Back in the Saddle

Well!

I'm almost 100% moved in to my new digs: a spacious two bedroom apartment with relatively stain-free carpets and chalky white walls and ceilings. So now that my computer is all hooked up again, I thought I'd post to my blog. I know you all missed me.

Today, in addition to my usual five or six boxes of books (last count, I have close to 2,000 books, no lie), I brought my cat and my parakeets.

Weasley (the cat) put voice to his complaints for the entire nine minute car ride. He was fine. Right now he's cowering under the farthest corner of the bed, visible only by the eye shine when I look under to see how he's doing. He'll get over it.

The birds did okay, actually. I got them here, and in honor of their new accommodations, I thought I'd clean their cage.

The bottom tray slides right out, along with the metal grate that covers it. The quick application of a brass brush and elbow grease removed any traces of dried bird poop from the grate, but I noticed that they had soiled their perches, too. So I said, well, let's get them out of the cage so I could scrub down all the perches.

Makes sense, no?

I procured a small box to put the birds into, and opened the cage. There was the usual tweeting and flapping of wings, but finally I cornered Spritely, the green male bird, and wrapped my fingers around him.

This was not very popular with him, unfortunately, and he hopped just out of my hand when I began to catch him. As a result, I caught hold of his tail.

I swear I did not pull hard. Really, I didn't pull at all. He did all the pulling.

But I wound up with every one of his tail feathers in my hand, and he wound up on the perch squawking at me. He even reached down and bit me, for good measure.

I felt awful, of course, but they will grow back.

I hope.

In this shot, you can see that Spritely's tail is much shorter than his cagemate's.

Oops.