Could I think of a blander title? Well, to be fair, I’ve been trying to refrain from god-awful post titles recently. Anyway, I’ve made a good deal of progress in working on a better theme for this site and portfolio. Well, a more personal, home-made one anyway. So stay tuned…

Ernie and Bert go BRUTAL

The title says it all, but I almost choked on my tongue laughing when I saw this.

White & Nerdy

I’ll never get tired of this song. And so much of it is relateble!

Today I visited America. Technically anyway. I went to the US Embassy in Osaka to get some documents notarized that state I’m competent to get married. Osaka really is an awesome city, especially when it’s not sweltering hot like it was the last time I went there. Of course, what’s not so cool is spending about $150 and taking a whole day just to get a clerk to stamp a piece of paper. I didn’t get to do any sightseeing in Osaka, but then again I’m happy just looking at streets and alleys. And while Osaka is really fun to visit, it’s like visiting New York city. It’s really fun to go to, but I’m glad I don’t live there. The train ride was also really beautiful. The weather over Lake Biwa looked like it was about to storm, adding to it’s already amazing beauty. I took some photos, but they don’t look anything like what it actually looked like, so I won’t post them.

Hitomi comes back from her study meeting in Tokyo today, and she’ll go up to Kanazawa tomorrow morning to enter the hospital for about a month. Boy will it be nice when she’s out of there and all healed up… There’s just too much to worry about and too much stress at the moment.

Pichan laid her 4th (and hopefully final) egg last night. After she threw out the 2 original eggs, she laid another one, and I did some reading up on parakeets and laying eggs. It’s really taxing on their bodies and saps them of nutrition. Pichan loves her calcium block, but she refuses to eat anything else other than seeds, so I’m always a little worried about her nutrition. So sadly, I had to remove her nesting box to keep her from laying more eggs; it’s too bad because watching her play with it was so adorable. She was a little confused and upset at first, but soon forgot about it. And she dropped one more egg onto the cage floor yesterday, having no nest to put it in. It’s said that without a nesting box she won’t be making any more eggs — otherwise she will never stop until she wants to, laying 1 egg every 2 days. So hopefully last night’s was the last. I wish I didn’t have to take her box away, but I don’t want to her draining herself laying infertile eggs for the rest of her life.

Pi-chan, that is! I never really knew if Pi-chan was a boy or a girl… and with parakeets the only way to really know is by a blood test or their nose color. At first, Pi-chan’s nose was slightly blue, so I thought she was a he. However, over the years her nose became slightly pinker. She also became a little more bite-y, even while she is playful and tame, and she never learned to speak — both of which are typical traits for female birds. However, I got some confirmation yesterday morning, when I checked in her cage and saw eggs!

Eggs!

I was really shocked to see them, despite the fact that I suspected she was a girl. Obviously I guess… But it does explain her recent behavior. Since January she’s been going nuts building a nest in her little box, and this past week and a half or so she’s been spending lots of time in there, and when she wasn’t in the box she was always watching it carefully, peeking in it every few minutes, and peeking out of it constantly whenever she was in it. It was really cute and funny, and Hitomi and I laughed endlessly watching her play around her box… but we never expected there were eggs inside!

Anyway, of course they couldn’t hatch, as Pi-chan is sadly single (except for her mirror friend), so I guess after a few days of not hatching, whatever instinct controls her decided that it was time to throw the eggs out. So she dumped them out of the box and onto the cage floor overnight, where I found them the next morning.

I was really worried about Pi-chan being sad because her eggs didn’t hatch, but she seems okay. And now I feel really proud of her like a father or something. How silly.