See that handsome son-of-a-bitch up there in that photo? That one all excited to be huggin’ Minnie Mouse? THAT WILL BE ME, IN LESS THAN TEN HOURS. I AM GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!
See you all on July 1! :D
Whenever I haven’t posted for a long time, I forget that I went to school for five years and I forget that I’m sort of able to connect events (however disparate) together in paragraph form. When this
happens, I write a list.
If you click on the photo, you can see all my notes in Flickr, which are mostly about my spiffy knitting bag in the background and less about the knitting. ;)
And that’s about it. What’s been going on with you?
Because I don’t have anything interesting to report (I’ve been working on homework and research since I got home for break :P), I figured I’d let the beakybird do the talking. And to celebrate Lori’s video debut, a sassy Hedwig icon accompanies this post. :) In case anyone has a hard time figuring out what she’s saying, it’s, “Good girl! Kiss kiss! *mwah! noise*”. I was hoping she’d say a little more, but she saw the camera and apparently has stage fright, because she clammed right up. But, yeah. Enjoy my baby. :)
Is it possible to have spring fever when it’s 15 degrees out and feels like -5? I don’t understand this; it was beautiful on Friday: 60 degrees! I want my spring back, dammit. I spent the morning taping up parts of the wall a/c unit in our bedroom with trash bags and duct tape. It’s WAY too cold in there for me, so poor little Lori-bird must be freezing her beak off. She has a huge twin comforter doubled over the top of her cage, though, so she’s insulated from any drafts. Scott and I, however, had two queen-sized comforters on our bed and we still felt the wind blow, so I gave in and taped up the a/c. It’s actually helping a little; it’s about as warm as the living room now, which is good.
As of tomorrow, I’m on spring break (although it technically doesn’t start until Friday night because I’m working until then). I’m going home to visit my parents for a week, and Scott’s going to join me the following Friday so we can go look at what will hopefully be our new apartment, come July (oh, and this place has central heat and a/c, so no more drafts!). :D But until then, I’m basically going to be doing the same crap in a different place: homework. I have two midterms have I get back from break (on the same day, no less), and I need to hunt down 25 sources on schizophrenia for a paper I have to write. I also have to write a paper based on an article for one of my other classes, and I have to read a 200 page novel by March 19. So much for spring break. It’s more like spring workworkwork, and that’s unfortunate, because I’m at that point where I’m just done. Maybe I’ll feel better if I’m really productive over the break, because then I’ll have my head clear for the two OTHER projects I have to research and write about. I have no idea how I’m going to make it to June. I’m hoping maybe the summer classes are less work than the regular year classes, but somehow, I doubt that.
As you’ve probably guessed, there’s not a whole lot of knitting going on, because of the whole “massive work” thing. I’ve been working on my mom’s never ending gloves, though. I’m about 12 rows from finishing the thumb gusset, then it’s another 24 rows to finish the hand, and then I can put the fingers on and – done! If I don’t have them done before I go home on Friday (and I probably won’t; I won’t really get any extra knitting time beyond what I’m getting on the train today), they’ll be done before I come back here from my parents’. Hallelujah! I promise I’ll take pictures as soon as they’re done. There’s not much point right now; even the first glove only has three fingers, because for some reason I thought it would be better to start the second glove before I completely finished the first. Probably because the fingers take so little time, and the rest of the glove takes…you know…most of your adult life. :P They do look nice, though. But they need blocking.
If I ever finish the gloves, I’m making a felted beret. Not just any beret, though. A Raspberry Beret! I know you know the Prince song. Don’t deny it. ;) It’s classic 80s cheese, and I’ve wanted my own raspberry beret since I was a junior in high school. The last time Scott took me to the yarn store, one of the things he bought me was a skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Fuschia and I knew it would make the perfect Raspberry Beret. So, that said – anybody got a good felted beret pattern?
I canceled Lori’s vet appointment for today. She’s FINE, and clearly I’m a worrier. I woke up this morning and realized that she’d eaten some treat stick and a whole millet spray, and she ate even MORE while I watched her before work. Her nares also look normal. I think the redness is due to her excessively itching her back; all the dander must be getting in her nose. Now, she’s a behavioral feather picker – we had about 15 blood tests run on her in July to rule out any medical problems. Seriously, they did CBC’s, kidney checks, liver checks, girardia tests, avian chlamydia, all sorts of things, and NOTHING. So basically the vets said to make sure to bathe her every day, and try to keep her occupied. Anyway, the picking’s been worse the past couple of days, but I think it might be because the house has been so HOT and her skin’s just dry. I’ve mixed a little liquid aloe in with her bath spray (she won’t bathe herself in a dish of water. She’s a little weird), and we’ll see if that helps. I know birds hide symptoms, but I feel like she’s eating normally, she’s vocalizing normally, her eyes look normal, there’s no clicking/wheezing/tail bobbing, no discharge from her eyes or beak, and…erm…everything else appears normal, so I’m gonna say she had an off-day yesterday and I panicked. I rescheduled her wing/nail trim for Friday, so if anything crops up before then (i.e. if I was wrong and she starts showing symptoms of a cold or something), I can call and see if we can see the doctor instead of doing clippage.
