So I'm finally updating, eh?

I had to force myself to, as I've been extraordinarily lazy as of late and there have been too many other things going on for me to really feel like writing. That and I forgot to write yesterday. XD;;

The Tahoe trip went way better than I thought it would--it was actually relaxing and a lot of fun. We went whitewater rafting (one of my favorite hobbies, believe it or not, albeit its expensiveness), rock climbing (which I refused to participate in due to my lack of balance and dislike of slow things that are hard work), played more Heck games than I can adequately describe (in fact, just about any time there was a lull in activity, the cards were picked up), rented a jetski, went on the Tahoe Queen, swam, hiked, shopped, dined out, played Cousin Tag, Scattergories, and Pictionary, watched movies, listened to music, went to see PotC 2 (I loved it, if you were wondering), went to a concert (though I left shortly after it began), watched AMVs, and all sorts of other things. I actually got some time to think extensively, I wrote a lot (including a summary on the Pillows concert, which I might actually write up fully sometime soon), and I witnessed some extremely beautiful sights. It was also a lot of fun spending times with my cousins/grandma/aunts/uncles. They're a lot cooler than I remembered them being, for some reason.

The only downside is that there were babies everywhere in Tahoe for some unexplained reason. X_x; *Cough* Yuck. Anyway. Moving on.

We got back Sunday at some random point after listening to much Maaya Sakamoto in the car. And other stuff, too. I just don't remember what it was. I spent several hours catching up on my Friends list and doing random things on the internet. Horror of all horrors, Ryan begged Mom into letting Tanner come over. Only a few hours after we got back from vacation. This was a mistake, even she admits.

We went out to dinner at the Northridge, which was really good despite Ryan and Tanner being impossible. ._.; And Mom getting mad at me about my anti-baby rantings, which she said were too "extremist" for a dinner discussion. Especially seeing as there was a baby fairly nearby. I then decided to discuss politics because I'm angry about Bush's policy regarding stem cell research, which was a somewhat bad idea also because Tanner comes from a staunch Christian/Republican family and therefore he was trying to convince me that "even if they're a few cells, they have lives of their own!" Except, y'know, he doesn't really understand the concepts behind his argument due to the fact that he's thirteen years old.

When dinner was over, Ryan and Tanner created completely and utter havoc with a hose while I cleaned the guinea pig cage, and shortly after that we heard the mewing of a kitten. We discovered him in one of the trees near the driveway, and despite the fact that I climbed into the tree to retrieve him he continued higher into the tree, thus marking him irretrievable for the moment. Tanner got the brilliant idea of using the hose to get him down. I did not give him my consent to spray the poor, innocent, lost and scared kitten with the hose to try to chase him down the tree, but he did it anyway. ._.; Not surprisingly, it didn't help and just scared the little kitty farther up the tree. After a couple of rescue attempts with the ladder and various long objects, we ended up stopped a random guy who was driving past. When we told him the situation, he volunteered to climb way up into the tree to get him down and then promptly did. He handed the kitten to me, I thanked him, and he went back on his merry way.

At this point, it was at least 9:30 PM and the kitten was cold from Tanner's brilliant hose idea, so I dried him off with a towel and set him up with some food, water, and a towel on the floor to sleep on in my room. Tanner was extremely annoying about this. I tried to explain to him that the kitten needed some time to unwind and relax because he was in unfamiliar settings and had been up in that tree for who-knows-how-long, but Tanner wanted nothing more than to bother, poke, prod, and play with the kitten. He kept coming in my room without my permission, lying on the ground and staring at the poor kitten (who was hiding under my bed), then refusing to leave. It took me a good half-hour to get him out of there. I wanted to scream.

