One of those long, rambling posts. But there are kittens and birds in it!

The last few days have been eventful. ^^

Friday I volunteered at the center. Not much happened there as far as intaking birds (we got one call about a jay, but the lady never showed up with it. I suspect it died), so instead I spent all my time having great animal-related conversations with the other volunteers. Makayla called at one point, asking if we could go to the shelter to check and see if the kitten she picked out was available for adoption yet, so I asked if I could take off for about an hour, got permission to do so, and headed off. I picked up Makayla and we went to the shelter and were slightly disappointed to find out that the kitten still didn't weigh enough to be spayed and therefore couldn't be adopted. Nonetheless, we visited the kitten and her two cage mates and said we'd be back next Friday to hopefully pick the kitten up if she had gained enough weight.

Makayla came back to the center with me for the rest of the shift, then we closed it up and left slightly early. We picked up Daniell at her house, went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory, and got some frozen yogurt afterward at our favorite frozen yogurt place. Then we hurried off to Sacramento to see Ponyo!

We all absolutely loved Ponyo, naturally. :D It was so gorgeous and fun and downright adorable! I enjoyed it a lot more than I even expected, which is saying quite a bit seeing as it's a Miyazaki movie. It's amazing how Miyazaki can aim his movies at such young children and still totally immerse everyone in the story and amaze all the adults in the audience. His imagination is so incredible. I hardly stopped smiling throughout the entire movie. I loved how it was adorable in a genuine way, instead of an overly sappy/saccharine one, and there were so many scenes where I couldn't help but have a D'AWWW reaction. The whole audience really seemed to enjoy it as well, and even stayed through the entire credits. Speaking of the credits, omfg the English version of the ending theme was horrifying. The whole remix bit...noooo. D: My friends and I just facepalmed repeatedly and glanced at each other in embarrassment while laughing the whole time.

Then we headed back, gushed about the movie on the way, and I dropped off Makayla and Daniell and went home myself.

Saturday I decided to just hang around and do...not a whole lot. This is good, because about three or four hours after I woke up I got a call from Makayla saying she had gotten a call from the shelter asking if she would be interested in fostering the three kittens, including the one she was interested in. She wasn't sure if that would work out and asked if I had any suggestions, and eventually after talking to her roommates and me telling her what fostering requires, she decided to do it! The shelter was closing soon, so I took off immediately and we went and picked the kittens up at the shelter. Turns out the shelter had gotten in eleven (!) kittens that day and therefore they were having problems with space, so it was good we were able to help. We went by my mom's to get some supplies and whatnot, and then I helped get the kittens settled in. When I was done with that, Honey and I went blackberry picking until nearly dark on Litton Trail. Tons of delicious blackberries, and Honey had a good time running around and exploring the trail.

Sunday Makayla and I went to the county fair. This was rather fun considering the fair is always slightly anticlimactic. We got there at about 11 AM and got some food, then wandered around and looked at the chickens, rabbits, and booths and stuff. Then we did our volunteer work for the Food Bank, which was a somewhat boring four hours of sitting in front of the fair gate and collecting cans from people. Not too bad, though--I did get quite a bit of reading done in The Outermost House, read through the newspaper, attempted to play DS and soon discovered I could hardly see the screen because of the glare, and Makayla and I had an arbitrary conversation about what anime would be strange/hilarious/awesome if all the characters were genderswapped. The half after our volunteering was quite a bit of fun--we explored nearly the whole fair, watched puppy races and then got to play with the puppies, ate until we could eat no more, rode the ferris wheel, and so on. :D A nice evening.

Yesterday I don't think I did a whole lot, aside from cleaning up my room, talking to Nina on the phone for a while about avian diseases (you would be surprised how excited we can get talking about such a subject), and taking care of Tux. Speaking of Tux, since I started him on the Doxycycline, he's improved quite a bit! He's regaining some of his energy, struggling more when I pick him up and flopping around the storage bin I have him in, his eyes aren't draining as badly, and his urates aren't as out of control as they were. Let's hope he continues to improve--I have a feeling he will, based off the results so far! I think he has a good chance now that he's started the road to getting better.

