The Butterfly Returns

I ran across the butterfly today by chance. It had not really gone away. I thought when it disappeared that it might have found a way out of the house. But today it was wandering on the carpet by the window in the dining room and looking very weak.

I took it to the kitchen and tried to make artificial flowers for it, filling paper cupcake liners with sugar water, lemonade and orange juice.

The butterfly seemed to have trouble getting to the substitute nectar, so I placed a few drops within close reach.

The prognosis for the butterfly did not look good, but that was the best I could do. Then I returned to Bow in the pens, and I uploaded the videos. I thought Bow might like to see the butterfly close up in the video. He has a view of the kitchen from the pens, so he was watching me the whole time and knew what I was up to. But seeing the video might interest him, I thought.

Bow watched the video of the butterfly twice, very quietly and serenely. Then Youtube suggested some other videos to watch. Bow seemed interested, so I selected one about migrating Monarch butterflies. The narrator in the other video said that butterflies arriving in November were considered to be the returning souls of the dead. Bow began to rock. Another speaker came on, and Bow was clearly displeased, rocking and making raspberries. I paused the video and asked Bow if everything was okay now. He seemed much more calm, but then he started to try to type. I did not see this at once, but on the screen it said: "Leave a comment." However, there was no place to leave a comment on the current screen, so Bow's typing did not show.

After he tired of this activity, Bow asked to go outside.

When he was outside, Bow was much less quiet and restrained. He used his outdoor voice and displayed at the dogs. There is a time for all things, and for every thing a season. A time to listen and a time to talk. A time to scream and a time to be silent. But our poor butterfly, I'm afraid, picked the wrong time to emerge form its pupal stage. The odds are against it.

Let Grandma Live Here

My mother was recently here for a three day visit. Bow, as usual, was thrilled to have her come, enjoyed the special treats she gave him and the dishes she made, and generally was happy in her company.

There are times when Bow was the focus of attention, and my mother spoke directly with him and to him, but there were other times when Bow was content to listen to the grown ups talk, and one topic my mother spoke about is her interest in secure housing for seniors with an independent lifestyles. She brought some postcard ads that she received from such places, and she even showed Bow what she was talking about. 

Yesterday, when the time to leave was drawing close, my mother said casually that she would love to invite Bow to come with her, but I said Bow could not come, because he has to stay here.

"Yes. Of course," my mother said to Bow. "You have a very strong house here. It is very secure. It keeps you safe."

Bow, who had been mostly silent, listening to the conversation, took my hand suddenly, brought me to the glass and spelled: תני לסבתא לגור פה.

"Let Grandma live here," he was saying.

"What here in the cage?" she asked. He indicated yes. It was a nice idea, but hard to reply to. 

When we didn't immediately respond to this proposal, he repeated it again verbatim. And later, he just wrote: תני לסבתא להשאר

"Let Grandma stay."

My mother told Bow she had to go home now, but that she would be back for Thanksgiving. He accepted this, and when the airport shuttle came to pick her up, he stood watching through the door until the van drove off.

After Breakfast Conversation

Today after breakfast Bow took my hand and spelled: "I have time to talk now." I thought that was a little funny, because it seemed to imply that he's so busy the rest of the day that there simply isn't enough time to talk.

"You have time to talk?" I echoed.

 "Yes," he spelled. "I have time to talk to Mommy."

"Well, what do you have to say?"

"That Mommy will not die fast."

"You think that I won't die fast?" I asked. It was not clear what he meant.

He rephrased: "Don't die fast."

"Oh, you're telling me not to die fast."

"Yes."

He has mentioned before that he was worried about that. He has been noticing that I am aging, and he is concerned. There is really no particular cause for concern, but it's true that if I were a chimpanzee in the wild, I'd probably be dead by now, just on account of my age. Bow is extremely dependent on me, and he worries about what will happen to him after I am gone.

I asked him what he thought I should do in order not to die fast. He told me not to eat too much. But as soon as that advice was handed out, he lost all interest in the topic and asked to go outside.

Once there, he got agitated by Brownie's barking, displayed a little, and then went back to the quiet contemplation of nature.

Choosing to Go Outside

We all have choices. Sometimes we take them for granted, and sometimes we feel unduly fenced in by the choices that we have made in the past, so that we don't think we can just choose anything we want today. No, not everything is available to us, but we can choose from what is.

Bow and I interact all the time, every day. Every interaction is a choice. Even not interacting is a choice. Bow asks for food, for a blanket or a shirt, a toy or just to play together. He can also choose to stay indoors or to go out.

With me, Bow does not tend to ask to go out as often as he does with Lawrence. He is content for hours at a time to play indoors. For a while, it almost seemed that he had forgotten that going outside was a choice with me.

