Fish

Fish / Pets — 2 Comments
15
Jan 12

Musing on the miracle of Sucky.

Our fish population has taken a hit lately.

First, our smaller Plecostomus died after our Oscar kept picking at him.

Then Felix, the aforementioned terroristic Oscar died after a protracted illness…

That left one tiny feeder goldfish who outwitted  the ailing Oscar and

Sucky.

 

Who died early last week.

Or so we thought.

“Mom Sucky’s floating on top?” yelled our youngest one morning before school.

Help. We have a sick aquarium.

I told him to get Sucky out. Honestly, I couldn’t stomach anymore dead fish. Losing Felix saddened me terribly and once again I’d failed as a mom of creatures born with gills.

“He’s too big. He’ll clog the toilet,” I yelled hoping to catch my son before Sucky’s lifeless body hit the water in the porcelain container.

Learned that lesson with Felix. Who did clog the toilet. Hate it when large tropical fish block plumbing.

So there went son, lifeless Sucky in hand, walking out the backdoor.

A minute passed.

“MOMMMMMMM!” The back door blows open and in rushes son.

“He’s alive. He’s alive. I put him in the dirt…and he started moving.”

“Put him in the water, Joe!” Good grief son.

Into the depths of the sick tank Sucky went. He floated for a moment…then dashed down to the bottom.

Checking in on him later in the day, Sucky was fastened to Squidward’s house par usual.

Sucky, the fish who cheated death.

Heaven help us all.

Or maybe that’s the point.

Do you know a fish who cheated death? Or survived a deficient fish-mom?

 

 

 

Children / Fish / Uncategorized — 2 Comments
12
Dec 11

Musing on Feeding Felix.

This is Felix.

 

Felix has grown a lot since the day I raced down to get him to replace Oscar who had unknowingly jumped to his death.

Felix is too big for his tank. Since I’m trying to buy Christmas presents for now Felix is having to be a very large fish in a very small pond.

Problem Number 1: The smaller food pellets weren’t satisfying him. So I went to the larger ones.

He ate them right up….but then spit out all kinds of bitty food particles. (I couldn’t keep up with him.)

That tank just wouldn’t stay clean.

I changed the water. I changed the filter every few days. There was just too much extra food falling down into the gravel.

WHY ARE MOMS MADE TO SUFFER taking care of their children’s critters?

My eldest came up with a plan.

Start feeding Felix little feeder goldfish.

Suddenly an idea that would have two months ago been very disgusting became most appealing.

*    *    *

 

Yesterday afternoon my two sons, 18 and eight went to the store and brought back five goldfish.

The first two were gone faster than you can say….goldfish.

Then it seems as the day wore on, my 8-year-old son became rather attached to one of the remaining fish. I went into his room to see this.

Bye, bye.

 

And just to be clear.

 

Execution stayed.

 

Yes. One little fish had wormed its little way into his heart.

And then after school, his mean old 18-year-old brother…

Well, let’s just say we are all out of fish and need to head up to the store tomorrow.

Lots of tears.

How expensive is this going to get?

 

 

Faith / Fish / Uncategorized — 3 Comments
19
Aug 11

Oscar is Gone. (A Muse gone sad.)

Yesterday morning I went into my son’s bedroom.

Each morning Oscar greeteth me (Oscar, the white Oscar fish.)

He gets exciteth to see someone’s shadow falleth across the tank. For that meaneth food.

Wiggling, cavorting.

Yesterday there was no wiggle, no giggle, no white wriggling fish.

No Oscar.

Immediately I deduced something had gone terribly awry.

My son turned over every shell in the tank. He lifted Squidward’s house.

No Oscar. I looked on the floor. I looked and looked.

Then I saw…eeww.

Child started crying….I ran to get a bag. Our Oscar had grown big.

Now he was big, lifeless and sticky.

 * * *

I dropped the kids off and headed to Wal*Mart.

Oscar was gone and I wanted a replacement NOW.

First off, I bought an aquarium topper. (No need to witness that carnage again.)

There was one lone Oscar.

As white as our dear Oscar was — this guy was black.

I bought him.

I brought him home.

He almost died. If you count laying on his side at the bottom of the tank a bad sign.

