PLAYING WITH ANNIE!!

(Yes, the caps lock is actually needed and appropriate for the first time in my entire life.) 

Monday in the chimp house was a warm welcome from Jamie chimpanzee. Immediately when I got there, she was so excited and wanted to come down and say good morning and check out my shoes. A very nice change from last Monday when I was running out of doors to avoid poop. 

Jamie was having a mellow day, which provided the perfect opportunity to interact with some other chimps. Most of the day Jamie was in the playroom when others were in the greenhouse, giving ample space between us to play! Jamie and I did our walk around the hill and some boot grooming as usual, and when she was done she went inside, I got some things in the chimp house done and then I grabbed the giant green toothbrush that Burrito and I have been playing with a lot lately. 

I quietly walked past Jamie, careful not to disturb her or draw to much attention to the fact that I was on the way to interact with other chimps, and made my way to the greenhouse. There I found Big B, and we played some chase for about 10 minutes.  Chase with B usually involves running around the outside of the greenhouse. In the late fall/winter/early spring the greenhouse has sheets of hard plastic up to keep it insulated and you have to bang on them when playing chase, its a must. If you were watching me play chase from a ways away, it would look like me banging on the walls, chimp laughing and running back and forth like I have no idea where I'm going. B wasn't really into any grooming games, he just wanted to play some chase. After he took the toothbrush and ran out onto the hill, I went inside the greenhouse to see who else was inside. (Also to check if Jamie was on her way out to tell us to stop playing.)

Missy and Jody were on the very top of the platform just relaxing, and Annie was on the bottom platform, just hanging out. If you've been following this blog long, you know that Annie and I have a secret friendship. She will say hi and interact with me briefly, usually in the morning and when no other chimp or human is around. Needless to say, I was so excited/confused/happy when Annie and I had 10 minutes of play on Monday with other chimps around! 

I said hi to Annie, and sat down on the ground in the human area of the greenhouse. I didn't ask Annie to come over, I just sat down to be an observer. Sometimes the best times are when the chimps don't know I'm there. I get to see how they groom one another, who sleeps in what position, etc. After a few seconds of sitting, Annie grabbed the rope nearby, and flew over to me. She grabbed a nearby plastic hose tool and began to groom me. All I could say was "woah Annie!"I was so taken back by her initiating the play and her doing the grooming. She was using the tool to try and get into my boot, so I took my boot off, then my sock and she was pumped! Annie apparently has a thing for naked human feet, something the staff is just learning about, and she loves to investigate a good foot! She groomed my foot for a few minutes and then we started a weird new game I will call "pass the tube." Annie let me grab the other end of the tube and pull it completely to my side of the caging. She then put her hand up on another spot on the caging where I passed her the tube. She took the whole thing on her side of the caging and put it through another spot. This continued for a good 10 minutes! IT WAS AMAZING. 

During this interaction, Annie was hyper aware of surrounding chimps. She made eye contact multiple times with Missy, who was fine with us playing. She checked doors X and 4 multiple times in case an angry Jamie was on her way. Annie is not a big tool user either, probably why she was extra aware of Jamie being around. In the past, if a chimp is using the plastic hose tool in front of her, Jamie gets a little upset and will storm over and take it away. Due to the fact that Annie is not a tool user on a frequent basis, she was a little awkward with the plastic tube. Unsure of where to grab it, not quite confident in how to groom me, etc. At one point she just blew air into my face by blowing into her end of the tube. It was a free-for-all of "how the fuck do I use this??!?" 

It dawned on me on the way home that Annie is 40 years old (41 this September) and is just now learning how to manipulate a tool like a long plastic hose. Just now of course meaning, since she arrived at sanctuary in 2008. Chimpanzees are highly intelligent, that much has been proven over years of observation; tool use, language use, etc. I would argue that in some cases, chimpanzees are vastly smarter than me. Watching Jamie problem solve with tools or objects in the chimp house sometimes blows my mind. She's so fast and smart and knows just what to do to reach her end goal, and some projects that she finishes in a matter of minutes I couldn't do in an hour. Annie bumbling around with the tool at 40 years old... can you imagine for a minute that you are 40 years old and you have never, lets say, drank milk from a glass? You have no concept of holding a glass in your hand, the speed of pouring a liquid into your mouth, etc. The first few times you do it it's probably a disaster. Now imagine that all your other 40 year old friends have been doing this forever. I don't think Annie is quite that frustrated, but I'm sure at times watching Jamie maneuver a tool with such ease is a little intimidating. I'm so proud of all the things Annie is trying and accomplish and achieving, and I can't wait to see the things she does in the future. I truly wish her youth had been spent in the jungle with her family learning how to use tools, but we can't go back. We can only improve situations for chimps to come. 

Lars and I have made some big decisions for our future (NO WE ARE NOT PREGNANT CALM DOWN) that we will announce later. But I am so excited for what we are about to embark on. 

