on September 4, 2010, at 10:10 am |
Did you hear about that doctor in California who tried to break into her boyfriend’s house by going down his chimney? She got wedged in there, about two feet from the bottom, and died of asphyxiation. She wasn’t found until a few days later when she started to smell.
I can’t stop thinking about it. What a horrible way to die. What a bizarre thing to do. Maybe not if you’re a drunk, hot-headed 18 year old kid, but it does seem a little odd for a 49 year old female doctor.
Many years ago, I used to know this guy, Little Peter. (He hated that nickname, but he couldn’t shake it because he was little and his name was Peter.) He was in his early 20s, and he was obsessed with winning back his ex-girlfriend, who had dumped him.
She moved to Toronto to get away from him. He moved to Toronto. She moved back to Ottawa. He moved back to Ottawa. She rented an apartment. He got the job as superintendent of her apartment building. She moved to another apartment building. He climbed up to her balcony, many floors up, with wild roses clenched between his teeth. She moved to an apartment with no balconies. He climbed the brickwork to her 2nd-floor apartment, clinging to the bricks with his fingertips. He peered in the window and saw her with another man. His heart dropped out of his chest and he fell to the ground. Fortunately for him, the good Lord takes care of drunks, and he was uninjured enough to get a can of paint and write in giant letters on Bronson Avenue, in front of her apartment, “I LOVE YOU DIANE.” (I saw it the next day, after many cars had driven through the wet paint, and it looked like he’d been stuttering.)
I can’t remember the specific incident which led to Little Peter’s arrest. After his release from jail a couple of days later, he showed up at my place with this really angry raw wound on his neck. He had tried to hang himself in jail.
“Peter,” I said, “Maybe you should leave her alone.”
I could tell from his clipped words and the tight expression on his face that the mere suggestion of leaving her alone angered him.
Leaving her alone didn’t seem to be an option for him anymore. Initially he’d thought he could win her back by showing her how much he loved her. But in the process he had crossed the line and become a full-fledged stalker. It was his full-time job; he was obsessed. And he was forcing her into the role of full-time stalkee. He was forcing her to be obsessed with him. She had to be vigilant 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No matter where she hid, he kept finding her. She must have felt like she was living in a horror movie.
Eventually – after about two or three years – Little Peter did let go and stopped stalking her.
(But 10 years later, when I saw her pushing a baby carriage in the west end, she said “Please don’t tell Peter that you saw me.” She was still afraid.)
They don’t all move on. I read about some guy right here in Ottawa who just got convicted of harassing a woman for seven years (to the tune of hundreds of phone calls a day) because he was obsessed with her calves. And then there’s that guy who has been banned from the entire city of Regina because he has been stalking a woman there for 35 years.
I’ve experienced harassment from an ex-boyfriend. It consisted mostly of incessant phone calls and angry emails and suicide threats. But it only lasted a few weeks. I can’t even imagine how awful it would be to live like that for years.
How about you? Have you ever stalked or been stalked?
Posted by Zoom! on September 2, 2010, at 8:59 am |
I came across my grade 6 class picture a couple of days ago. I’m not in it for some reason. But as I looked from one student to the next, and remembered their names, each was accompanied by a short flash of memory.
John Shaw: even though he grew up on a farm, he was convinced chocolate milk came from brown cows. Danny Manship: my first kiss. Darlene Yuck: my only enemy. Barbara D: my best friend.
I saw her once, after we’d both grown up. She looked me up and we met for coffee. She told me that she’d gotten pregnant at 16, and she and her boyfriend got married. When she went into labour he took her to the hospital in Arnprior and, as her labour progressed, he began to panic. By the time they reached the delivery room, he was saying things like “Oh my god, I never wanted to get married, I never wanted a wife and kid, what have I done, oh my god, oh my god oh my god!”
Finally the obstetrician looked him in the eye and said “Look, if you can’t be more helpful than that, then get out.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.
He left.
Barbara never saw him again.
A few days later, the obstetrician felt so bad about having inadvertently delivered the death blow to the marriage, he invited Barbara and her infant son to come live with him and his wife until she got back on her feet.
She stayed with them for six months, then struck out on her own, determined to make a fresh start in life.
She left Arnprior and moved to Ottawa. She cut all ties with her very odd family. She changed both her first and last names to something of her own choosing. She got an apartment and a job. She raised her child.
I wonder how she’s doing now. If I could remember the new name she chose for herself, I’d look her up right now and ask her.
Here it is, already Monday again. That was one fast weekend.
I did laundry and housework and played with the birds and read on Saturday. On Sunday, GC and I made a good dent in fixing the front steps. He did the carpentry while I did the cement work. It has to be finished by the day after tomorrow. I’ve cemented all the easier holes and cracks. Now I just have to do the deeper ones. This could be a problem, since you’re supposed to let the cement cure for 24 hours after every half-inch layer. I have one crack that’s pretty deep. I think what I’m going to do is duct-tape that crack so I don’t have to worry about the depth. Then I’ll put a thin layer of cement over the duct tape.
