June 2004 Archives

I have been working on a new layout, possibly a total overhaul of everything, I haven't gotten far enough to know yet. I'm trying to make a pure CSS layout, and I seem to run into problems everytime I sit down to work with the few spare minutes I have. Generally, once I start something I can't stop until I finish it, but I have just been exhausted lately. By the way, this entry as well as the previous couple, are capitalized, because after a year of making designs/pages for the product managers at work, it's engrained in my head to Capitalize Everything. And now I can't stand not to capitalize. So in the new layout, I'll be capitalizing. Have you ever noticed that? Any PowerPoint You'll See From Someone In Marketing Has Every Word Capitalized. Is This Something You Learn As A Marketing/Business Major? Does PowerPoint Automatically Do This? I don't really know.

I started moving into the new apartment on June 18th, but I still have boxes to unpack, animals to place, paintings to hang, etc. I really like the place a lot though. I had only seen pictures prior to this, so I was a little worried, but it seems to be almost perfect. It even has a brand new kitchen! It's about 3/4 the size of my old apartment, and it really is the perfect size for me. I have huge closets to store everything in, and the bunnies even ended up with their own room to run around and romp in! I can plant flowers and do whatever I want with the outside, which I would love to do if I had some extra time. So I am very happy with my apartment and I can't wait until everything is settled and I'm back on a routine.

The old apartment is a different story. Amongst all the exhaustion of moving and working, I still had to clean the place. I scrubbed floors, floorboards, walls, etc and apparently it wasn't good enough. Katrina made a date for the management to come inspect the place (which I found out about maybe 3 or 4 days in advance, including the weekend.) I took time off work to meet the whitehall ladies there at ten on Monday morning. Kory went with me, and we went early so I could vacuum the stairs off real fast. The ladies show up at five till ten, and guess who doesn't show up? Katrina. (She may have shown up late, I don't really know, but she certainly wasn't there while they were "inspecting" the place.) They walked in and immediately the mean lady started complaining about how bad it smelled. The nice lady immediately started walking around and taking polaroids of the stains on the floor. The mean lady checked upstairs and said my room smelled and that it was probably coming up through the vents. She asked if we had a dog in the apartment, I told her yes, and of course that is what she blamed this mysterious smell on that only she could smell. "Oh, you're just used to it now." Even though I haven't lived there for a couple weeks? "I think I'm going to throw up." She was acting totally ridiculous. They didn't even look at anything else. Just the carpet. It was like they knew there were stains from the previous tenant (which there were...they magically appeared a couple days after we moved in, honestly!) and were intent on blaming it on us so we would have to pay for new carpet. She said that she was sure that the downstairs carpet would have to be replaced, tenant's expense, and that she could try to clean the upstairs first. Yeah, it was pretty much a carpet inspection. They didn't notice that the cabinets under the sink are all caved in because the sink leaks, and they didn't notice that the handle on the back door was off and sitting on the counter. The only other thing they did notice is some weird hole/dryrot area on one of the walls downstairs, which I didn't even notice until a month or two ago. I have no clue how it got like that, Kory said something about Katrina trying to fix it or something, who knows. But the mean lady blamed it on Dory. Can someone please tell me how Dory, who is a girl, could urinate on this wall and cause it be cracked and caved in? Don't you think it would be stained? Let me tell you, I've seen Dory pee in the house plenty of times, and it was always either on the carpet or the couches, definitely not on the walls. They're so ridiculous and they make me angry everytime I think about it.

It also doesn't help that Katrina didn't show up. Am I supposed to defend her dog, who did leave a lot of stains on the carpet, not to mention her cat that she wasn't even supposed to have there? I don't think so. I can't possibly try to defend myself if I told them that there were already stains on the carpet, because it wasn't written on our move-in inspection sheet...because as I said earlier, they magically appeared a few days after we moved in! (Katrina didn't even have Dory at this point, so they couldn't be from Dory) "Umm, a lot of these stains were here when we moved in." "Why didn't you tell us about them when you inspected the apartment before move-in?" "Umm, because they weren't there then, they started showing up later." I can see the look on the mean lady's face if I was to tell her that.

I know it sounds crazy, but the stains really did appear later! Katrina said that after you clean the carpets, the stains won't reappear until after it has completely dried. If this is true, this is exactly what happened, because the carpet was still wet when we moved in. They'll probably do the same thing to the next tenants. They won't install new carpet (but will charge us for it anyways), they'll clean it a day before the new tenants move in, and then they'll accuse them later of ruining the carpet. It really does seem like a scam. The inspection was so quick, it probably lasted three minutes. You could tell that the only thing they intended on doing was coming in and inspecting the carpet. She had her camera ready to go, and then she was off, taking pictures of stains in every room (except mine, because there aren't any!)