4 months to the day until #jorgensenwedding2015. I genuinely cannot believe how fast time moves. Raleigh is about to turn 3. Butters will be 4 in July. Lars will be 26. I'll be 24! (Not 25, even though I firmly believed I would be 25 the day before my wedding for months before Lars corrected my math.) Now more than ever I'm feeling especially aware of people around me and spending time with those I care about. Something I think we only do in situations of great tragedy or need. Not to say that's a bad thing, that's when you do really need people around you; but trying to be more aware of that on a daily basis can't be a bad. :)

More next week.
B

Dealing with a cranky chimp + Annie's peaceful morning:

Sunday evenings and Monday mornings my Facebook feed is filled with things like this:

And I just have to laugh. Mondays are my FAVORITE day of the week, and it's always so funny to see everyone react to my "oh I love Mondays!" sentiment. 

I'm used to Mondays being rough for humans, and this Monday Jamie chimpanzee was feeling the homo sapien sapien reaction to Mondays as well, she was quite cranky. Mornings at the chimp house consist of preparing breakfast and saying good morning to the chimps. It's a hit or miss thing, if everyone is in a high arousal state it's a little testy in the chimp house. If Burrito is running around displaying and getting the girls all worked up, we usually wait for the screaming and running around to stop before we enter the chimp area. If it's a long time of screaming and loudness, a staff member will quietly enter the area to observe and see if there is a larger problem at hand. Monday was a noisy morning, as Burrito was doing his thing and the girls were simply not having it. I imagine it like yelling at your younger sibling when they are running around acting crazy and you are trying to watch tv or paint your nails. Sometimes you just have to yell, and the ladies were certainly telling Burrito what they thought about his morning display. 

After the yelling quieted down, we went in to say good morning to everyone. Almost immediately after entering the chimp area, Jamie threw poop at me. I said "good morning James, how are you?" Her response "How do you think I am??!?!!?" *throws poop* Narrowly missing me. So I went back in to the kitchen and finished breakfast. When Jamie is cranky or throwing poop I leave the area and apologize. Clearly, she needs some space and its my job to read that and give her the room she wants. 

Cleaning involves moving the chimps from one area to another with automated doors operated by the humans. To clean the greenhouse we need to move the chimps out of there so it's safe for the humans to enter and clean. On cold mornings the chimps are usually already inside, but as it gets warmer the chimps sometimes hang out outside. To get them all inside and close off the greenhouse, we will serve some of breakfast inside to get them all in. Monday was one of those days, so I served some apples and juice in the front rooms while staff closed the doors to the greenhouse. I gave Jamie an apple and moved to the other chimps, everything was fine and then boom. poop. I was serving Foxie an apple and Jamie turns around, grabs a nearby pile and throws it at me. The majority missed me, but my arm wasn't so lucky. I apologized, gave out my last few apples and went back into human area. 

While finishing up serving juice, staff member K also got poop thrown at her 2 times! Jamie was having a rough morning, and was letting us know. 

Crankiness in chimps is extremely similar to crankiness in humans. (minus the poop throwing.. I hope..) Jamie just needed some space from us. I have a hunch that Burrito's morning display woke her up on the wrong side of the nest. Much like humans, sometimes the crankiness is not always directed at the person who caused it. She also asked me to walk with her right when I got there, which is not possible with door Y closed, and before breakfast the door is always closed. So she might have really wanted to go outside first thing and was upset that she couldn't. Either way, as caregivers it's our job to read Jamie's crankiness and respond appropriately. Later, she wanted to go for a walk just as we were starting to clean the front rooms. Normally I tell her that I have to clean and when I'm done we can walk, but because she was so grumpy earlier in the morning, staff said I should go walk with her to relieve some of her crankiness, and possibly avoid getting a poop shower while we were trying to clean the front rooms. 

During breakfast, after we have cleaned the greenhouse, we open door Y, which is the door that gives the chimpanzees access to Young's Hill; the 2 acre outdoor enclosure where the chimps can sit under the sky and where Jamie walks me to death. Typically. the chimps are so excited about food and eating that they get all their breakfast and then go explore outside, if the weather permits. Monday's breakfast involved Annie going straight outside as soon as door Y was open, with no breakfast! This is amazing for a few reasons: 1) Annie is easily the shyest chimpanzee at CSNW. She is normally never far away from Missy and goes on the hill only if Missy and/or a few other chimps are out. Recently, Annie has been coming out of her chimp shell and spending more time by herself, more than an arms reach from Missy, and going on the hill by herself. 2) Hill excursions all alone are not typically for Annie, so to go outside, without any food, without Missy was quite the feat. 

(picture of Annie on Easter, stolen from CSNW's blog.)

Annie didn't even come over to see what was for breakfast. She was sitting by door Y and quickly adventured out as soon as it was open. As everyone was munching, I stepped outside to see what Annie was doing. Maybe there was something exciting outside, like a leftover Easter treat, etc. When I looked out on the hill, there she was, my sweet secret friend Annie Chimpanzee sitting so peacefully on a log enjoying some alone time. I told her we were eating breakfast, but that didn't seem to phase her. In all honesty, I almost didn't want her to come inside. Just seeing her sitting there on her own brought a tear to my eye. I am so happy for Annie and her new found peace with being alone. Living with 7 other chimpanzees all the time can be exhausting I'm sure, and the ability to be okay with being alone is so important. Seeing her out on that hill relaxing was such a happy moment. Eventually she did come in and get her food/vitamins and chow. 

