Current Kiki Events - Part II

My vacation was, however, cut a bit short when F called me Monday morning to tell me there were fires all over the place near our apartment. This was on top of a fairly sleepless night, thanks to a tornado siren that went off by accident for over an hour (starting at 3am). I guess a lot of you have been following at least some of the fire news. The Witch Creek fire threatened our home and both of our places of work. I thought F's workplace would be bad because it was across a major street from a burning neighborhood. His building is fine, though. It turns out the Park was even closer to danger. Most of the eastern half of the property (the undeveloped half) is burned. The fire went right up to (and once over) animal areas and around the northern end of the Park to catch the property to the West of us. More information is available here. The reason the Park was around to open yesterday is that the fire management programs are well-planned and the Park was ready to deal with any fire right after finding out the Santa Ana winds would be so bad.

As to our personal story, our apartment never came under mandatory evacuation orders, but the evacuation zone was about half a mile away and the fire came within 2 miles on Tuesday. F evacuated on Monday with my kitty. I flew back into town Tuesday night. The flight over the mountains with fires on either side of the plane was amazing, but the flight right over the Harris fire was awesome. Fires in the distance looked like lava in the darkness. It was indescribably beautiful... Back in reality, I stayed with a friend in North Park for the night, then drove up to meet up with F in the LA area Wednesday. Then, I got up at 3:30am to move my cat back to my apartment and go to our department meeting and help with Park clean-up. Thank goodness for my fitted face mask; the air is still awful here, though generally getting better.

Already, it's mostly back to work as usual (though with much lower attendance numbers). Savanna Safari was amazing Friday because it goes right through one of the areas that burned. I also handled our Great Horned Owl for the first time. So cool! Yesterday I dressed up for a Halloween Weekend shift...and, oh yeah, I dyed my hair black...

On the gaming front, we finally are going to play again. Mutants and Masterminds this time. I'm still trying to come up with all my character stuff but I'm having a hard time. I like superheroes, but it's not as much my thing. I'd love to get back to D&D but I'll really play anything, since I just enjoy the company of my fellow nerds. D (the main GM for this adventure) wanted to help me better understand the tone of the setting and give me character-development ideas, so I now have homework: five trade paperbacks to read by Wednesday evening. It will be especially tough since I also have to rewatch all of Eva by November 7th (it goes back to my brother then), in preparation for watching the movies (or at least the 2nd movie).

I think that catches you all up on my life. Thanks for hanging in there for two long posts. I'll try to get back on top of it, now that I have a computer again (my parents' ran slow, mine was in LA until today, and updates at work can be difficult).

Sad News

After 5 days of medication and 2 days of being force-fed, Tatsu died last night. I feel so guilty, like it's all my fault that this little creature under my care was not able to thrive. It wouldn't be as bad if my last reptile had not also died despite my best efforts. I just feel like there should have been something else I could do or that there was something I was not doing! At this point, I think it's safe to assume that I won't go in for another reptile any time soon.

More Tatsu News

Well, my little dragon has eaten more today. Hope that's a good sign. I had a battle to medicate him yesterday, so today I got a syringe with a needle from my vet and injected the medication into a cricket for Tatsu to eat. That worked well. Of course, it entailed me also having to break the cricket's legs so that it would definitely get eaten. Nice, huh.

Funny thing, for anyone who knows about feeder insects, Tatsu has no desire to eat waxworms. I was hoping to use them as reward food later and for administering medication today, but he just looked at that thing like it was a gross, white, creepy-looking larva. For anyone who doesn't know, waxworms are usually crazy popular with animals because of their high fat content (sort of like a dessert). Against my initial desires, I am now offering Tatsu baby mealworms as well. They have a lot of chitin in their exoskeletons and I'm worried that I could cause a digestive problem, but the vet said get him to eat anything he wants right now until his appetite returns.

Third Post This Night

Okay, animal news.

I finally named my dragon (went with Tatsu, cause it's cute like him) and now he's not eating well! I took him to the vet last night and Dr. B couldn't find anything really wrong. So now I'm trying to administer some antibiotics and dewormer just in case but it's a bit traumatizing for both of us. I'm hoping I can inject the stuff into a waxworm. Trying to keep the ambiant temp a little warmer in here as well. So much for a low gas bill!

We had another animal die at the Park. Radar, our Fennec Fox, was geriatric and had a large mass on his liver. I didn't work with him, but it is sad, nonetheless.

I am finally finished working with the Kookaburra. According to J, our lead trainer, Zeke and I have a "working relationship." I keep him out as long as his attention span holds and he doesn't rip me apart. As long as we have an understanding, I'm fine. My first presentation with him was short but went well. Now I'm working with Akisa, a 7.5 ft Madagascar Ground Boa, and I'm way more comfortable with her, even when she's cranky. I know, I'm weird. Hopefully, I'll have a picture with her soon.

Dragon Names

I'm throwing around names for my lizard and thought I'd run them by you guys. Let me know what you think. I'm leaning more toward some of these...

Descriptive
Cryptic
Mosaic

Literature
Smaug (The Hobbit)

Reptile/Lizard
Agami (beardies are Agamid lizards)

Australian/Aboriginal
Carney (Wemba-Wemba word for beardies)
Bunyip (mythical monster/dragon)
Koori (man)
Ngarrang (NSW word for beardies)
Dhakham (Rainbow Serpent)
Kalwadi/Kulwadi (Rainbow Serpent that can change sex)
Taniwha/Tanihwa (Maori man-eating spiny lizard)
Wanambi (Rainbow Serpent)
Galeru (Rainbow Serpent)

Other
Glenn (Chrono Trigger frog...my dragon's head reminds me of him)
Tatsu (dragon in Japanese)

Random Stuff

Okay, on to the rest of today. Stumpy (Hey, don't judge me! I have yet to get a name suggestion from you people!) is doing fine. He is watching me intently right now. Also, he has been eating like mad! I want to take him to the vet soon for an initial checkup. That should be fun for him...