Our pest control specialist, Steve, came by to rid the house of bugs.

“In heavens name, I’ve killed another fish,” I said…wringing my hands. “And this one’s been in my care about two hours.”

Steve suggested I bag him  and carry him down to fish department for a refund.

He was the last one.

He had to live.

I prayed.

He lived.

My son asked what his name should be.

I nameth him…

Felix.

Have you ever prayed over a fish, frog…or any wee vertabrate?

(Don’t know if I would prayeth to heal a sick invertabrate. Only if it was really cute or had lots of personality.)

 

 

 

 

 

Fish / Uncategorized — 4 Comments
16
Aug 11

Today’s Muse. His eye is on the Goldfish.

I don’t do goldfish.

I used too. I never lived in a dorm or apartment without one swirling around (alive) a bowl.  In law school, I purchased a pair first semester and named them Pennoyer and Neff. The parties to a case every newbie law student studies an entire semester only to learn it was overruled eons ago. HA HA. Law school profs are soooo funny that way.

Pennoyer and Neff were my mates throughout law school until an unfortunate attempt to clean their water landed them in a laundry sink with bleach residue. Alas, Penny turned fins up.

So after years of almost effortless goldfish-husbandry, lately a goldfish in my care has been as dead man swimming.

 

Meet Bob.

Yesterday, I saw this little guy with his lips pressed up again the glass at our local mega-store.

And he came home with me.

What changed?

For the last week I had been fish-sitting for our neighbors. Which is fine, I’ve sat for this guy before. He’s well-behaved, a good eater and thankfully has the constitution of a Sperm Whale.

But this time a day or so into my care-giving, I noticed the pump was not working.

Fishy wasn’t getting filtered, oxygenated water.

 

My little charge.

 

I worried that if I didn’t change the water, he would die.

With my track record of late, I worried if I changed his water, he would die.

My neighbors were having repairs done on their house while they travelled. I became tight with the workmen. While they plastered and painted, I fretted to them to look in on him, for heavens sake quit feeding him so much and run over the minute he starts to list.

On a business trip, my friend spoke at a week-long conference. In the middle of all that, we exchanged 100 hundreds of emails. A blow-by-blow of Fishy’s health.

After she gave the go ahead to change the water, I did so.

Fishy lives today.

If I got so worked up about a fish living in a murky 9 x 9 inch tank, how must God care for us?

Poor guy, little did he know how hard I worked and worried. All he knew was that it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

For moments in life, I have labored as that goldfish.

Surely someone watched over me. Standing outside my tank…peering in.

Have you ever had a trauma pet-sitting?

 

 

Fish / Thought for the Day — No Comments
25
May 11

Musing on Hunger.

My son has a fish Oscar.

Oscar is an oscar cichlid. He’s rather small now. For some reason his bag of food was misplaced.

I kept thinking it was going turn up but it never did. Day after day, while I kept thinking the little pellets were going to reappear, Oscar was going foodless.

You must think me horribly cruel.

I didn’t worry about it because when I used to feed him (before food lost) the pellets would sit on the top of the water for hours.

He’s behind one of those bushes.

He usually hung out under the plastic green ferns. Like this picture I just took. 

I kept thinking I’ve got to get to Wal*Mart to buy Oscar some food – but I HATE to shop these days.

Major time drain and darn that they don’t expect you to pay money before you can leave with the goods.

Finally, I came my senses and thought d*mn, it’s been a long time since he ate.

Goldfish food. We have plenty of that around. Though not a lot of goldfish (we’re down to one).

So I threw a bunch of flakes in for Oscar.

He hit the top of the water like he was shot out of a Power Soaker. He ate and ate and ate.

Raging hunger will wake up even the most timid of fish.  

I know it’s bad to let yourself get too hungry but — I wish I hungered for something like Oscar hit that bread crumb.

It would be terribly uncomfortable, but I think I would like to find it.

Right now I’ve got to go find my bike for a ride before the kids come home. I’m not hungering for the bike. It helps when I leave 5 minutes shy of enough time to get back before the bus drops off the kids.

I could wait  and have to really push through a windy ride.

No, not that hungry today.