Once I finally got Tanner out of my room, the kitten started coming out, eating, playing, and demanding attention (which I quite happily gave him). Meanwhile, I nicknamed him Ritsuka for the time being. Sleeping arrangements were a little confusing... I decided Ritsuka needed to be with a litter box, and there's only one in the house and no extra litter to put in a different container, so it got confusing. I originally thought CC and Ritsuka could both be shut in Mom's room with it while Princess slept with me (she HATES other cats), but that didn't work out because CC was terrified of Ritsuka and threw the biggest hissy fit I've ever seen her throw. Complete with pinned-back ears and yowling and attacking everyone and everything at random. So...yeah. I couldn't have Ritsuka in my room because he was mewing constantly and I needed to sleep, but he mewed even more frantically when I stuck him in the bathroom. So, he ended up staying with Ryan and we just deprived the other two cats of the litter box for the night (they're outdoor cats during the day, so they don't use it very often anyway). I heard once he stopped mewing, he slept on Ryan's pillow. XD;

However, this didn't end my efforts to go to bed. It was noisy and there were lights on everywhere, so at 1 AM I staggered out of bed to see what was going on. It turned out to be Tanner in the living room.

He was taking pictures of soup cans. WTF. No, seriously. WTF?!

Apparently, he was up until 3 AM. Luckily by that time, I had finally fallen asleep and didn't have to deal with his antics.

I woke up at 8 AM or so the next morning. I was rather stressed because I had various animal cages to clean, in addition to having to prepare large amounts of bird supplies, figure out how to fit four large cages and a cage stand in Mom's car, and general chores to do. Thus I stuck the boys with the duty of trying to find Ritsuka's real home. They didn't do a good job of it (as in, they put him on the ground to see if he could find his home and he ran off into the blackberry thicket we have in our yard), but there was seriously no way I could have found time to find Ritsuka's home. ._.;; Oh well--Mom says if she sees him and it's almost dark, he's welcome to spend the night until we find either his current home or a new one.

At about 11:30 AM-ish, Mom and I had to leave to get to the Mock-Mock's release at noon. I stuffed all the cages, cage stands, and supplies in the car, which left absolutely NO room for anyone to be in the car other than Mom and myself. Thus, the boys had to stay at home. >D

The Mock-Mock and two grosbeaks were released at the same time, and that was very exciting. Mock-Mock only took about five minutes to relealize that one side of the cage was open, and flew high and much farther than most birds do when they're released. This made it really exciting, but it was also a little sad because I didn't get to see him any more. It was a very successful release, though. :)

Next, a sapsucker (who was very rascally and also extremely beautiful) and a robin who had previously had a broken wing were put in the flight cage. This was, however, after a photo of the sapsucker was taken in someone's hand. The sapsucker didn't like this AT ALL and started drilling at the hand of whoever held him. XD;; It was really funny, though.

Meanwhile, I obtained two fledgling robins and a barely-fledgling scrub jay, and got my four finches back. The finches are all self-feeding by now and perfectly healthy other than a minor foot injury of unknown cause on one of the house finches. The robins and scrub jay are so sooo cute! The robins are spotted and have such big eyes. Their noises are pretty, too, even when they start at 6 AM. :) I have a male and a female, and the female is really hoppy. Every time I feed her, she absolutely insists on jumping to the top of the box before she'll eat. The little scrub jay is really cute, too, because he's the fuzziest scrub jay I've ever seen. XD;; Because he's by himself, even though jays and robins aren't allowed to become friends, he and the robins are together so they can cuddle and socialize and such. They'll be separated once they get older/if I get another jay in, but for the time being they get to hang out together.

The male robin and scrub jay are both on antibiotics because they were both cat-caught.

After the flight cage, I went with Jacqui and several other bird rehabbers to Janey's to check on the woodpeckers. They turned out to actually be acorn woodpeckers, which is good because it means our organization doesn't have to deal with obtaining permits to raise endangered species and bad because we were all hoping they were piliated woodpeckers. Anyway, they're hilarious and very loud. We also made attempts at IDing this cute little gray, speckled bird that came in. We think it's either a townsend's solitaire or a...um...I forget. Something. XD;;

I went over to Jacqui's, then, to grab some supplies, unwrap a grosbeak's leg, and check on my wren. I forgot to mention it, but my grosbeak (the one who was bitten by the dog) had to be euthanized. ;_; It turned out both of his legs were broken, and there was a well-concealed, untreated wound on his chest. He was really, really in a lot of pain, so Jacqui had to put him and another grosbeak down together. T_T Well, at least he's not in pain anymore... I feel so incredibly awful that mistake had to happen. Otherwise, he definitely would have survived.

