Rocky got adopted

Yes, it may seem like a miracle to anyone who knows of him, but Rocky got adopted!

I have been in contact with his new family, and they love him very much.  He is acclimating well.  They also have a yellow-collared macaw, and the two of them (Rocky and the other mini) have been preening each other.  This is fantastic news, as Rocky always seemed like he wanted to befriend another parrot, but the other birds at my house were not interested.

Stella is also doing well -- I get frequent updates from her new family.  She is also very loved and doing very well.

Thomas still does not care about any of us.  The house should sell next week, and then I will basically have no contact with him, which is apparently what he wanted all along.

As for the three that are with me, they are doing very well.  Calypso has blossomed so much, it's like he's a different bird.  Beeps and Max have adapted to having me as their only human.

I know I keep saying that I will post more, but I have trouble figuring out what this blog should be.  Still mostly about the parrots?  (With the loss of Rocky, there is not as much to report!)  Dating in my 30s? (Frustrating, to say the least!) My life, navigating a completely different one than I'd been planning for the past 11 years?

Right now, my three remaining parrots (Max, Calypso, and Beeps) and I are listening to music on youtube and having a dance party:



This song has given me so much strength throughout the ordeal. I frequently repeat lines to myself, especially about how she had to go through so much war to get where she is today.  That is what my life has become.

Updates on all who have been displaced due to my impending divorce

I have updates on everyone who has had to leave my house due to my impending divorce.  In order of their departure:

Stella is doing amazingly well.  Her vets visited her at home last week as they are friends with her owner and they just love her.  She is very lucky to have gone to an amazing home.  She is loved by her owners, by her flockmates (especially the severe macaw!), by her vets, by everyone!

Here is a picture of her on her new kitchen counter.  Isn't she as gorgeous as ever?

Rocky is up at the rescue, but doing really well.  He enjoys all of the activity and rarely screams.  He comes out on his stick and steps up for most people (still not me, though -- I must use a stick!)  He lives next to a female severe macaw, and the two of them have stuck up a friendship through their cages.

He sings, talks, and is having a great time.  What a resilient guy!  I hope to get him in a home soon, but severe macaws are difficult to place, so I'm glad he's somewhere where I can keep an eye on him until we find the right home.

A few pictures:

Basil went home yesterday.  He was supposed to be a foster, but then we were going to keep him since he fit in so well.  The plan is for him to come back to me someday once I have a house.  His family is so glad to have him back, though!

He remembered them and fit right back into the routine -- yelling at their dog "Bad dog!" and sharing meals with the family.  They've promised to update me regularly on him, but his transition was basically seamless since he's going back to his old cage, routine, etc.

Of course I miss everyone at home, but knowing that they are happy is a burden off of my shoulders.

Stella update

As I've mentioned before, Stella is in a fantastic home.  She lives with another CAG (Ellie) and a severe macaw (Tango.)  Tango loves grey parrots, so he is beyond happy to now have two girlfriends.  I've been getting near daily updates and pictures on how well she's doing, and the one I got last night really made me smile:

I hope you had a great weekend.  I can't believe we've only had Stella for a week already.  We celebrated with french toast.  She is a very good eater. It must be a grey thing cause they are not picky like Tango.  Who by the way is in heaven with his 2 girlfriends. They all hang out together in their room and talk back and forth Tango does most of the talking but Stella is making lots of noises back at them. They are all so sweet my little loves.

I just received this additional update that made me laugh out loud:

They all throw kisses back and forth amongst the 3 of them in there its like a kissing festival. Too cute.

I am so happy for Stella and thankful that she is in an amzing, love-filled home!

Saturday

I had a great morning!  I met one of my favorite running partners and we had a great chat for 2 hours as we ran.  I have signed up to do a 50 kilometer (31 mile) race in May, so I need to get out and do some longer distances than I have the past few months to train.  I ran 15.1 miles this morning, which put me at 40 miles for the week and allows for an extra beer with dinner tonight :)  I don't even want to contemplate what my mental state would be without running.

I have been trying to avoid Thomas as much as possible.  I stayed in bed until after he left for his run and I left for mine a bit early so I wouldn't be here when he returned.  Unfortunately, there's about a 0.2 mile section where I would be going out and he would be coming home that we could run into each other.  I mean, what are the chances?  100% in this case.  I just waved to him, as I would any other runner.  He has become someone that I used to know.

