Birdies

Ooh. Lookit. Blogging from my phone.

So. This post is for Ute. I'm pretty sure I've blogged it before, but I feel the need to share it again.

My Dad used to breed budgies for show. He must have had thousands of them over the years. I remember her had two side by side avairies at one stage. Each about 20 or 30m long. One for boys, one for girls. Plus his breeding room. I'm soo used to those little birds. Anyway. He bred all types over the years. Blue, green, grey, yellow, ones with funky hairstyles. In the later years he bred yellow ones. I thought they were boring, but he liked them.

This story is about a little white one he had, when I was about 10. He had a mate who swore black and blue, that If you fed a bird exclusively on beetroot leaves, it would turn red. So he got the beaut idea that if you take a white budgie, you can spray it with red food dye, and get a red bird. So that's what he did. Took a lovely little light grey bird, mixed up a spay bottle of red food colouring, and spray painted the bird. Dried poor birdie, then applied another coat. Repeat until bottle empty.

The next night he took pinkie to the bird show. Everyone there was in on the joke. And it went down rather well.

We had pinkie for about a year after that. Her colour faded over about a month. Her wing tips were the last to go. One night there was a massive wind storm, and the lock on dads aviary came undone. He lost all of his birds from that year, with the exception of one runty little grey thing.

Shame too.he had one bird with excellent potential.

***
Aggro was a bird dad gave to his mum. He was white. The bird. Although dad was white too. Nan wanted one she could teach to talk. Originally, aggro was named kimba, for the white lion. But we found that he was really a she. And true to form, she was aggressive. Hence the name. Shortly after nan and grandpa moved down to live with us, dad re acquired aggro to use as a breeder. and she was a fantastic mum too.

***
Guts was mums bird. He was a mop. A genetic deformity that causes extremely long feathers, and a short life span. he was a brilliant dark blue. Because of his condition, his mother decided to end his life. Which, according to nature, is what is to be done. She should spend her time raising young that would survive, right?

Dad interrupted her. And managed to save the poor bugger. her was a bloody mess. Literally. He had half his scalp chewed off and suffered brain damage. My dad, being the softie that he is, child not being himself to kill the poor fighter. So he saved his life instead. Kept him in a heat box, and hand fed him.

Guts was aptly named. He was always hungry. And he'd eat anything that would fit in his beak. He used to sit on mums shoulder and nibble her ears. He'd get out and run around the floor, shitting everywhere. God he was cheeky. On top of having thee mop defect, as a result of his injury he always had one foot splayed out behind him, and he dragged the wing on the same side.

After a few months, dad took him out to the aviary. We'd go down every afternoon to pay with guts, and another mop that ran around the floor with him. We'd pick him up and carry him on our shoulders. Occasionally, he'd come up and spend the night at the house, nibbling mums ears.

I remember the day he died. I remember mum holding him in her outstretched hand, sobbing. She had always helped dad look after the birds, but guts was the only one she'd ever attached to.

Jeebus H Christ on a pogo stick

Here is a list of the people who have pissed me off today.

1. The coworkerS that I caught playing with their phones in a meeting today. Yes, multiples. Sitting side by side. I told one to quit it, and he did. Later, when I told the girl next to him to quit it, he defended her and said it didn't matter. Like hell it fucking doesn't. We're not here to fucking gasbag. I wanna sort shit out and go the fuck home. You having to ask for more info about something that has been clearly explained because you didn't pay attention is not helping the situation.
2. The 'friend', IRL, who defriended me on facebook. No big drama. I mean, its just facebook. But don't tell me you quite facebook altogether when you've just defriended me and changed your name so that you can't be found.
3. The friend who has stood me up for breakfasts, lunches and now dinners. Yeppers. For the birthday bonanza she said she'd be there. Then she wasn't. She has a history of not turning up because she can't be bothered. Not just for me, but for dates etc. She doesn't have a phone, so she can't be contacted when she is a no show. Apparently her mum was sick. On her facebook she has made plans with someone else. She still hasn't apologised. Do these people think I'm fucking stupid?
4. The fuckwit moron who utilises our services at work. Passive aggressive bitch makes our lives difficult. Someone made a mistake. I don't know if it was us or her. But she is blaming us for fucking up the next month's worth of her work. From the wording of the email (that she sent straight to the director of the facility) it would seem that she can't find the instructions that she gave us. I know that those instructions would have been kept my my boss.  Lets for one moment ignore ALL the mistakes she's made that have made our lives more difficult... 