Anyway, my wren is doing well and is as hysterical as ever. He apparently bathes himself in watermelon every time Jacqui puts watermelon in his cage, so...uh, she had to remove to watermelon. XD;; He'd end up all sticky so it looked like he had a part on his head. He wouldn't go near the water, though. What a goofball.

Dad picked me up after I unwrapped the broken leg of a grosbeak and fed everyone. As I was leaving, I got to see my two blackbirds in the "wild" (if you can call Jacqui's backyard "the wild"), too.

The rest of yesterday, I rearranged my room at Dad's to accommodate the three cages and cage stand, and that turned out looking really nice. I was worried it wasn't going to fit, but it ended up fitting just fine. I now have the finches in the middle cage, and they seem to enjoy looking out the window and such. Then I went on the internet and eventually got sucked into watching this really creepy forensics show. @_@ I'm not normally creeped out by forensics shows, and I can't honestly say I was creeped out by this in any lasting way, but it was slightly more disturbing than most of the real-life cases I've heard. I was exhausted when that ended, so instead of going back on the internet, I went straight to bed.

Today I: was awoken at 6 AM by the robins (but was fairly awake by that time anyway), fed the birds, realized I left the Amoxicillin out all night (it went bad...not good news), went by Jacqui's to get new antibiotics, FINALLY picked up Loveless Vol. 2 at Book Seller, attempted unsuccessfully to sign up for the rest of my college classes, cleaned Zephyr's cage, downloaded AMVs, researched sterilization and the history of childfree thought and such, had a nice long phone conversation with Zoe, and now I'm returning to downloading AMVs.

That is all.

OH! And I ordered a Haruhiism shirt. >D Dad bought it for me.

So I'm finally updating, eh?

I had to force myself to, as I've been extraordinarily lazy as of late and there have been too many other things going on for me to really feel like writing. That and I forgot to write yesterday. XD;;

The Tahoe trip went way better than I thought it would--it was actually relaxing and a lot of fun. We went whitewater rafting (one of my favorite hobbies, believe it or not, albeit its expensiveness), rock climbing (which I refused to participate in due to my lack of balance and dislike of slow things that are hard work), played more Heck games than I can adequately describe (in fact, just about any time there was a lull in activity, the cards were picked up), rented a jetski, went on the Tahoe Queen, swam, hiked, shopped, dined out, played Cousin Tag, Scattergories, and Pictionary, watched movies, listened to music, went to see PotC 2 (I loved it, if you were wondering), went to a concert (though I left shortly after it began), watched AMVs, and all sorts of other things. I actually got some time to think extensively, I wrote a lot (including a summary on the Pillows concert, which I might actually write up fully sometime soon), and I witnessed some extremely beautiful sights. It was also a lot of fun spending times with my cousins/grandma/aunts/uncles. They're a lot cooler than I remembered them being, for some reason.

The only downside is that there were babies everywhere in Tahoe for some unexplained reason. X_x; *Cough* Yuck. Anyway. Moving on.

We got back Sunday at some random point after listening to much Maaya Sakamoto in the car. And other stuff, too. I just don't remember what it was. I spent several hours catching up on my Friends list and doing random things on the internet. Horror of all horrors, Ryan begged Mom into letting Tanner come over. Only a few hours after we got back from vacation. This was a mistake, even she admits.

We went out to dinner at the Northridge, which was really good despite Ryan and Tanner being impossible. ._.; And Mom getting mad at me about my anti-baby rantings, which she said were too "extremist" for a dinner discussion. Especially seeing as there was a baby fairly nearby. I then decided to discuss politics because I'm angry about Bush's policy regarding stem cell research, which was a somewhat bad idea also because Tanner comes from a staunch Christian/Republican family and therefore he was trying to convince me that "even if they're a few cells, they have lives of their own!" Except, y'know, he doesn't really understand the concepts behind his argument due to the fact that he's thirteen years old.