But in the past few months, he's asked to go outside a lot more, and he's okay with my going back in, while he suns himself, listens to the birds chirp, watches the dogs at play and even provokes a little mischief. He is not worried that I will run out on him, as I am usually in the inner pen, working on my computer, proofing books, and he can summon me at a moment's notice. This is a small step toward independence for both of us, but it has been a long time in coming, and it's nice and comfortable now.

Early Morning Contentment

Last night I went with my daughter and one of her friends to the local picnic. It is in reality a carnival with rides, concession stands, and local music and dancing. But the locals are modest, so they just call it  a picnic. It's a picnic that lasts three days and comes alive at night.

When my daughter was little -- and she was two when we moved here -- she clung to my hand and needed me to accompany her on all the rides. But now she is twelve going on thirteen, and she has friends to go on all the rides with, and so I let the girls go their own way, and I sat in the stands and listened to the country music, and watched the couples dance. Many of them were elderly, but it did not keep them from dancing and showing affection in public. There were also threesomes on the dance floor sometimes, two women with a man, usually. And there were grandmothers dancing with grandchildren and fathers holding their small children in their arms while they danced.

It was nice watching the humans celebrate their lives and their community and their connectedness. Most of it was not in the words. It was in the smiles and the gestures.

We stayed quite late, and as usual I got up early and had breakfast with Bow, while Sword slept. I was listening to Lea Salonga sing "I Dreamed a Dream" on Youtube after breakfast, and I invited Bow to dance with me. But he took my hand and spelled: "That is not a good song." Then he asked to go outside.

So we went outside and the birds were chirping, and the sun was shining, and all was right with the world. Contentment and a feeling of community can come in many ways. Bow was happy, and so was I.

Bow's Easter Egg Hunt

The weather has been very strange lately. On Good Friday, after Bow had gone to bed, Sword and I drove to the local feed store to get two baby chicks, and we dropped by WalMart for Easter supplies. But when we had almost finished shopping, alarms went off, and we were ushered with all the other shoppers and employees to stand by the meat wall, because there was a tornado expected. Sword was worried about the two baby chicks left alone in the car, but when they finally released us, everything was fine. Our car and the chicks were undamaged.

Then yesterday afternoon there was a shower of hail, about the size of gumballs that went on for about ten minutes. And it has been raining almost all the time, all weekend long. But this morning, when it was time for our Easter egg hunt, the weather was clear, and things went off without a hitch. Here is some footage of Bow and his eggs.

A Card from Grandma

Yesterday Lawrence came in to sit with Bow, and I went to pick up the mail. Among other things, there was an envelope addressed to Bow.

When I came back for lunch, I let Bow open the envelope. Inside was a card.

Bow and I read the card. He examined it from every angle.

Then, when Lawrence came after lunch to relieve me, I showed the card to Lawrence and explained that Bow's grandmother had sent it. I told Lawrence I'd be really happy if Bow could tell him what Bow's grandmother had written to him in Hebrew. (Lawrence does not know Hebrew.)

After I had gone, Lawrence asked Bow what was in the card from grandma. At first, Bow was reluctant to answer. He even tried spelling nonsense words. But eventually, he did tell Lawrence that Grandma had said "hello". 

I was hoping for a verbatim translation, which would have been: "Bow, hello, from Grandma." But the answer he gave is pretty close.

Here is the video of the conversation between Lawrence and Bow:

Bow's reaction to being filmed

Uploading a video is taking longer and longer these days. For instance, that tiny snippet in yesterday's blog post took well over an hour to upload. There was a companion video that I wanted to upload with it, but I just gave up because it would have taken all day.

Today I have some other things to do on my computer, so I cannot take the time to process videos and upload them. But we did do some filming yesterday, and I want to tell you a little about Bow's reaction.

We used to film every day, but that was when we had interns, and there was a fuctioning video camera, and we had a whole routine for the interns of exactly how to go about reviewing the footage and how to index it. It's been ages since we had interns, and so the routine has changed. We are in survival mode. Bow has to be taken care of every day, and played with, and fed, and all his needs have to be seen to, research or no research. Survival comes first.

Lawrence is Bow's sitter, who comes and plays with him when I have to run errands. He is not an intern, and he doesn't have any research duties. Bow talks to him, because kids usually talk to their sitter. It's a way to communicate, but it's not a "scientific experiment".  I couldn't ask Lawrence to help me document, because there is not time or money enough for that. And our camera has gone dead, on top of everything else.

Anyway, yesterday, just for the fun of it, I showed Lawrence how to film Bow using Bow's computer's built- in webcam. The resolution on it is pretty bad, and the lighting in here is not so good. (We used to bring in extra flood lights when we were filming for real.) But Lawrence was game to try this, and he even decided to see if he could get Bow to ask for his afternoon snack while the camera was running.

