Tag cockatoo

Birds and Beds

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

So this morning while I was cuddling Nala, she slipped off my shoulder, and of all things, she grabbed my full, fresh, hot cup of coffee.

She pulled it off the table and spilled it in my bed and all over my carpet.

Then she was very mad at me for letting her fall.

I cleaned up the coffee, removing the soiled blanket. I started keeping an older blanket on my bed in case Nala has an accident. I never meant in case she spilled a cup of coffee.

Before I finish the tale of bedding and coffee, I have to tell you I am very worried about Nala plucking. She’s really stripped the edges of her wings. I try to relieve her anxiety and keep her entertained, but she has really regressed the last two weeks.

And that upsets me. She’s a lovely bird.

But now, my room smells heavily of coffee. While I enjoy a good cup of coffee, old coffee smell in my room is gross.

So I was just scrubbing my rug with a towel and some Johnson’s lavender baby soap “finding” and attacking the smell.

A friend heard me tell the tale and asked if I had enough bedding to keep myself warm. Oh, but do I!

I have on the bottom of my bed, my electric blanket usually on high.

Next I have my vibrant pink sheets with the big white polka dots. They aren’t as soft as my white sheets with the pink and orange confetti but they are so happy.

I love polka dots.

Love, love, love.

Let’s see… next is my 12-pound weighted blanket with the super fuzzy pale grey duvet cover. It’s only a throw so it’s not quite big enough for my liking. But I got it significantly on sale.

I had borrowed my neighbor’s blanket, and I think she has the 18-pound. Now I’m 130 lbs so technically the 18-pound is way too heavy for me, but I liked it.

If I’m honest, sometimes that blanket was so heavy, and the way it rested against my body, I could almost imagine it was the weight of a man against me.

That was the nicest part of the 18-lb versus the 12-pound weighted blanket.

And on top of that is my fairly standard queen duvet with a gleaming yellow duvet cover. With flowers. The other side is gray paisley. When I bought it I wanted it for the paisley, but it turned out I thought the paisley was lackluster and I love the screaming yellow.

But that’s not all.

I also have this odd, really really thick custom-made jersey blanket from my mother-in-law. She crafted it for me as a Christmas present as she knows I am always cold. She picked colors to match my vivid pink and bright teal bedroom.

And on top of that, I have the throw blanket my husband bought me as a Christmas present months before our marriage ended. He bought the teen and I the same throw. It’s soft and so fuzzy it feels like you are petting a cat. It reminds me of my deceased cat, Zoot.

Zoot is the cat in the back. This photo is probably 5 years old. Oz is in the front. Opie, in the middle, still has 4 legs. And Zoot is probably about 15. She looks old.

An average day

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

This will be a walk through my day today, a tad random, a tad sporadic.

This will include lots of silly animal posts.

But let’s start with my alarm at 6 a.m. I let myself sleep in because my rest has been irregular. I’ve had mild bouts of insomnia brought on by stress and hormones so it was hard to get out of bed.

A French Dream

I woke from a dream I don’t quite fully remember but I remember when the alarm sounded, I was dreaming that I had reached the end of some sort of tour, while on a trip, and was ordering alcoholic beverages for everyone in my party in French. I think I was the only person who spoke French. And I really was speaking French. I don’t usually speak French in dreams.

Perhaps this stems from my executive director eating a vegetable sandwich on a croissant at the networking event we attended last night.

Speaking of work, today started better and I feel a little less discombobulated about my job. I have an important report due Friday and three grants I need to have ready by Valentine’s Day.

Then the high school called.

An automated message informed me that my child was not in school. Text to teenager, who left at 7:15 with a heavy backpack. “You in school?”

No response.

(A sign that she is in school and not on her phone.)

“The school just called. They don’t think you’re there.”

She responds. “Sh*t. I must have forgotten to sign in.”

I tell her to fix that and to text me a photo from the school office holding today’s newspaper. She didn’t respond to my comment, though she did tell me she talked to the attendance office.

I had lunch with a friend who always lightens my spirit and has intelligent conversation. I’ve worked so many hours this week, I need to remember to make these connections.

And you always need those friends who give good hugs. A friend who bakes brownies is also good.

The afternoon went quickly and I decided my teenager and I would have a picnic. I took the leftover pizza from last night and a big old salad and we ate it on my bed with all the animals out, normally (to my chagrin) the kittens are locked in my teenager’s room.

Menagerie tales

So the kittens ran through the whole house, up and down the stairs, up and down the hall.

And, of course, Nala, the cockatoo, refused to eat salad in favor of pizza. Video of Nala eating pizza

Then I hung laundry and watched Opie, our 3-legged cat, play with the kittens.

