Puddle Jumping in DCBoxing day is a school holiday and Christmas (not celebrated as a religious holiday by many Sri Lankans) was a day a the beach for many families. We snorkeled on the shallow reef and ate prawns and curry for lunch.
We stayed in a lovely little private home just across Galle road belonging to Rohana "Roy" De Zoyza and family. The house, Piya Nivasa, had been in Roy's family for three generations and was built by his great grandfather. I don't know if it is still there.
Tsunami Relief through the Sri Lanka Association of Washington DC or Oxfam International
It's the first time we've had a Christmas tree of our very own, so we had to share.
The bird thinks it's enormous.
Happy Holidays.
Perhaps not every election this fall went your way . . . . . While voting for Bug won't solve all our problems, Bug could win a year's supply of Beak Appetit (cook & serve parrot food). I can't imagine what that means since she goes through it so slowly but any extra will be passed along to her friends at the Phoenix Landing rescue.
Not only that, you can procrastinate at work and Vote Bug! every 24 hours.
Anyway, who can resist this face?
Vote Bug!
There's been some concern expressed because of the December 5th entry that I may not be getting my schoolwork done. Rest assured that I completed that paper and am confident that it is a good one.
I took a statistics exam last night and have one take-home essay exam and an econ exam to go yet. I have resorted to studying in the student lounge some. Bug just doesn't get the concept of finals. If I'm home, it must be time to play right? I'm doing better than the poor guy who slept in the lounge last night though - ouch.
I wouldn't expect another entry for a couple of days, at least.
Granted, the whole routine has been off. We drove to CT then to NH (where we left her in a motel while we drove around some more - don't ask) then back to CT and then back to DC - but she had her people almost 24 hours a day. Then we came home and I did three 14-hour days at school. I don't go in on Friday or Saturday.
Allegedly, I'm writing a paper but Bug has been zipping around the room from cage to head to play stand to head to travel cage to head to cage, etc. She chewed through a zip lock bag in order to get a pellet cookie that is exactly like the one in her dish in the cage and dumped a container of seed off the table.
Here she is desperately trying to pick up this small container of sunflower seeds.
Bug only eats about 1/2 of a teaspoon of seed per day. Contrary to still popular belief, parrots shouldn't eat a diet of mostly seed. The rest of Bug's food is parrotlet pellets (and cookies made of pellets, nuts, eggs & baby food carrots), fresh vegetables, cooked grains & beans, and sprouted beans & seeds (apparently sprouting makes it ok).
What Bug gets in the mornings is mostly low fat high carbohydrate millet seeds - what she's after now is sunflower.
I've heard a theory that seed for birds is a bit like crack for people. I don't know but what would you do this for?
Bug is very entertaining but can be quite the distraction.
Out of curiosity, I weighed the little container on my gram scale. It weighed 13 grams. Bug weighs 29 grams. Imagine hanging from a bar by your feet (ok, it would have to be knees for people) to pick up a container that is as big as you and is nearly half your weight . . . . with your teeth.
Somewhere around here, I opened up the container and gave her a couple.
Apparently, mind control is a power of parrotlets.
At least she's not being velcro-bird.
Birdie's First Road Trip
This was my view on Thanksgiving morning. I actually spent most of it reading Terry Pratchett's Soul Music aloud to Mac. (More puns than usual but very funny.)
Traffic was ok until we got just north of NY City and then it slowed to a crawl. Bug didn't care.
She was in her travel cage which had an exact replica of her swing (center - only this time secured to the cage with clothes pins so it didn't whack her when ever we turned), her favorite leather chew toy (not visible in the picture - click here), and her tent (same - click here).
She had a couple dishes of food and some broccoli to shred. All and all, it was an ok way to spend the day.
(Click here to see a larger photo of my sweetie pie.)
The people, though, were tired and and a little bit crabby by the end of it. Especially since we'd forgotten all the maps and couldn't decide whether we should find an alternate route without them.
We were supposed to leave at 6 AM but scrapped that plan at about midnight the night before. We hit the road around 7:15 AM but didn't get to West Hartford until almost 4 PM.
(View from the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson)
More pictures of Bug not caring about the traffic.
First eating, then chewing on the twine I used to re enforce the cage joint, then sitting on the clothespin that I used to clip the swing to the cage - go figure.
I'm not sure when this photo was taken. The icing on the Care Bear birthday cake has Jennifer written on it so I'm guessing it was September of 1984.
Last week, the kid on the right announced that she is going to have one of her own in May.
This 2nd photo was taken a mere 19 years later (Sept 2003) at Kathleen & Kurt's wedding.
Congrats guys.
more wedding photos
Your product has been delivered to the Apple Retail Store and is ready for pick up.
. . . . .Apple"
Importance: High [no kidding, I need to write a paper this weekend.]