Being a back scratcher: 

After Jamie's morning crankiness wore off, we took a walk around the hill and groomed for a while. Jamie wanted to groom my feet/shoes/tattoos for a while and after 20 minutes of her investigating every part of me she could, I asked if I could have the tool to groom her. She handed me the tube (in the video) and I took my turn grooming. She turned around, like in this video and nodded her head when I began to scratch her back with  the tool. One spot in particular, on her left side, she really liked being scratched. I could tell by her shaking her head very quickly and when I would stop scratching the area she would shake her hand at me as if to say "no keep going right there." Back scratching might be the new hair brushing with Jamie and I. 

Monday was not a whole lot of interaction time with anyone other than Jamie, and this video is pretty much the only interaction we had because there were lots of things to do in the human area of the chimp house. The freezer was defrosted and we had to go through bags and bags of old frozen fruit and transport what was too old and gross to the compost bin. In doing so, the compost bin was full so we had to do some rearranging of composted materials. Lots of heavy lifting this particular Monday. 

aka my little noodle arms are dead. 

You can check out some glamour shots of my boss Jamie after her crankiness dissolved here: http://www.chimpsanctuarynw.org/blog/2015/04/mood-swings/

Until next week, friends! 

B

 

A Non-Chimping Monday...wut?

Well, for the first Monday in many Mondays, I didn't go to the chimp house. WEIRD RIGHT. It is for me, anyway. I have what Lars and I like to call "Non-Catholic Guilt" which is exactly what it sounds like: experiencing the "catholic guilt" for not doing something that gives you immense feelings of bad juju, as though you have just told 100 grandmothers that you can't make it to their 90th birthday. I experience this on a daily basis, no exaggeration. My last year of my undergrad when I was taking the full load of classes, working 2 jobs, tech-ing/designing 4 shows at the same time and volunteering at the chimp house I was asked to take on another show. I could not possibly deal with the consequences of saying no because of my "NCG" and the inability to say no to anyone. So I said "Of course I have time!" and I spent September 2012-December 2012 crying almost every night and sleeping probably 2-3 hours because I had so much shit to do. Thankfully, I learned my lesson and have never taken on that much work at the same time. Proving the lesson, "you have to learn some things the hard way." The really hard way. The excruciatingly hard way. Yikes. 

ANYWAY. Fighting the few little voices of the NCG out of my head, my very best squirrel friend, aka life partner, aka Elizabirth, went to Mount Vernon to explore the Tulip Fields. I'm not sure if it was the wonderful sun, the wonderful company or just being in a field of flowers like we've all dreamed of doing since childhood-but it was exactly the reboot I needed. Relaxing does not even begin to describe how it feels to just go vibe with nature. The fields were beautiful, and the flowers were amazing-even without an Instagram filter. As you can see: 

Random/maybe not so random thoughts I'm having: 

Chimpanzees and their freedom from dependency on material objects. 

People who think evolution favors humans, when we spend our lives chasing money and material objects we don't *really* need.

The argument: If we as humans cant even take care of each other, how are we supposed to put time and energy into saving another species? And the inverse of that. 

Collecting moments and not things, in a culture that values the opposite. 

The wedding industry is a giant money sucking scam.

lolz. Sometimes my brain is just a bunch of random thoughts with no end or beginning. Pretty much the ship scene in Willy Wonka that you watched as a child and said "WTF mom and dad. I thought this was a kids movie not a horror film!" 

And on a completely different and possibly unrelated note, with a reluctant and jealous heart, I send one of my dearest friends and mentors Mitchell David Terrence Underwood Mackin Treherne back to the other Washington. He is 1 of maybe 4 people who came into my life and changed it in the best possible way. I met Mitchell in arguably the most transitional part of my life to date, the summer before I went to PLU. I just graduated from a class of 33 and I was about to join 850 other new lutes. Mitchell came dancing into my life (literally) and made me question everything. EVERYTHING. Which is exactly what I needed. He has LIVED and I appreciate his willingness to let Lars and I into his life, as his attitude of how to look at things is infectious.  He is, without a doubt one of the strongest, most inspirational, hilarious, intelligent and attractive humans I've ever met, and I'm so MAD at WA DC for taking him back, but thankful for the 6 years we've had. The hard part is not saying goodbye, but not knowing when our paths will cross again.  In the off-chance he reads this: Mitchell, I fucking love you. I fucking miss you. And I'm always dancing for you. 

SAD SAD THINGS MAN. I hate when people I love move to the next thing. Which is a stupid comment, as that's what people are doing our entire lives. We are just meeting people and letting them go, headed our own respective ways. That's all life is; a series of crossing paths with people, for a little while or a long while. And then you die. 

Heavy? Maybe. 

Well this was all over the place right? Chimps on monday, and a more chimp related blog to follow, I promise! 

B