Dice, Dimitri and The Deluge

I'm using the die, as in the Diceman by Luke Rhinehart, again. It seems I blither the day away and don't accomplish a whole lot. Rolling the dice after making a list of things to do is a sure way to get things done. So I made a list of six things (as I've only one die, the other die, all colours and sizes, have disappeared over time). Here it is. 1. Wash windows (always include at least one thing you definitely don't want to do). 2. Listen to The Visitor, a CD made by the Robert Monroe guys, a guided meditation to meet 'The Visitor' which I assume will be someone or something of importance to my psyche. I haven't been able to listen to it in its entirety yet so haven't met him/her/it. The friend who introduced me to it listened many many times before finally meeting his visitor. So it may be awhile. 3. Write (the book). 4. Yoga. Have already done some, trying out a new yoga CD. It was okay but a little too easy. Thought it wouldn't hurt to do some more. 5. Plants. We had 51mm or rain yesterday. Took all the plants out for a drink and a wash. Because it rained so hard, they have debris splattered up the sides. Have brought some back in already but there are more plus one palm I want to repot. and 6. Blog, hence this. It rolled a 6.
I was exhausted by 8:30 last night. Went to bed at 9:30 then couldn't sleep thinking about Dimitri. We had a good ending as I wrote yesterday for he was curious, and perhaps made nervous about the storm (10,000 lightning strikes and power outages), and hung around to the entrance to this room off the verandah. I thought this morning that I would try and get him to target a prop, in this case a plastic weave ball with a bell in it. Dismal failure. I held it and he did touch it but he was so focused on getting out he kept offering the behaviour of getting on the forward perch. When I held the ball up to him again he ignored it and bit my finger - twice. Not hard but hard enough to let me know he wasn't happy. The first rule of birdkeeping and training is don't get bitten so I didn't hold it out again. Instead I got a coop cup which hangs on the inside of the cage and put the ball in it. I clicked for him looking at it, for getting closer (in his mad rush to get onto that forward perch) but in truth it didn't click with him at all. He got cranky and went to the back of the cage. Hmmm. I left him in and went outside and did something else (and felt tears of frustration pricking my eyes - why is this so hard for me?). Overdoing it, no doubt. Should have quit while I was ahead. He got frustrated and annoyed and so did I.
When I returned we'd both calmed down. I clicked for getting near the cup, made a big fuss and then let him out. He's still running for the opposite end of the perch when I go out, unless I'm holding millet but I am backing right off and not letting it annoy me. If this is where we are, this is where we are.
He got on the floor a couple of times, even following me to the opposite end of the verandah. I knelt and offered corn and millet treats for coming nearer. He did get pretty close so that's something.
Must say everything looks so scrubbed and fresh after the rain. It has been so dry - grass the colour of a peroxide blonde. The horses were so rejuvenated they galloped back and forth in the peach paddock which is in front of the windows behind the monitor. Even Freya, nearly 30, was in the throng, sometimes leading the way. After the sixth go she veered off to refresh herself at the water trough but the others kept going. Radar, the whippet x, joined in. Even from here I could see his laughter. That dog loves to run, even more than Jamaica, the purebred whippet. He runs for sheer joy. The galahs, dusty with months of dry weather, hung upside down from the wires and shrieked. Even the aviary galahs found toeholds on the mesh and screamed and fluttered and shook their feathers. Wish Dimitri could have had a bath too but that will have to wait. One day....