stolpern

LOST Pearl COCKATIEL BIRD in Toronto

2009-07-28T23:25:00.000-07:00

Please help Char the Pearl Cockatiel find her way home!

Char flew off on May 30, 2009 from Yonge & Finch/Sheppard in the Willowdale / North York area in Toronto. Char has all her feathers so she can fly quite well -- she could be anywhere in the Greater Toronto Area by now, Mississauga, Barrie, or maybe even farther. Both her mate, a 23 year old cockatiel, and her humans miss her dearly and are heartbroken from her disappearance.

Char is a cinnamon pearl cockatiel -- a small parrot-like bird with a long tail. She's about 10 inches long from head to tail, approximately the size of a blue jay. But her feather colouring is totally different: light grey with yellow/white/dark grey spots and markings all over her back. Char has a yellowish head with orange cheek patches, and a long yellow-white tail. If you see her outside, she definitely won't look like she belongs in the Canadian wild.

Please, if you have seen her, or see a bird that looks like her, or know someone who has, please let us know so we can bring her home. Or if you know about her but don't want her to come home to us, please at least email us so that we know she is doing well... we can also tell you about her favourite foods and what makes her happy. If you have any information about her, please email us at roanoroanATgmailDOTcom (just replace AT with @ and DOT with .). We offer a generous reward for information leading to her safe return. Thank you.

Wrangling Writing

2009-02-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

Haven't touched this blog in ages.

Lately, I've felt like I can't quite write. Sure, I can string some words together to form a sentence, but writing papers these days is a total crapshoot. Unnatural. As if I must twist my text to suit an unknown standard. I don't know if this is just a phase I need to suffer through to emerge a better writer, or if it's a sign I'm not cut out for all this. Hopefully the former. If so, hopefully the suffering will end soon so that the emerging can begin.

The new girl

2008-05-03T17:58:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been so swamped that I haven't had much chance to do much on here, but here are some photos of the new hen, who came to our flock by way of a very kind lady.

This is on Day 1. B got so excited as soon as he heard the new hen. He flew around a few corners, from the kitchen to the living room just to see her for the very first time the day she arrived, and followed her around everywhere for two days.

Day 2: She relaxes after her first misting here and is able to play near B.

Day 4: Despite how devoted B was to her for the first couple days, this is a rare shot of them eating peacefully together. Usually they spar for territory, which is an unfortunate habit that I think B picked up from her after he came on so strong the very first minute they met.

She got a real big shower on Day 11. I'm a sucker for wet bird pics...

This is Day 21, just hanging out on the swingy thing.

Not a sanctuary

2008-02-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

I went out of town for 2 weeks this Christmas 2007-2008 and boarded the 2 cockatiels with a "parrot sanctuary" or “parrot rescue” near Peterborough, called Parrot Adopt Southern Ontario (PASO). When I went to pick the birds up, Bird C had passed away and Bird B was injured and hungry and reeking of cigarette smoke.

BACKGROUND: SUMMER 2005
The cockatiels had boarded at PASO before, a couple years ago, at their old location in Oshawa. I felt that the birds came back extremely well-socialized and unafraid of things, so I figured that the PASO people must be very good with parrot behaviour. (Previously, I had probably given the birds a too "sheltered" kind of life trying to protect them from danger.)

However, when I picked the birds up, they smelled faintly of smoke. I asked if anyone in the household smoked and was told no. It was explained to me that a smoker had recently visited the home, so that this was why the birds smelled like smoke.

The woman also told me the cockatiels had been very sweet, and that C would enjoy cuddling up to her under her chin, while she pet him with her finger. I couldn’t believe it – C HATED being touched with hands/fingers and only tolerated being preened by B. When I seemed incredulous, the woman tried to demonstrate, and sure enough, C squirmed and tried to get away from her hand.

These things didn’t add up, but all in all, I felt PASO was a good place to board the birds, since the birds seemed very calm and peaceful when I got them back. I felt that the PASO people were very kind, helpful, and dedicated to parrot care, and so I just dismissed the inconsistencies as misunderstandings.

THE BIRDS – DECEMBER 2007
Both cockatiels were aged around 23 years old and had been in our family for about 22 years. However, they had very different needs since Bird C was much less mobile. C has never been able to fly since we got him, because of a bad droopy wing. Because of that, he’s also had various physical health problems, and is not very strong or active, since he can’t fly. He has weak feet and the front toes are crossed on one foot. He is very cute with a round shaped body. His tail feathers are usually all broken, since he doesn’t pay attention to his tail when moving around.

Bird B is flighted and physically normal and healthy. B is devoted to Bird C, so B would walk along behind C instead of flying alone. B has a sharp hawk-like face with a protruding brow.

JANUARY 2008 – BEFORE PICK UP
When I got back to town in early January 2008, I called PASO to arrange picking the birds up the next day. I spoke to the man who said the next day should be fine, but that I should call again the next morning to confirm with the woman.

When I spoke to the woman the next morning, she informed me that one of my birds might be dead. She told me that my 2 cockatiels had arrived one day, and 2 other cockatiels had come in soon after for adoption, so she was not sure whether the dead cockatiel was one of mine. I asked her specifically if Bird C was okay, thinking that since he was so distinctive with the bad wing, etc., that C would be easy to tell apart. I thought that if I could ensure C was fine, then chances were that B would be fine, being the healthier one of the two. The woman just said she didn’t know and to come over.

My thoughts: Other than a desperate hope that both of mine were all right, the question running through my mind was: How could someone care properly for different birds without being able to tell them apart? The birds had very different needs, especially Bird C who was unable to fly, or climb, and was fairly weak and elderly. He probably wouldn’t be able to defend himself from an attack (from a healthy bird) and would need to be protected and cared for and adequately fed. Other than that, Bird C was especially distinctive in his looks, with his obviously bad wing, broken tail feathers, etc.

JANUARY 2008 – UPON PICK UP

BIRD B’s CONDITION
When we arrived there at PASO to pick up the birds, I found that it was Bird C who had passed. I won’t say any more about that, because I can’t know exactly what happened (I wasn’t there) and I can’t know whether it was simply Bird C’s time to pass on to heaven.

What did and still does concern me was what I noticed about Bird B:

- his right nostril was extremely swollen, so hugely that it looked like a big tumour
- the same nostril was clogged and clotted with blood

- skin was missing from the long front toe of his left foot & he was limping

- a chunk of feathers were missing from his crest, all coming back in as little pin feathers & the longest remaining crest feather had a crooked kink in it

- he reeked of cigarette smoke

I have posted photos so you can see the difference. The top photo along the left is B last summer, with a normal cere/nostrils. The second photo along the right is how he looked after he came back from PASO, with his swollen bloody cere.

There were no explanations initially offered for any of these conditions. I asked about the nostril, and the woman explained: B must have been attacked by a Quaker parrot that morning when the woman was talking to me on the phone. It seemed to be a theory, because the woman didn’t sound sure. She had seen the Quaker attack a bird, but apparently, she hadn’t known which bird got attacked, until I asked her how B’s nostril got hurt.

The smell of cigarette smoke stayed with Bird B for weeks. I brought him in to the shower, thinking that it would get the smell out, but after 3 showers in 3 days, he still reeked of smoke. After 6 showers, the smell had faded a bit for when he was dry, but when he got into the humid shower, he would smell like an ashtray again. It took about 3 weeks for the smell of nicotine to leave his feathers.

My thoughts: With different birds, I could understand not being able to keep watch all the time. So maybe it was understandable that B would get attacked by another bird. What was less understandable to me was why the woman wouldn’t KNOW that B had been attacked – why wouldn’t she care to check up on him, make sure he was all right after the attack? Besides that, I thought it was unacceptable that B reeked so deeply of smoke, which was clearly unhealthy and toxic for him. Even humans get lung cancer from secondhand smoke! I don’t know how much smoke he must have been living in, for him to smell so deeply of smoke, that it would take 3 weeks to clean out.

A BIG PROBLEM: NO FOOD LEFT

Additionally, there was no birdseed left in the birdcage. There was some parrot nut mix in the dish, but it was full of things that the birds never ate and wouldn’t recognize as food. It didn’t have any millet or small husky seeds that was their staple food for over 20 years, and pretty much the only thing C ever ate anymore. (C was a pickier eater than B.) I even saw Bird B picking at the food in the dish that day, looking hungry, but he soon gave up and left when he found nothing to eat there.

I had given PASO a large tub of birdseed for the birds, which should have been more than enough for 2 weeks. When I asked about the birdseed tub to bring back with me, the woman told me that all the birdseed had been used up, since other cockatiels and other parrots had got into their seed and eaten it up quickly. She did not explain why they had not acquired more seed so that my bird(s) would have something to eat.

OTHER THINGS – FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

It seemed to me that B looked rumpled and not very healthy. His feathers looked faded instead of lustrous. He just didn’t look very healthy to me. I was only away for 2 weeks.

The day I went to get B, the woman tried to pick B up a few times while we were talking about C’s passing. Not only did B not step up for her, but he flew away when she tried to pick him up, TWICE. This was very unusual for B, because he is not usually afraid of people, and if anything, he is more likely to bite than flee if he doesn’t want to step up. But besides that, in recent years, he has mellowed out and become much more calm and willing to step up easily all the time.

I didn’t think very carefully about all this at the time while I was there, I just gave the woman some donations and took B home – I hadn’t yet processed my grief over C’s passing. After a while, I wondered how well she could care for birds, who were not only afraid of her, but that she couldn’t tell apart. I think both birds had different special needs. C had obvious physical disabilities, but both birds were quite old, and despite B’s relative health, he wasn’t as strong as he was when he was 5 years old. He was clearly no match for whatever attacked him.

I have tried to keep this post as factual as possible so I can just report what happened and what I observed. I wanted to inform everyone about the conditions I found B in, which I think are unacceptable for anyone claiming to provide care for parrots. I don’t think I personally believe that the people at the PASO intended anything malicious, but perhaps, they are experiencing personal difficulties that prevent them from giving all the birds staying with them a smoke-free, healthy environment to live in. Based on my earlier experience in 2005 and the trust I had in them, I had recommended PASO to other parrot owners in the past. I can no longer recommend them, and I urge anyone who is thinking about leaving their birds there to consider carefully whether PASO really is still a good place to bring your loved ones.

Safe Flight

2008-01-08T15:48:00.000-08:00

From Tao Te Ching # 15

Those who flow as life flows know
They need no other force:
They feel no wear, they feel no tear,
They need no mending, no repair.

- Lao Tzu, trans. Witter Bynner

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- Fl. Officer John Gillespie McGee

Look to This Day

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

- Kalidasa

Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out, but the teaching of goodness does not age and so Goodness makes that known to the good ones. Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out, but the teaching of goodness does not age and so Goodness makes that known to the good ones. Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out...

Non-random things about me

2007-12-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

1. I like to do little quasi-scientific experiments in my spare time.
2. Food should feed the soul.
3. Non-humans are more intelligent than most of us give credit for.
4. I strive to help my animal companions achieve self-actualization and emotional equanimity.
5. Education, critical thinking and love can solve every important problem.
6. I'm frequently accused of being an unrealistic idealist.
7. I'm a moral realist.
8. I like to grow...

Bloody Bird

2007-12-16T12:08:00.000-08:00

True confession. I've been falling behind in grooming so I wanted to trim the birds' nails today. C's nails in particular have been getting a bit too long and spindly... so I worry that he'll get them caught on something, get tangled and trip: ideas I don't much relish, seeing as he has enough physical complications to deal with.

So I did B's nails first. This is because he moves a lot faster than C, and I know I have less chance of getting him calmly if he gets too much of a glimpse of what's coming. Now, anyone who knows B knows that he hates being confined like the devil and gets extremely upset. So, after trying to hold him in a towel to get to his nails, I let him out and just sat him on my hand -- and for the first time EVER in our 20-plus-year-long relationship, he let me clip his nails while just sitting there on my hand. I was so proud of him; it was so much easier on both of us this way!

Cutting C's nails got a bit more complicated. He has the bad wing that gets in the way, and the lucky little front toe that crosses over the long one. I tried to trim his nails the way I did with B, but finally realized that he was getting too excited, verging on panic, and that I'd have to hold him in the towel to keep him still.

When I finally had him ready, I must have been rushing and made a terrible mistake... I clipped a bit too far on his lucky toenail, he squealed and twisted, and then I found some blood on my finger. I had cut too far to the quick. I got out the starch to stem any bleeding, but I feel horrible about it.

And now C's been huddling here on the perch all day with his back to me. He doesn't usually sit like that -- he usually likes to sit out front, facing out -- but he's right. I deserve it.

If you're reading this, sweetie, I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

From the choir

2007-12-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

I was browsing Youtube the other day and found a video of a great a cappella cover of The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" by a group called the Dynamics. The Dynamics actually sing all the manic little instrumentations of the original, which I found pretty impressive.