Then, I met my mom for lunch and some shopping.  We had a great afternoon!  I had a phone interview for a job yesterday (my current job ends on March 31) and found out that they want me to come in for an in-person interview next week, so I had to get a new suit, which my mom bought for me.  The last time I wore a suit was in 2003 and I'd already donated my old suits, thinking I'd never have to wear one again.  (You know...I put Thomas through medical school and then he allows me to follow my dream of going back to school or working or starting my own nonprofit.  I held up my end of the bargain...)  I also bought another pair of pants since I only had one pair that fit me, having lost weight due to the stress of my impending divorce.

I came home and spent some time boxing things up and getting ready to move more things to my parents' house.  I want to get down to just the essentials here in case Thomas gets violent and I have to quickly leave the house.  That's part of the reason I'm trying to get the animals placed as soon as possible, with smaller, temporary cages at my parents' house if Max and Calypso have to stay there until I get an apartment.

Almost real-time blogging; these pictures were taken about 30 minutes ago.  Thomas is currently out on a date with his married mistress; the parrots and I are enjoying an evening at home.  We hope he stays out until they go to bed and I go upstairs to my room.

Calypso, who does not realize his dreams are about to come true and he will soon be rid of Thomas forever:

Max, who knows something is up and has been extra loving to me in an attempt to reassure herself everything will be OK:

Basil, who returns to his home a week from today.  He loves his owners, so will be very happy to see them again.  The plan is for him still to be willed to me at some point.  I can't keep him now because he's too loud for an apartment, but by the time he needs to be rehomed, hopefully I will be in a house and he can come back to me:

Beeps, who is reacting to the stress in the house by being increasingly aggressive, but just to Thomas (and when he sees the camera, as usual):

I've gotten daily updates and pictures on Stella.  She is doing remarkably well in her new home.  She always seemed to want to befriend Max, but Max was not interested.  In her new home, Stella's grey companion, Ellie, appears to want to be friends, so we're hopeful things will go well.  Additionally, she lives with a severe macaw who loves greys.  When he was at the rescue where I volunteer, I'd take him around with me to greet the parrots.  He'd ignore everyone except the greys.  When we'd stop by a grey's cage, he'd blush a bit and say "hi!  hello!" and flirt a bit.  He's enjoying his little grey harem (from afar -- they don't physically interact, he just talks to them.)

Rocky is doing really well at the rescue.  I visited him on Thursday but forgot to take pictures.  He's housed next to a female severe macaw, and the two of them go to the bottom of their respective cages and interact.  I took him out and he seemed rather happy to see me.  He was talking, singing, and dancing.  He's extremely resilient and will be OK.  He's enjoying the activity of the rescue and I will be involved in finding him a great home.

Thomas has not asked about Rocky or Stella at all and has basically ignored the parrots we still have at home. It's so strange how someone can change so much, or possibly that they were able to hide for so long and then reveal their true self.  He fooled me for years, but now that I look back on things, they weren't as great as I thought they were.  I am doing some writing exercises to understand our relationship and heal.  One was to come up with 5 nice things he'd done for me over the course of our relationship and then 5 upsetting things.  I could only come up with about 3 nice things and stopped at about 32 upsetting things before I realized I was supposed to stop at 5!

I just rationalized and made excuses for a lot of his behavior.  I'm pretty sure he has a combination of narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, so I'm pretty lucky to be able to get out and start anew.  It's just too bad that the parrots are affected by his behavior.

My friends, both online and in real life, have been amazing.  Even my massage therapist has been calling to make sure I'm OK and gave me his cell phone number in case I ever need to chat.  My mom and I have made tentative plans to go to Europe once the divorce is final (possibly with my dad and sister), and my favorite running partner is going to hook me up with one of her friends who loves to go birding and would like a companion.  2012 is going to be a fantastic year!

Stella's last day at my house

Stella went to her new home last Saturday.  She is in great hands -- I've received daily updates so far as to her progress.  She is settling in well, making noises, and talking a bit.  She is nicely stepping up and integrating well.  I only hope that Beeps and Rocky will fare as well as she has.

I took some pictures on her last morning with me.  She is just so adorable and I miss her terribly!

One of the last times that she and Max were near each other:

I'm trying not to be too hard on myself that I couldn't keep her, but I still feel as I failed her.  She was just supposed to be a foster, and Thomas decided he couldn't live without her, so she bonded to us and then we disappoint her.  It's just tearing me apart that Thomas's selfish and unreasonable actions have had far-reaching implications on these innocent creatures.  Stella is one of the lucky ones as she's currently in a great home.  I still can't believe that it's not mine.