Today I randomly started searching Craigslist for a female lovebird and a female parrotlet. I've felt for a long time that Oliver and Zephyr deserve to be with others of their same species, and just now I've decided to take the plunge and try to get females of each species so they can have company. I actually called about the lovebird today, and ended up going down to Roseville to adopt her! She is adorable and came with a nice cage and a ton of toys and supplies. She's very outgoing and chirpy. Unfortunately, she is quite a little biter, but I may be able to work on that with her once she's more settled down here. I was very amused to find out that her name is Olive. Olive and Oliver! It's perfect! XD

I put them in the cage with each other (carefully supervised) for a few hours, and then read that it's best not to do that so I separated them again. They seemed to get along well, which is a very good sign, but I will keep them next to each other in separate cages for at least a week before putting them in together, assuming they get along well in the separate cages and in neutral territory. I've got to be careful, because I've heard of occasional cases of lovebirds killing each other, but if I'm careful things should be all right. If they don't end up getting along well enough to live together, they both have nice large cages so that should be fine. At first I will likely put them together only when I'm around to supervise, and make sure they're in separate cages if there's no one home to monitor them.

I inquired about a female parrotlet, but now I'm trying to decide if I want to risk getting her and not having them get along at all. After all, Zephyr hasn't seen another parrotlet since he was just a baby, over six years ago. It seems parrotlets can have trouble sharing their territory as well. Man, this is more complicated than I thought it would be! Anyway, I'm learning a lot and I'm at least glad I got Olive because she needed a home regardless. Shame the small parrot species aren't all as peaceable as cockatiels! I'm going to think about the female parrotlet, anyway, and talk to dad about her more and we'll see what happens. I may not be able to resist her, for she is hand-raised and sweet and a babyyy. ;;

Iii am seriously considering getting a paid account. I have money in Paypal. Not a lot, but more than enough for a year's subscription. I just...want more icons, ahaha. I started trying to figure out what icons to delete for new ones and had trouble, and just went, "Maybe I'll try out a paid account if it's cheap enough. Hmmm." I'm thinking about it. Silly as it is, it would just make me so happy to have more icon space! I certainly spend enough time on LJ to justify it, even when I'm not writing entries as regularly as I used to. I could migrate to another one of those sites where a ton of icons are free, but I know I never will. Too many established communities and friends here.

Anyway, my brain feels like its about to leak out of my ear from lack of ability to think at the moment so I will just write myself this little schedule and go to bed.

( Schedule, To-Do List )

One of those long, rambling posts. But there are kittens and birds in it!

The last few days have been eventful. ^^

Friday I volunteered at the center. Not much happened there as far as intaking birds (we got one call about a jay, but the lady never showed up with it. I suspect it died), so instead I spent all my time having great animal-related conversations with the other volunteers. Makayla called at one point, asking if we could go to the shelter to check and see if the kitten she picked out was available for adoption yet, so I asked if I could take off for about an hour, got permission to do so, and headed off. I picked up Makayla and we went to the shelter and were slightly disappointed to find out that the kitten still didn't weigh enough to be spayed and therefore couldn't be adopted. Nonetheless, we visited the kitten and her two cage mates and said we'd be back next Friday to hopefully pick the kitten up if she had gained enough weight.

Makayla came back to the center with me for the rest of the shift, then we closed it up and left slightly early. We picked up Daniell at her house, went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory, and got some frozen yogurt afterward at our favorite frozen yogurt place. Then we hurried off to Sacramento to see Ponyo!

We all absolutely loved Ponyo, naturally. :D It was so gorgeous and fun and downright adorable! I enjoyed it a lot more than I even expected, which is saying quite a bit seeing as it's a Miyazaki movie. It's amazing how Miyazaki can aim his movies at such young children and still totally immerse everyone in the story and amaze all the adults in the audience. His imagination is so incredible. I hardly stopped smiling throughout the entire movie. I loved how it was adorable in a genuine way, instead of an overly sappy/saccharine one, and there were so many scenes where I couldn't help but have a D'AWWW reaction. The whole audience really seemed to enjoy it as well, and even stayed through the entire credits. Speaking of the credits, omfg the English version of the ending theme was horrifying. The whole remix bit...noooo. D: My friends and I just facepalmed repeatedly and glanced at each other in embarrassment while laughing the whole time.

Then we headed back, gushed about the movie on the way, and I dropped off Makayla and Daniell and went home myself.