Now, Bow likes the camera. He gets very excited when you turn it on. He likes to use it as a mirror, to examine parts of himself that he can't usually see. Lawrence practiced filming Bow, and Bow was fine with that. But I guess he didn't realize that Lawrence had kept the camera on. Lawrence kept trying to hint to Bow that it might be time to ask for a snack, because he wanted to show on film that it was Bow who initiated the conversation.  So there he was, muttering to himself about how nice it would be to have some apples for a snack, and there Bow sat, not taking the hint.

And then I came in for a moment, not knowing that Lawrence was trying to film, and I asked whether Bow had had his afternoon snack yet. (Sword had a friend over, and right after I had to take her to her music lesson.) Lawrence said that it might help if I just brought the apples into the pen. So I did, and then I left, and Bow got excited and asked for a green apple, and then he had the green apple and Lawrence had the yellow apple.

Lawrence kept talking to Bow about why Bow preferred the green apple, when the yellow apple was bigger. By then, Bow had finished his green apple and asked for Lawrence to give him what was left of the yellow apple Lawrence was eating. So Lawrence gave him the apple, and eventually he stopped filming.

 When Lawrence decided to watch the video he had just filmed, Bow went nuts! He started screaming, as if he were trying to articulate words, and he ran around in protest, and he looked really upset.

When I questioned him about this later, Bow said he hadn't realized he was being filmed. It upset him, because he wasn't used to it.

Next time, we'll have to ask for his permission to film!

New Potty; Fast Food

I've been rather preoccupied with opening a new website for Inverted-A Press, so I have been neglecting this blog. But that doesn't mean that nothing has been going on in Bow's life. For one thing, he has a new potty.

That happened about two Wednesdays ago, I think. Bow is growing, and the small potty that he was using was meant for a two year old. He's nine now. We found this new potty for five dollars. It's meant for adults, and has a much bigger holding capacity. Bow likes it, because he can climb up on the handles and do his business while perched above the target.

Bow knew at once that he wanted this potty, as soon as he saw it. "I want the potty," he told Lawrence. This was good, because without Bow's permission, we couldn't have brought it in. Bow attacks items that are brought into his living space without his okay.

Not only did Bow want the new potty, he knew exactly what it was, and how to use it.

Today, I was watching the latest video uploaded by Reason.TV. It happened to  be about fast food being banned in LA. If you want to watch it, you can see it here.

Bow got very excited during the viewing. I was eager to hear what he had to say. Was he against the ban? Was he for it? But this is all he had to say: "Give me food!"

Those mouth watering hamburgers on the video had made him hungry.

Classifying bananas

Yesterday at dinner, in addition to other choices, Bow had three bananas to choose from. One was very fresh and had completely yellow skin. The other two were a bit over ripe, with brownish mottled discolorations.

When Bow decided that he was done with apples and was ready to start choosing bananas, he told me: "Give me the good banana." Since it was obvious he meant the one that was not overripe, I went ahead and gave it to him. When he was done, he spelled: "Give me the good bad banana."

"What does he mean by that?" Sword asked.

I looked at the remaining two bananas. One was somewhat less ripe than the other. "I think he means this one," I told Sword. "It doesn't have as many brown spots."

When he was done with the second banana, Bow told me he wanted the "bad bad banana." Since there was only one banana left, nobody asked which one he meant.

"Good that you bought a bottom wiper!"

I am on a self-reliance campaign with Bow. The first thing he needs to start doing for himself is wiping his own bottom. Now, the truth is, he's made attempts in that direction before. He likes tissue papers, and tries to wipe his own nose and bottom with them, but then he tears them up, scatters bits of them, and eventually eats some of what is left. So toilet paper and tissues are right out. He can't be left with access to them when not directly supervised.

Other things Bow has done, when he used the potty when I had to step out for a moment is to try to wipe himself on the rim of the potty and the grid of his cage. The rim of the potty is okay. I have to clean that, anyway. But the grid of the cage is not okay. It's a no-no and earns a punishment.

In a recent trip to Wal*Mart, I found something that I thought might help. It's a rubber lint brush. It's very soft and feels nice against the skin. It would not cause abrasions if rubbed against a dirty bottom. It has these tiny little bristles that collapse when pressured, and it can pick up even small particles of dirt. And on top of that., it's fully washable and will not collect bacteria. (At least, that's what it says on the packaging.)

Today, I introduced it to Bow. At first he wanted to play with it, but I insisted it needed to stay next to the potty. The first time he had a bowel movement, I wiped him with tissue, but finished off with lint brush. It felt nice. It didn't hurt Bow. He liked it.

After I was done cleaning up, Bow took me to the glass partition and spelled: "Good that you bought a bottom wiper!"