Here's another Youtube video, this one of Ben Folds doing a cover of the same song on piano and some improvised percussion instruments. My favourite version of the song is actually Iron & Wine's acoustic cover, which is very mellow and relaxing... but the birds quite like the boppy a cappella version from the Dynamics and have been singing along as I typed this. If I had it in iTunes, I'd put it next to the Jacques Loussier Boléro in their playlist; they were singing again to that earlier tonight too.
A recent pic of the boys in the shower. As is typical, only C felt like getting clean...

Loro música

2007-11-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm listening to a jazzy interpretation of Ravel’s Boléro by Jacques Loussier Trio. The birds really like it! One of the birds burst into impromptu mating song, syncopating his phrases with the beat of the Boléro. I've added it to the birds' playlist in iTunes, but they hardly ever use my computer. Bird C did type out a happy face once while I was working though. It made sense for him to type that out before anything else, since he IS the happy-go-lucky one. =)

The other week, I went to watch an Anton Kuerti piano master class. The master class was fascinating for a listener: it made me conscious of all these little distinctions in playing and interpretation that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of before. Kuerti advocated the Fresh Finger Rule for ornamentations for the student who played Mozart's Piano Sonata in D Major. What really impressed me was how Kuerti would demonstrate on his piano and have this beautiful sound come out in just a bar or two. I heard him play at a recital years ago, and his playing was beautiful then, as well -- but hearing two people play the same notes, back-to-back, both on Steinway grands, made Kuerti's mastery really obvious. I don't know how he gets that gorgeous tone with just a few notes... He must have magic, soulful hands.

The Relieving & The Ridiculous

2007-11-21T22:52:00.000-08:00

I'm glad to report that Bird B's foot got better. I'm relieved that it was temporary and so must have been a muscle strain.

Though it's been much colder lately, I've still been trying to take the birds outside when I can. I figure it's good for the flock, even if it's for 2 minutes to get some cool fresh air.

B was especially good when I brought them out a few days ago. He took off from my hand for his flight exercise, flew around the yard in a circle, then landed right back on my hand! Usually, I would expect him to land on the roof instead, and make me wait and plead before coming back, but maybe he knew it was cold out and so didn't want to be caught out on the wet roof.

I'm posting some older photos of the birds looking all well and clean after a shower. Apologies for not having more up-to-date photos; I haven't been shooting much lately.

+++

I did Yoga for the first time in probably a couple months last week. My sister had brought me a Richard Freeman Yoga tape, so it was the first time I'd attempted this one. At first, it didn't seem all that different from my usual Richard Freeman Yoga Breathing and Relaxation tape, but after an hour of this new one, I was sore afterward for days! Literally days! Three days, I think. There were all these ridiculous poses that were reminiscent of stretches that would usually be done sitting on the floor, except that they were supposed to be done standing up. On one leg. I couldn't pronounce these poses, let alone do them. Those ones made me laugh at the absurdity of the effort -- and I'm not just talking inner smile!

Limber

2007-11-04T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm worried about the birds. Bird B in particular has suddenly started favouring one leg. He puts very little weight on his right leg/foot and limps around everywhere. Given that he can fly, and is extremely strong and agile (remember his inversions), it seems highly unlikely that he hurt himself. So this worries me. I resort to hoping that he did indeed have an accident, however unlikely, and strained a muscle, since I can't bear serious consideration of the alternative: a tumour pressing on the nerve.

This is an older photo from his more limber days.

Rhapsody

2007-10-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

Feeling a bit wistful tonight on All Hallows Eve. Didn't celebrate really except for wrapping up some harvesting yesterday, as blogged.

Lately I've been tinkling the ivories more. It must be the reading that befuddles my brain, and impels me to wander away from the books to do something more tactile. And it's more immediately rewarding even if I can't play well. I've been practicing some dinky arrangements of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, mostly the third movement, but sometimes the second movement, Adagio sostenuto, as well as the 18th Variation from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Technically, I think I'm in over my fingers as I haven't made much progress on either in over a decade. That may be why I never left them behind.

It will be colder starting tomorrow, All Saints' Day. I remember and look forward to warmer times for Beltane in the spring.

Eden's Eve

2007-10-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

In the past weeks, I've been writing a lot off-blog so I've been rather low on words. But now, in honour of the last days of October, I'll post some doubleplusgood updates from the garden:
New record from Big Daddy. This chard leaf is over 95 cm long! I'm sure it could have gone longer but I was impatient to harvest one night. If I can control my harvesting urges, I should be able to get one over a metre long... but time may be running out.I also have a new record for my peppers! I've been harvesting some green ones that are over 9 cm tall, even larger than the one pictured here. And best of all, I got my one red pepper to ripen fully to a stunning scarlet! It's all documented here in this photo series:

For fans of the birds, here are a couple of photos of them from our time out today (October 30), enjoying the sunny afternoon:

Here's one with all my little darlings in one shot:

For M who asked for garden advice: First of all, I really cannot claim to be the best for advice on garden productivity, unless you use me as a negative example. It took me three years to get not much, as I have been lamenting for over a year on this blog. That said, I would recommend Lee Reich's Weedless Gardening, which is basically a gardening method inspired by nature. Besides the perk of having a theoretically weedless garden, I like the philosophy of minimizing disturbances to the garden and soil, which furnishes me with a ready excuse for not working too hard on it, so here are links to some articles by Reich.

My personal Holy Grail for gardening has been the tomato: you can't buy anything that tastes like a freshly homegrown tomato. I found sweet bell peppers to be rewarding also, since my green ones are about as sweet as the red peppers I buy at the supermarket, and my one red pepper was even sweeter and riper than that! I also like having fresh greens so I'd recommend some lettuces, which are pretty easy, and will grow early in the season. Don't plant too much because you probably won't be able to eat it all before they go to seed in the heat. Buy the tastiest lettuce seeds and watch the soil, since that will have a huge impact on flavour. And of course, I'm partial to Big Daddy and Swiss chard in general, which will keep going even through the summer heat.

Try some fresh herbs, since it's so much better to pick what you need from the garden than to go with dried herbs or chance it with fresh cut herbs from the store. I adore basil, but thyme, rosemary, or any other herbs you use would all be good choices. With the basil, you could make pesto, and with the tomatoes, you'll have most your ingredients for a fresh tossed summer pasta with extra virgin olive oil. (Remember that EVOO is good for your health, being a source of health-promoting monounsaturated fats and polyphenol antioxidants.)

As for size, I think that's very much a personal preference. Have it be as big as it needs to be to do what you want. Consider how much you like digging and toiling. If you're not sure, I'd advise starting smaller so that it's not too overwhelming at first, but leave open possibilities for future expansion. Also, you can use some containers if you have a nice lawn you don't want too huge a hole in, but keep in mind that containers will be more time-consuming to water. Smaller plants like herbs and lettuces will do best in containers, or even peppers if the container is large enough. I find that tomatoes really need their space, so that goes best in the plot.

Timing depends on your season. How long and warm is the summer where you are? If shorter, you may need to start earlier by seeding indoors, which may be a good idea anyway. But if you're looking for minimal work, you can always forgo that and just toss some seeds at the dirt and see what happens!

Jardin de Verdure

2007-10-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

As requested, I'm posting a photo of my whole garden, as well as a little map plotting the location of the different veggies. The huge tall drying plants are the lettuce plants gone to seed. Usually I would pull them out after they flower, since they're not so edible by then, but I decided to let these ones go to seed to see if I'll get tons of lettuce plants next year without sowing any. I've since pulled up the seeded lettuces to make room for the other plants and laid the lettuce corpses to rest under the tomatoes. My philosophy toward gardening is pretty liberal and permissive, for those who haven't already guessed.

Apparently, peppers do well to have their first central fruits taken to encourage further growth of other peppers. So, after the initial peppers, I have been trying to remain patient long enough to let some of my bell peppers grow larger. I measured one of the larger peppers I've ever harvested at about 8 cm tall. We'll try to do better than that! Actually, one of my container plants is growing a bell pepper that is starting to ripen in spots to a vivid scarlet! I'll be so happy if I get a red pepper -- I just need this warm sunny weather to hold up.

I also got a picture of the only cucumber I've ever had as this is my first year trying cucumbers. There was one cucumber before this one that I was just about to harvest, but when I went to get it the next day, it was already gone -- undoubtedly the work of one of the monster squirrels. The cucumber was tasty though; I felt so accomplished and connected to my nearly-idyllic little garden when I plucked my cucumber off the vine, washed off its prickles, and then chomped on it while working outside.

PS. The plan view of the garden is kind of upside down when compared with the view from the front edge, so if anyone is trying to match up the veggies with the map plan, just turn that around. In other words, the top edge of the first photo points North, while the top edge of the plan photo points South. Happy orienteering!

Meditations

2007-10-03T04:36:00.001-07:00

I'm not usually up at 6 in the morning but today I woke up just after 5, after about 4 hours of sleep. Only. My brain woke me, tortured by thoughts of Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy, which I've been reading again lately.

I think I referred to the Meditations back in a previous post when I said I was reading something not very engaging. Well, the good news is, the Meditations are a bit more compelling this time around. The bad news is, its problems and inconsistencies, which seem irreconciliable at this point to me, are troubling enough to be encroaching on the quality and quantity of my sleep.

For the next hour, I tried to relax and fall asleep, but Descartes kept haunting me, so I gave up and decided to do some yoga for an hour. Thankfully, after the exquisite corpse pose, I'm feeling more relaxed and centred now and my head hurts less. At this rate, I'll either be the most flexible girl around, or the most sleep-deprived.

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.
- Descartes

A Resting Inspiration

2007-09-23T13:03:00.001-07:00

Alex the African Grey parrot died earlier this month, at the tender age of 31 years. Alex was made famous by Dr. Irene Pepperberg's studies into intelligent use of vocalizations by parrots, which have also inspired me in my care and interaction with my own flock members.

Here's a video obituary from ABC news that shows some of Alex's responses, and as well, here's a CNN live interview with Irene Pepperberg after Alex's death. The part when he asks Irene about Alex also being her friend was very moving for me. I interpret Irene as trying to protect Alex's legacy, as well as her work, by refusing to explicitly acknowledge any emotional attachment she felt for her avian colleague. Perhaps more revealingly, she also doesn't explicitly deny caring for him as a friend.

In Alex's memory, I'm also including a favourite anecdote about him from "That Damn Bird", a 2003 talk with Pepperberg:

We were training Alex to sound out phonemes...to see if he understands that his labels are made up of sounds that can be combined in different ways to make up new words... Thus we are trying to get him to sound out refrigerator letters, the same way one would train children on phonics. We were doing demos at the Media Lab for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, "Alex, what sound is blue?" He answers, "Ssss." It was an "s", so we say "Good birdie" and he replies, "Want a nut."
Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, "What sound is green?" Alex answers, "Ssshh." He's right, it's "sh," and we go through the routine again: "Good parrot." "Want a nut." "Alex, wait. What sound is orange?" "ch." "Good bird!" "Want a nut." We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, "Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh."

Not only could you imagine him thinking, "Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?" but the point was that he had leaped over where we were and had begun sounding out the letters of the words for us. This was in a sense his way of saying to us, "I know where you're headed! Let's get on with it," which gave us the feeling that we were on the right track with what we were doing. These kinds of things don't happen in the lab on a daily basis, but when they do, they make you realize there's a lot more going on inside these little walnut-sized brains than you might at first imagine.

I also figured out how to update the links section on the right sidebar of my blog, so now there are finally some real links in there instead of the dummy default links. Amongst others, I've included a link to The Alex Foundation, where more information on Pepperberg's research can be found. I even managed to hack a bit of html in the template (which is really not my forte, so this is a big deal for me!) to include an inspiring bit from Unger in my sidebar, so I hope these changes will improve the blog and encourage further exploration.

Rest in peace, Alex.

Look Ma! Spray Millet!

2007-09-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

It looks like I've managed to make my very own homegrown birdseed after all!

After letting some of the pointy mystery seeds that I blogged about in July mature, we did a taste test. Once the birds figured out how to extract the seeds from the outer husks, they loved munching on it! I put some photos up in yesterday's post, although they were actually shot last month. Unfortunately, the monster squirrels grabbed most of the pointy seed heads for themselves, so the birds only got one or two. I also grew some oats, but the squirrels also ate that all up before I could harvest it for the birds.

Last week, though, I noticed a new kind of seed growing in my soil! Look familiar to anyone?

Yay for spray millet! The birds love it! They were just finishing up this one today!

Now I just have to figure out how to keep the squirrels away from the birdseed long enough for the birds to eat them!

Hopping Up

2007-09-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

Today felt like summer, so the flock's been taking advantage of the good weather. B's quite good and still affectionate. Where C will be taking a birdnap, B hops around trying to preen everything on me, including clothing parts like zippers, ties, as well as the usual preening targets. A bit scarily, he likes to go for my eyes. Actually more than a bit scary, since he's not the most gentle bird, and he's liable to get very excited and vehement. He was being super cute today, trying to angle in closer to hop from the branch perch onto my knee, with his tail getting caught in the branches.

I think the wild birds have their eyes on B. A few days ago, B flew around for some exercise and landed on the roof. He was being coy again about flying back to me and C, when a mourning dove promptly landed next to him on the roof. The dove eyed the cockatiel, then fluffed up a bit and approached my B. B looked a bit nervous, and when the dove got even closer, B quickly flew back down to us. I don't think he welcomed the dove's advances!

