The good and the bad
Mar. 22nd, 2007 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
la_belle_laideThe bad: Lil' Jon died today. This has been a long time coming. This little dude has been sickly since he first came to me back in '04, when he was found floating in a pool. Rehabbers out west took him, fed him, then tried to release him and he was found the next day almost drowned in a footbath. They tried a third time, and the day after that they found him stuck in a trap. Over the years he's just been oddly clumsy and not quite right. He never fully feathered, he was always carryign some form of avian pox, he ate tons of food and never got to a good weight (and he was parasite free, BTW,) and he had that weird fungal thing that no vet and no lab could identify. I am honestly surprised that he made it three years, and I will really miss this fantastic little bird. My house is so quiet these days. First Cassidy and now Lil Jon; my bird room is totally empty. Actually, right after I lost Pendragon in July, I lost Ray a few days later. So it' sbeen a rotten few months, pets-wise, and NO MORE PLEASE. I've paid my debts in grief for the next few years now, right? PLS?
The good is all the neat creatures at my new job. The work is hard, and no mistake. Today I didn't have time to stop moving for a second, I whizzed around the place like a comet. But today and yesterday I was up there by myself for most of the time, and at first I was thinking that was lonely, but now I'm finding it kind of medatative. It's just weird on a Thursday to go from the hectic, loud hilarity that is my hospital job to this cavernous barn tucked away behind a row of trees and a pond on a vast empty field and then work alone for four hours. Bosslady told me what she needed done today, and I did it, all of it. But then she was really surprised when she came back and it was all done; I mean, she totally couldn't believe that I'd managed it all. I started to feel like I'd inadvertantly skipped something and I asked her to go back over everything I'd done to make sure it was all okay. She was like, "Wow. I just can't believe you work so fast." But then I guess doing animal husbandry for so long, you just learn how to plug away and get it done. There are no distractions. At the hospital I multitask like I was born to do it. Here, it's one thing at a time. After bosslady left, it was just me and the birds, and the only words I said were to them, and those were few and far between. It's strange, not talking for so long. But I was thinking a lot, mostly about the work and the animals and everything. It takes me a long time to settle into a place, and to be honest, I am a totally lazy cow and completely unmotivated with very little in the way of this thing you people call a "work ethic." I just wasn't born with one. It's my natural inclination to sit around and do nothing, or to sit and read or write or watch movies while eating ice cream. So when I end up working more than I'm used to, I freak out and I start to get this bizarre feeling that something is wrong, that I'm managing my time wrong by working too much (not bloody likely) or that I'm forsaking some other aspect of my life. I really have to stop myself from thinking that when I see myself going down that path. Anyway, so here I am in a new job, trying to get comfy, to get back into my comfort zone and to feel like I was at home. (Because part of the reason I've stayed so long at the hospital is because I actually had to in the beginning, and then later on, because being there is sort of like being at home anyway.) I mentioned before that I need to be surrounded by beauty while I work. I wasn't kidding. But it goes deeper than that: I really need to connect with a place, I mean, I have to bond with it.
During these musings I ended up thinking about animal work in general, especially wildlife work. I remember when I first started at the hospital there was this guy and this girl causing some pretty serious problems for me online. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
triforcekt, you might remember Matt and Karen?) These two went beyond internet trolls and ventured into dangerous "we're coming to get you" land. Anyway, the guy found out that I was working at an animal hospital and he said something like, "$6.50 an hour to scrape up dog crap!" Which was actually far off on both counts, as I'm paid quite well on top of doing other things aside from scraping up dog crap (although there is, of course, tons of dog crap.) And in my "defense" someone had mentioned "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it." In the case of wildlife, that's only half right. It is a dirty job, but no one has to do it. With something like this, I think you really have to be just built for it. I'm good at this particular job because I've always specialized in wild birds and this is mostly wild birds, but I think there's more to it than that.
Or maybe I am really just a glorified farm hand. But that, too, is okay. :D
What's better than okay is the fact that we have a white peahen and a magpie. Did you catch that? A magpie who hopped onto my arm today and let me feed him. Okay, so I did actually kind of make him hop onto my arm by sticking my arm in his grill, but he didn't rip my arm off and beat me to death with it, which is sort of what the peahen tried to do. Only she doesn't so much go for my arm as she goes for my eyes. Seriously, I absolutely do not kid you, the bird leaps up into the air when I lean down and tries to peck my eyes out. I let her bite my arm a few times just to see how bad it hurt, and it really doesn't, but dude, I'll bet it would hurt if she pecked my eyes out. I'll just bet. She's very, veyr cute, though.
And you'd better believe that I have pics of this place and these animals. :)
This is Pam the peahen:
Her tail is awesome and her face is really cute. I didn't know that peahens had that funny little hat, isn't it adorable? She doesn't seem the eye-gouging type, does she?
This is Tucker, the magpie:
Dude, a magpie. I want him to sit on my shoulder and preen my hair and be my best friend.
This is a small section of the land that this place is on:
Yes, a small section. I have yet to get pics of the ponds (indoor and outdoor) and the place itself.
Oh, and this is my new hat:
Don't you just love it? Haku does, too. In fact when I tried it on, he pulled it off me. To be fair, it does look exactly like something I'd bring home for them and it does hang well within their reach. Trisky had a go at it, too.
Finally, this is the t shirt I made for tomorrow's concert:
Although I may let Jo-chan wear it if she'd rather, and maybe I'll squeeze in an hour tomorrow to make a different one for me to wear. We'll see.