I'm not exactly sure how all of this is going to work out. I don't know if I'll get any of the security deposit back. I don't know how they're going to charge us for the carpet. I know they'll use the pet deposit for it, but I'm assuming it's going to be more than $300. And if we do get charged extra, do they just split it up between the two of us? I probably should have asked these questions, but I guess I don't really care that much. Just tell me what I need to do, and let's get it done with.

Kory and I went with my dad and Carol to a surprise party for Kane yesterday. I'm not exactly sure what he got, but I think he got his EMT certification. All I know is that he will get to ride around in ambulances and have fun. Kane has been working at Taco Bell for almost as long as I have known him, and he seems really excited about getting a new job, so I'm happy for him. Now Heidi just needs to get her license!

The party was fun, we were outside and the weather was perfect. Kory and I brought over some fake chicken to grill. Alena and Emma were running around like monsters catching bugs and climbing trees. Alena was scaling the doorway and shining the spiderman signal on the wall. Heidi gave me an awesome vertebrate anatomy book. It used to be Kane's grandmother's when she went to Kent!

Also, my mom, grandpa, and Shaun are coming to Ohio to visit! They should be coming down July 22/23-25. My grandpa is staying with my Uncle Ralph, and my mom and Shaun are supposed to come to my apartment Friday and spend the night. They didn't get to see my old apartment, so I'm excited that they get to see my new one. Also, Heidi is probably going to come up, and Kevin is probably going to visit too, so it will be one big happy get together. And my mom might be bringing her cockatiels who are going to be friends with Miss Eleanor and Marzipan!!

Three of the four baby starlings have died, all within a span of two days. Kory and I have no idea why, no clue whatsoever. I guess I'll just tell the whole story of those crazy days.

{Day 1} It was a Monday, the last day I took off work to move. I picked Kory up at 6 in the morning, and he had found two little baby sparrows lying on the ground. One was dead, and the other was just lying there freezing, so Kory took him. We got back to my new apartment, opened the door, and one of the baby starlings flew out of the door! Somehow they had gotten out of their cage and were flying around the living room. So Kory went outside to look for him and I just stood there not knowing what to do. Kory and I had taken some of the bird food outside, in hopes of luring the baby close to us, and he did fly down to eat a few bites, but there was no way we could catch him. I went back inside and was just standing there in shock, and I noticed that one of the birds still in the cage was on the bottom and was having problems moving. (It was really dark in there, so it was hard to see.) I walked closer, and it was Baby, the little runt, Kory's favorite. She was on the bottom, and she couldn't stand up or anything. I called Kory back inside, and we took Baby out, and about ten minutes later she died in our hands. It was so all of a sudden and such a shock.

At this point we were really depressed. One bird escaped, Baby died, and we had another new baby to take care of. We put the new baby under a heat lamp, tried to hydrate it, tried to feed it, tried everything, but it just would not eat. Babies this young need to eat at least every half hour, so this baby didn't make it.

So now we have an escaped bird, two dead babies, and two babies still in the cage. Now we're even more discouraged, and there was no way we wanted to finish moving my stuff at all. The escaped bird had flown away, we couldn't even see him anymore. We took a nap for about an hour, then I got up and started to unpack a few things. I was in the spare room, and I heard what sounded like one of our babies outside! I looked out the window, and the escaped baby was in the parking lot! I woke Kory up, we ran downstairs and put the bird cage in front of the door, and opened up the screen door. We got some food, and the two caged babies started screaming for some, and then it happened! The escaped baby flew into the apartment and landed on the cage!! We got him back! So this made our day. We got our little baby back after he had taste of the outside life.

{Day 2} I was at work this day. Kory IM'd me and told me that he went downstairs and one of the three birds was dead in the bottom of the cage, and one of the other birds wasn't looking too good. I got home around 6:30, and the baby still wasn't looking good. He was down on the bottom, fairly lethargic, and he wouldn't eat, couldn't jump or climb anything. I decided to move him into another cage so the other monster bird wouldn't bother him. I took him out, and he was doing even worse than he was two minutes ago. He couldn't use his legs, and started twisting his head around. He would try to flap his wings, and it was just so sad. If you set him on the floor, he kind of just lunged forward and rolled over. We knew he wasn't going to make it, and it was so terribly depressing to watch him. Kory was holding him, keeping him stable while his body and head twisted around. About ten minutes later he died in Kory's hands.

To this day, I still don't know what happened. I looked all over online and couldn't find out what possibly went wrong. Three birds dead within two days, and one bird seemingly healthy as can be, still alive and doing well.