Then, while we were hanging out today, I saw a blue jay land in a nearby tree, who I also think was eyeing B. In the past few months, B has landed in the big spruce out back a couple times, and both times, I saw a blue jay join him there as soon as B landed. So I think it might be the same blue jay curious about who B is, and why B's crest is yellow and not blue. He seems to be just friendly though, and not as amorous and intimidating as the dove!

+++

I've been a bit sick lately -- I think it's the flu -- so I have been trying to self-medicate. Tried the olive scallion tea again, but that didn't do much, so I tried a stronger Chinese herbal medicinal tea. Also got some Echinacea capsules and Vitamin C capsules (Ester-C) to help out my immune system, and while I think the Echinacea helped a bit, I don't think the Ester-C did much. But, I'm still not feeling great. So just now, I went for some Prednisolone, and I'm hoping that will work on my sore throat and coughing. I also have some Dextromethorphan handy to suppress my cough if I need it, but apparently, it may cause drowsiness and happens to be classified as a "dissociative hallucinogenic drug" at higher doses, so I think I'll try to avoid that one. Sounds like fun -- clearly not my style.

Feathered Glue

2007-09-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Since my schedule's been so busy lately, I haven't had much time to spend with the birds. Yesterday I finally had some time, and the weather was good, so we went outside to hang out while I tried to get some work done.

B must have missed me a lot from the week, because he was all over me like a feathered glue. He'd clamber up my front to sit on my shoulder, but not in the demanding self-interested way he usually does, just to get a choice perch from where he can look down on the rest of us. Instead, he was so well-behaved and eager for my approval that he would step off my shoulder onto my hand as soon as I presented my hand to him. He spent a long time enthusiastically preening my face and hair, and generally showering me with his birdy care and affection.

You're nobody 'til somebody loves you.
- Dean Martin, amongst others.

Addendum: Some reports have come in to indicate that the "Ethan Hawke" mentioned in my Cornucopia post should be more correctly spelled "Viggo Mortensen". The mystery star really didn't look like Viggo to me, but then what do I know? I probably couldn't recognize him without an entourage of hobbits. At any rate, I think both men were at the TIFF last week, so it's also possible I spotted both of them, wearing the same suit and pulling a switcheroo in the middle.

Clipping Time Coupons

2007-09-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see time a bit differently.

Last week I stocked up on 54 rolls of toilet paper from the store. I was careful to buy only the "double rolls". Double rolls apparently have 330-352 sheets per roll (varies with brand) instead of the standard 176 sheets per roll. Assuming it takes me 60 seconds to get a new roll out of the bag, remove the empty roll, put the new roll on, and fold and recycle the empty cardboard roll, this will halve the time I spend changing toilet paper rolls!

NEW AND IMPROVED! ADDED BONUS! That's an extra 25 minutes of time in my life per batch! Even more if I average more processing time per roll change!

I'd post a picture of my 54 rolls of toilet paper, but that'd cut into my time profit margin, so I'll have to invoke the imagination for this one.

Cornucopia

2007-09-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

Last day of an era. My Occupation Title changes tomorrow so I've been trying to wrap up and do as much as possible before that. Shopping and stocking up on supplies. Even cracked out the ironing board for a rare (probably less frequent than annual) ironing session last night.

Best of all: I found an unmolested red tomato in my garden! I would have wanted it to mature a bit more, but even more than that, I wanted to avoid further pillaging from the evil squirrels, so I decided to harvest my little fruit and let her ripen in the relative safety of the great indoors. Isn't she gorgeous? My beaut's currently occupying an elevated position on my southern windowsill where she can bask in the sunlight. Should be perfect within a couple days.

You may notice the bed of Swiss chard that my Tomato is resting on in the photo. This is my first year growing this and I love it already: no bitterness in my homegrown chard, and even the thick strong salty stalks are juicy, not overly fibrous or tough at all. In my garden, there are two Swiss chard plants: one who's a little itty bitty guy, and another one who's quite large, to put it mildly. As I write, I'm cooking up three of the leaves in some chicken stock, which will probably feed me for a week, since the leaves are from Big Daddy. Why have I named this plant Big Daddy? Observe.Yep, that's a metre stick, and this leaf measures in at over 90 cm. For the Imperialists out there, that's about 3 feet. At these sizes, how can I blame Bitty Baby for cowering in Big Daddy's shadow? Though slight, he's still a cutie, and I'm sure he'll grow up to make me proud.

+++

Saw Ex Drummer today at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, situated in Ostend, Belgium, is about a famous writer who's approached by three handicapped musicians to fill out their rock band as the drummer. With the soundtrack alternating between fairly sweet melodies and hard noise rock, Ex Drummer is a barrage on the senses: harsh scenes illustrating the lowest depths of humanity, surreal glimpses of violence and chaos, with some parts so extreme that they're absurd, funny, hyperreal and disturbing all at once. Well done, and I'd probably give it 3 chards, but for all the shock, I'd prefer something a bit more humanist or edifying, and there was no redemption in this film. No strong morality tale. Unnerving editing choices -- if you see it, you'll know what I mean. I'm still jarred by its effects; it's violent, graphic, loud and generally unsettling to see. The director, Koen Mortier, was there for some Q&A after the film, and he was so charming and funny, reeling off anecdotes with a soft-spoken accent, that the whole thing was rather incongruous for a Sunday afternoon. Makes me think of pointillism. Odd effect.

Also probably spotted Ethan Hawke outside some TIFF party after, but without cinematic lighting and makeup, it's hard to say for sure whether it was him or one of the other Hollywood types who look like him. Nice suit, though.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Behold the Carnage

2007-09-07T15:12:00.001-07:00

I just went out to visit my garden and this is what I found.Some may grok how heartbreaking this is for me. For the past three years, I have been killing myself trying to achieve a homegrown ripe tomato in my own garden... my Holy Grail. I've survived sunless summers, hailstorms, bad soil, weed overpopulation and angst-ridden bouts of self-doubt. Now the bastard squirrels are running rampage over my garden and pillaging the choicest chunks of my fruit.

I was even resigned to letting them have the tomatoes that were growing on the ground, but was that enough for them? Oh no. These selfish rodents had to climb up and kill the one ripe one blushing against the trellis.

Send in your recipes for squirrel stew.

Medicative Moments

2007-08-20T18:14:00.001-07:00

It's been cool and a bit rainy. I've been feeling similarly under the weather.

Over the past year or so, the realization has been slowly coming to me that I should learn how to self-medicate better. It's probably something I should have learnt to do a decade or so ago, like most people I know, but I never got the hang of ingesting substances for various desired physiological effects.

I never drank coffee or other caffeine to stay alert; I opted instead to stay awake naturally or just pass out when exhausted. Since childhood, I hated Aspirin and Tylenol as I found both nauseating, and the one time I took Pepto-Bismol for nausea, the pink liquid just made me throw up. Pretty much any drug bought in a pharmacy without a prescription is something I'd avoid, and I'd only take a prescription drug if there's a persuasive need for it. I grudgingly take drugs to cure the problem, and never to treat the symptoms. I don't take antibiotics for colds or try to misuse drugs in any other way, ignorant or creative.

At heart, I'm just a simple old-fashioned gal; I figure my body and my immune system, along with a reasonably high threshold for pain, will take care of most things. What I've been coming to realize lately, though, is that a good prudential reason for treating symptoms is freeing up energy to deal with something other than a debilitating problem. Better late than never, I suppose.

So, for what I suspect to be the mild cold that I have, I am actually drinking an olive scallion tea, which I think is a pretty weak form of Chinese herbal medicine. (Is there any other kind?) For the last month or two, I have also been considering a motion to take Advil for various aches and pains as needed. (These decisions take time for research and deliberation.) As well, for those who've been wondering since my Cast Iron post from last year: I have indeed heeded my most persuasive doctor and I have been taking Iron supplements as instructed. Intermittently. So, if you think I seem at all different from my norm, it's likely because I could be hopped up on any number of drugs.

Perhaps my subweather condition these days is a result of my Yoga-ing less than I was before. My attention has spanned much shorter lately, so I just haven't been in the mood for anything meditative. But I wonder, would more meditative moments allow me fewer medicative moments?

Blind Faith

2007-08-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

I've noticed an unfortunate side effect from "flying" Bird C around. He really seems to believe he can fly. Since we started, he's been a lot more active, confident and stimulated. Virile. After all, it makes sense that a big part of avian identity would involve the experience of flight. I think his cardiovascular endurance is improving as well... so why am I calling this unfortunate?

The other day, he wanted to get back to home base, the cage. He was perched on my hand, started spreading his wings excitedly, and before I could cup him and let him "fly" as we do, he launched himself off my hand and promptly fell to the floor. I picked him up and while checking to see if he was hurt, he "flew" off my hand again. Thump. Since I'm pretty much just a stupid human with no trainer, our Pick up & Thump process repeated itself a few times before I caught on and brought him to the cage before he could jump off my hand again.

He doesn't realize AT ALL that he has yet to conquer gravity.

He doesn't seem to mind when he falls to the ground either. He just gets back up -- or thrashes around on his back, struggling to turn over -- and as soon as he's back on his feet, he looks totally unfazed and as happy-go-lucky as ever, perma-smile intact. As long as he's happy, I figure we can continue what we're doing, but I'll just need to be more careful about preventing successive launches. For those who are having a hard time picturing what's going on, please accept my apologies for the lack of visuals. My extendable arm is nowhere to be found, so I'll need a videographer before I can manage posting videos. Any volunteers?

C has such a strong spirit, it's inspiring. Nothing ever gets him down. One of these days, I half-expect to see him open his wings, launch himself into the air and fly smoothly to his destination.

What a survivor.

Cadavre Exquis

2007-08-09T00:12:00.001-07:00

Busy lately. Trying to do some reading, but have been getting distracted by the great weather and birds. Of course, what I've been trying to read hasn't been all that engaging.

Been flying C a lot, and he's getting better. Now when I fly him, i.e., hold him while he flaps, I let him fly to where he wants to go, so that he can land at his desired destination, and get as much of the full 100% genuine flight experience that a flighted bird would have. He still gets tired quite easily after "flying" around the yard a couple times, and will be overheated for a while after, but I'm hoping he'll grow stronger and fitter the more we do it.

I've been doing more yoga lately, and finally did the full hour today, after doing more and more in the past couple days to work up my patience. I love the last pose, Shavasana, the corpse pose. This is not just because I'm lazy or anything, but after an hour of intense stretching and deep muscle workouts, just lying there in corpse is so relaxing. Today, I think I must have laid there for about half an hour or more. I was hungry during yoga, but then the hunger just dissipated while in corpse. I felt like I was almost napping, except I wasn't asleep, since I was still thinking lucidly. Either that or I was actually asleep, but having a lucid dream about being in Shavasana.

Mr. Bird's Neighbourhood

2007-07-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

B flew off again yesterday, this time toward the neighbours whose yard backs onto our yard. He got excited and flew off farther than usual, since he usually curves back around so that he never strays too far from the edge of our yard. Far enough so that I couldn't see him. Hate when that happens.

So I grab my shoes, keys and C to trek off to the next street to find him. The scary part is that I have to walk (really, I was shuffling as fast as I could, but smoothly enough so that C wouldn't fall) to the cross-street in order to get to the parallel street that the other houses are on. When I go that far from the house, I can't hear B anymore, so I get worried he can't hear us either. Then I worry that he might think we disappeared, fly around in a panic looking for us, and by the time I get there, it's impossible to find him since he's already moved.

Well, thankfully that didn't happen. I finally get to the next street, and go down listening house by house until I figure which house his calls sound closest to, but I still can't see him. I figure he's in the neighbour's backyard. So I go to their front door to ring the bell and while I'm waiting for them to answer the door, B comes flying out around to the front of the house!!

I couldn't believe it! He was so smart to know to fly around to us, even when he was probably worried, not having seen us for 5 whole minutes. He lands on an upstairs window ledge, so from there, I just ask B to fly on down to us so we can walk back home. He got a bit of a lecture about not going so far next time, a bit of a lesson about what street we were on in case it happened again, and a bit more praise for being so smart to fly around the house to the front even though he couldn't see us, for being so good to come so quickly and staying put the whole time in between. C was also very well-behaved and calm the whole time, sitting on my hand and making contact calls to B once in a while to help. Some passersby commented on the birds, how beautiful they were, with some curious questions about whether they could fly, fly away, and so on. I'm thinking about taking them for more walks while it's seasonable.

B seems to be getting more and more independent, and I'm getting the sense that he wants to explore the neighbourhood and venture into the world beyond. He also seems more responsible, being less stubborn about sitting somewhere unreachable just because he can, while me and C are waiting and worrying. Maybe he listened the last time I lectured him about not making his mummy worry, and about how much better it was to come back sooner so that everyone can have fun, not just him.

The photo is from the other day, but doesn't he look so incorrigible?

Flying Without Flying

2007-07-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

All is going swimmingly in the flock this summer.

