outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- peekaboo This isn't what I should be doing right now, but shush. Too long, is what it's been. I know. It hasn't been at the top of my list. It hasn't really been on the list at all. However, I'm not the Kind of Girl who Blows Off Friends or Forgets Her Roots or, let's see, are there any other cliches I can toss in here? Some eulogies are in order. First, my sweet stupid wacky macky daddy-o bird who did, in fact, quite literally, fly away. This was what that unintentionally cryptic last entry was about. (sorrowful sigh) I never talked too much about the bird in here, I don't think, but it was a one-of-a-kind I tell you now. Those of you who met Bird can attest to this. It had the grace of a hippopotamus, the pissing-off factor of a Republican homophobic televangelist, the beauty of Michelangelo's David, and the attitude of Queen Latifah on speed, all at the uninspiring height of approximately 6 inches. Rob and I crossed the country with the Bird in the backseat, an experience it did not enjoy in the least. After the sun set it would be dark in the car, meaning "sleepy sleep" to birdies, and you could hear its little squawks of protest if the car went over an unbalancing bump or a tippy-over bend. Thus, the bird spent much of the nighttime segments of the trip perched on a friendly shoulder or, perhaps, seated in the fuzzy up-sticking hair of the driver's head. How to explain this to a snarly officer should the small bird fly into driver's eyes and cause a vehicular malfunction? Luckily, it never came to that. Now that Rob was living with us full time, the Bird experienced a good deal more of the free living it later became accustomed to. Rob is far less inclined than I to allow the Bird to spend hours of quiet time fighting with the plastic clown that hangs (still) from the top of the cage. So Bird spreads its metaphorical and actual wings and gets to liking this cageless experience. And disliking having to return to it at any whim of mine, like, for example, when we are trying to leave the apartment. To be fair, though, it was quite content to hang out on top of Rob's bathroom's medicine cabinet mirror door and just chill for hours unattended. But that didn't make its head-circling behavior while I swatted at it and tried to leave any less annoying. Unfortunately, it all came to a head one fateful afternoon shortly before my birthday. Rob and I had to get to campus, Bird refused to be put away, I have an "oh forget it" moment, equivalent to a "let's overlook all the basic rules of bird safety" moment, and the bird goes flying out the door. Gasp! It actually didn't look too hopeless at first, because it flew into the tree just outside our bedroom window and tweeted there for about an hour just out of arm's reach. But it ignored my coaxing until I had to leave, and by the time Rob returned from dropping me off, it was gone. I whistled for it until sundown; I whistled for it at sunrise. But nobody answered. I still really miss my little bird. I was inconsolable for the first few days, then I felt angry and betrayed interspersed occasionally by superficial acceptance. I'm mostly over it now, but I do wish I knew if it was still alive or not. It's possible for parakeets to live in this environment; according to my Biosphere prof, there are several living out happy lives in her backyard. But my bird, as those of you who met it know, did not have the best survival skills. Case in point: it almost drowned trying to join Rob in the shower one day. It spent an hour shivering in its cage after I fished it out. Then two days later, it tried joining Rob in the shower again. More sadness to come. My sister gave me two baby turtles for Christmas this year. A couple of red-eared sliders named Rinky and Dinky (yes, I'm incredibly clever). No one in the family knew how to take care of the turtles, and they were not born into the most nurturing environment (Chinatown, illegal vendor), and thus they were not terribly healthy. They spent the trip to Arizona in a small amphibian lagoon on the floor of the passenger's side, and looking back on that now it occurs to me that that was probably a less than good idea. It was the best I could do at the time. Anyway, one of my turtles was at death's door by the time we'd been in Arizona a few weeks. Compared to the other baby turtle, who was a spitfire, as turtles go, he was a sad, blind and lethargic wee creature. As it turns out, he was suffering from pneumonia. Yes, it seems obvious now as I consider how he spent the five day drive from Massachusetts to Arizona. Anyway, the doc, who thought he was going to die right there on the table, gave him a vitamin shot (he was severely malnourished) and put him on an antibiotics regimen. Rob and I nursed him back to health, and he was doing really great for a while there. I still never saw him eat on his own though. After he finished his prescription he started looking unhealthy again. We made him another appointment with the vet and brought him in. That day at the vet, he looked, I'm telling you...stupendous. The vet actually thought he was his healthy brother, who we left at home. He was running around the lagoon, had his eyes open (a rare event because of the malnutrition) and just generally looked like a healthy turtle who didn't need no stinking vet. And then the next day, he died. I have no idea why. And I harbor a lot of guilt about it because I figure it must have been something I done, either giving him his medicine or his vitamin or something. And it was probably my fault that he was sick in the first place. In any case, it was very sad when he died. I felt so awful. He was so tiny. (sigh) Rinky, his healthy brother, is still fine. He has he run of the aquarium and occasionally, the run of the apartment. We took him to LA with us over spring break, and he had the run of the "mansion" where we stayed with my uncles too. He's doing fine. He doesn't trust me though. Can't blame him. It's getting noisy in here. Stupid undergrads! No matter, I have class in 45 minutes anyway. I just wanted to get that all off my chest, and tell you guys that I haven't been reading diaries at all. I've missed everything that's happened in the past three months, so if you want to direct me to some particularly exemplary entries of yours, or catch me up in an email, or anything you think of, I'd be most grateful. There's no way I can read all the stuff I've missed so far. I need Cliffnotes. I should take off. Put my stupid hurty shoes back on and skeedaddle. I'll be around if you need me, even if I'm quiet, so drop me a line. (bow) 2:48 p.m. - 2003-03-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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