I won't have the internet at home until I move to my new apartment, and that will be on June 18th. Actually, it will be June 21st. That's when I have the cable company coming over to hook me up with the roadrunner! For the first time ever, I won't have dial-up anymore. I can't wait. I'm pretty excited to move too. I have all the utilities taken care of now, and I have a moving truck scheduled to move all the big stuff. I really like the apartment I'm in now, but there's just no way I can afford it by myself. I'm going to miss the big tree in my backyard, and all of my little birdy friends that come to my feeder, and my squirrely friends who come and visit on my balcony. Which reminds me, I have this squirrely friend who I have named Ralph. He comes up everyday and I feed him pecans and almonds and a bunch of good nuts. Just recently, Ralph is becoming a little monster! When he's done taking all his food away, he comes back up and trudges and digs through my container garden! I catch him sitting in my green bean pot all the time! I yell at him, "Ralph!! Get out of my beans!" and he looks at me and jumps out and sits up on the ledge. And then I walk away, come back, and he's climbing up and down on my screen door! This is his newest thing. And I haven't had the door open all the way (it's a sliding glass door) because it's been a little chilly, so he will jump up on the screen and wedge himself in between the screen and glass and he just looks so silly. I can't believe he does this. Of course I yell at him when he does this too, and he jumps off but as soon as I walk away he's back up on it. I am going to miss Ralph. I'm sure he'll terrorize the people who move into the apartment next.

Just when things have settled down, and all of my "dealing with getting a new apartment" stress has gone away, something else is thrown into my life to make things more complicated. This past Saturday, the manager at the hotel where Kory works made the maintenance guys tear down a bird nest, and they brought it back to Kory. I won't even go into how terrible and cruel this is, but it is. Kory talked to his manager about putting the nest back up, but he would not allow it. So we got "stuck" with these birds, four of them. There were five in the nest, but one of them was already dead. We were freaking out because these little babies were young, and we had no clue what to feed them. I don't even think they had their eyes open at this point. As I said earlier, I can't get online at home anymore, so we couldn't even look up how to take care them. We rushed out to the pet store and picked up some hand feeding formula and some syringes, and we were feeding them about every hour. We weren't sure whether they needed to be fed at night, we assumed no, but woke up a couple times each night to feed them just in case.

On Tuesday I was finally able to get online, and I read everything I possibly could about them (found out that they are probably baby starlings, which we eventually assumed they were.) I found a recipe for some food to feed them, and boy is it disgusting. The ingredients include: dog food, chicken mash, hard-boiled eggs, applesauce, and bird vitamins. Buying and boiling eggs is not exactly something Kory and I have ever done, or enjoy doing, but you can't deprive the poor babies of having a proper diet. So we bought some good organic free range eggs, boiled them, and scooped out the yolks, and mixed it in with this disgusting can of dog food made out of chicken. Seems kind of funny to be feeding baby birds food that is probably made out of 75% dead birds. But they like it, and it's much easier to feed than the bird formula. Not to mention that I only need 1/4 can of chicken mash for each batch, but the smallest bag of chicken mash was 50 lbs!!! What in the world am i going to do with 50 lbs of chicken mash?

I can't even explain how amazing it is to watch these little guys grow up. They started out as little blobs of featherless flesh, and just six days later they are covered in fluffy grey feathers and are very alert. Screaming their little fuzzy heads off every time they hear a sound from us. Oh! The most shocking thing was the size of their beaks!! They have these bright yellowish/orange beaks that are about twice the width of their heads! They look so silly! It's so cute when we go over to their little box/paper towel nest and all of a sudden four huge screaming beaks pop up out of it. they poke their little heads up as high as possible and open their mouths up as wide as possible, and just scream scream scream. They look like a bunch of little flowers sprouting up. And their poop, oh boy, their poop! First of all, there is a lot of it! Four little growing birds in a tiny box produce a lot of poop. Second, before they become fledglings, their poop is encased in this white casing, which I found out makes it easier for the mother bird to throw it out of the nest. Amazing little adaptation! Also great for us! But unfortunately we have passed that stage, and it's just normal bird poop all over the place. Third thing is the way they poop. When they need to go to the bathroom, they start walking backwards out of the nest, yes, physically out of their little hole and up the sides of the box, and they shoot their little poop right over the side! Sometimes it's hard for them to do this, another baby might be in the way, or the sides might be too steep, so Kory and I will just help them up, and...poop! I think that's just amazing, and it's hilarious to watch.

So yes, we have to feed these little monsters every hour, at least. This is very difficult to do when you have things to do and places to go. We went to a potluck at Jason and Shelly's house on Memorial Day, and we had to bring the little monsters along. It's like having children! You have to make sure they're fed and cleaned up before you go anywhere, have to remember to bring all their food and supplies, have to bring extra towels to clean up with. This is not easy at all, and Ii do not recommend raising baby birds by yourself unless you have absolutely nothing to do.

I think they have to be about six or eight weeks when we to release them, and they're almost two weeks now. So we've got a long way to go. A lot of hand feedings every hour. I can't bring the birds to work with me, so Kory has been taking them to work with him, and so far no one has said anything about it. hopefully it will stay that way. It's their fault he even has them! I've been taking lots of photos to document their cuteness, so when I get the roadrunner I will post lots of their big beak cuteness. And I will post pictures of Ralph climbing on the screen!