I have finally figured out how to exercise C. I was inspired by how they exercise clipped birds at Parrot Island Sanctuary, which I read about in Companion Parrot Quarterly: they hold his body and let him flap around the room while being held. They really seem to think they're flying! Here's the video I watched from their website of a woman flying an Amazon parrot this way.

A couple days ago, I tried it just like on the video, cupping C's body in my two hands and letting him fly, but I couldn't really get his body, so he'd often end up flapping out of my hands and landing on the ground, as I tried to run behind him at the same rate as his flapping. A lot of stop and start. He gets very excited when he's outside and desperately wants to fly. So when we were outside today, I decided to hold his body with just one hand and started running around the yard. Well, he did it! He started flapping his wings and kept going like he was flying! He even held his little feet back in a flight position! I was so proud of him. We did that a few times, then I realized he was looking pretty spent so we figured that's enough for one day. That's why he looks so sleepy in the photo.

I plan for us to do more flapping like this for as long as we can. I hope the summer's long -- I figured this out so late! Of course I will still do the flapping on hand but he can't sustain that very long because of his weak legs and feet and/or excitement, which means he often flaps/falls off my hand. Besides, this seems like much more fun for him, and better exercise for me too.

B has taken to the branch I set up outside as home base, and will often fly straight there when I say "Fly to perch". I'm also now able to encourage him to fly from my hand, to get exercise flying around a bit outside. Today was the first day where he's been able to launch from my hand, fly up, loop around, and land back on my hand. He seems to turn back around as soon as he's gone anywhere; that's how devoted he is to us (not really "us", of course, but just Bird C, really). When he lands elsewhere, on the roof, or in a spruce, he comes back almost immediately (within 1-2 minutes). Those were both today; he was very cute, hopping from branch to branch on a spruce until he had a clear shot back over to us. I couldn't actually see him, but I was circling counterclockwise around the spruce to see him, and he was hopping to circle in the same direction on the opposite side of the trunk, so I'd hear him and see the branches shake a bit with a flash of grey-black tail every now and then.

B loves the camera. When I'm shooting, he looks right at it and will even start serenading it sometimes. Today, I took a series of closeups from a high angle, and he was very agreeable, tilting his head up to eye the camera whenever I asked him to look up for the shot. What a star. He's even got the moody hooded brow.

Wondering what the birds are sitting on today in these photos? Me too! In the Spring, I collected some of the birdseed husks that they'd finished eating and scattered them in the garden, hoping it'd help break up the soil and keep it from impacting. Over the past few months, these grassy things have started growing. At first, I just thought they were grass and let them be. Then they started getting really tall really fast, and growing these seed heads that don't look like anything else I've ever seen in the wilderness of the yard. They're starting to mature from fresh green to seedy brown, and I think I can recognize the little seeds coming in. I'm wondering if they might be millet. Or if not millet, whatever those long pointy seeds in birdseed, that come with the round millet, are. Does anyone know?

Do I dare think I finally have a source of organically grown bird seed? I pulled up a clump of it to transplant to a pot with some flowering spinach, so that they can play with some living greens indoors, assuming they survive the transplant.

Verbal Birds

2007-07-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

After a couple weeks with the N. hollandicus research on operant conditioning with target stick, both subjects were doing quite well. On July 3, we had Bird C giving 91% success rate at 21/1 (#Successful Repetitions/Errors) and Bird B at 87% success with 15/2. I thought they might be getting bored with touching the rocks, so I decided to move on to training with verbal cues only after one normal session each -- that means no target sticks to give them the answer.

Results were less successful. In general, there was much more trial and error, although I think the subjects have "favourites" where they often get the right rock on the first try with certain colours. I say "Touch green" or "Touch green rock" and B almost always gets it. Bird C seems better with "Touch pink". I started with 4 targets (green, clear, shiny, pink) then reduced to 2 targets (clear, pink) then added 1 more target (green) and sometimes another target (rust). Perhaps I should be more consistent. I realized 4 was too many to start with, so I just concentrated on teaching "pink" and "clear" until they seemed to get it. Data was not collected for these sessions, which went on several days, since I haven't figured out how to make pretty charts and graphs with the data yet. Sometimes, I'd pull out the target stick to help them learn the answer. Sometimes I'd hold the correct rock up to their beak so that they would learn that touching that green rock when I said "Touch green" would get a click and treat. Then we took a break from training for a few days and just started again today.

B's flying is becoming much more confident. Scary incident last week: We're outside on the back deck and B is getting more and more excited. Suddenly he launches himself off, flies straight down the driveway at the side of the house, and toward the front. We've spent most of our time in the back, where it's quiet and safe, without pedestrians, cars or other vehicles, so I'm nervous and frantically running off to the street in my slippers and pajama pants with C on my hand. I can hear B calling and calling, regular screams, but I can't spot him no matter how much I search the trees and roofs of the neighbouring houses. Usually, he won't fly back towards us unless he can see us. And often, he doesn't unless I see him first and get his attention off his screaming long enough to attempt a flight back.

Suddenly, I see a grey blur zoom from my side of the street across to the other side of the street. I can barely see what it is, but it's not moving like a normal wild bird, so I start screaming his name and waving my arm wildly from the end of the driveway. He must have seen or heard me because the grey blur then takes a sharp turn and veers straight toward me, fast. Then, B lands past me on the driveway. He must have been flying too hard to aim for my hand, because when I pick him up, he's completely out of breath and looks all panicky.

Thank goodness I was there to call out to him so that he could fly back to our driveway instead of getting more lost from a panicked flight. I'm guessing he must have come across a cat, and took off like the devil then. Otherwise, I don't think he would have been flying when he was already tired -- usually he takes his sweet time up on some choice perch while C and I are calling and begging him to come back down for 20 minutes. Plus, we've seen a cat in the area, and I think the house a few doors down has one -- right around where I sawthe grey blur emerge.

B's been a very good bird lately though. Today I took him outside for a flight, and he flew around the backyard twice before landing in the garden, then came right back to us as soon as he could. He's not very good at aiming for a landing on my hand. Sometimes he ends up on my shoulder or the top of my head, or more painfully, scrabbling off my forehead, and sometimes he misses me altogether. I'm not sure if he's landing in low spots (driveway, garden) on purpose these days, so that I can pick him up easier, or if he just runs out of steam at the last minute.

Or maybe he doesn't like the roof any more. A couple of days ago, it was sunny and I took them outside; as usual, he flew and landed on the roof. Sunny day and the black shingles must have been hot. As usual, he likes to run to the edge of the roof before flying, the lazy thing. He'd try running down towards us, but then he'd stop to pick up one of his feet. I tried yelling at him to just fly over, so that he could be off the hot roof, but he'd just take a few steps, then stand there on one foot, beaking the lifted foot. I'm starting to question how clever B really is. He may be too much in the moment to be able to do any of the thinking and planning ahead that would require higher intelligence. I felt pretty helpless, since I knew it must have been really hot, yet I couldn't just get him off that hot roof. When I finally got him back, his feet were baking hot all right, so I took him inside and ran his feet under cold tap water. I hope he didn't get too burned.

Q: What is the victory of a bird on a hot tin roof?
A: Just staying on it I guess, long as he can.

Avians With Rivalry

2007-07-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm posting more about the birds and the research we are undertaking into Operant Conditioning and Model/Rival strategies in training. Irene Pepperberg has found the M/R much more effective than classical OC, and I definitely saw that it was effective with at least one of the birds. I originally started the conditioning, hoping to train on recall so that I would feel safer taking the birds outside, that if he flew off by mistake, he would come back. While we're not progressing on that aspect of the training, their enthusiasm has inspired me to see how much more they can learn. We'll be somewhat limited in communication since the birds don't speak English, and my Cockatiel is not exactly fluent. I'm improving, though -- I think!

An unfortunate side effect from the Model/Rival technique and my inexperience with all this:
Since B has been jumping down to compete with C during C's sessions, I have tried to be consistent, and if B touches the indicated target during C's session, I reward him accordingly before bringing him back to the perch. Well, I guess the Model/Rival now works both ways, because now C sometimes jumps down during B's sessions to compete with B back! Chaos. Without thinking, I inadvertently taught both birds to interrupt each other's sessions for rewards! It's cute that they're so excited about it, though, and I'm gratified to know that they're so smart. (The alternative -- that I am so dumb -- is considerably less gratifying.) So now I just need to pick up the interloper as soon as he starts clambering down, without giving him a chance to get the right target, in which case I will be committed to supplying the reward as I have been trained.

[By the way, the above isn't an image of their rivalry but rather the opposite. I took them outside to sit in a tree, which is something that birds like to do. It was such a nice day that C started singing to B. You can see in B's expression how excited and pleased he is to be serenaded...]

I'm still doing flight training every day with Bird B, to practice several things: i) flying from high to low; ii) angling and flying around corners; and iii) flying back to me and Bird C, especially when called (although he pretty much does it whenever he wants, which I figure is also good, as long as he's safe). The flight training seems to be helping. We were practicing outside the other day, where Bird B typically gets "blown upwards" whenever he tries to fly down to us. B was on the roof and I was on the ground with C, urging B to come to us. Suddenly, B launched himself into the air, flapping so hard and fast, fighting frantically to fly down without getting lifted up, and then in seconds, he had made a perfectly abrupt landing right onto my hand! I was so proud of him for that flight! I piled on him much praise and admiration as his little body was heaving from the effort.

Observations: 1 target added since previous session.
7 targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust, purple and orange rocks.
2007/06/30
B1: 65% correct. 17/9 successful repetitions over errors. 5 errors on rust rock. 3 errors on shiny. Target to stick on clear. While target to stick is recorded as an error, I think that strictly speaking, it's the researcher's fault rather than the subject. Researcher must withdraw stick in time so that it is not in the way. 1039-1044h.

C1: 89% correct. 25/3. One error each on purple and clear. Target to stick on rust. 1044-1051h.

B2: 58% correct. 18/13. No errors on green. Extremely poor performance. B's performance deteriorating today with repeated sessions. 1052-1059h.

C2: 76% correct. 22/7. Many errors are target to stick. No errors on rust or orange. B jumps down to join C toward end of session. 1100-1108h.

C3: 79% correct. 19/5. Three errors on orange. One error each on clear and purple. No errors on pink, rust, shiny, green. 1948-1953h.

B3: 82% correct. 9/2. One error each on orange and shiny. Session interrupted by telecommunications. B eager to continue his training session and insisted on finishing training before researcher should finish telecommunications session. 1954h.

B4: 73% correct. 16/6. Three errors on orange. Two errors on purple. One error on clear. No errors on pink, rust, shiny, green. 2014-2019h.

C4: 93% correct. 14/1. Single error was target to stick on green. B jumped down during this session. 2019h.

B5: 76% correct. 13/4. Two errors on pink. One error each on purple, orange.

C5: 86% correct. 19/3. One error each on rust, orange, clear. One error due to researcher impatience as subject still masticating. 2030h.

Trends in errors: I have noticed a trend that I will call the Ultimate Indolence Effect. The birds often have errors with any targets that are at the end of the array. They almost always go for the penultimate target, too lazy to go all the way to the end to get the correct target. This appears to be ineffective, since it only delays when the subject will get the reward. Nonetheless, the UIE seems to be a factor with both birds. I have since tried to rearrange the targets so that they will be roughly equidistant to the subject in a surrounding arc, instead of in a straight line where the ends are much farther away. I hope this will negate the Ultimate Indolence Effect.

I should probably feed data into a spreadsheet for analysis, as typing up notes on each session and the errors isn't getting anywhere.

Up to the minute news!

2007-06-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

Data from N. hollandicus Operant Conditioning
Criterion: Subject must beak target rock as indicated with target stick. Beaking the stick or beaking another rock before indicated target is counted as an error. Subject is still rewarded upon successful touching of target, even if numerous incorrect trials are made first.
5 targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust rocks.

2007/06/28
Session C1: 82% correct. 14 successful repetitions, 3 errors. Errors with "pink rock" and "clear rock". [Session interrupted near start. Bird B jumped across to the treat dish and gorged himself while researcher was distracted with telecommunications.] 1226h.

Session B1: 33% correct. 5 successful repetitions, 10 errors. Zero correct repetitions with "rust rock" and "shiny rock". Some errors with "green rock" and "pink rock". No errors with "clear rock". I've observed that Bird B appeared to dislike the rust rock the most, often throwing that one off the table first. Animosity toward rust rock appears to have declined recently. 1233h.

Session C2: 80% correct. 12/3 R/E (# of successful repetitions over errors). 2 out of 3 errors were targets to stick rather than pink and clear rocks. Touched green rock instead of rust rock on the other error. No errors on green and shiny rocks. 1233-1238h.

Session B2: 50% correct. 10/10 R/E. 1 error was target to stick. 1238-1243h.

Session C3: 100% correct. 10/0 R/E. 2027h.

Session B3: 83% correct. 10/2 R/E. Both errors on green rock. 2029-2031h.

2007/06/29
C1: 57% correct. 8/6. Zero correct on green rock. Some errors on rust, pink, clear. No errors on shiny. 1339-1343h. Recorded on video 6915.