Thanks to everyone that was worried about her. :) I love my little Wubbly birdface.
I made an appointment for the Lori-bird to go to a new vet tomorrow; an AAV-certified vet in Bound Brook, about half an hour from here. She’s due for a wing/beak/nail trim anyhow, but I think she has another cold or a yeast infection. Her little nares look sort of reddish, and I haven’t seen her eat much all day. Just a nibble here and a nibble there, and some throwing of the food to make me think she’s eating. I can’t tell if she’s really sick or having an off day, but I’m not willing to risk it. I’m a little worried about whether I can afford a vet visit, with the holidays coming and all (and NONE of my shopping done!), but I’ll just have to make do. I freak out about money – a LOT – and always worry about whether I have enough, and now I have so many expenses. According to the math, the vet visit and the expenses for the next two weeks (cable/electric bills, train fare, parking, and gas), will spend all of my next paycheck.
That having been said, it’s worth it for the peace of mind that my Lori is alright. I don’t know what her deal is; she seems to be sort of sickly in her “old age”. First the feather plucking (which I’ve resigned myself to – she had a HUGE battery of bloodwork done last summer, and they found no medical cause for it), and in the eight years I’ve had her, during the last two alone, she’s had two colds and a yeast infection. I can’t figure it out. I switched her from a seed diet to pellets, she gets regular baths (which she hates), her cage is regularly cleaned, I make sure her water’s fresh, and this year since we moved, I even put plastic insulator over the window near her cage to make sure no drafts get in. Part of me didn’t want to make the vet appointment, because, well, she’s probably fine and I’m probably a nutter for worrying so much. But then…I just have a feeling that something’s not right with her, particularly because of the lack of eating. Last week she put away an entire treat stick in two days. Today she’s barely touched her treat stick, millet, or pellets. I’m really happy this new vet was able to get her in so quickly; I called and explained the situation and said, “I don’t suppose you have anything for tomorrow?” “We have a 5:00 appointment.” “PERFECT.” I called another place that was closer, and they said it’d be ten days. I guess this is the bonus of having a specific avian vet over a general practitioner that also treats other animals – this guy is purely an exotic vet, and it makes me feel better that he’s avian-certified and listed in their network of vets. And their fees are reasonable. AND their receptionist was really nice when I called, asking me, “What’s the birdie’s name?” and telling me it was good I was a concerned “birdiemom”. I like it when I find vet staff that understand the attachment – some places just go, “Pet’s name? Problem? ‘Kay. Bring it in tomorrow.” Lori’s been part of my life for eight years, and she’s special to me. It makes me feel more at ease with a new vet when I find people that understand that.
So, yeah, wish us luck. :)
So, since my last post, I have:
– Gone to see Lady in the Water with Scott and a bunch of random people, a few of whom I knew, and a good many of which I didn’t. Scott WAS indeed in the party scene – you see him as the scene first opens while the camera’s panning left, and you can get a really good look at it. You also see him once walking behind Paul Giamatti, and a couple of other quick “flash in the pan” type appearances.
– Had my muffler fixed. On the way to Scott’s house last Friday (which is a good hour and a half away), I noticed that my car was awfully loud when it accelerated. “Damn,” I thought. “My car’s loud! I must be badass!” and kept driving. I thought maybe I had my car door open or something and meant to check at the next red light, but in over an hour of driving, I didn’t hit ONE red light. I finally hit one when I got into Toms River (Scott’s town, more or less), and the guy next to me was doing the frantic, “Roll down your window! Quick quick quick!” gesture, so I oblige, thinking he wants directions. Instead, he says, “Um…do you know that your muffler is dangling on the ground?” “Er…no, but that explains SO much. Thank you.” I pulled over quickly into the parking lot of a gas station and sure enough, there’s my muffler. Well, shit. I am not car-savvy, so I called Scott to come get me and my dad to find out what I should do. I was instructed to tie up the muffler, so we went to Wal-Mart in Scott’s car, got 20 gauge wire, and Scott donned a trashbag skirt and poncho to fix the offending muffler. We got it tied up, to the house, and then got ourselves to the movie theatre for Lady in the Water with fifteen minutes to spare. We took it to PepBoys the next day to have it fixed, where they told me that it had rusted off at the exhaust gasket, and it would be about $110 to fix (my dad was expecting them to have to replace the muffler, and had estimated about $700, so $110 was a blessing). When I looked at the bill, I noticed that the parts only cost $17.96, but the labor was $85. That was almost enough to make me wanna learn how to do it myself.