If you've seen my Halloween costume (a few posts ago), you'll find this funny. One of the guys I game with (Found) never realized who I was during the party. Now, granted we only met about 6 months ago or so, we see each other every other week for a few hours, I was wearing heavy make up, I was not wearing glasses, and we only crossed paths for about 15 minutes...but it's still funny. And, I must say, he faked it well.

I am listening to some jazz right now on our SIRIUS. I like that we got it. F loves the NFL games. I'm just not sure we use it enough...maybe if we took it in the car more...dunno. I'm not over the moon about it like I am with Tivo (which changed my life...if I haven't mentioned it about 5000 times before).

Well, that's probably enough about me today...get the feeling that we have too much crap? You're right. Tomorrow I'm going to throw out all the electronics and go back to books...

Stuck at Work

Here I am on a long split shift at work. By that I mean I had a tour shift that started at 8:15 and lasted til almost 1:00. Now I am off the clock and fiddling around until my next shift from 6:00 to 9:45. When you are a bit down the totem pole, you get stuck with the splits. I had a pretty rough tour this morning, too, so I need a break. However, today is my Friday, so I will have some relaxation time.

Stumpy (really, this is not his name...) ate like mad last night and is really reacting positively to feeding time. I have figured out that the way to disturb him the least with other duties is to wait until about an hour before I turn off the basking light. By this time he is usually on the log and will stay there for the night. I can just remove the log and he will stay right on top of it while I clean and remove any crickets that got away from him during feeding time. And I have seen no more weird and/or disturbing behavior.

Let's see, what else. I have been playing more FFXII. Still not totally thrilled, but I have been enjoying some of the street characters and the bestiary. Hilarious. Plus, I actually am kind of taken with the licensing system. F and I have also been playing Justice League Heroes and LOVE it! I hope the Marvel game is just as good. You just cannot beat playing Superman or Wonder Woman. Pick up a car, fly with it, and then beat down some robots! Awesome!

I also get out of the house once a week (aside from work, which doesn't count) to do some role playing. A female friend from work got me into this group last year. Now she has moved so I am the only girl there. Anyway, we alternate games. We were playing D&D (Eberron) but we have been taking a break from that for a while now. So, we are playing Star Wars (d20) and a game called Found! The latter uses the Unknown Armies system and is loosely based on Lost. Well, as long as a story where something really messed up happens to a group of people and they are trying to figure out what's going on and there are weird coincidences, etc., and there are flashbacks that help flesh out the characters is like Lost, then it is.

Well, I've blown, what, 30 minutes? Yay me. You watch, I'll be back in an hour...

First-time mother

No, I am not pregnant. I am worrying so much over this dragon. I just tried feeding him again and he ate a bunch of crickets and was crazy hungry. Now he is happily basking on his rock. I think I will go cook dinner now and just calm the heck down!

I am totally insane!

I'm a little worried about Stumpy (I also have had Stubs suggested as a name...I reject both of these as non-dragonish!). Last night he was acting a little weird, almost like he was gasping, but only after a 5 minute or so interval. Today, I have yet to see the behavior. Perhaps he was too warm, but that's why there is a temperature gradient, so he can move and be as warm or as cool as he needs to be. Anyhow, I got all paranoid and worried and gave him a warm bath to make sure all his bodily functions are working and they seem to be. Still, he isn't eating as well as I'd like today. And, of course, all my anxiety is just causing me to watch him and bathe him and, in general, stress the poor little guy out. Tonight I think I will try feeding him again and then close the door to the room and let him be for a while.

A new fire-breathing pet

Well, I was convinced to take in a new animal. This poor bearded dragon had been at Petsmart for a couple of months and was picked on by all the other beardies. In the end, they couldn't even give him away (I held off for the chance that someone else might adopt him...but no). He is so adorable and has a great pattern on his underside.


Right now he's watching Merlin (my cat) try to play with the crickets I have in a bug box (they move a lot more than the lizard). To give you a reference for the pictures, he is about 3 inches long. You can see he is missing toes. On the left side he has toe stumps on his front foot and a single toe left on the back. He is also missing at least half an inch of his tail. Poor baby. He is totally rapt, watching the cat. It is hilarious. Okay, I took pictures of it .

Anyway, I have obviously not named the lizard yet, but am throwing some around (including Smaug); right now I'm calling him Stumpy. Of course, it's hard to sex dragons at this age and I don't want to traumatize him, so I will just go with the Petsmart "I think it's a male." If it's female, I'm passing up a great opportunity to use the name Tiamat or Takhisis (D&D).

I had him on sand for the last three days but after waking up two nights in a row worrying that he is going to die from impaction, I gave up and went to carpet and that seems to be working just fine. I am having to keep crickets, which was my biggest stumbling block, but I have only had two near escapes (in four days!!) and will only get better, right?

I keep reading how dragons are most difficult to keep in their first year and that casual reptile owners should only buy adults, so I am working on a bit of a high anxiety level right now, but I will give it a go and try not to kill him. Who knows, maybe I saved him from becoming a feeder animal...I hate to think what they do with damaged reptiles they can't get rid of at these stores. I wonder if there are reptile rescues? In the mean time, he's eating and drinking and going to the bathroom and basking and watching us, so he seems okay.