I need to find my zen about this concert and just go there thinking, Hey, live music, my favorite band, my awesome kid cousin, end of story. It's just that this band and their small club shows and bus parties have spoiled me. :/
I'm sure I'll be back with a huge writeup within a few days' time.
The good is all the neat creatures at my new job. The work is hard, and no mistake. Today I didn't have time to stop moving for a second, I whizzed around the place like a comet. But today and yesterday I was up there by myself for most of the time, and at first I was thinking that was lonely, but now I'm finding it kind of medatative. It's just weird on a Thursday to go from the hectic, loud hilarity that is my hospital job to this cavernous barn tucked away behind a row of trees and a pond on a vast empty field and then work alone for four hours. Bosslady told me what she needed done today, and I did it, all of it. But then she was really surprised when she came back and it was all done; I mean, she totally couldn't believe that I'd managed it all. I started to feel like I'd inadvertantly skipped something and I asked her to go back over everything I'd done to make sure it was all okay. She was like, "Wow. I just can't believe you work so fast." But then I guess doing animal husbandry for so long, you just learn how to plug away and get it done. There are no distractions. At the hospital I multitask like I was born to do it. Here, it's one thing at a time. After bosslady left, it was just me and the birds, and the only words I said were to them, and those were few and far between. It's strange, not talking for so long. But I was thinking a lot, mostly about the work and the animals and everything. It takes me a long time to settle into a place, and to be honest, I am a totally lazy cow and completely unmotivated with very little in the way of this thing you people call a "work ethic." I just wasn't born with one. It's my natural inclination to sit around and do nothing, or to sit and read or write or watch movies while eating ice cream. So when I end up working more than I'm used to, I freak out and I start to get this bizarre feeling that something is wrong, that I'm managing my time wrong by working too much (not bloody likely) or that I'm forsaking some other aspect of my life. I really have to stop myself from thinking that when I see myself going down that path. Anyway, so here I am in a new job, trying to get comfy, to get back into my comfort zone and to feel like I was at home. (Because part of the reason I've stayed so long at the hospital is because I actually had to in the beginning, and then later on, because being there is sort of like being at home anyway.) I mentioned before that I need to be surrounded by beauty while I work. I wasn't kidding. But it goes deeper than that: I really need to connect with a place, I mean, I have to bond with it.
During these musings I ended up thinking about animal work in general, especially wildlife work. I remember when I first started at the hospital there was this guy and this girl causing some pretty serious problems for me online. (
triforcekt, you might remember Matt and Karen?) These two went beyond internet trolls and ventured into dangerous "we're coming to get you" land. Anyway, the guy found out that I was working at an animal hospital and he said something like, "$6.50 an hour to scrape up dog crap!" Which was actually far off on both counts, as I'm paid quite well on top of doing other things aside from scraping up dog crap (although there is, of course, tons of dog crap.) And in my "defense" someone had mentioned "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it." In the case of wildlife, that's only half right. It is a dirty job, but no one has to do it. With something like this, I think you really have to be just built for it. I'm good at this particular job because I've always specialized in wild birds and this is mostly wild birds, but I think there's more to it than that.Or maybe I am really just a glorified farm hand. But that, too, is okay. :D
What's better than okay is the fact that we have a white peahen and a magpie. Did you catch that? A magpie who hopped onto my arm today and let me feed him. Okay, so I did actually kind of make him hop onto my arm by sticking my arm in his grill, but he didn't rip my arm off and beat me to death with it, which is sort of what the peahen tried to do. Only she doesn't so much go for my arm as she goes for my eyes. Seriously, I absolutely do not kid you, the bird leaps up into the air when I lean down and tries to peck my eyes out. I let her bite my arm a few times just to see how bad it hurt, and it really doesn't, but dude, I'll bet it would hurt if she pecked my eyes out. I'll just bet. She's very, veyr cute, though.
And you'd better believe that I have pics of this place and these animals. :)
This is Pam the peahen:
Her tail is awesome and her face is really cute. I didn't know that peahens had that funny little hat, isn't it adorable? She doesn't seem the eye-gouging type, does she?
This is Tucker, the magpie:
Dude, a magpie. I want him to sit on my shoulder and preen my hair and be my best friend.
This is a small section of the land that this place is on:
Yes, a small section. I have yet to get pics of the ponds (indoor and outdoor) and the place itself.
Oh, and this is my new hat:
Don't you just love it? Haku does, too. In fact when I tried it on, he pulled it off me. To be fair, it does look exactly like something I'd bring home for them and it does hang well within their reach. Trisky had a go at it, too.
Finally, this is the t shirt I made for tomorrow's concert:
Although I may let Jo-chan wear it if she'd rather, and maybe I'll squeeze in an hour tomorrow to make a different one for me to wear. We'll see.
I need to find my zen about this concert and just go there thinking, Hey, live music, my favorite band, my awesome kid cousin, end of story. It's just that this band and their small club shows and bus parties have spoiled me. :/
I'm sure I'll be back with a huge writeup within a few days' time.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 04:07 am (UTC)I'm sorry you lost your friend. Sending lotsa' well wishes your way, and I hope you have a great time at the concert with your cousin.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 02:13 pm (UTC)I'm sure I'll have a full review of the concert in a few days time, probably with an annoying amount of pictures. :) Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 02:14 pm (UTC)incomprehensible noises!
Date: 2007-03-23 04:02 pm (UTC)anyway, have a blast, I will be doing the same tomorrow night.
Re: incomprehensible noises!
Date: 2007-03-23 04:30 pm (UTC)Yup, the magpie is a corvid. They are the brightest birds ever, they totally think around the corner. It's spooky! I love crow and magpie myths, as well.