Accomplishing Escapism

 On Friday I skipped work to have a mole removed from my foot.  The mole was not cancerous, but my dermatologist said it was definitely a "high risk" blemish - words that made me nervous enough to have the whole thing cut out.  So now I have four stitches in the really thin skin right about my heel on the inside of my right foot.  It hurts to walk, so I've been moving in this kind of twisted club foot-esque fashion.  When strangers ask me why I'm limping, I've been telling them mysteriously that I have a congenital birth defect.

But seriously, if I don't know you, why would you care about my foot?  Or expect me to share?

Before I got my parrot, I did a lot of reading on them - what they eat, what their habits are, that kind of thing.  Because I am a responsible pet owner.  Almost everything I read said that conures like to have hidey holes, things to poke their heads in, and things to sleep in.  So when I set up Dizzy's sleeping cage I included a fuzzy sleeping tent.  I had no idea if he was actually using it or not, because he always wakes up before I do; but Monday morning, I slept all the way through to my alarm and realized Dizzy wasn't making noise in his cage, waiting to be let out.  I pulled the sheet off and had a split second panic attack because I couldn't see him in the cage at all - until I noticed the long red tail feathers poking out the end of the fuzzy tent.  He didn't move or make a sound until I tugged on his tail feathers, wherein he immediately poked his head out the other end all "What?  A guy can't get five more minutes?"

And it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

There are three firms that work on the floor that my dad's firm is on.  One is a two-man team that just broke off of my dad's firm.  They're very used to using the assistants in the office to do their filing and such, but one of them is such an asshole that as soon as they formed their own firm all of us were like "Oh good, we don't have to deal with them anymore."  But since they do still need administrative help, I've been hired to do part time work for them (about 5-7 hours a week) at an additional income of $20 an hour (which is slightly more than my normal hourly rate).  As a consequence, I will end up staying later or coming in earlier more often so as not to affect my salary, but hey, extra cash is extra cash.  I will gladly come in an hour early to the tune of an extra $100 a week.

I got my shipping notice for my copy of Star Trek.  While I'm slightly annoyed that I don't have it NOW THIS INSTANT, I'm willing to wait for the sake of the discounted price I paid for it.

My mom has decided she wants to see more movies in theaters, a result of which is that I get to see more movies in theaters.  We saw Coco Before Chanel on Sunday, which was pretty much brilliant, and tonight we're going to see An Education.  I've also been holding weekly movie nights, the goal of which is to bring films most people haven't seen before, and so far it's a resounding success.  Our roster so far:
Sunshine
The Slipper and the Rose
A Boy and His Dog
Frailty
Night of the Hunter (which I'd seen!  Did Seth show me this?  I don't remember!)
I've got Saving Face on the backburner, and my mom gave me a pamphlet with cult films on it from the library, so undoubtedly movie nights will only get more interesting.

I feel like hell.  My head hurts, my stomach hurts like I'm hungry but I have no interest in food, and I feel sweatingly hot and shiveringly cold at the same time.  Last night I turned my fan off because I decided it would be better to sweat than to be too cold and too hot at the same time, and I woke up absolutely drenched.  I've turned off the AC in my house prematurely because I'm having so many temperature issues.  So now I'm overheated and sweaty again, but I also don't feel like I'm going to freeze my skin off.  Also I am drinking LOTS of orange juice.

Suffice to say I called in sick to work today and tomorrow, which I hated doing but I really think I needed to.  Being on my feet for five hours when standing up makes me dizzy, and also being around food when I'm pretty sure I've got the flu, seems like an EXTREMELY bad idea to me.  So now I'm watching movies with Dizzy, who is happily trying to eat the keys off my laptop.

What I really want is some Italian ice, because it's cold and refreshing and not filling.  But I don't trust myself to drive.

Meet Dizzy! :D



He's wonderful  Hasn't shown any fear at all since I picked him up from the airport on Friday.  We had a vet checkup yesterday to make sure everything was working correctly, and he only really got twitterpated when they trimmed his nails.  He's eating, which was a bit of a worry of mine... The woman at the pet shop that I Tweeted about was mainly concerned that I was getting him too young, that he wouldn't actually be weaned when I got him and thus wouldn't eat the pellets or produce I offered.  He's a little wary of the produce stuff, but we're learning slowly that it's ok - yesterday we learned that carrots and corn are AWESOME.

We also had bathtime, which was brilliant - once he figured out that the dish wasn't dangerous, he got right in there and was ruffling all his feathers to get wet.  Birdie bathtime is one of my very favorite things. :D

Today I'm going grocery shopping to get some highly nutritious produce and beans for him; one of things everyone (including my vet) agrees on is that variety and a healthy diet are some of the most important things in conure care.  Apparently the leading cause of shortened lifespans in conures in improper diet, so DIzzy and I are enacted Mission: Conure Salad today.  I have a recipe for a really good bean/rice/corn mix and also a good salad combo for him that I'd like to try him on.

Work last night was fine, a bit boring.  I am concerned about how many hours I will actually be getting versus how many hours they said I could get, but everything will change in the fall when a couple people go back to school, so I'm going to sit tight and see what happens.  I'm the lowest person on the totem pole at the moment, so even if I try and scrape more hours I don't think I'll have much luck.  But I have something which is better than nothing, and it fills the time well.

BIRD ON FRIDAY

In other news, I'm going to the midnight show of Harry Potter tonight, and I'm totally excited.  Today has been a very good day; I got a couple of polo shirts for work (they're Converse, so they have a neat little star emblem on them) and I also got Across the Universe at a 40% discount because, unlike the Java House, Borders ENCOURAGES their employees to sign up for their customer program.  I discovered that Trader Joe's has those delicious ice cream mochi balls, but that they didn't have hearts of palm today, which made me really sad.

Wow, I really thought I had more news than that.  Um, I learned how to play Warhammer 40K the other night, and it was a whole lot of fun, so my nerd quotient just extrapolated that much more.  It's a much simpler game than WarMachine, which I appreciate, even though I love WarMachine a whole lot.  My first game was not entirely humiliating; Billy played Chaos, and I underused one of my units, but I handled myself pretty admirably.

Here he is, the beautiful baby green cheeked conure who's going to be shipped to me:

( So I don't spam your flist with bird photos, but he's SO CUTE )
He's two months old, and Keith the breeder has been very helpful so far.  We've discussed the shipping details, he's going to take care of all of those preparations, and now I'm just waiting to hear about the deposit and payment they need from me.  This weekend I'm going to buy a birdcage, and once I find out when he's going to get here I'll be able to stock up on correct bird food.  Guys, I'm so excited I've already decided to name him Dizzy. :D

I don't technically know that he's a he, because conures aren't sexually dimorphic, but since I'm not going to be breeding him I'm not sure whether I want to have him sexed or not.  Dizzy is a nice, gender neutral (and completely adorable) name.  

Can you tell how stoked I am? :D:D:D