I'm glad he approves. The next step will be to get him to use it unassisted.

Chimps Are Misrepresenting their Linguistic Abilities: and How!

Chimpanzees are perhaps well known for their tricky, tricky ways. A totally honest chimpanzee is hard to find. However, I was really surprised to read this sentence in the wikipedia article about Nim Chimpsky:

The validity of the study is disputed, as Terrace argued that all ape-language studies, including Project Nim, were based on misinformation from the chimps.

Funny, how chimpanzees can disseminate so much "misinformation" about their ability to use language without actually using language!

I turned to Bow and asked him: "Are all chimps lying when they say they can talk?" Bow took my hand and confidently spelled: "Yes." Okay... If you want to take his word for it!

One of our problems at Project Bow is that Bow likes to have physical contact with us and use our hands to spell. Now, he doesn't spell what we want him to spell. We who deal with him know that we couldn't possibly control his language use, even if we wanted to. He's not that cooperative! But to outsiders, it really does look bad.

Lawrence has been trying to wean Bow from using his hand, by giving him less and less of his hand to use, gradually. At this point, he's just giving him a pinky. He hopes later to phase this out and only lightly touch Bow on the small of his back, as a sort of moral support.

I told Lawrence, the last time he was here, that any physical contact between the two of them will be interpreted as cuing by critics. "They'll figure that you and Bow have worked out some kind of code between the two of you so that you can tell him what to write."

Lawrence laughed. "If he's smart enough to understand a code, why do they think he wouldn't be smart enough to spell?"

I laughed, too. But there are some people who will believe almost anything -- except the truth!

No Place Like Home

Yesterday, Lawrence came over to play with Bow. It was a rainy, dreary day, and everything looked greener than usual as if in a subtropical clime. Bow gets sleepy and lazy when it rains and there isn't much sunlight. He was very quiet most of the morning, until he saw Lawrence's car drive up, and then he vocalized loudly to let me know someone was coming.

Normally, Bow and Lawrence play rough together, but yesterday Bow mostly wanted to groom. He also used his voice more than he usually does. Usually, Bow reserves his vocalizations for when he is excited or upset, but this time, he made a lot of lower, softer sounds, and I really think he was trying to talk. He claims he can in fact talk, only we don't understand. I want to encourage him to keep trying, because with practice, he might improve his efforts, and we might be able to improve our listening ability.

All day long until lunch, Lawrence and Bow socialized, while I ran errands, buying dog food, parrot food, chicken feed, chick feed, and groceries for Sword, Bow and me at the store. We need food, and I haven't yet found a way to get it all delivered here. After shopping and putting away the groceries, I relieved Lawrence, and Bow and I had lunch together in the pens. Around 1:30 Lawrence came back, and he and Bow even went out for a bit in the outer pen, but it was too cold to stay long. So they went back in and resumed grooming each other. Meanwhile I did housework, paid bills, fed the critters, and met Sword at the mailbox when she got off the school bus. Sword came by the pens to say "Hi" to Lawrence and Bow, and she told them about her day and how she disliked social studies. Then she went off to have a snack, and Lawrence and Bow happily resumed what they had been doing. At 5:00 pm, I replaced Lawrence in the pens, and he went home to his family. Sword, Bow and I had dinner together, and then Sword watched Bow, while I cleared the dishes. I then came back, and Sword went out to do her chores. Between 7:00 and 7:30pm, I started putting everything away, and then I brought in Bow's teddy bear and his blanket, and I sang him a lullaby and put him to bed. He let me know when he was ready for me to leave, with a sweeping gesture of his hand. "You may go now," it seemed to say.

That's what happens on a day when I have help. But most days, I have no help at all, and I stay in the pens for twelve hours straight.

I can't leave the pens unless someone relieves me. I am stuck in here just as Bow is. We are both confined to a cage, but the confinement doesn't mean what people might think it means. We are confined, but we are at home, and contact with the external world has not been cut off, so it's not nearly as bad as it sounds.

Think about going to prison. What is the worst, the scariest part? To me, when I think of prison, the thing that scares me the most is the other inmates. They are violent. They are criminals. I am not. They would hurt me. They would bully me. That's why prison is bad.

What's the second scariest part? Being cut off from family and friends. Not being able to talk to or touch the people we love.

What's the third scariest thing? Being forgotten. Being lost in time and space. Not being able to tell my story.

Bow and I are confined, but we are confined at home. There's no place like home. We can't go out, but we have our friends and family right here. Those who are not here can reach us by phone or Skype. We get to tell our story. We get to hear feedback. And best of all, we get to keep the bullies out of our private sanctum. We are not alone, and we control our space. What more could anyone want?

Other chimpanzees. A mate. Yes. But we're working on that. In time, that will happen, too.