Day to day living… with comments!
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Onto what you’re all really here for - pictures, stories, and life.
Life with five relatively young cats continues to be an interesting place. Deuce is growing up to be a beautiful cat, who structurally resembles Jelly so much it’s uncanny. Of course, they are half-siblings. :) His first cat show as an adult will be in February of this year.
He’s still not old enough to drink though, which doesn’t stop him from occupying liquor store bags.
Another place he regularly occupies, much to my dismay, is the kitchen sink. This beautiful habit I blame ENTIRELY on Youngsmile, who also loves to be a sink cat. Deuce doesn’t care that I’m displeased by this.
He’s slowly but surely growing into the weirdly proportioned body that adolescent boycats seem to get, and his head mostly fits his body. Most of the time.
At least his head is pretty! I am a sucker for pretty heads on cats.
The heated cat bed is still a major, major love of the cats, likely at least partially related to the fact that winter has come with a vengeance. It is cold and snowy and windy and miserable outside, and the cats are very, very happy to be indoor creatures.
Deuce is making disapproving ears, likely due to the presence of a doberman.
When he’s not doing disapproving ears, he’s usually curled up with his sister and frequently also Mac.
Or in some other awkward position.
One of the other things we’ve been doing this winter is working on various places in the house. One of the most re-done rooms of late is the library, which has gotten painted, new furniture, and a ton of pillows made.
Also a poodle.
I saw him in there, told him to stay, and went to fetch the camera.
Crow is amazing, because you point the camera at him, and he immediately looks noble, elegant, and loyal, the perfect dog.
Is this my good side?
Or this?
When Crow was done posing, I told Noire to get up on the daybed. She looks… less noble, and way, way, way more tragic. How could I be so abusive to dobermans as to ask them to get on a comfortable piece of furniture and have her picture taken? I am an awful dog owner.
I am also an awful parrot owner. For example, while Keela and Cin were hanging out next to each other, pinning eyes and making clacking noises (and Cin called her Noire in a disapproving voice a bunch of times), I took pictures.
While that was going on, I felt a tug at the hood of my sweatshirt, turned around, and found Mr. ‘You Taught Me to Wave Now Give Me A Treat’ behind me.
Frequently, while I’m working, I get to also spend time letting a certain tiny grey look at the internet from her usual perch.
She loves to stare over my shoulder at the laptop screen, particularly if I’m watching TV or playing a game.
The other downside to working from home with parrots is that sometimes, you’re sitting there, minding your own business, and you hear what sounds like the creepiest serial killer ever whispering ‘Hi.’ from the floor. You look down and see this…. an act of floorcawing.
Then she accosts the camera person to creepily ‘Hi’ at them too.
Before returning to me, foot hopefully raised for me to collect her, which I did, of course.
We’ve owned Tlalli just over a year, and her behaviour of climbing down to the floor has been modified from chasing people to coming to be picked up, thanks to positive reinforcement for the right behaviours. She’s also working on learning how to fly, and did her first point to point flights from one person to the other on New Year’s Day. Her landing is still extremely shaky, but we’re getting somewhere!
The most interesting thing that’s happened of late, though, is with Theo. We brought home Theo in May of 2004, nearly 11 years ago. He is 25 years old. He and Tlalli moved into the big cage together in October of this year, and since that time he’s become more social and more willing to come out. And as of a few days ago, he’s beginning to try to speak, all because of the big red chicken.
I hope your new year is ending up as awesome as mine is! 2015 is a year that already has some big, big plans taking place, and a lot of fun things will happen… and a lot of simple, happy, day to day life too.
Originally published at Rational Parrot Blog. You can comment here or there.