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
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