When dinner was over, Ryan and Tanner created completely and utter havoc with a hose while I cleaned the guinea pig cage, and shortly after that we heard the mewing of a kitten. We discovered him in one of the trees near the driveway, and despite the fact that I climbed into the tree to retrieve him he continued higher into the tree, thus marking him irretrievable for the moment. Tanner got the brilliant idea of using the hose to get him down. I did not give him my consent to spray the poor, innocent, lost and scared kitten with the hose to try to chase him down the tree, but he did it anyway. ._.; Not surprisingly, it didn't help and just scared the little kitty farther up the tree. After a couple of rescue attempts with the ladder and various long objects, we ended up stopped a random guy who was driving past. When we told him the situation, he volunteered to climb way up into the tree to get him down and then promptly did. He handed the kitten to me, I thanked him, and he went back on his merry way.

At this point, it was at least 9:30 PM and the kitten was cold from Tanner's brilliant hose idea, so I dried him off with a towel and set him up with some food, water, and a towel on the floor to sleep on in my room. Tanner was extremely annoying about this. I tried to explain to him that the kitten needed some time to unwind and relax because he was in unfamiliar settings and had been up in that tree for who-knows-how-long, but Tanner wanted nothing more than to bother, poke, prod, and play with the kitten. He kept coming in my room without my permission, lying on the ground and staring at the poor kitten (who was hiding under my bed), then refusing to leave. It took me a good half-hour to get him out of there. I wanted to scream.

Once I finally got Tanner out of my room, the kitten started coming out, eating, playing, and demanding attention (which I quite happily gave him). Meanwhile, I nicknamed him Ritsuka for the time being. Sleeping arrangements were a little confusing... I decided Ritsuka needed to be with a litter box, and there's only one in the house and no extra litter to put in a different container, so it got confusing. I originally thought CC and Ritsuka could both be shut in Mom's room with it while Princess slept with me (she HATES other cats), but that didn't work out because CC was terrified of Ritsuka and threw the biggest hissy fit I've ever seen her throw. Complete with pinned-back ears and yowling and attacking everyone and everything at random. So...yeah. I couldn't have Ritsuka in my room because he was mewing constantly and I needed to sleep, but he mewed even more frantically when I stuck him in the bathroom. So, he ended up staying with Ryan and we just deprived the other two cats of the litter box for the night (they're outdoor cats during the day, so they don't use it very often anyway). I heard once he stopped mewing, he slept on Ryan's pillow. XD;

However, this didn't end my efforts to go to bed. It was noisy and there were lights on everywhere, so at 1 AM I staggered out of bed to see what was going on. It turned out to be Tanner in the living room.

He was taking pictures of soup cans. WTF. No, seriously. WTF?!

Apparently, he was up until 3 AM. Luckily by that time, I had finally fallen asleep and didn't have to deal with his antics.

I woke up at 8 AM or so the next morning. I was rather stressed because I had various animal cages to clean, in addition to having to prepare large amounts of bird supplies, figure out how to fit four large cages and a cage stand in Mom's car, and general chores to do. Thus I stuck the boys with the duty of trying to find Ritsuka's real home. They didn't do a good job of it (as in, they put him on the ground to see if he could find his home and he ran off into the blackberry thicket we have in our yard), but there was seriously no way I could have found time to find Ritsuka's home. ._.;; Oh well--Mom says if she sees him and it's almost dark, he's welcome to spend the night until we find either his current home or a new one.