Mischief

Yesterday morning, I was making a lasagna in the slow cooker for dinner. I had the greys in the kitchen with me, and they were mostly behaving. I got involved in chopping carrots and got a little complacent when things got quiet.

I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking, but probably that Stella was nicely sitting on her stand, certainly not what was really happening:

Luckily, she did not take a bite out of all of the apples, but restrained herself to just one.

When she'd had enough of the apple, she started in on my ingredients that I had on the island.  For example, trying to get into the walnuts:

And then slamming a can of tomatoes around.  I think her goal here was more to express frustration at not getting walnuts and not that she wanted tomatoes:

I did worry she might have a stomachache from eating so much apple, but that didn't appear to happen.  She was normal when I got home from work yesterday, and had even eaten her pellets.

Goofy Greys

Last night, Stella kept trying to bully all of the parrots away from their food so she could eat the choice morsels from everyone's dishes.  Of course this was not allowed, but as soon as I removed her from Max's cage, she'd fly over to Basil's cage.  Finally, I removed her to the kitchen, where she perched with an innocent look on her face:

Until, seeing Calypso go inside his cage so he could dunk his food in his water, she decided to steal his food:

I removed her right after taking the picture.

Shortly after, she started going on adventures with Max, like hanging out by the apples:

As I didn't want any of my apples to have beak-sized pieces removed, the greys were removed and put on proper perches.  Something must have been in the air as they were up to no good last night.  I'm hoping they will be a bit calmer today!

Stella's drive to nest

Stella has a very strong drive to nest in dark places.  Because we don't want to encourage egg production, we do not allow this.  However, every time we open a cabinet, she flies down and tries to go inside.

Yesterday morning, she tried to get into the space above our stove and microwave by knocking over a decorative panel designed to look like a cabinet.

I removed her right after taking this picture, otherwise who knows how far inside she would have gotten!  She might still be lost in the bowels of our house as I have no idea where this false cabinet leads.

Precarious

Earlier this year, Thomas and I competed in a race in which age group awards were hand-made and hand-painted mugs.  To our surprise, both of us won a mug!  This has also created much laughter in our house, as my mug was larger (I was in the top 3 overall females and he was in top 3 for males in his age group), so he'll joke about just being a little thirsty or needing a tiny drink of water.  It's all in good fun, as this is definitely the nicest prize either of us has won in a race.

He keeps his mug out on the counter so he remembers to drink from it daily.  Thus far, it's pretty much been ignored by the parrots.  Except one time, when Thomas left it close to the edge and Stella threw it to the ground in a fit -- luckily no damage occurred!  Since then, he's remembered to push it far back from the edge.

Over the weekend, I saw Max trying to perch on it.  I warned her she was too heavy and she'd tip over, but she succeeded, even resting on one foot!

I'm still surprised it could support her weight.

Consoling

Thomas is taking the loss of Brian particularly hard. He told me today that when we grocery shop, we can cut down on our bread purchase as he doesn't think he can eat toast again as that was something he shared with Brian every morning and it would make him too sad.  He's been extremely morose the past few days, and I hope that he can work through his grief.

The still-living parrots are doing their best to help him.  They can sense his sadness and have been gathering around him more than usual.  A few scenes from last night:

I broached the subject of getting another budgie someday (months or years in the future); showing him some safer cages that I found online yesterday.  It may have been too soon.  He said that he considers this house to be a budgie death trap and that no more parrots can enter this house.  It's going to be a tough few weeks until we can find a new sense of normalcy.

Not just cookies

Yesterday, as part of my breakfast, I was eating an apple with peanut butter.  I had put the requisite ingredients (can I call them ingredients if there's only two?) on the counter.  It came as no surprise what happened next.  Max loves peanut butter and Stella loves apples.  Curiously, Stella does not like peanut butter and Max does not like apples.

 Even though Stella does not like peanut butter, when she saw Max beaking the jar, she had to join in:

But she quickly moved on to my apple!  I hadn't even started to cut it up yet.

At the kitchen table, I was eating my breakfast while minding my own business, when Stella flew over, grabbed a piece of my apple and helped herself:

I was just reading in a book yesterday about studies showing that wild animals prefer to forage, even when food is readily accessible to them.  That's certainly true for my greys.

Cookie monster, part 3

Stella knows the container where we keep our cookies.  The empty container was on the counter, waiting to get washed, so she flew over and tried to open the cover.  Since she is not delicate (I can't really blame her since she's using a beak instead of hands to open it), I opened it for her to show her that her efforts would be in vain -- we'd eaten all of the cookies.  I expected her to fly back to her stand, but I was wrong.

