Bird thinking

I cannot explain it, but I've always been fond of birds. I am not an actual birdwatcher with a tally-sheet, but I can identify birds by sight, by sound and by flight pattern. On my last birthday I received a number of books about birds from my children. That pretty much makes the point.

While I have from time to time owned canaries I have always felt badly about putting birds in cages. It don't seem right and it don't seem necessary.

Fast forward to three years ago. A friend of my wife's, on his way from California to Guam, asked if we would put up his two birds - a parrot and a cockatiel - for the month of quarantine required by Guamanian law. Sure we would.

We've had the birds ever since. And any number of dilemmae (?) and bad plans have hatched from the situation.

I don't like to see birds in cages. My wife (was) absolutley phobic about birds loose in the house. So everyday I'd take the birds out of their cages briefly and play with them in a quiet corner. Playing with a cockatiel is not very complex, playing with a parrot (an eclectus in this case) is moreso, as you will see. My wife sat on the far side of the room nervously while the birds were out of their cages.

Then I went to Russia for a week or so, like you do, and when I got home, Gloria was completely in love with both birds, and they with her. In particular the parrot Charlie was, and still is. Disturbingly in love with her. From time to time he gets physical, lovingly humping her arm while encouraging her with the words, "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!" Sort of reminds me of being a teenager in the back of a car, but it's my wife being seduced by a bloody bird.

I am not making this up.

So then we started leaving the birds out of their cages almost all the time, and the cockatiel just walked out the back door and was gone. We replaced it with two cockatiels. One of them just walked out the back door. We replaced it. Then the other walked out the back door. We replaced it. Then the next... You get the idea. I am populating Kailua with cockatiels to the dismay of everybody who has any sense of responsibility whatsoever.

Last Christmas I went to the pet store on Christmas Eve to buy my dog Vinnie a present. I bought him an African Gray parrot, which he named Scipio.

So now there are two parrots and one cockatiel left. They have cages but when I get home everybody climbs out and walks around the house leaving deposits. The cockatiel from time to time wants to be on my arm, but Scipio drives him away. Charlie wanders out into the backyard and climbs up on his favorite chair. When Glo gets home he preens himself, checks himself in the mirror, licks his hair back and then goes looking for her. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon."

Scipio rides my shoulder and snaps at anyone else who comes near. My shirts are terribly stained and will have to be replaced on a rolling basis.

It's a life for the birds and I'm quite partial to it.

Reptile thinking

I have nothing to add to this picture, I just love the picture.

Zo-lofty thinking

I am reaching zo-lofty heights.

On May 14th I saw my surfer-dude doc and started on zoloft.

Today is May 28, and I am feeling so much more alive than I was only two weeks ago. That's pretty cool - better living through modern chemistry, no irony intended.

Think of all the people you've read about who suffered from "melancholia" and had no way out. They had to drag themselves through one long black day after another.

Around 400 BC Hippocrates described "all fears and despondencies, if they last a long time...." as being symptoms of melancholia. That's a good description. This time it was the fear that got my attention.

And so, zoloft. The first week was grim but I had the hope of knowing the zoloft would kick in sooner or later. During the second week I felt fear, but less often, less chronically. Today I am feeling pretty good. Able to complete tasks, multi-task from time to time, don't feel as stupid or as useless as I felt only two weeks ago.

I think of the people I see who are obviously ill, living on the streets. (See Zoot's post on passport-hunting for a good description.) How horrible! I cannot imagine dragging myself day after day through such a terrifying and bleak existence.

But enough of that for now. The tree in my backyard is producing fresh green shoots. The trade winds are blowing. The pool sweep is working its little heart out keeping the water clean. There is a heron standing on the pool deck eyeing the pool sweep. The first game of the Stanley Cup will start in an hour and a half. Life doesn't get much better than this.

fishy thinking

It's a fish eat fish world out there.



I wonder what fish say to one another, and whether or not one gender bullies the other.

Fish use gestures, colors and pheremones to talk. I'm guessing they say stuff like... are you ready?

"Huzza huzza!"

"Piss off!"

What else is there to say, in the broad scheme of things?

I fancy you. Leave me alone. Beat it. That kind of sums up everything.

At its most basic life is quite simple.

See the posts by Zoot and Fiona on the same picture.

Tardigrade thinking

This afternoon Glo and I went out on the ocean. Haven't done that much since I left the navy, come to think of it. In Kaneohe Bay, on the windward side of Oahu. Saw one turtle, no sharks, waded around on a sandbar for the better part of an hour. It was very uplifting. While strolling across a huge, barely-submerged sand bar, I got to thinking about what was living three or four feet below the sand, and that, of course, led me reflect upon tardigrades.