B1: 82% correct. 9/2. Errors on rust and pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. 1348-1351h. Recorded on video 6916.

C2: 83% correct. 10/2. 1 error on pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. Duration 2:36 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6917.

B2: 64% correct. Errors on rust, pink, and clear. Duration 2:41 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6918.
1 target added: purple rock (polished amethyst)
6 total targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust and purple rocks.
C3: 100% correct. 19/0. 1403h. Recorded on video 6919.

B3: 82% correct. 9/2. Duration 1:48 minutes, ended at 1408h. Recorded on video 6920.

C4: Data lost and estimated at 57% correct. Estimated #R/E at 8/6. Many errors, subject disinterested. 1756h. Video recording attempted but failed. Possible distraction?

B4: 50% correct. 4/4. Subject disinterested. 1800h.

Bird C's performance is quite consistent, and successful repetitions usually increases with repeated sessions in succession. C appeared to be stimulated by challenge of added purple rock, and gave a 100% success rate on 19 repetitions immediately after. As previously noted, Bird B's performance and interest fluctuates wildly with his mood. I believe many of B's errors are in fact expressions of frustration as he attacks various targets before focusing on the task. Some of B's errors are due to laziness/efficiency as he beaks all targets in vicinity to procure reward with the least amount of effort.

+++

Garden update: 2 tomato plants have survived transplanting to the garden, and while not exactly thriving, they are surviving. A couple of tomato seedlings have sprouted out in various containers. Unidentified green lettuce in garden along with other plant life (unsure if it's mesclun lettuce or weeds) are doing well and some have been harvested. Red butterworth lettuce in containers also doing well. Several sweet pepper plants are growing, with one in particular growing leafier and larger. Others are tiny.

I'll post another version of the flyaway bird photo. Can you spot him?

Cut On The Bias

2007-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Details of Operant Conditioning Study Procedure on Nymphicus hollandicus
I realize I need to expand on my Step 3 from last post instead of lumping all the progressions into one.

3. Introduce secondary target: a green tiny plastic sword for cockatails - haha. Secondary target is touched with target stick, and N. hollandicus must touch secondary target, rather than target stick itself, in order to procure reward.

4. After success with Step 3, multiple secondary targets are introduced in addition to first, for total of 3 targets. All targets are plastic cocktail sticks, referred to as "swords" with the subjects due to characteristics of first target used, i.e. "green sword", "clear sword" and "white sword". (I'll have to teach the birds how to read 1950s Vegas typefaces another day, then we can use "Mirage swizzle" and "Bellagio stick" as alternative names.)

5. After success with Step 4, a different and larger set of targets replace the "swords".

Observations:
I don't have notes on the early period of the experiment, but after a few sessions, both birds had learned to touch the stick for a treat (Steps 1-2) and after a few more sessions, had readily learned to touch the green TPS for their treat instead (Step 3). After several days on Step 4 (about two sessions per day), both subjects were regularly attaining an estimated 90% success rate with the 3 "sword" targets. I would touch a given swizzle stick with my own target stick, give the verbal cue, e.g., "Clear sword", and the bird would touch the correct "sword" on the first try.

I realized that with only 3 targets total to choose from, it was pretty easy as a challenge. I needed to change the targets for several reasons: i) to ensure that the subjects weren't unduly focusing on the swizzle sticks and missing the point of targetting; ii) to get more persuasive results with a more difficult task; and iii) to keep them stimulated and interested in "playing clicker". Furthermore, the green sword had been broken by a certain bird who shall remain nameless, so my idle fantasy of teaching the birds a little fencing routine were dashed for the time being. They did like picking up the green sword and swashing it around, though, and I still think they're handsome and charismatic enough to be movie stars!

It was time to move on to Step 5. I needed some new targets that were colourful, distinct, in a set greater than 3, and preferably less fragile than the swords, so I got the Fisher Price kids. I'll post a photo of all the Materials used in the experiment, which will better explain my problem.
The Fisher Price kids turned out to be a Pandora's Box of linguistics.

Upon first glance, they appeared to be a fairly simple set of toys: 2 girls, 2 boys, 2 in green, 1 in blue, 1 in red, 2 hairless, 1 with blonde hair, 1 with red-orange hair, 3 with peach complexion, 1 with dark brown complexion. I first referred to them by clothing colour and gender, i.e., "green girl", "red boy", "green boy", "blue girl", before I realized that I was imposing my own cultural bias. The toys had no genitalia, and I was assuming their sex based on hair, clothing and torso shape. Of course men could wear long hair, pigtails and frilly collars as well as women, and women could be hairless also. Who am I to judge someone else's gender based on my own antiquated notions of masculinity or femininity? I'm not proud of my prejudices, and I didn't want to pass them on to innocents.

The verbal cues became longer, to the tune of "yellow-haired blue kid" and "bald kid in red" and other equally long-winded and inconsistent phrasing. Not only were the birds unlikely to learn the names of the colours, but I was worried that they were not even associating the verbal cues with the proper targets, even if they understood the concept of colour. When the toys were standing upright, the birds would often touch the head of the toy, not the coloured torso. I then tried to rename the targets but I couldn't come up with neutral and sensible names for them based on their upper characteristics. Was the hair "blonde" or "yellow"? "Red" or "orange" or "red-orange" hair? Were the follicularly challenged toys "bald", "shaved", "hairless" or just "sparse"? Was the dark-skinned toy "black" or "brown" or what?

An added complication was that Bird B would often get frustrated during training and throw or shove targets off the work table, and he appeared to have a particular distaste for the "red kid with no hair" who happened to be the only one with a dark brown-skinned head. Now, I don't think B is racist, but rather that he has some unresolved issues with brown plastic things (if you know him, you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, I'm not at liberty to discuss his personal history here) but I still wasn't wild about the implications of training B to peck at and attack brown anthropomorphic entities on the head. His attack instincts are well-honed enough for me already, thank you very much.

The birds must have been about as confused as I was, since they never picked up on the training with the Fisher Price targets to any great degree of success. I think Bird C did do a bit better than B, as usual. Bird C tends to pick up on new challenges faster, and Bird B seems to learn from C's success (Model/Rival, much like what I read about in Pepperberg's The Alex Studies) as long as he's not too frustrated and if he's in the mood to indulge me.

A couple days ago, I moved on to the semi-precious gemstones as the new targets, starting with the set of 5 as pictured. These targets were comparatively easy to name by physical characteristics: "green rock", "clear rock", "shiny rock", "rust rock" and "pink rock". I've become more aware of the importance of simplicity in verbal cues, and now I simply say firmly "green rock" or sometimes "touch green rock", instead of "[Bird C], touch the green rock, please." I do praise quite effusively when I get excited, but that's when they're eating their rewards and not likely to be distracted by anything that comes out of my mouth. I figure the verbal cue needs to be clarifying rather than confusing, and it's not worth the confusion to impose human etiquette on them right now.

2007/6/27 Notes
I did 4 early sessions yesterday, and repeated this twice more through the day, whenever the birds seemed receptive and a bit hungry, thus motivated. I alternate sessions with each bird so they don't get too frustrated watching the other one eat.

Session C1:
A lot of misplaced targetting as C goes for stick quite frequently, rather than target rock. B gets excited watching C get rewards and jumps down to compete. I separate them before an all out rumble ensues.

Session B1:
A lot of trial and error for B, as he touches different rocks for each task. High frustration, pushes rocks off table.

Session C2:
Higher success this round, about 5 minutes after Session C1. C goes for target rock instead of target stick, with high success in choosing correct rock. Sometimes, he seems to "forget" which rock I had touched. With a repeated verbal cue, C appears to pause and think about the verbal cue, then correctly touch the indicated target rock.

Session B2:
Higher success than B1 as well. Less frustration and more concentration on task.

Session C3 (hours later):
Very successful with target rocks. Good focus, long attention span.

Session B3:
Attacks targets. B quite successful when he focuses, but B is short on attention and long on frustration. (We need to work on that!)

I plan to record observations more quantitatively from now on. I also want to figure out how to incorporate the Model/Rival strategy more. As evidenced in the above notes, B often feels so compelled by the rival aspect that he jumps down to compete directly with C for the task's reward. B's success rate in these instances is close to if not exactly 100%. However, I don't want to encourage too much direct competition, since B is physically stronger, more aggressive, and has a sharper beak than C and I'd worry for C's safety. Not to mention a possible breakdown of the relatively harmonious relationship between the two if B saw C too regularly as a rival rather than friend. Looks like I can use a human model after all.

Added note: In previous Model/Rival strategies with the birds, B has always been very receptive. C did not care at all. It seems that C is internally motivated (by his stomach, to be exact!) to learn and succeed, whereas B is perhaps more motivated by the social interaction and by not being "left behind". (Insert further analysis of B's psyche based on past traumatic experiences.)

The O.C.

2007-06-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't been taking notes on my experiment in Operant Conditioning with the birds, so it's probably time for an update.

Materials:
2 specimens of Nymphicus hollandicus, 21-22 years of age, chosen at non-random degree of randomness (not really random, but they should be unrelated at least)
Target stick (long wood stir stick)
Clicker (jar lid)
Brown and white rice as treats, steamed
Plastic cocktail stir sticks from my last trip to Vegas:
- A green tiny plastic sword
- A white/gold stick from the Mirage
- A clear/gold stick from the Bellagio
4 Fisher Price wood/plastic boys and girls of various colours & other targets

Procedure:
I read this page on clicker training birds online and have basically been attempting to follow it.

1. Reward N. hollandicus with rice treat and click for touching target stick.
2. Repeat until reliably successful.
3. Reward N. hollandicus for touching secondary target indicated by stick.

Observations:
Bird C quickly attained success with Procedures 1-2, surpassing Bird B's performance. After about 3 sessions, both were readily able to seek out and touch the stick for their treats.

We've done a few rounds of Procedure 3. Here's a picture for now... More later.

Training Days

2007-06-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've started Operant Conditioning with the birds. This came about when a certain bird who will remain nameless (let's say, Bird B) starting flying outside despite an explicit understanding to the contrary. "No wings outside" was always the rule! To be fair, he was startled into flying when a small flock of wild birds took off, and he just went with the fly and flapped upwards. A panicked bird flies pretty hard so he quickly ended up in a tree, probably 20 m up. Then B couldn't get back down; he'd try to fly down and instead would end up in other, higher trees. Flying down at a steep angle is apparently much harder than flying up at the same angle. We were finally reunited after much coaxing and roof-climbing, and I thought he had learned his lesson from all the screaming panic and stress. But, nope, it soon happened again, and each time he seemed to enjoy winging about a bit more. I've posted a picture -- see if you can spot the flyaway cockatiel stranded in this idyllic scene.

I decided to start the clicker conditioning with B, in hopes of training him into coming when called. We also started flight training with steeper descents. The clicker training's been going well so far. Bird C has taken a surprising interest in it, to the point where he was surpassing Bird B, and B would fidget and look jealously on as C was getting all the treats! I now have the natural Model/Rival situation which has worked so well for Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her genius Grays like Alex, without even needing a human dummy!

At this point, I'm not sure who is being trained better: the birds at touching the target as I intend, or me at dutifully feeding them treats whenever they deign to humour me.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
- Mark Twain

Weather

2007-05-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

The weather's been bizarre lately. It's been vacillating from warm sunny days to cold nights, from suffocatingly hot afternoons to freak storms in the evening. I planted out some of my seedlings and the last survivors got killed in a freak hail storm yesterday. I don't have a picture of the mangled plants, but here's one of the birds enjoying the weather.

I realized another side effect of my Palate Experiment. Afterwards, it occurred to me that after eating raw things for a week, I hadn't had to do any dishes! Just had to rinse the occasional knife and cutting board. It's almost worth it just for that.

Palate Experiment

2007-05-04T15:20:00.000-07:00

Day 1 ends fairly uneventfully. I'm eating a lot more fruits and veggies than I usually do. I forget to keep good notes, but I ingest at least 5 celery stalk, 2 mushroom, baby carrots, 1 pear, and probably more of the same.

Day 2: I think my palate and body are really starting to get cleaned up today, and it feels good to eat lots of healthy fibrous foods. Ingested: carrots, 2 celery stalk, grapes, 1 fig, 1/4 orange pepper, 1 tomato, 1 mushroom, 2 pears, 1 apple.

Day 3: I'm feeling more hungry and eating small meals or snacks about every 90-120 minutes. I suppose I don't really think of a piece of fruit as a meal. Ingested: 2 celery stalk, baby carrots, 1/4 orange pepper, grapes, 1 pear, 1 tangerine, more grapes, 1/4 red pepper.

Day 4: Today is tougher, more hunger. Starting to lose my concentration to fantasies about other foods. I stick with the raw fruits and veggies for most of the day -- and I'm happy to get both birds into the baby carrots! -- but I weigh myself and appear to have lost 5 pounds. Losing about a pound a day sounds a bit scary, and I realize that a week might be too long for me to go on just fruits and veggies. I figure that if I'm fantasizing about food, my body probably needs something it's missing. So I break my raw plant diet that night // and add some protein and fat. Brown rice never tasted so good!