– Took Lori back to the vet for her throat culture recheck. While we were waiting, this young guy came in with his little dog, Scrappy, a Yorkie/Chihuahua/Schnauzer mix. She was adorable. While I was busy playing with her, this other guy came in, carrying something on his hip. When I realized what it was, I went, “Oh, dear god!” – it was an iguana. A four-foot long iguana, and he was carrying it like a small child, with the iguana’s back legs wrapped around the guys waist and his little iguana-clawy arms up around the guy’s neck. He held it with one arm and filled out paperwork with the other. I couldn’t help myself – I had to ask the guy how he got the lizard to the vet’s, since he obviously didn’t have a carrier. When he said he’d buckled him into the passenger seat, I about died. On the way out, he asked what kind of bird Lori was and told me that he considered getting a bird but decided they were “too complicated”. I really had to wonder how a man with a four-foot iguana on his lap could think that a teeny bird was too complicated. Anyway, Lori’s test results will be back in a few days, so I’m supposed to keep a watch on her (and keep her on the meds) until we get the culture results back from the lab.
It’s been a while since my last post, and with good reason – I have been so horrifically busy. I took my first and only final (Developmental Psychopathology) on Monday and I feel pretty good about it. Tuesday, the 2nd, was my 22nd birthday, so Scott and I came back home to go to The Philly Zoo, which was fun as always. :) I have pictures, but they’re on Scott’s camera. I’m going to try to get him to offload them this week, because they came out pretty good (Amanda, there are some elephant ones we took for you!). Later that night, it was back to the house for cake and presents. :) I got a lot of good stuff, including Killer Bunnies Violet Expansion (this is THE most addicting card game known to man. Really. I’ve gotten 20 people hooked since Christmas) and the Killer Bunnies Hare E. Potter shirt, which came with a bonus card! I also got $25 cash, $25 iTunes giftcard, Dead Like Me Season 2, and Super Mario World Advance (remember the game that came out with the SNES? This is it, only for the GBA!). Last but not least, I got Harvest Moon: Magical Melody (and bonus plush sheepie!), and its game guide. I was excited about this one; I have every game in the Harvest Moon series. I’ve been obsessively carting my GameCube between my apartment and my parents’ house so I can play.
Friday I went to Columbia to see Teachers’ College, where I’ll be starting my Master’s in September. TC is actually four blocks up from Columbia main, which I was a little disappointed about, but apparently, TC used to be its own school until Columbia bought it, which explains why they have their own campus. TC campus is a little odd; it’s basically one main building (with I think two others) that’s divided up into 7 “Halls,” and they’re all interconnected, but you can go outside to get to them if you’d like. Not as sprawling or as pretty as actual Columbia, but it still has that old hallowed Ivy feel to it, and all the technology is up to date. The building even has its own five-story library! On top of that, my TC/Columbia ID gets me into all 21 (!!!) of Columbia main’s libraries. Woah.
I’ll admit, I was petrified to go into Harlem by myself, but the Morningside Heights are of Harlem, where Columbia is (along with TC, Barnard, and two seminary schools, all Columbia affiliates) is beautiful! I came up from the subway and thought I wasn’t even in Manhattan anymore. Green everywhere! Not a lot of people, and the streets were quiet, instead of filled with the usual NY noise. I felt safer there than I ever did in, say, Times Square. I just loved it, and I’m really glad I’ll be going there in the fall. :) I found out that a good number of TC’s doctoral students this year also did the MA at Columbia, and that 5 to 6 of their classes counted toward the Ph.D. as well. It does freak me out a little, though, that I get my ID, email, and advisor the week before classes start and that registration campus-wide is the day before classes begin. Eeek. Gives me more time to figure out what I want to take, I guess. *shrugs*
I’m home now for a dentist appointment and meeting with my coordinator at the temp agency to see about getting me a job for the summer. Then it’s back up to school for packing Tuesday, househunting with Scott on Wednesday, relaxing on Thursday, graduation (!!!) and packing on Friday, and moving (*rejoices*) out of the apartment on Saturday. :) I also need to call the vet about Lori; she’s still feather picking and the Clomicalm’s not helping. I’ve read that with some birds you can’t cure the plucking, but you can manage it, and I think that’s what’s going to have to happen with Fuzzlebeak over here.
I can’t wait for summer! :)