Originally I was planning to buy bags of cement and a cement mixer, but then we went to Home Depot and discovered a bag of cement weighs a ton and a cement mixer costs $649. So GC and I checked out all the guys who work at Home Depot and picked the one we thought looked most knowledgeable, and asked him what we should do. He turned us on to the easy $37 solution. All we had to buy was a 5 kg bucket of stuff and two trowels. (The duct tape was my own idea.)
After we’d put in a couple hours work, I insisted we knock off and go to the Museum of War to see the Camouflage exhibit and the World Press Photo 10 exhibit. The Camouflage exhibit is only here til next weekend, so if you’ve been meaning to see it, it’s time. The photo exhibit is in the lobby, so you don’t even have to pay to see it. A lot of the photos are extraordinarily evocative. If you don’t feel like feeling some intense feelings, don’t go. (I’m glad I went.) (UPDATE: Oops, I just realized that yesterday was the final day of the exhibit, so you can’t go even if you do feel like feeling some intense feelings.)
Speaking of camouflage, did you read about that missing woman whose husband found her body four months after her disappearance? It was in the house they lived in, under a pile of hoarded junk. The police had even gone through the house with search dogs who hadn’t found her. Can you imagine the state that house must have been in for a decomposing body not to be found for four months, even by police dogs? This story made me feel virtuous about my own housekeeping standards.
I have to go cook some oatmeal for my birds now. I’ll leave you with cats trying to figure out a treadmill.
I’ve always read the obituaries, ever since I was a little girl. Some people think it’s morbid, but I don’t.
It’s not so much about looking for people I know, though there’s an element of that, of course. It’s mostly about gleaning what I can from the encapsulation of a person’s life in such a small block of text. It’s about pondering the questions that emerge from the gleaning.
For instance: “Dad is survived by his wife, his nine children, his 26 grandchildren, his nine great-grandchildren, and the many women in his life that he loved and cared for.”
That intrigues me.
Or sometimes there’s an idea for a story. A few days ago I read an obituary for a woman who had eight daughters and no sons, which left me thinking about the various ways that could have played out, depending on the personalities involved. Did she and her husband end up with so many kids because they kept trying “one last time” for a son? Were the births of their daughters met with joy, or with disappointment? Was it a big happy bubbly girl family, or a simmering stew of resentment?
Occasionally an obituary will betray dysfunctional family dynamics: “He will be sadly missed by his loving step-sons, Mark and Andrew. Also leaves a son.”
Sometimes I read about a person and wish I’d known them. “He passionately taught his children and grandchildren about everything from attire to fishing lures, and instilled in them his life-long values of integrity, humility, acceptance, and caring.”
I like obits that go beyond the basics, and include a few quirks or qualities about the person. “Don rejoiced at the invention of the Post-it Note and carried with him at all times his Letts Diary, including a fold-out list of past events – some four decades’ worth – in 6 point font.”
Lately it has become the standard to include a photograph of the person in the obituary. I wonder who chooses the photographs. Family members? Or the dying person? And why do they so often choose a photo taken when they were much younger? A few days ago there was a picture of a young woman of perhaps 20, accompanying the obituary of a 93-year-old great-great-grandmother. Is it because she wanted to be remembered as young and attractive? Or is it because she doesn’t really feel like that old person she became?
Sometimes something just strikes me as funny. Like last week when I read the obituary of a woman who had been predeceased by her husband, Harold Assman. Harry Assman! Ha ha ha ha ha.
(I shouldn’t laugh. Death isn’t funny.)
Anyway. Does anybody else out there love the obituaries?
I subscribe to a couple of job notification thingies, which send me daily emails letting me know about job openings in Ottawa. Every day for the past couple of weeks, this job has appeared in that email:
Witer/Administor/Communications
I don’t qualify, since I’m not fluently bilingual, but I’m tempted to contact them and offer my services as a proofreader.
What else is new? Well. I’ve been trying hard to find someone to patch my cement steps. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve contacted about ten contractors, and only one of them has submitted an estimate. Two have not inspired any confidence, and the others have either not returned my calls, or they’ve said they’re too busy to do it, or they only want to tear it down and replace it (which would be a reasonable thing if my neighbour, with whom I share the porch, were willing and able to share the costs at this time, which he is not).
The one contractor who did submit an estimate wants $966 (plus 13% HST) to do it.
I’ve pretty much decided to do it myself, which apparently will cost about $50. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to last forever, it just has to pass the City’s inspection. The City’s interest is safety – the Inspector told me they don’t want anybody to catch a heel in the cracks and break her leg. (I pointed out that nobody ever visits me in high heels, but he seemed unmoved by that argument.)