At about 11:30 AM-ish, Mom and I had to leave to get to the Mock-Mock's release at noon. I stuffed all the cages, cage stands, and supplies in the car, which left absolutely NO room for anyone to be in the car other than Mom and myself. Thus, the boys had to stay at home. >D

The Mock-Mock and two grosbeaks were released at the same time, and that was very exciting. Mock-Mock only took about five minutes to relealize that one side of the cage was open, and flew high and much farther than most birds do when they're released. This made it really exciting, but it was also a little sad because I didn't get to see him any more. It was a very successful release, though. :)

Next, a sapsucker (who was very rascally and also extremely beautiful) and a robin who had previously had a broken wing were put in the flight cage. This was, however, after a photo of the sapsucker was taken in someone's hand. The sapsucker didn't like this AT ALL and started drilling at the hand of whoever held him. XD;; It was really funny, though.

Meanwhile, I obtained two fledgling robins and a barely-fledgling scrub jay, and got my four finches back. The finches are all self-feeding by now and perfectly healthy other than a minor foot injury of unknown cause on one of the house finches. The robins and scrub jay are so sooo cute! The robins are spotted and have such big eyes. Their noises are pretty, too, even when they start at 6 AM. :) I have a male and a female, and the female is really hoppy. Every time I feed her, she absolutely insists on jumping to the top of the box before she'll eat. The little scrub jay is really cute, too, because he's the fuzziest scrub jay I've ever seen. XD;; Because he's by himself, even though jays and robins aren't allowed to become friends, he and the robins are together so they can cuddle and socialize and such. They'll be separated once they get older/if I get another jay in, but for the time being they get to hang out together.

The male robin and scrub jay are both on antibiotics because they were both cat-caught.

After the flight cage, I went with Jacqui and several other bird rehabbers to Janey's to check on the woodpeckers. They turned out to actually be acorn woodpeckers, which is good because it means our organization doesn't have to deal with obtaining permits to raise endangered species and bad because we were all hoping they were piliated woodpeckers. Anyway, they're hilarious and very loud. We also made attempts at IDing this cute little gray, speckled bird that came in. We think it's either a townsend's solitaire or a...um...I forget. Something. XD;;

I went over to Jacqui's, then, to grab some supplies, unwrap a grosbeak's leg, and check on my wren. I forgot to mention it, but my grosbeak (the one who was bitten by the dog) had to be euthanized. ;_; It turned out both of his legs were broken, and there was a well-concealed, untreated wound on his chest. He was really, really in a lot of pain, so Jacqui had to put him and another grosbeak down together. T_T Well, at least he's not in pain anymore... I feel so incredibly awful that mistake had to happen. Otherwise, he definitely would have survived.

Anyway, my wren is doing well and is as hysterical as ever. He apparently bathes himself in watermelon every time Jacqui puts watermelon in his cage, so...uh, she had to remove to watermelon. XD;; He'd end up all sticky so it looked like he had a part on his head. He wouldn't go near the water, though. What a goofball.

Dad picked me up after I unwrapped the broken leg of a grosbeak and fed everyone. As I was leaving, I got to see my two blackbirds in the "wild" (if you can call Jacqui's backyard "the wild"), too.

The rest of yesterday, I rearranged my room at Dad's to accommodate the three cages and cage stand, and that turned out looking really nice. I was worried it wasn't going to fit, but it ended up fitting just fine. I now have the finches in the middle cage, and they seem to enjoy looking out the window and such. Then I went on the internet and eventually got sucked into watching this really creepy forensics show. @_@ I'm not normally creeped out by forensics shows, and I can't honestly say I was creeped out by this in any lasting way, but it was slightly more disturbing than most of the real-life cases I've heard. I was exhausted when that ended, so instead of going back on the internet, I went straight to bed.

Today I: was awoken at 6 AM by the robins (but was fairly awake by that time anyway), fed the birds, realized I left the Amoxicillin out all night (it went bad...not good news), went by Jacqui's to get new antibiotics, FINALLY picked up Loveless Vol. 2 at Book Seller, attempted unsuccessfully to sign up for the rest of my college classes, cleaned Zephyr's cage, downloaded AMVs, researched sterilization and the history of childfree thought and such, had a nice long phone conversation with Zoe, and now I'm returning to downloading AMVs.

That is all.

OH! And I ordered a Haruhiism shirt. >D Dad bought it for me.