• All of the extra breeding (and killing) we've had to do because she couldn't get her genotypes right. 
• All of the extra work we had to do looking after animals they didn't want. Then having to kill them, because they didn't tell us they didn't want them.
• All of the extra samples we had to take because they couldn't get their genotypes right
• The way they give us cull lists when they're massive, so it takes an hour to do, and makes us want to vomit afterwards.
• The fact that she CONTINUALLY fucks up her genotypes, and still doesn't know how to do one gene properly. We have done a lot of work to get dirty animals clean, and we don't even know if they're the type they want. So she's wasted someone else's very hard, emotionally rending work. Not only that, we have got a large colony still breeding in special conditions because we don't know if the clean animals are what they want. And when its time for that colony to go, its going to be exceptionally tough on ME. There will be vomiting and possibly self mutilation after that one.

Now, I don't care who made the fucking mistake. If it was her, then she should have kept her trap shut and spoken to the person she gave her instructions to. If it was us, then she should have kept her trap shut and spoken directly to the person who made that mistake. That is the very least that we would have done for her. As it stands, all she has done is pissed us off.

Birthday Bonanza

PICTURE POST!
In Victoria

Me and Kez

Mali

Butterfly Pronz

Tiger Cubs

 IN NSW

Mr Shuffles (Pati Harn)

Luk Chai and Mum

Luk Chai

Diving for its toy

Time Out

So I'm on holidays at the moment. I'm doing my Birthday Bonanza. I haven't really celebrated my birthday for years, so this is all new to me.

I've road tripped from Sydney to the shithole I used to live in. It is a long trip, but I do love it. Its just me, Clancy the gay silver Astra, my music and a couple of cans of sugar free V. I love the open road and the sunshine on the hills. I have my scheduled stops. Mostly at McDonalds. I don't eat the shit, but they do make coffee and I love to steal their single serve spreads. I can't help it. I grab a handful on the way in, and a handful on the way out, and at the end of the road trip I count them up.

To help me be healthier on the trip, I took my own salads and had a picnic on the way down. Which was great fun. Then I cranked my music and sang along to U2 and Pink. I'm both tone deaf and flat, so I had the music on pretty loud to compensate for that. The guys doing the roadworks were laughing at me. And I waved. Insanity is fun sometimes.

On Saturday I caught the train down to Melbourne. Had lunch with cousins, before heading out to meet my sister in the arvo. She made a lovely roast dinner and I invited a few friends around. We had "Happy Birthday" spelled out in individual letters on my apple/ricotta crumble. And then we played the best game of scrabble with those letters. And put all of those letters on my chest and took pictures. My favourite was 'Hi Bra'.

So we reminisced and chilled out. It was really great to catch up with the girls, really easygoing and lots of laughs.

Sunday was for the Zoo. I have to say, I do like Taronga zoo, but Melb just shits all over it. Bigger enclosures, better designs and more things for them to do in them. And a much wider range of animals. More monkeys, in a specialised treetop walkthrough. Which was a highlight for me, because I came face to face with a female Lar Gibbon. She was hanging up against the glass looking back at the visitors, when she spotted me and swung over to sit right in front of me. Then she picked at her ass and nibbled her fingers, which I won't let detract from the moment. She was there for about 3 or 4 minutes, before she spotted another person and swung on to see him. Very cool.

Melb Zoo also has Tiger cubs, and an elephant calf too. I think the elephant enclosure is the one place that Taronga gets one up on Melb.

Monday (yesterday) was a train trip back to the shithole. Where I was in on Dad's wedding plans to his current partner. Awkward much? Then grocery shopping with Mum. We had a picnic style dinner with two friends from high school and my oldest mate brought her daughter along. More reminiscing and much more laughter. Especially when we realised that Mum had fed the kid an energy drink at 8pm.

At the moment its about 1 pm. I'm still in my pyjamas. *smug* Tonight is dinner with Dad and another mate from high school. Then tomorrow is my b'day. I don't have anything planned really. Lunch out with Mum, then a movie I guess. There will be shopping as well. I can't come home without going to the factory sales.

Photos will come when I get home.