Nostalgia, and more bird stuff
As I mentioned in my last post, I'd been pulling a bunch of overnights at a specialty hospital recently. The reason I was reliefing there was because everyone at the clinic kept passing around some nasty stomach flu. Big surprise, I got the stomach flu. Over the past couple of days, I've been puking up my guts and lying comatose in my bed, trying to distract myself from the relentless stomach cramps by watching the entire Six Feet Under series. And let me just say this: WOW, that series takes me back. It isn't the narrative, or even the memory of watching the show while it was airing. It's the music. The soundtrack could almost serve as a musical diary for me, from my first year coming back to Austin as an adult, to my last year at UT and living on my own before everything fell apart and I had to move back home. I could rename the soundtrack: Emily - The UT Years. Whenever I think about things that happened during that time period, it doesn't feel like that long ago. But when I heard those songs again, it felt like being put in a time machine and being sent back to ancient times. It's like the difference between looking at a photo of a far-away place and actually being there; the music made those memories so much more real and substantive. Music, dude: it's amazing like that.
That's all I really had to say about that.
As for the birds, that screaming episode Cah'ya had a few days ago was apparently an extinction burst. I haven't heard her scream like that once since then. She still does her gravelly hungry scream, or will occasionally shout when she feels that I left the room but forgot to let her out (DUH, EMILY!), but that shrieking cockatoo thing has been entirely absent. Instead, she has decided to start talking. The first two days she said, "hello" and "hi" about a million different ways. This was all mixed in with other cute noises and baby babble, but the hellos were definitely clear, frequent, and varied. Then she moved on to "uh-oh" in all its various forms and varieties. When Bayu says "uh-oh", I usually respond with, "What's the matter?" So Cah'ya dropped something in her cage yesterday, said "uh-oh", and Bayu responded, "What's the matter?" I about died. The cuteness, it's too much sometimes. Today, however, Cah'ya's new phrase of choice was "good girl!" This is the bridge I use when training her, so no surprise that she'd want to learn that one. What's significant, however, is that I say "good boy!" for Bayu and he says that all the time. But Cah'ya didn't learn HIS bridge; she learned HERS. Smart cookie, that one. Conversely, Bayu has started making some of Cah'ya's cute baby babble noises, and today he was getting really into the cute babble, getting louder and louder until he climaxed at a resounding "WHA!" I looked at him and said, "Bayu, don't you think you're being just a little too dramatic?" He stretched out his neck, pinned his eyes, and said, "I don't know!" DIED. LAUGHING.
We had our first training session today on the new t-stand (sidenote: I got it for TEN DOLLARS from a woman who was moving out of her house and practically giving things away--this is an $80 playstand in perfectly awesome condition, FYI), and it went swimmingly. Bayu now waves rather enthusiastically when I wave at him. He also shakes on command. Cah'ya's session was the most thrilling for me, though. She targeted all over the place and never once fluffed, growled or lunged. But best of all, she stepped onto my hand from the playgym many times, let me move my arm around, walk around the t-stand, and then stepped back down onto stand, and only once did she give a half-hearted lunge that didn't even make contact with my skin. When she did, I simply said, "Cah'ya, no." She then turned back to the treats and took another one, then targeted off my arm onto the stand again. She repeated the behavior several times with no other signs of aggression. This is the bird who wouldn't even let me look at her without growling and lunging a few months ago. Now, nine months later, she's stepping up onto my hand like it's no big deal. Am I proud? FUCK YEAH I am.
That's all I really had to say about that.
As for the birds, that screaming episode Cah'ya had a few days ago was apparently an extinction burst. I haven't heard her scream like that once since then. She still does her gravelly hungry scream, or will occasionally shout when she feels that I left the room but forgot to let her out (DUH, EMILY!), but that shrieking cockatoo thing has been entirely absent. Instead, she has decided to start talking. The first two days she said, "hello" and "hi" about a million different ways. This was all mixed in with other cute noises and baby babble, but the hellos were definitely clear, frequent, and varied. Then she moved on to "uh-oh" in all its various forms and varieties. When Bayu says "uh-oh", I usually respond with, "What's the matter?" So Cah'ya dropped something in her cage yesterday, said "uh-oh", and Bayu responded, "What's the matter?" I about died. The cuteness, it's too much sometimes. Today, however, Cah'ya's new phrase of choice was "good girl!" This is the bridge I use when training her, so no surprise that she'd want to learn that one. What's significant, however, is that I say "good boy!" for Bayu and he says that all the time. But Cah'ya didn't learn HIS bridge; she learned HERS. Smart cookie, that one. Conversely, Bayu has started making some of Cah'ya's cute baby babble noises, and today he was getting really into the cute babble, getting louder and louder until he climaxed at a resounding "WHA!" I looked at him and said, "Bayu, don't you think you're being just a little too dramatic?" He stretched out his neck, pinned his eyes, and said, "I don't know!" DIED. LAUGHING.
We had our first training session today on the new t-stand (sidenote: I got it for TEN DOLLARS from a woman who was moving out of her house and practically giving things away--this is an $80 playstand in perfectly awesome condition, FYI), and it went swimmingly. Bayu now waves rather enthusiastically when I wave at him. He also shakes on command. Cah'ya's session was the most thrilling for me, though. She targeted all over the place and never once fluffed, growled or lunged. But best of all, she stepped onto my hand from the playgym many times, let me move my arm around, walk around the t-stand, and then stepped back down onto stand, and only once did she give a half-hearted lunge that didn't even make contact with my skin. When she did, I simply said, "Cah'ya, no." She then turned back to the treats and took another one, then targeted off my arm onto the stand again. She repeated the behavior several times with no other signs of aggression. This is the bird who wouldn't even let me look at her without growling and lunging a few months ago. Now, nine months later, she's stepping up onto my hand like it's no big deal. Am I proud? FUCK YEAH I am.