Ingested: 2 celery stalk, baby carrots, 1/4 red pepper, 1/3 orange pepper, 3 tomato, 1 mushroom, 1 grapefruit, 1 fig? // brown rice, mixed salad greens, carrots, 1 mushroom, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, walnuts, 1 pear, apple cider vinegar, black pepper.

Day 5: I wake up feeling full and satisfied instead of hungry, so the oils and brown rice protein were a good idea. Much happier today, no longer consumed with food fantasies. I get hungry while I'm out with the birds, and I have a granola bar on me, but I don't want to break into the sugars too hard, so I'm sticking to the fairly whole foods. Ingested: carrots, 2 mushroom, 1 normal carrot, brown rice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, 1 celery stalk, mixed salad greens, 1 tangerine, walnuts, 1 pear, red wine vinegar.

Day 6: Today is Day 6 of My Palate Experiment, and I have lost about 7 pounds since before the experiment started. This is a bit much, even if it's mostly water. Ingested so far: baby carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1/2 orange pepper.

After talking to my friend who's a dietician, I realize my body probably needs a lot more protein than I've been giving it, so I decide to visit her for dinner and stop the experiment today intead of tomorrow. Not quite a week. I think my palate is pretty clean, since celery, mushrooms and peppers taste good and juicy to me. Fruits are just scrumptious!

Results: Palate feels clean. Weight lost. Muscle lost, probably. Body a bit hungry for different foods, but mostly craving healthy flavourful foods with spices, rather than utter processed crap. Probably lacking in protein, B12, Calcium.

Positive Side Effects: Birds are eating much better! They now attack organic baby carrots and celery (sometimes) with gusto. Take a look at the photo: Celery is today, Day 6, and carrot attack on the right is Day 4.

Playtime

2007-04-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Warm sun and fresh breezes through the green blades made another beautiful day today. I've made a play area for the birds outside so that they have a fairly secure home base from which to enjoy the outdoors. I fastened a birch branch down to the railing with some twine to make some chewable perches and there's a nice green potted plant underneath that they can fertilize. Almost an entire ecosystem. Not quite.

+++

Today is Day 1 of My Palate Experiment.

Yesterday was Day 0 and didn't really count since brunch included French fries. Yum! Later meals were good though: fruits only.

So today, I've been ingesting water, celery and organic carrots and mushrooms. I figure I'll leave the sweet fruits for later, or else it'll be harder to eat the veggies. One of the birds is following along with me; he shredded some celery, chewed up baby carrots, but he refused both of those as soon as he got a nibble off the organic mushroom. I bet he goes for those umami flavours from the glutamate, just like his mommy. He also tends to gorge on whatever food he likes the most and needs to be encouraged to eat a more varied diet. I hope he hasn't inherited poor eating habits from me.

Flavours On My Palate

2007-04-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

To go along with my Spring cleaning, I'm planning to do a little experiment cleaning my tastebuds. In recent months, I've been eating a lot of strongly flavoured foods: my favourite spicy curries and fiery hot sauces, potato chips and other snacks high in salt and MSG, processed sugars thanks to my weakness for sour keys... I'd better stop describing all these or I'll never finish this experiment.

Materials:
4 grapefruit
4 tangerines
8 pears
6 apples
2 figs
a bunch of grapes
5 sweet yellow/orange/red peppers
2 lb. baby carrots
1 lb. tomatoes
1 lb. of salad greens
a bunch of celery
broccoli
pear yogurt
vanilla yogurt
various organic soy milks, rice drinks

Method:
1. Avoid all processed foods with added flavour, for a week or so.
2. Drink water. Avoid alcohol, sweetened juices, syrups, etc.
3. Eat healthy: only whole foods, vegetables and fruits.

I'll try to stick to plain raw fruits and veggies, and if I get desperate, I can break open some yogurt/rice/soy milk with some muesli. Or have a salad with a simple dressing (olive oil, vinegar, mustard, herbs, minimal/no spices, no sugar, no salt). If I really get desperate, maybe a vegetable/cheese sandwich with some mustard on whole wheat or multigrain. Let's hope it doesn't come to all that.

Purpose:
The goal is to cleanse my palate. By the end of the week, I am hoping my tastebuds won't be so accustomed to oversalting, oversweetening and overspicing. I want to taste everything vividly.

Flying Free

2007-04-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

We had a gorgeous storm today. Rain poured for about an hour with high winds blowing everything down. I let some rain and wind come inside and the flock loved it. This weather has spurred me on to do some Spring Cleaning, although it might be Summer Cleaning by the time I've made enough progress to call it a "cleaning".

Lately, it's been warming. So warm, in fact, that I didn't notice my pepper sprouts were getting too much sun beside the window, and they promptly withered and died. My thumb isn't brown anymore; it's outright black.

I've taken the birds outside a bit to enjoy the warmth. While I want them to get fresh air and sunlight, it makes me nervous that they get so excited whenever they're out. They call out to all the wild birds they hear and hold their wings slightly away from their bodies as if they're about to flap any moment. I'm torn between wanting them to enjoy some freedom and fearing that they'll panic, fly off and get into trouble. Freedom or security?

In response to some feedback about how pale they looked in the last set I posted, here are some unretouched, non-colour-corrected photos of the birds outside. Note that the high contrast from the direct sunlight has overexposed the brights, and my camera chose to properly expose the dark brown wall in shadow in the background.

Springing Sprout

2007-04-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

Some of my seeds have sprouted! The broccolinis are doing extremely well; almost every one sprouted up, although a few did not survive. I also have a couple of tomato and pepper sprouts, although I may have crushed one of the tomato when I accidentally dropped the curtain on it.

I also decided to seed some greens in my little garden plot today. I sowed some Catalina Spinach, Buttercrunch Lettuce and a couple of Chinese cabbages, Bak Choi and Choi Sum. Afterwards, I realized that the Buttercrunch and Chinese cabbages were in the same spot in the plot as last year. Too late -- I'd forgotten to plan ahead and rotate! I'm hoping it won't matter since the cabbages failed last year anyway. Last but not least, I planted some Red Butterworth lettuce and more spinach in some containers outside on the deck. I'm curious to see if they will grow better and faster in the theoretically warmer container soil.

Coming up, beans and cucumbers! I just bought the seeds about a week ago, on the advice that they're rewarding and easy to grow. This will be a nice challenge for my brown thumb.

Cold Cry Mates

2007-04-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

I ran a bunch of errands today and bought a nice warm pair of black yoga pants for myself. The strange thing was that, in the front of the shop, there was a large rack of bathing suits. Mental check. Swimsuits? In the winter? It just snowed a few days ago and shops are selling swimsuits already!

Maybe this means it's about time to sow the seeds in the garden. Do I sow because we're coming on to mid-April and I won't have my harvest unless I start soon? Or do I hold off because it still snows and I'm supposed to wait until "all danger of frost is past"? Maybe the snow doesn't count, as long as I don't actually see any frost. Damn, I wish it were warmer.

While I cry to myself about the injustice of the local climate and its consequences on my agricultural instincts, I'll share a scan of my favourite sticker in the whole wide world.

Seeders

2007-04-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

I'm starting seeds for my garden. Today I did some broccoli and tomato seeding in some peat pots and egg cartons, and last week I did some bell pepper and zucchini in peat pots. I'm hoping this will extend my season enough so that I can finally get some fresh ripe tomatoes from my garden! That's still my goal... third year's a charm, I hope.

Last year I found that seeding in the peat pots made it near impossible to control the moisture, so I've planted the seeds in the pots individually, then planted the pots into a compost/soil mix. This worked fairly well last year, almost a 100% success rate, so here's hoping for the same. I'm actually being reasonable this year and trying not to overseed since it breaks my heart when I have to kill the excess sprouts so young. I hope this is not too few: 9 broccoli seeds (one fell out into the big pot), 6 tomato, 2 zucchini, and a bunch of pepper seeds since they don't do as well.

Spring forth and prosper, little ones!

Stretching

2007-03-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've been starting up some more yoga recently. I like Richard Freeman's Breathing and Relaxation videotape. He has a very calming, soothing manner, although most of the time, I get too impatient and hungry to finish the whole tape. The first half is the hard part anyway, with all the standing postures. I'm already feeling more flexible (read: sore) from it.

At first, the birds seemed startled whenever I practiced yoga, but now they've been joining me in their own birdy yoga. One's more active and strong and does some inverted postures -- sometimes he'll flap his wings or sing, sometimes he'll just hang there or look around restlessly. The other is better at the sitting and relaxation poses.

Actually, I'm proud that they're so strong -- I try to work out the flock every day -- and these cockatiels are over 20 years old! I hope I'm this strong and flexible when I'm 80.

It's getting warmer. I need to start my seedlings for the garden. For two years in a row, my harvest was pathetic since I either started too late or had a too-cold summer. I REALLY want tomatoes this year, ripe ones I can eat, not just green ones that rot or freeze.

Love or love not. There is no entitlement.

2007-03-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

I got some interesting responses on my last post about Men Who Think They're Entitled To Women. Niels comments, "It's not that I'm entitled to a conversation, but I, like everyone else in the social setting, am entitled to politeness. If you don't want to be polite, don't go to a social event."

I disagree.

First of all, nobody is entitled to politeness to the point where they can threaten or demand it from others. However, I do agree that everyone deserves civility and courtesy. We're just not "entitled" in the sense that we can rack up points to justify mistreating others when things don't go our way. Respect, consideration, courtesy and love are gifts that we could all give to our fellow citizens more often than we do, but they must be freely given, not obliged nor coerced. While we may certainly deserve a polite "go away" request, we're not entitled to overstay our welcome in order to insist on getting what we deserve.

Secondly, a bar or nightclub is not a "social event" by default but rather a business catering to various interests. Examples of social events are dinner or cocktail parties, wedding receptions, dances, birthday celebrations, and house parties, where guests are invited and there is presumably some assurance that everyone in attendance has someone in common and nobody is an axe murderer.

From a young age, we're taught not to talk to strangers, so there is a lot more riding on subjective experience when we don't know who we're dealing with; some strangers seem more friendly and trustworthy than others, while some strangers appear more threatening. In your "Psycho" situation, Niels, I think you set yourself apart from the average Joe as a male stranger who wouldn't leave when asked, and who would instead respond with condescension... so, probably not the friendly, trustworthy, non-threatening kind of stranger. Even in a real social event, it wouldn't be appropriate to patronize or insult one's social contacts. In a public place like a club or bar, it's no less inappropriate to plant oneself at a girl's table, refuse to leave, then diss her.

Would you scope out a restaurant and sit yourself down at the hottest girls' table while they're getting their entrees, then treat them like they're idiots when they say you're not welcome? The fact that it's a club with drinks instead of a restaurant with food doesn't make that much of a difference.

Thirdly, it seems a little ungenerous to dictate for others their reasons for going out. Of course politeness is nicer than rudeness, but I hope Niels isn't suggesting that women implicitly submit to advances from men whenever they attend a social event.

Itotem comments, "As a guy, I kind of cringe when I see other men want to banter right away with women. It's not ALWAYS situationally relevant."

Thanks for the great comment, Itotem! It's good to know that you share my observation that hitting on women is not always desirable. Niels, it's pretty clear that you were at the club to meet someone like that hot girl. But I think she made it equally obvious that she was NOT there to meet someone like you.

Flirting and bantering are consensual social interactions. As soon as someone voices a desire to stop interacting, you need to respect that request or else you risk crossing the line into harassment. Your expectation of what is supposed to happen in an ideal world is irrelevant, since you shouldn't cross that line, ever. This isn't just about etiquette and social graces, it's about acting in a way that doesn't threaten the well-being of others.

As a female, being objectified is nothing special. Sometimes it's mildly offensive: I don't enjoy crude remarks being made to me on the street. Some women might, but I don't. Sometimes it's even mildly threatening: If a strange guy starts walking with me at night and won't go away, it's a bit creepy. Flirting only works when there's some personal connection. It doesn't work when a guy's just talking to me because he's slapped a few labels on me and finds those words and images desirable. That's just tiresome and makes me look for the quickest way out.

So, do me a favour. Next time you talk to a girl, recognize her humanity and like something about her total being, be drawn to something about her other than how much you'd like to have a piece of her. If you don't find something that makes you care about her as a person and she doesn't think you have much to offer her either, just go away nicely.

No loss on either side.

They're baaaack! Entitlement Attack!

2007-03-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been out of my Blogger account for a few weeks because they changed it over, logged me out and I couldn't remember my username and password. But, I finally set to work and got it straightened out today. Thanks for the impetus, Melville!

Lately, I've been coming across way too many men who have been discourteous and rude to me at best, and at worst, harassing me and my acquaintances. What do they all have in common? A sense of entitlement. Just because they want my attention, they think they deserve it, and therefore, I'm a horrible and hostile person for not giving them the attention they deserve. Never mind that I might be busy with my own thoughts or activities -- I'm the one who's rude if I don't drop everything as soon as they want my time.