Anyway. I’ll be willing to consider more elegant and permanent solutions when my neighbour is ready to act…which should be soon, since he’s going to be facing a court order from the City any day now.
The only other thing I’ve been thinking about, besides birds, finding work, and fixing my steps, is that weird Justin Bieber kid. What’s so special about him? Why do all the girls like him so much?
I’m completely enchanted by my baby birds. I want to spend all my time playing with them and teaching them tricks and cuddling them and feeding them and just watching them as they learn new things.
I know it’s a cliche, but they really are growing up so fast. They’re five weeks old now. Already they can fly and two of them are weaned. Baby Oboe still likes his formula, but Piccolo and Banjo are big kids now. They eat big-kid food.* When they’re not eating or sleeping, they build forts out of baby towels, and play hide-and-seek, and swing on the swing.
Just last week Banjo had a major baby-bird crush on me. He’d come running whenever I came into the room and he’d climb the cage to be at my eye level. He’d beg for me to pick him up and cuddle him. He’d push the other babies away from me because he wanted me all to himself. He adored me. It was very sweet and I have to admit I was flattered.
This week? He’s got no time for childish crushes. Sometimes I walk into the room and he doesn’t even acknowledge me. I swear he sometimes rolls his eyes when I call his name. (But if I pick him up and go lie down with him, he’ll snuggle into my neck and fall asleep. Sometimes he practically purrs.)
Little Oboe was depressed for awhile there because the other two were sitting up on the high perch while he was still grounded on the floor of the cage. He hung his sad little head and huddled against the bars looking profoundly depressed. I let him come downstairs and sit on my shoulder and help me make a pizza. That cheered him up. And now, just a few days later, he sits up on the high perches too.
You know how I am with new hobbies. I tend to get a little carried away. I’m reading everything I can about birds, and checking out all the different kinds of birds and subscribing to Bird Talk and ordering bird toys online and getting ready to join the local bird groups and marking upcoming bird shows on the calendar and researching local breeders. I want to start an aviary and breed all kinds of birds.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with my babies. They’ll be ready for adoption in two weeks. I think Kathleen still wants one, and the Elgin Street Irregulars ought to consider having an Official Bird. (Maybe Oboe. He’s the Third Bird, which would fit well with their Fourth Dwarf.)
I’d like to keep one baby for myself, but I don’t know which one. They all have such distinct personalities and I adore them all.
By the way, the webcam is still on during the days, but not for much longer.
I’ve read a few articles over the years about how the Internet rewires our brains. It actually causes physical changes in our brains. Adaptations. I’ve been online since 1989. That’s 21 years. And I’m not a light user, either. I’m a seriously committed, heavy-duty, addicted user. I don’t find it a stretch at all to think that the Internet has physically altered my brain and the way I process information and think.
These are not subtle changes, either. I’ve actually noticed them in myself. For instance, it’s much harder for me to concentrate on dense or complex material now. I used to like nothing better than to sink my teeth into really meaty material. But now I seem to prefer to get information in a much easier, faster, and more superficial way. I click and scan, click and scan, click and scan. What sinks in, sinks in. If I miss something, it doesn’t matter, because there are a million more fragments of information streaming past me. I just grab whatever’s easiest. As Nicholas Carr says, “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”
But it feels like such a lazy way of learning. I can pick up bite-sized pieces of information this way, but it’s getting harder and harder to stretch my brain to really truly think about anything.
I also interrupt myself constantly – and allow others to do the same – while on the net. Some people call this multi-tasking. At this moment, for example, I have 15 tabs open in Firefox, plus multiple menu and tool bars, and several other programs. The instant my attention flags, I’m elsewhere. I also have pop-up notifications to let me know when a new email arrives, which is literally about every five minutes, and I always at least peek immediately to see who it’s from. In the bottom right-hand corner of my screen, I get little pop-ups from Twitter, letting me know who’s saying what out there. I always scan these, and I frequently click on the links they’re sharing.
My short-term memory is deteriorating too. I’ll give you an example. It’ll occur to me to google something – I don’t know – maybe healthy foods for baby birds. But in the instant it takes to think this thought and move my cursor up to the google search box, I’ll have scanned two tweets and forgotten what it was I was going to google. This happens a lot. I can’t seem to stay focused long enough to get anything done. No problem. I’ll just do something else instead. I think I’ve acquired attention deficit disorder.
Carr’s article also pointed out that other forms of media had to change in response to the way the Internet was changing the way we think.
“As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets.”
In other words, because the Internet is dumbing us down, everything else has to dumb itself down too, so we can understand it.
Anyway. I still love the Internet, even if it is making me stupid.
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