I used to have an interest in tardigrades, back when I was teaching grade anything at all in British Columbia.

In the spring when the bloom was on I would recreate every swamp in the area in a huge collection of aquarii (?) in the back of my classroom. I'd round up every microscope in the whole school and whatever age kids were being subjected to me would spend weeks studying daphnia, copepods, mosquito larvae, caddis fly larvae, whirligig beetiles, diving beeteles, freshwater snails, leeches... everything we could find. On a few magnificently memorable occasions we found amoebae or parameceums. (I'm just adding an 's' at this point. I have no idea what's the correct pluralization.)

Parameceums were cool but amoebae were the coolest by far. They slithered through, between, over, under, and around like pale grey ghosts, ectoplasmic entities without shape. Form without shape, come to think of it. Interesting. Linguists, does that work?

But we never found a tardigrade. I knew they existed because, along with all the microscopes, I had stolen every book in the school on swamps and ponds and freshwater life, every field guide to anything even close. I read about, and then became eager to find a tardigrade. Never did, though.

Tardigrades are also called water bears, because they look a little teddy bearish. They are, in scientific terms, a phylum of their own. There are 35 phyla, into which all living things are divided. Vertebrates (think "animals" as we loosely use the terms... bunnies, lizards, humans...) are one part of one phyla. Tardigrades are their own. There are about 750 species known.

There is a beautiful video of a tardigrade in motion, which you can find by clicking here.

Hobbyist thinking

You know those applications that you fill out, the ones that ask you to list hobbies and whatnot? I'm always interested by what interests people, and often surprised.

Tae-Bo, for example. This appeared on the application of a young man I was interviewing for admission to a private school. Tae-Bo is a workout regimen developed by somebody claiming the name Billy Banks. It was for a time adverstised through late night infomercials. This boy was about 16, and he was really stuck into it.

I can't, at first blush, think of anything I've ever done that would qualify as a hobby. In fact I've not thought much about what makes a certain pastime a hobby as opposed to a passing fancy, a time-filler, a distraction. Probably they are all more or less synonymous.

I looked for lists of hobbies, and found one that is a pretty short list to my way of thinking, but diverse. The usual - woodwork, drawing, candle making... and then plumbing appeared, something called DIY, and French Literature.

I got to thinking about the things on the list, some of which I have done from time to time, and I realized the ones I liked most (not that I ever stuck with any of them) had the quality that they transported me out of my daily routine for prolonged periods of time, and left me feeling relaxed, accomplished, and re-energized. They were fulfilling and in some strange way rewarding.

Plumbing began to make sense. Nothing more satisfying than clearing a plugged sewer line or installing a new toilet. And then looking for more of both.

DIY, it turns out, stands for Do-It-Yourself, which is a TV network that showcases programs on, well, figure it out for... you know...

At this particular moment, waiting for the zoloft to kick in, a hobby is most desirable and I am glad to have discovered blogging.

Blogging is a little more accessible than French Literature, n'est ce pas?

Amazing thinking

Wow!Some things are amazing. This solar picture is, but it has nothing to do with the subject of this blog, funnily enough. (I'll explain the chimp in a minute.)

Laughter is amazing. What a curious physiological response it is. The study of it is called gelotology, from the greek "the study of geloto." Really. Geloto means laughter. In the gelotolgy sub-culture there are many gelato jokes, gelotologists being a good-humored group.

There is some evidence to support the notion that laughter exists in non-human species, including primates, dogs, and rats. In all species it seems to be contagious and inspires light-hearted, playful behaviour from those who hear it. (Of the same species, I presume. I cannot claim that the sound of rat laughter ((which always sounds derisive to me)) inspired me to behave in a frolicsome manner. Quite the contrary.)

I recall reading of a strange research project conducted years ago. Some Anthropology professor sent his poor grad students into the subways of New York to test the responses of people to chimpanzee threat displays. (I'm sure there was a large grant behind this - why else would you do it? And who but a grad student would agree to do it?)

A chimpanzee threat display looks quite a bit like human laughter - wide open, grinning mouth, lots of teeth. When you see a chimp making such a face , as you did above the solar picture, I'm guessing you would smile, thinking erroneously that the chimp was laughing. Or am I the only one?


Here is the value of modern research. When the grad students sat across from someone in a subway in New York, imitating such a face and holding the pose for some length of time, few people grew frolicsome, if any. All the rest said piss off, or rude words with a simlar intent.

A stellar response by any measure. Amusing to reflect upon, amazing because it really happened.