Saturday I decided to just hang around and do...not a whole lot. This is good, because about three or four hours after I woke up I got a call from Makayla saying she had gotten a call from the shelter asking if she would be interested in fostering the three kittens, including the one she was interested in. She wasn't sure if that would work out and asked if I had any suggestions, and eventually after talking to her roommates and me telling her what fostering requires, she decided to do it! The shelter was closing soon, so I took off immediately and we went and picked the kittens up at the shelter. Turns out the shelter had gotten in eleven (!) kittens that day and therefore they were having problems with space, so it was good we were able to help. We went by my mom's to get some supplies and whatnot, and then I helped get the kittens settled in. When I was done with that, Honey and I went blackberry picking until nearly dark on Litton Trail. Tons of delicious blackberries, and Honey had a good time running around and exploring the trail.

Sunday Makayla and I went to the county fair. This was rather fun considering the fair is always slightly anticlimactic. We got there at about 11 AM and got some food, then wandered around and looked at the chickens, rabbits, and booths and stuff. Then we did our volunteer work for the Food Bank, which was a somewhat boring four hours of sitting in front of the fair gate and collecting cans from people. Not too bad, though--I did get quite a bit of reading done in The Outermost House, read through the newspaper, attempted to play DS and soon discovered I could hardly see the screen because of the glare, and Makayla and I had an arbitrary conversation about what anime would be strange/hilarious/awesome if all the characters were genderswapped. The half after our volunteering was quite a bit of fun--we explored nearly the whole fair, watched puppy races and then got to play with the puppies, ate until we could eat no more, rode the ferris wheel, and so on. :D A nice evening.

Yesterday I don't think I did a whole lot, aside from cleaning up my room, talking to Nina on the phone for a while about avian diseases (you would be surprised how excited we can get talking about such a subject), and taking care of Tux. Speaking of Tux, since I started him on the Doxycycline, he's improved quite a bit! He's regaining some of his energy, struggling more when I pick him up and flopping around the storage bin I have him in, his eyes aren't draining as badly, and his urates aren't as out of control as they were. Let's hope he continues to improve--I have a feeling he will, based off the results so far! I think he has a good chance now that he's started the road to getting better.

Today I randomly started searching Craigslist for a female lovebird and a female parrotlet. I've felt for a long time that Oliver and Zephyr deserve to be with others of their same species, and just now I've decided to take the plunge and try to get females of each species so they can have company. I actually called about the lovebird today, and ended up going down to Roseville to adopt her! She is adorable and came with a nice cage and a ton of toys and supplies. She's very outgoing and chirpy. Unfortunately, she is quite a little biter, but I may be able to work on that with her once she's more settled down here. I was very amused to find out that her name is Olive. Olive and Oliver! It's perfect! XD

I put them in the cage with each other (carefully supervised) for a few hours, and then read that it's best not to do that so I separated them again. They seemed to get along well, which is a very good sign, but I will keep them next to each other in separate cages for at least a week before putting them in together, assuming they get along well in the separate cages and in neutral territory. I've got to be careful, because I've heard of occasional cases of lovebirds killing each other, but if I'm careful things should be all right. If they don't end up getting along well enough to live together, they both have nice large cages so that should be fine. At first I will likely put them together only when I'm around to supervise, and make sure they're in separate cages if there's no one home to monitor them.

I inquired about a female parrotlet, but now I'm trying to decide if I want to risk getting her and not having them get along at all. After all, Zephyr hasn't seen another parrotlet since he was just a baby, over six years ago. It seems parrotlets can have trouble sharing their territory as well. Man, this is more complicated than I thought it would be! Anyway, I'm learning a lot and I'm at least glad I got Olive because she needed a home regardless. Shame the small parrot species aren't all as peaceable as cockatiels! I'm going to think about the female parrotlet, anyway, and talk to dad about her more and we'll see what happens. I may not be able to resist her, for she is hand-raised and sweet and a babyyy. ;;

Iii am seriously considering getting a paid account. I have money in Paypal. Not a lot, but more than enough for a year's subscription. I just...want more icons, ahaha. I started trying to figure out what icons to delete for new ones and had trouble, and just went, "Maybe I'll try out a paid account if it's cheap enough. Hmmm." I'm thinking about it. Silly as it is, it would just make me so happy to have more icon space! I certainly spend enough time on LJ to justify it, even when I'm not writing entries as regularly as I used to. I could migrate to another one of those sites where a ton of icons are free, but I know I never will. Too many established communities and friends here.

Anyway, my brain feels like its about to leak out of my ear from lack of ability to think at the moment so I will just write myself this little schedule and go to bed.

( Schedule, To-Do List )