That's why I have a bone to pick with Men Who Think They're Entitled To Women, or MWTTETW for short (pronounced "mau-tet-ew"). Most of my encounters with MWTTETW have been on the Internet recently, thank goodness. Encountering one in the real world is scary to say the least: Because such a man thinks he's entitled to you, he'll often get angry when you don't play ball. Any subsequent hostility or violence on his part is thus "justified" in his skewed little brain, because none of it would have happened if you just wanted him back like you were supposed to! Presto, now it's the woman's fault he's angry and violent! Neat trick, huh?

I figured I've been really unlucky these past few weeks, I've been coming across MWTTETW on websites, IMs, chat, anywhere on the Internet I go, it seems. Now, if you're an Entitled-feeling Man yourself, you're probably thinking at this point that I did something to deserve this negative attention. Sorry, but in all but one case, I was doing absolutely nothing to attract attention other than being online when the Entitlement Attack hit. In the one other case, I was involved in a public discussion that led to the guy messaging me privately to tell me he wanted to get to know me and be my friend, while I tried to parry his advances.

A typical Entitlement Attack:
- I'm around, minding my own business and doing my own thing, with or without friends.
- Man notices me, tries to get my attention, start up a conversation.
- I politely decline, mention I'm busy, act otherwise disinterested or unavailable.
- Man gets angry, attacks me for being anti-social, rude, hostile for not wanting to socialize with him.

If you've ever been the male in this scenario, please consider the following for a moment: If you're the kind of guy who gets angry just because a woman doesn't want to talk to you right then, why would she want to talk with you EVER? It's not fun, it's not social and it's not enjoyable. It's annoying, irritating and unpleasant at best. At worst, if you continue, it's threatening, stalking and harassment. What part of this is she supposed to enjoy? Why should she like you at all?

I was hoping I was just a freak of nature, getting a lot of bad luck from MWTTETW, but then I went surfing on the web and found that not only are there men who do this to unlucky women like me in private, but there are men out there who do this and still feel entitled enough afterwards to publicly talk about about how they should have put the girl in her place!

Take a look at BATG participant Niels Hoven's blog article, "Apparently I'm a Psycho". While the article is aptly named, unfortunately, it appears that he meant it ironically. No, I guess we can't expect self-awareness from MWTTETW who blog about it like it's cool. Basically, the typical scene goes like this: Niels goes to a nightclub, sees some hot girls and approaches them to flirt. One girl doesn't want him there, and one doesn't seem to mind so much. The "unfriendly" girl hints that he should scram, but Niels invariably overlooks these first hints and responds instead by "bantering" or "vibing" with the girls. The hints become less subtle, so Niels blatantly disregards increasingly explicit requests to leave, and often even jokes about the requests instead of respecting them. The scenario ends when the girls can't take it anymore and leave because he won't, or more recently in "Psycho", he finally takes the request semi-seriously and makes his exit. Good to know that he has evolved somewhat...

The good thing is that he DOES leave after being explicitly asked (let's not even talk about how he grabs the first excuse to return to their table). The bad part is the so-called lesson he's learned from this recurring experience. Does he perhaps learn that he shouldn't sit down uninvited? No. Does he learn that he should respect earlier hints and requests to leave? Nope. What Niels Hoven learns is that some girls are "beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside" and that he "[needs] to lay down the hammer and just tell the girl that her behavior is unacceptable." Whoa.

Am I the only one who thinks that telling the girl that her behaviour was "unacceptable" would have been inexcusably rude considering how he insinuated himself into a "social situation" with her that she didn't even want to be in?

NEWS FLASH: She is NOT rude simply because she wants you to go away. YOU were rude for ignoring her less-than-subtle hints to get you to leave after sitting down uninvited at her table. Just because you want to talk to a girl, doesn't mean that you deserve her time or that she's obliged to give you any. It's this kind of attitude that eventually leads to a man harassing a woman and telling her it's her fault for not wanting him back.

The scary part of this is that Niels is a coach at Art of Attraction workshops, where he apparently teaches men how to flirt with women and be the most attractive versions of themselves. Is he teaching men to ignore women's wishes? Is he teaching men that it's all right to violate women ("It's okay as long as she's hot and you wanna talk to her")?

This is just wrong. Her desirability never justifies your sense of entitlement. And if you're afflicted with a sense of entitlement, at least keep it to yourself and don't infect other perfectly nice men with that attitude.

What imitates what?

2007-02-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated Valentine's Day, everyone!

So, everything seems right in reality TV world, at least with the beauties and the geeks. On the final episode of BATG, Nate halfway redeemed himself by urging a lot of the eliminated contestants to vote for Megan & Scooter, the other team who deserved it much more. I liked Megan the more I saw of her, she was always in good humour, joked about herself good-naturedly and really seemed to throw herself into new things and expand as a person. I don't know if Cecille is really that deluded or if the producers just told her to be so hateful to make good TV. On The Bachelor reality TV series, they always seem to have a villainess-type girl who makes it to the final 3, and BATG seems as formulaic in that sense as the other reality TV shows I've seen. Wait, is the reality TV formulaic or is it reality itself that's formulaic and TV is just imitating life?

My creative juices are stewing. I've been thinking about light and colour and space, and wish I had a large room, time, video equipment, and a few thousand (thousand?) for materials to make any installation I wanted. I'm not great with tools and building, so maybe these things will never exist in reality... I need to learn to use technology better than it uses me.

I hope Oscar Wilde was right when he said: Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

What's My Sex?

2007-02-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

Watched the new episode of the BATG tonight and was sorry to see Jennylee & Neils get eliminated. Niels got a bad break on this episode, left with no choices and a question hard enough to be on Jeopardy!, unlike the other trivia they've asked on BATG. I suspect the show's producers leave the most obscure questions for last no matter what number is left, just so they can avoid a tie.

Actually, I'm not so attached to J&N winning, but I didn't want to see Cecille advance in the game, much like how I imagine Kerry voters in the 2004 Presidential election were voting more against Bush than for Kerry. Well, at least this means Megan & Scooter should be a shoo-in next week when BATG gets the old contestants to return and judge which of the 2 final couples has grown more and deserves to win. I wouldn't want to vote for either heartless Cecille or Nate, after he stole Mario's thunder and numbers, a stunt that ultimately got Mario & Nadia eliminated last week.

I hate it when people take credit for someone else's work.

+++

Apparently my post yesterday wasn't sufficiently revealing! I got a comment asking me for the basics, like whether I am male or female. The answer to that age-old question is "Yes, yes I am."

For a more telling truth, let's play a game of maieutics... The name of the game is "What's My Sex?" and you're the next contestant!

Do I look more female or male?
Are my attitudes more masculine or feminine?
Have I mentioned any details or engaged in any activities more typical of either sex?
Do my language patterns make me more likely to be a masculine male, a feminine female, a masculine female, or a feminine male?

Eligibility: This contest is open only to residents of the star system Sol. Entrants must be a minimum of 18 Terran years of age or have the written consent of a legal guardian. Employees, friends, relations of the writer, and their immediate families and individuals living in the same household as such individuals are ineligible. Void where prohibited.

Who I Am

2007-02-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

I started blogging not too many posts ago and I got a comment here yesterday asking me, "Who are you?" There's no way I can do it all in one post, or even in a blog, but I figured I'd fill in some blanks. Seven, to be exact.

Things that grab my attention:
1. Ethics, morals, principles.
2. Sustainable living. Vegetable gardening.
3. Art and creative expression.
4. Learning about the world around us, education and critical thinking. Play. Wonder.
5. Good food, great friends, meaningful conversation.
6. Kindness and love. Giving and receiving.
7. Happy endings and beginnings.

The best compliment I ever received was when a friend told me that he thought I did what Gandhi said:

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Integrity vs. Reality

2007-02-05T12:20:00.000-08:00

On Week 5's episode of the reality TV show Beauty & The Geek, the challenge for the boys is to go to a dog park with a dog and get as many phone numbers from women as they could.

Ethical Dilemma:
You're a man in a reality TV show with a money prize if you beat out the other contestants to be the last one standing. The task is to grab a dog and go to a dog park while trying to procure the phone numbers of as many women as possible. Is it ethical to involve unsuspecting innocents in your game and lie to them in order to get more phone numbers? If you get her number and say you'll call her, is there an ethical obligation to follow up and actually call her? Men apparently do this for free all the time, but does it change the ethics of the situation that this is done as part of a reality TV contest?

Who would do better in a challenge of ethics, a beauty or a geek? It could be a properly obscure area to test them all on!

I wish the TV show itself would directly address some of the ethics, but maybe that's why I've been on Neils's blog, reading comments about some of the stuff that went on. On that episode, Neils presumably didn't get any numbers and spoke of how "dirty" the challenge made him feel. Was it just insecurity and fear of rejection, as he apparently indicated on TV? Or was it about a larger question of principle and ethics, as he implies on his blog?

At this point in this case, I'm leaning toward the former, since this is from a blog of a guy who's constantly bragging about flirting and "vibing" with beautiful women. Does he get the permission of the women he flirts with to publish their encounters on his blog? As well, he gets income from coaching other men on how to flirt with women, so there's definitely a financial interest. Does he tell the women he meets that their encounter will be publicized and used to further his career? Does he get permission to publish what they say in private to him? If it's morally questionable to use a girl and get her phone number to win a challenge unbeknownst to her, surely it's questionable to flirt with girls and publish personal conversations to gain infamy.

Mario on the show seemed to have a good ethical solution to the Phone Number Challenge. He ran around telling people something that was basically true: he was asking for phone numbers to improve his self-esteem and social skills. He didn't seem to represent to anyone that the request was anything other than an exercise, or that he intended to call them.

From what Niels has revealed on the show and his blog, there has been a lot of inconsistency that for his sake, I hope he will address, in response to reader comments. Of course, if the whole thing is indeed meant to drum up business for his work, we'll be less likely to see that kind of personal integrity and this assessment might be right on the money.

So to speak.

Beauty is not sublime.

2007-02-04T23:35:00.000-08:00

I got pretty stressed out last month with work, so I've been relaxing in front of the TV more than usual this week. I caught Beauty & The Geek for the first time this week and saw a few episodes in a marathon tonight. BATG is a reality contest show along the lines of Survivor, with challenges to win and eliminations every episode, except the gimmick here is that the contestants are couples, a female "beauty" and a male "geek" who have been thrust together to cooperate as a team.

What I like about it is that a lot of the participants seem genuinely changed by the experience for the better. For the most part, I can see many of the beauties and geeks relate to each other as humans, befriending each other and getting to know the substance behind the stereotypes. In that sense, it's a nice hour of TV with flashes of optimism for humanity.

+ + +

After the BATG marathon, I surfed around on the web, curious how real the "reality" TV show was. I found the blog of Niels, one of the guys on the show, so I started browsing. One post had a comment that smacked of such sexist ignorance that I felt it warranted a response, my first comment to a stranger's personal blog ever.

Written by someone calling himself "Asian Playboy":

"...the thing is, intelligence isn’t rewarded in a woman and can actually be a negative thing. I remember reading that, statistically the more educated and intelligent a woman is (beyond standard college level), the less likely her chances at relationships and marriage.

Ergo, the world punishes excessive displays of intelligence by women."

I'm not sure if it's deliberate misogyny or just ignorance that leads to the assumption that a woman's single status is a result of being acted upon by a punishing world (of men?) rather than an active choice.

While it may be that educated women are statistically less likely to marry, this may be because they have higher standards for their mates, rather than because they're not chosen by men. In my experience, intelligence IS indeed rewarded in women, as well as men, by their own kind: other people of intelligence.

While I agree that there may be fewer privileges for women of ability when compared to men of comparable ability, that's very different than presuming that smart women are just waiting to be chosen by any man for marriage. Educated and intelligent women simply have fewer choices in romance because most don't cherish the idea of living with inferior men. Naturally, people with high standards have fewer potentials who meet those standards.

More than anything, it's about our choices and our willingness to take risks and go beyond our fears and self-doubts. We choose what we want, and usually we're attracted to people with the same best qualities as we have. An outwardly good-looking person who values beauty above all else may want a similarly superficial mate. An intelligent and ethical person will probably search for the same. It's a lot harder to find intelligent, ethical people in this world than good-looking ones.

"Just so what is morality but high intelligence?" - Henry James

Vegetable Soup

2006-11-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

I'll post the final photographs for the Daucus carota experiment. Yep, we only talk about vegetables on this blog, be they carrots, peppers, or zucchini. The carrots got pretty disgusting and looked like they were moulding by the end of it; I think the difference between them became more pronounced. I did make vegetable soup, but not with the experimental carrots. Nope, these babies went to get composted.

I found out recently that Superman's Metropolis was based on the city of Toronto, even though it's often represented as New York, or maybe sometimes Chicago or somewhere in Kansas. Apparently, the original artist was from Toronto, and worked at The Toronto Daily Star which The Daily Planet was based on.

I've been wondering lately if ideals are dead in this world. Does anyone really like having an idealist around? What a drag. Who wants to be reminded of such lofty principles when they have to face a grim reality? Perhaps it's futile to think that ideals could ever have a place.

