Parrot Nation

My luggage for my Internship at the Cincinnati Zoo. I have to carry everything with me, even bedding, so it’s a lot to carry for 3 weeks:

    8:00 a.m.

I made a list of everything I need to pack and now I’ve misplaced the list. My African Greys went to Shari’s yesterday. She currently has nine African Greys at her house including mine. Like me, Shari is a little “round the bend” when it comes to Greys. She and I stood back for a second and she noticed me counting all of those red tails. She looked at me and said, “There’s nine. I know, I already counted. Isn’t it wonderful?” As I said before, we’re both a few sandwiches short of a picnic when it comes to Greys. Shari said she is even going to call her friend Nick, have him bring his Grey over for a visit so she could break her record and have ten in her bird room. It was kind of breathtaking.

The transfer wasn’t too bad. It took 2 carloads of stuff to transfer the carry-cages, cooler of frozen food, bags of toys, perches and swings for them, but I  got help from my friend Jennifer. Oh, I also had a cage top and a play stand in the car I had helped Shari pick up the day before from a family who had relinquished her Grey, “Bentley” to Shari due to a death in the family. It was sad, but Bentley is going to be okay if she goes to Shari for her interim fostering.

Jen and I drove out to drop off everything and I helped her set up some cages and I left. They’ll be fine. Pepper and Nyla started out with Shari so it’s like their second home anyway, and Parker knows Shari and has stayed with her before. But this is going to be for 3 weeks. It won’t be hard on them at all. I’m sure they’ll come back with new words and phrases from Shari’s Greys as they always do. It’s amazing how they learn from each other.

4:45 p.m.

I’ve vacuum sealed 2 piles of clothing into space bags and now I have to lay everything out on the living room floor just to make sure I have everything. I do not want to have to run out and replace anything in Cincinnati just because I forgot to bring it. Steve from the Zoo is picking me up at the baggage claim area. I have laundry to do, more packing and checking, I have to go to the bank, pick up some nasal spray and I’m good to go.  I’m just a little tired and the idea of getting up at 2:30 in the morning to print my boarding pass nauseates me. Not that it really matters; I’d have to get up at four a.m. anyway to make the flight. I’ve spent all day packing my stuff.  I’ve gotten it into an “elmondo-grosso” big ass suitcase, a small duffel bag, and my carry-on junk which consists of my Flight Attendant luggage. I had to Space Bag everything including my pillow and bed linen to get it to fit.  You have to remember, I am going to get hellishly dirty and sweaty doing this. This isn’t tidy desk work. I’m going to be shoveling poop, and other tasty little tasks. My friend Leeann is coming over to spend the night because I don’t want to be freaking out about her getting up at 3:30 to come and get me.

I can’t check a bag more than 50 pounds, so I had to borrow a scale to check the weight. My biggest bag is 47.5 pounds, so I’m okay.  This means I will probably have some space to spare for some zoo Shirts for everyone who helped me with this trip. I almost had a “spaz attack” today because I couldn’t find my computer airline adapter. Not that I’ll even probably get a seat. I’ll most likely be on the jumpseat, but you never know; people have a tendency to oversleep or show up late for a 6:30 a.m. Flight. I forgot to eat, but I found my List!

Keep posted, and I’ll do updates as often as I can with photos.  Thanks for stopping in.