Videos:

Misty attacks Opie

Opie and the kittens

My sore arm and the gym

I opted not to go to the gym as I’m still not sure I’ve recovered my strength. That fall scared me. A lot.

(See Grit and getting published on The Mighty.)

I have noticed my right arm has that vaguely sore feeling like after you get an inoculation. I couldn’t figure out why. Then I remembered, I fell on that arm. And I also noticed a bruise on my elbow. And a new bruise and scratch on my leg.

Finally

After teenager and I gathered the trash, I hopped in the shower. I found the teen “trapped” on my bed with an Oz on her back.

And now I’m drinking a double stiff mug of Traditional Medicinals Nighty Nite Valerian tea.

Household update

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The kittens still eat as if they don’t know when their next meal will be.

I gave Nala a shower today to evaluate the extent of her plucking. She spent most of the day with me. I even let her have a small piece of Cool Ranch Dorito. She liked that.

I went to Petco and used my $10 off $30 coupon. Bought Nala a perch she hopefully can’t eat and some more parrot food.

I worked myself to exhaustion doing chores today. And had a big bag of Doritos and two slices of ring bologna for dinner.

I did chores all day and the house doesn’t seem cleaner. It still looks gross.

Let’s see if I can recap.

  • I cleaned the kitchen/bathroom cat box.
  • I ran the dishwasher. Did the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher.
  • Cleaned bird cages.
  • Fed all the animals.
  • Gave the cockatoo a shower.
  • Scrubbed the tub.
  • Tried to unclog the drain. This became a laborious process.
  • Went grocery shopping.
  • Put the groceries away.
  • Folded laundry and put clothes away.
  • Vacuumed my bedroom.
  • Cleaned the roomba.
  • Stripped my bed.
  • Remade my bed.
  • Did a load of linens.
  • Hung the linens to dry.
  • Unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.
  • Scrubbed the kitchen sink.
  • Gathered all of the newspapers for the birds.
  • Organized my tax paperwork (my last W2 came so now I’m stressing about doing my taxes).
  • Went to the pet store.
  • Fed all four cats.

My soft heart

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

It’s almost 10 pm.

Sobaka has gone home, so I am alone in my bed.

I’ve had a long hard week month. But I know next month will be easier.

I closed Nala and the budgies alone in my room when I went to work, started Sesame Street to keep Nala company and made the decision not to come home for lunch because I can only stay 10 to 15 minutes and that might cause more confusion and anxiety than it prevents.

And Nala seemed fine when I got home but she may be missing a few more neck feathers. I adopted the bird version of a “cutter.”

The teenager had some friends over, and I agreed to drive one of them home. I retrieved Nala after work and introduced her.

But Sobaka got jealous, barked a lot and so when I tried to put Nala on the dishwasher, Nala bit me, hard. I flinched, that’s the best way I can describe it and Nala almost fell off me. We were both disoriented and I felt terrible for not alleviating Nala’s distress.

We had tea together as I did some kitchen chores and then I brought Nala up to the quiet bedroom, leaving the dog with the teenagers.

Harry Belafonte’s “Angelina”didn’t even brighten her mood and that’s her favorite song.

And then I played a trick on her. About 7 pm, I started watching Gordon Ramsay in my room in the dark hoping Nala would fall asleep before I needed to chauffeur the high school children.

At 7:30, I left the iPad playing and crept out of the room in the dark. Nala yelled for me, but I had to go. When I returned an hour later, she didn’t hear me come in the front door. I think she went to sleep!

As if my soft heart doesn’t have enough to deal with, YouTube has been suggesting I watch a video of a kitten name Smurf who was given to a dog as a chew toy. My daughter watched it, and assured me it had a happy ending but I couldn’t endure it.

It just makes me ask again and again why people are so selfish and cruel.

And I said to my beautiful daughter, “That’s why I don’t want to separate those kittens. They are siblings. They deserve to be together.”

She tells me again that the latest kitten (whom we call “Fog”) is terrified of her and that her friend will be the best home. That we can’t afford and don’t need four cats.

She’s right.

But they are cute babies and I want to be sure they have a good and happy life.

Pout.

Nala helps around the house

Angel Ackerman 9 Comments

When Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo about to turn four, is a good bird, I let her sit on the dishwasher and drink herbal tea while I make supper.

Today I made her cinnamon tea. She kept taking the tea bag out, I kept putting it back in. I made myself a mug of lemon tea.

While I unloaded the dishwasher, she took her tea bag out of her mug. When I didn’t put in back, she picked it up and dropped it in my mug.

I put it back in her mug and moved my mug.

Then she jumped into the dishwasher!

Oh Nala!

