Crazy Daze

Well I went to my parents' and am back again. The trip was good, but very busy and tiring. They're adjusting to the new place better now, though my mom is quite a bit less enthusiastic than my dad. Probably because for him it offers respite while for her it symbolizes her decline. Anyway, we had two delicious meals with them, played pool and enjoyed all the wonderful amenities at the place.

This visit I got to hang out with my niece a bunch as we worked and shared rooms. She's always been a fun kid, but now she's an intriguing young woman with well thought out ideas. We talked late into the nights about all sorts of things. Lovely, but four days of 3am mornings and a 9 hour drive (thanks to two hours of sitting in traffic) took its toll. Ugh... I'm just not as resilient as I used to be! =)

Practicum has been busy too. I've been working four days a week and doing at least one neurospych each week as well. I'm so slow writing them up I feel guilty, but I'm catching on as I gradually see the connections and patterns. Naturally I've ended up with outrageously convoluted cases to cut my teeth on. LOL! Isn't that always how it is? So tomorrow my supervisor leaves for a week of vacation and I'm only doing one day next week, or maybe two partials. Going to finish some scoring and report writing and then practice testing with a fellow student. Looking forward to the break!

In other news, I have had a major upheaval in my home. I met a woman at a pet store a few weeks back and had Gus with me on my shoulder. (He always comes to Petco and picks out his own toy). She and her husband raved about how sweet Gus was and told me I should have their little female Senegal to keep him company. Ok, so that was really weird, and I joked I would only take her if they took my noisy cockatiels. They said yes, and they were totally serious! I laughed it off and said I'd bring Gus to meet their Taranga (they say the name means Karma in Senegalese) and then went my merry way. I did mean that part. Thought it would be fun for him to have a play date.

So Monday my supervisor canceled his client and told me to come in a day later in the week instead, so I went to grab the tiels from boarding (got back from parents on Sunday) and popped by to see these people's place. I'd heard from the people at our mutual vet that they had an amazing aviary and the sweetest birds on Earth, but still I was taken aback by it all. WHAT a place! As it turns out this little sennie gal was disrupting their whole flock. You see they have to amazons named Blue and Red who have been quite bonded for years. When Taranga, the little sennie came along, Blue fell in love with her, which meant that Red kept attacking her and Blue then attacked Red. After two years of endless wrangling, a lost toe for Taranga and a mutilated beak for Red (this little one is formidable to do that to a bird four times her size!) they were at wits end and ready to find her a new home. And along I came...

So they loved the tiels and compared to their amazons didn't consider them loud at all. Gus and Taranga hit it off right away, and she is quite the little sweetie, despite some biting issues when she's feeling territorial. They had just rescued a little budgie from a neighbor child who was abusing it, and insisted I take it too, so I went home with the same number of birds I came with, but different species!

It's not sitting well to have given away my boys. I miss them horribly. Chewie is 11 and George is 9 and I've had them both since they were babies. They're very happy there and I can visit as often as I like, which helps a bunch, but the guilt is still pretty awful. On the other hand, AR is much happier with this new, much quieter flock, and the amazons have stopped pounding on each other and screaming as well. The tiels love their huge new aviary and all the amazing gyms and picture windows in their new home, plus they seem to like their new keepers and are getting lots of head rubs and attention. The budgie is slowly coming out of his/her (not sure of the sex yet, too young) shell and blossoming, so I think it was the right choice. Time will tell.