The Great Unwashed

2006-11-11T01:55:00.000-08:00

Latest Results from Daucus carota research

Hour 93: Superman visits my laboratory and commends me on my research, then insists on posing for a picture with the infamous carrots. Superman remarks on how powerful his muscles are to be able to bend the carrots with only one locomotive hand. For the sake of his ego, I neglect to mention my observation that both carrots are considerably flexile. Surface of W carrot appears quite white and wrinkled, with little vibrant orange colour. Dirty carrot's skin is still orange with sporadic white spots.Hour 148: W carrot is developing dark streaks along with increased white wrinkles on skin and is getting quite soft and spongey. Dirty carrot has dry white spots and is becoming less rigid. Both are distinctly unappetizing.

Both my lab assistant and I conclude that the washed Daucus carota is more shrivelled than the dirty one. The dirty root matches the firm. Mr. Scientist admits defeat.

Next up: Carrot soup taste test.

The Carrot Experiment

2006-11-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

I am undertaking research on the effects of dihydrogen monoxide on the Daucus carota. Do the unwashed survive longer than the washed? Does cleaning hasten the effects of old age? Basically, my friend Mr. Scientist, bet me that a washed carrot does not shrivel up faster than an unwashed carrot.

Materials:
Hydrogen oxide
Two whole samples of Daucus carota of approximately equal size, from the same source
Sharpie black permanent marker

Procedure:
1. Wash one specimen in dilute hydrogen oxide.
2. Label both specimen.
3. Store both in same location and record results.

Observations:
Hour 0: Both carrots similar in appearance. Lab Assistant labels control specimen "Dirty" and washed specimen "W" near tops.

Hour 45: Skin of W carrot has light white lines on the surface and appears a bit dry. Dirty carrot appears fresh on the surface. Both carrots fairly firm.

Hour 72: W carrot looks dry, with more whitish lines crossing the skin. Skin of W carrot feels soft and wrinkled to the touch. Dirty carrot remains firm.

[to be continued]

Blame it on the Jalapeno

2006-11-05T02:27:00.000-08:00

The season's over and the garden was a miserable failure. Out of all the jalapeno plants, I only got one stunted little pepper out of it. But, I have to admit he was a hot little guy -- Spiced up an eggplant dish all by himself! For the second year in a row, I couldn't get any tomatoes to ripen, even though I think I started the tomatoes early enough this year. I seeded them indoors, and then transplanted the seedlings. I got numerous green tomatoes but was too tired of them to even enjoy the ones I did harvest, so most of them ended up rotting. I got one or two yellowing-to-light-orangey tomatoes late in the season, while it was starting to get frosty, but the squirrels had taken big chunks out of those before I could beat them to it. Maybe I'll do better next year, if I don't give up on growing veggies during our balmy 10 degrees Celsius summer season.

I have started an experiment based on a bet with my friend who is getting his Ph. D. in Chemistry. I mentioned that a washed carrot will shrivel up faster than an unwashed carrot and Mr. Scientist disagreed. The bet is on: Two carrots marked, one washed, both placed side-by-side back in the fridge. More to come!

Only Fruit

2006-09-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

A belated garden update: About a week after my first pepper, I was looking at my garden wilting and suddenly saw a huge zucchini on the ground, a good 40 cm long, 10 cm in diameter and heavy. I have no idea how long this gigantic fruit had been growing clandestinely under the leaves, but either it'd been undercover for a while, or the plant had an abrupt growth spurt and died, leaving all its energy in this single mammoth squash. I detached the fruit, which fed me for the next two weeks, but nothing I could do would revive the wilting plant. I have a feeling that this is the only zucchini coming out of my garden this year. I wonder if I realize how many parents sacrifice their lives when they bear offspring.

It's been a cold summer.

It's not summer anymore.

Cast Iron

2006-09-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

I played MAGIC: The Gathering for the first time ever! I've heard all about it for 15 years or so, but never knew how it worked until my boyfriend taught it to me last week with some Ravnica starter packs. Apparently, a single game is supposed to take 20 minutes, but ours were running around 2 hours each. (Poor him!) I'm happy to report that I, the neophyte, won both games against the seasoned veteran... although to be fair, I think he let me win on Game 2. Game 1 was played open-handed and I got lucky by drawing my favourite card in my deck, Spectral Searchlight, early on, so I trounced him good. Hey, the Searchlights cost only 50 cents each! Imagine what I could do with 10 of these. Hmm....

+++

A few days ago, I got a physical checkup. I now have a name for the shooting pain I get in my knees sometimes, when it feels like my legs are going to buckle under me: Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome. I'm not sure what causes it, but at least I now know what it's called. I hadn't realized how much the Health Care system in Canada has declined. Since I tend to get sick whenever I visit the doctor (waiting room contagions), I've been trying to avoid doctors' offices in Canada for the past 5 years or so. Opthamologist's Eye exams are no longer covered. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, but it seems to me that it's pretty important to EVERYONE for EVERYONE ELSE to know when their seeing is going. Maybe we don't have enough Canadians dying in traffic accidents, so the government figures it's best to stop checking our eyesight. Apparently, if I had better health insurance, my doctor could order x-rays and see if I need physiotherapy for the knee thing, but since it's not covered, I went home with some photocopies. Good ones, though!

I don't like needles, especially the kind that takes more than it gives, so I haven't done any bloodwork for over a decade. The doctor who gave me my last physical just handed me a form for the bloodwork to bring to the lab and said I didn't have to do it when I asked about it. So I didn't. Stuffed it in my bag and let it go. My new family doctor, though, is sure keen on all that health and medicine bunk, so she convinced me it was critical to check the blood. Wouldn't take No for an answer. So I went with the consensus... down to the laboratory in the basement and let them jam a needle into my arm. The doctor's office called me the next day. Apparently, I have an iron deficiency and need to make another appointment with her for that. I'm not sure where this goes next... I could go to the doctor again, and either need to take vitamins or eat better, and then what? They take more blood to see if it worked? When will the bloodshed stop?

The Ex

2006-09-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

We went to the Ex for its last day, to check out everything we missed when we went on the first day back in mid-August. It was Labour Day so the Air Show was on, but I was too late to catch any of it, although we still did see some other shows. I didn't bring my camera, but I'll post something from the first visit.

This time, we were able to catch an aerial acrobatic and ice skating show. One skater did an Inspector Gadget routine that I loved -- he had this great energy and charisma and the choreography reminded me a bit of Kurt Browning's Charlie Brown routine with its humour and charm. Most of the other skaters were mediocre and just did formations and some low jumps. We also checked out the Arts and Crafts pavilion where I bought a few (too many?) things.

Last time at the Ex, we went on a ton of rides and I learned that my body's constitution is not what it used to be when I was young. We saw a cabaret called Cirque Envol, which took place in a beautiful building with a huge dome. Lit up, it was perfect for a circus/acrobatics show. Take a look at the pic!

+++

I realized I might have to limit comments on this blog to registered users, since I got my first spam comment today. Not that there are a lot of comments here, but I don't feel like having this blog being used to sell every Internet product/service/website out there. But, for the sake of entertaining free speech, here's the comment text for anyone who is interested: "Hey, check out this site - these guys pay you up to 30 percent money back for all of your normal online purchases! How does it work? They give you the money they earn from their affiliates whenever you buy through them. Click here for more info". Not very exciting, is it. Thank you, Anonymous! Perhaps I should give another chance to the other Anonymous commentators out there who have more relevant remarks to make.

My First Pepper!

2006-08-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to sleep all night, so I finally took the birds outside for a morning stroll in the garden. It had just rained during the night, so the morning was fresh and cool. The birds fluffed up immediately and Charley started singing a mating song. He hasn't sung it so fully in weeks; lately, he's only been singing a few truncated notes at a time before losing interest. They like being outside.

Anyway, I've been trying to grow a veggie garden for two years now. This was the first year I successfully got my sweet peppers to sprout and grow into plants. I just read up on peppers, and found that I'm supposed to harvest the first central fruit to encourage bushier growth and more cropping. I had been saving my one good-looking pepper, hoping it would grow large and eventually red/orange/yellow. But, after reading that, I decided to go outside and harvest my one pepper.

My first pepper!

Maybe I'll post photos if I can figure out how to do that later. I hope the cropping works! I need some vegetables going here. All season working on the garden, and all I've had so far is two and a half heads of lettuce and a zucchini the size of my pinky. The spinach, eggplant, other lettuce, broccoli, bak choi, gai lan chinese cabbage, jalapenos, onions and tomatoes have all flopped so far.

Last year, I was able to get broccoli, basil, a bit of dill and coriander, and green tomatoes, so if the sweet peppers crop well, and I can get both last year's and this year's successes, then I'd almost have a real honest-to-goodness productive garden next year! I'm very excited!

Why Blogger Sucks

2006-08-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

-Despite my deliberate failure to include a First Name and Last Name in my Blogger profile, Blogger somehow pulled my name into my blog posting and published my blog with my full name included, even though my Display Name was given as "S".

-I filled in First/Last name with some other nonsense words to try to republish it, but no matter how many times I saved and resaved my profile, Blogger still displayed my full name (that I never gave the website!) on my blog.

-I deleted my blog post, and republished the content, hoping that the Display Name would finally show up as "S". Wouldn't work.

-I checked the Help section, but no information was given on how to correct this, and I couldn't find a contact email or phone number for support.

-I deleted my entire blog, resaved my profile a few times (the First/Last Name fields NEVER had my real name in there, so I don't know how Blogger pulled that information), reposted and republished and reset all my options, and now, 7 hours later, my private info seems to be gone. Finally. I hope.

Hey BLOGGER! If you tell your users that something is "The name used to sign your blog posts", please actually use that field to sign the blog posts, and not whatever info you got with whatever spooky ways you use to invade our privacy instead!

A Day of Worsts

2006-08-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment. I've never blogged before, and stopped diarizing years ago, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Today has been the worst technology day I've had in a long time, and of course, it happened at the worst possible time, since today was the one day I needed a certain document for an early appointment tomorrow. Thinking that the bulk of the work (finalizing the document) was finished, I procrastinated until well after midnight to print it out.

My little blue Epson Stylus wouldn't print.

Okaaaay -- I figure I just need to run it through some Printer Utility tests to clean the heads, check alignment, check the nozzles. I run the nozzle tests, and from a few little gaps, it looks like I just need some head cleaning. So I clean the head a few times.... but it still won't print. I'm getting blank pages printed out. The ink wells are about a half or a third full.

So I give up on the little blue guy, and decide to try my old PC's laser printer instead. Before wasting my time retyping the document, I do a few test prints. Everything seems to be working fine. So I start retyping the document and suddenly the keyboard stops responding. The CAPS LOCK, NUM LOCK, and SCROLL LOCK lights start going wild, blinking on and off. The computer emits a little wail, intermittent at first, then it's a constant screeching. It sounds like a little bird in pain. I reset the computer, hoping it'll clear up the problem... But no, now the PC won't even load up Windows at all, since it gets stuck on the start up process, giving me a "No Keyboard or Keyboard Broken Error" type message. Stupid me. I should have printed out what I had before resetting the thing. Resetting, rebooting, resting, yelling, moaning, begging... Nothing works to bring back my keyboard.

I'm back to the blue guy, my Stylus. I run some more tests, try some more test prints, hoping something will turn up. Nothing, until I try printing everything in purple which gets me 1.5 printed sheets before the purple runs out and fades to a faint cyan. I guess the ink monitoring utility isn't too accurate, or something is wrong with the ink jets. Though purple and cyan aren't the most professional ink colours to print documents with, I guess it's better than showing up empty-handed. I can always pretend it's International Purple Day.

+++

I tried to watch The Passion Of The Christ today. I spotted the DVD at the library and decided to borrow it; having heard loads about it, I was curious what the buzz was all about. The Passion now has my vote for the MOST BORING MOVIE EVER. I suffered through an excruciating 10 minutes before deciding to fast-forward to see if I could find anything of interest. Even at a fast-forward speed of 2x, it was too monotonous to bear so I had to compromise by fast-forwarding at 4x speed. This took me to 18 minutes into the movie, at which point I decided to slow down to normal speed and do a survey. With nothing promising on the horizon, I wandered out of the room to clean up the kitchen a bit. Have to admit it's pretty bad when cleaning seems more interesting to me than watching the movie.

On the possibility that I wasn't giving The Passion a fair chance, I decided to check imdb.com reviews to see if there were any secret tips for surviving the movie. Maybe other viewers with higher thresholds for total boredom would have some sage advice to the tune of "Stand strong through the mind-numbing ennui of the first 19 minutes -- once you get past that trial of character, the rest of the film is brilliant!" Nothing so optimistic greeted me at IMDB; the first review I saw acknowledged that The Passion might hold special interest for those who are religious, but evaluated it as an utter failure in terms of being a film.

Love it or hate it, like or dislike, I think art must always interest the viewer. We have to stick around long enough to experience the work. And while I only saw the first minutes of this one, I'm pretty sure I'm not the target audience. At least not today.

I'm open to change, though. So if anyone has any sage advice for me on how to appreciate The Passion Of The Christ, whatever it is (Do you think fast-forwarding at 8x speed will do it?) please let me know!