For dinner, the teenager and I had tuna sandwiches. I mixed up the tuna with light ranch dressing, mayo, some seasonings and a heap of cooked spinach from which I had pressed out the water. I toasted some almost stale buns under the broiler, heated the tuna a bit too and served with avocado.

I also enjoyed a glass of wine that I almost couldn’t get the cork!

Housework Saturday

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I woke up at 6 this morning, but laid in bed for a while afraid to wake the birds.

I opened the curtains for them slightly before 8. Here is a glimpse of them in the pink nightlight. Good morning, Birds

I fed the cats, the birds, made coffee, put in laundry and hung wash before making a giant hot pocket for breakfast.

Ham, spinach, scrambled egg, homemade mozzarella.

I cut some cantaloupe. The teenager had a mango.

Then I did dishes. A second load of wash. Vacuumed the kitchen, living room and half the dining room. And the furniture.

I washed the living room and kitchen floor.

Picked up the teenager’s stuff and moved furniture.

Then I stopped to visit the kitten. Which the third kitten has returned. If the neighbors catch it, we have a former neighbor interested in it. But she is going on vacation with Sobaka’s mom so then we would get to foster Misty’s sibling!

Sobaka might be here in as little as an hour. I need to shower but I also need to rest.

I watched an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word last night and an episode of 24 Hours: To Hell and Back. His original BBC show and his current one.

Perhaps one day soon I’ll do an essay on my new obsession.

[Do whatever it is] everyday

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Good morning, world. I love morning, as long as dawn is breaking. Every morning is a clean slate.

I’ve been thinking about my efforts recently to blog regularly, which reinforces to me my own voice as I deal with various struggles but it also attests to the power of habit.

Exercise: same thing. It doesn’t matter how ‘hard’ you exercise in the beginning because the true goal is to incorporate the habit as an automatic part of your life.

Same for artists that paint everyday. Same for meditation.

Life is about discipline as much as it is about improvement and skill.

That constitutes my philosophy for the day.

Update on Nala

I originally would wake Nala shortly before 6 a.m. when I turned on my pink bedroom light and started getting ready for work. I would bring her downstairs while I fed the cats and made coffee.

As a working bird mama, I wanted her to have time with me.

But since she refuses to close her eyes at night unless I am in the room, I want her to sleep in. So I’ve been creeping out of my room in the dark every morning and returning when it’s time to clean cages and feed birds.

So far this appears to be good for both of us.

Stress

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I’m exhausted.

Obviously stress is in the air today. Nala ate through her perch in her cage. She has two, but only one runs the whole length of the cage and she ate the end off it.

She played with a bunch of her toys, so I don’t know whether to chalk it up to boredom, anxiety or rambunctiousness. But she’s been here about 16 days and she ate her perch.

I guess I need to find her some more toys. Although she does have a bunch.

She seems to be talking more and dancing more. Her favorite song is Angelina by Harry Belafonte.

Today I went through some medical bills, tax paperwork, a school fundraiser and some band trip stuff with my soon-to-be ex-husband. We all had dinner together. He brought a pizza.

Then I finished my chores. Laundry. Bird cages. Some vacuuming. The roomba would not go to home base. After an hour and with the battery almost dead I discovered why… the roomba had unplugged its own base while vacuuming.

And to make my day a little more demoralizing, I tripped over my own two feet walking between buildings at work. The administration offices and the literacy center are a block apart. And I just fell. I was hungry, probably worn thin from too much stress.

Someone across the street saw me, and yelled to see if I was alright. She was walking a very large dog. I got up and said I was fine. Barely even scraped my hands.

“Darn ice,” she said.

There was no ice. Just me and my faulty legs.

Sometimes I feel so healthy and strong.

Some days I feel so broken.

That is what it feels like to have cerebral palsy. Sometimes your body works, sometimes it doesn’t.

State of the menagerie

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Author’s note: this post was originally posted last week but somehow got unpublished and republished in the wrong order.

Let’s start with the kitten…

Mistofelees is still on our sun porch. The teenager has her room 100% clean and ready to accept the new member of the household though she and the teen have not worked out an agreement for when she will sign her lease.

The two have been playing, footage of which can be seen here: Playing Kitten

Some of our other neighbors are feeding her braver siblings and hope to catch them because they know of a potential home.

And then there is Naughty Nala. She was mad at me from the time I got home from work yesterday until I came home today. Refusing to step up, refusing to come out of her cage, biting me if I went near.

But today she seemed to forgive me for going to work. She stepped up beautifully and snuggled like a sweetheart chattering away.

She stood on the dishwasher while I made dinner and while we ate. To reward her, we fed her sweet potato fries which she loved. Video here: Nala is a Sweet Potato Girl (that’s a pun, referring to Tori Amos’ Cornflake Girl.)

If you don’t know the song, let me take you back to my college days: Cornflake Girl