I underestimated her longing for cookie crumbs, as she immediately jumped up to clean up:

A few seconds after that, she really got into it:

Could it have been worth it?  There were hardly any crumbs, and they were tiny!

Reuinted

Thomas was gone this past weekend and much of this past week at a conference for work.  It was rough for me!  The parrots were thrown off of their routine of having him home with them, so were a little extra cranky.  Except for Calypso who was loving it and was a little cranky during Thomas's first day back!

You would have thought it was Rocky to have been the happiest at Thomas's return, but it was actually the greys.  They couldn't get enough of him!

Vying for kisses:

I took yesterday off of work and the parrots were very happy to have the entire flock together again.

Boxed in

Over the weekend, I was reading a catalog while waiting for dinner to cook.  First one grey, then the other, flew over to join me.

I know I should be happy that they want to spend so much time near me, but it can get to be a bit much at times.  They aren't content to just perch there, they start demanding head pets, chewing up my magazine, or doing something else disruptive.

Grey togetherness

The greys still do not physically interact at all, but I've recently realized that they are rarely more than a couple of feet away from each other.  They basically ignore the rest of the birds, but are fascinated by what the other grey is doing. Stella seems to be the one who usually follows Max around, though it is occasionally the other way around.

Here they are, destroying the mail pile:

I think Max was looking for a little alone time, by perching on the seat of a chair that was pushed in to the table, but she discounted Stella's detective skills:

I thought perhaps they'd both sit on the chair, but Max took off as Stella arrived, and then Stella followed Max to the stand:

This morning, on my newly washed counter:

They've even taken to both being on the same stand.  Before, this was Max's stand and Stella stayed on the green stand:

They are so interesting to watch.  I wish I knew what they were thinking.  Do they keep such close tabs on each other because they like each other (and, if so, why don't they allopreen?)  Or do they not like each other and have to make sure that the other one doesn't get preferential treatment?  Or am I ascribing human feelings to them and they're just doing it because of the flock mentality that's hard-wired in their brains?

What would happen if we introduced another grey to the flock?  There is the sweetest timneh ever at the rescue right now.  My curiosity will have to go unsatisfied in this area as we are in a really good place and don't have the room for another bird right now!

Greys and greens

I had some greens left over from making Andreas's food for the week.  Max loves tearing into greens, so I'd set the bunch on the stand; she immediately went down there to destroy.  I know I should have expected this, but Stella also climbed down and the two of them got to work:

Amazingly, this went on peacefully for probably 20 minutes or so.

The potato eaters

Nope, not the Van Gogh masterpiece, but a little bit of weirdness from the greys.  Earlier this week, I had set some vegetables out on the counter so I could chop them up and throw into the slow cooker.

As soon as I left them unattended for a minute, the greys flew over to the counter and started creating havoc.  That's what they do best, after all.

Parrots do not eat raw potatoes, so I thought, if anything, they'd go after the carrots.  But I was wrong.

Of course, they are not eating any of the raw potato, just destroying it.  Max had been doing more destroying when I first came upon them, but when I came closer to make this movie, she stopped and came over to me, hoping I'd pick her up.

Pining

Thomas has had to work a bit later than usual this month, and while it makes us all sad, Stella is probably the one who misses him the most. When he gets home at a normal, more reasonable time, she flies to the fridge when she hears the garage door open so she can be right there when he enters the back door. When he's (60-90 minutes) later than usual, she flies there frequently and makes sad sounds while staring at the door:

I tell her he's coming back soon and try to have fun without him, but she really wants him.

I took this picture about 5 minutes after he got home from work, just after he'd changed out of his work clothes (in case you were worried he wore a housecoat to the hospital -- nope!)  Rocky had walked into the kitchen, so the two of them were standing at the patio door, watching the squirrels.  Both greys missed him, so they flew over and then the four of them watched the squirrels:

Concetrated parrots

All four of these guys have their own cages, in this room, but they frequently all hang out on the stand:

Of course Rocky had to threaten me:

Max needs a break

When we were bottling, the greys were in the kitchen. Of course they would occasionally start chasing each other around, usually instigated by Stella. Max must have gotten tired of this, as she went to sit on a chair that was pushed in to the table, giving her privacy:

She stayed down there for probably 30 minutes or so, until we left the kitchen and I took her with us into the living room.