This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.
Wellp, Easter weekend happened. I seem to have survived. It wasn't like the weekend was awful, honestly. It was just people-intensive and I went into everything already at low energy. I feel kind of bad about that, honestly. Had serious amounts of trouble smiling at people and cameras, and making any kind of small talk.
I can't quite decide if it's a logical extension of the anhedonia I've been suffering from for a couple weeks, or whether it's just low energy overall. Anhedonia is the lack of interest and enjoyment in previously enjoyable activities, which can include food. It's normally associated with depression and burnout. I don't think I'm extra depressed? So maybe burnout, I guess. I'm trying to be good to myself and take lots of time for self-care, in case it's that.
I guess maybe there's an argument for depression, actually. My grandmother isn't doing super well. It was her birthday a couple days ago, and we had a small party. I'm afraid she seemed rather tired through the whole thing, though, and wasn't super social. Felt like she was making the best of it, anyway. There were certainly nice things, like sparkling grape juice, chocolate cake, and each of her three children with birthday wishes (one via phone call, but still). Some friends stopped by as well. So it was a nice party. I just felt sad about her reduced enjoyment of the party.
I did get highly distracted by a live bird habitat in the same room, though. I spent some time Googling the types of birds, but didn't manage to ID every single one. There was no placard explaining them, of course.
So I spent a good amount of time just watching these fly around. For all that they're so accessible to look at, they seemed surprisingly ill-at-ease with being approached. The calmest were the diamond doves, which is maybe not surprising since they're relatives with the common city pigeon. The finches and finch-like birds kept a close eye on anyone approaching the case, though, and flew away from the immediate area of visitors.
I couldn't identify every type of bird in the case, but I'm pretty sure about the diamond doves and the orange-cheeked waxbills. The society finches I'm not sure about, since they're a created species and come in many many colors. And there was one more type of finch-like bird in there that was basically just dark brown in color, and I had no idea how to look up what species it was.
While doing all this research, I found a site that was pushing pet bird ownership, and proposed doves or finches as an acceptable alternative to owning a parrot or parrot-like bird. Doves and finches aren't as handle-able or affectionate as parrots, but they're a great deal quieter in their vocalizations. I'm somewhat interested in the idea, as dove cooing can be relaxing, but it bears a lot more consideration before I go see about getting a pair of doves, a cage, and food.
Wellp, Easter weekend happened. I seem to have survived. It wasn't like the weekend was awful, honestly. It was just people-intensive and I went into everything already at low energy. I feel kind of bad about that, honestly. Had serious amounts of trouble smiling at people and cameras, and making any kind of small talk.
I can't quite decide if it's a logical extension of the anhedonia I've been suffering from for a couple weeks, or whether it's just low energy overall. Anhedonia is the lack of interest and enjoyment in previously enjoyable activities, which can include food. It's normally associated with depression and burnout. I don't think I'm extra depressed? So maybe burnout, I guess. I'm trying to be good to myself and take lots of time for self-care, in case it's that.
I guess maybe there's an argument for depression, actually. My grandmother isn't doing super well. It was her birthday a couple days ago, and we had a small party. I'm afraid she seemed rather tired through the whole thing, though, and wasn't super social. Felt like she was making the best of it, anyway. There were certainly nice things, like sparkling grape juice, chocolate cake, and each of her three children with birthday wishes (one via phone call, but still). Some friends stopped by as well. So it was a nice party. I just felt sad about her reduced enjoyment of the party.
I did get highly distracted by a live bird habitat in the same room, though. I spent some time Googling the types of birds, but didn't manage to ID every single one. There was no placard explaining them, of course.
 |
| This is the whole thing. The plaque just says the case was donated. |
 |
| Diamond doves, from Australia. Just two of these in the whole case. |
 |
| Food is in the red bowl. |
 |
| I think these are Society Finches, or Bangladesh Finches. They're fairly nondescript, though, so I'm honestly not sure. |
 |
| Another shot of the nests and greenery. |
So I spent a good amount of time just watching these fly around. For all that they're so accessible to look at, they seemed surprisingly ill-at-ease with being approached. The calmest were the diamond doves, which is maybe not surprising since they're relatives with the common city pigeon. The finches and finch-like birds kept a close eye on anyone approaching the case, though, and flew away from the immediate area of visitors.
I couldn't identify every type of bird in the case, but I'm pretty sure about the diamond doves and the orange-cheeked waxbills. The society finches I'm not sure about, since they're a created species and come in many many colors. And there was one more type of finch-like bird in there that was basically just dark brown in color, and I had no idea how to look up what species it was.
While doing all this research, I found a site that was pushing pet bird ownership, and proposed doves or finches as an acceptable alternative to owning a parrot or parrot-like bird. Doves and finches aren't as handle-able or affectionate as parrots, but they're a great deal quieter in their vocalizations. I'm somewhat interested in the idea, as dove cooing can be relaxing, but it bears a lot more consideration before I go see about getting a pair of doves, a cage, and food.
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