How King Edward I Killed My Fish

I'm sorry to announce that Sir Robin has gone (bravely) on to his eternal reward. On saturday when I left for the Pirate's he had a touch of clamp, but was basically OK. On monday morning when I returned he was in a bad way: clamp, tail rot, and ich.

Clamp isn't serious; it's usually brought on by stress and will generally clear itself up.

Rot is serious if it reaches the body, but I sterilized some scissors and cut off the blackened bits and removed them from the the water, so that would have cleared up as well. (probably.)

Ich is a different story. It's a parasite that lives under the scales of the fish, and when it matures it forms white bumps on the fish's body. It's very easy to identify, but by the time Bubbles is displaying symptoms it's pretty far on. Antibiotics can help (I've used them before with success), but with no car I was unable to obtain the necessary meds yesterday. The best I could do was to dump some salt in the water. A bit of salt won't bother the fish any (especially bettas, who live in semi-brackish water anyway), but can throw the osmotic balance of the parasite out of whack. That's the idea, anyway. I've never seen it work, but I know people who swear by it. The trick is the salt has to be pure NaCl, without ant-caking agents. In other words, Kosher salt.

Except that the English gave the Jews the boot in 1290 and the result is that you can't buy Kosher salt anywhere to this day.

So I used rock salt, which doesn't have anti-caking agents, but does have other minerals. I had no idea how harmful those minerals would be, but I did know that if I did nothing the fish was doomed. I figured there wasn't much to lose by trying.

Gambled, and lost.

Most likely the ich was just too far gone, because when I woke up this morning he was belly-up. But I'd rather blame the English for exiling the Jews for the death of my fish. That makes for a much better story.



(And just for good measure, my back hurts like a bitch today. Nothing like adding injury to insult, is there? So I'm going to lie on my bed and drink bourbon and cry a bit. I could really do with a good pirate right about nows.)

Farts, Fish, and Fridays

I'm the new Girl Friday. Yeah, working as a receptionist one day a week. That day is Friday. So when my boss took me around to introduce me to the staff (all 75 of them), approx. 80% of them said, "So, you're our new Girl Friday!" and chuckled like it was original. Oh yeah, you fellas are too clever for me. *sigh* Whatever. It pays the rent.

*****

Brave Sir Robin is unwell. He developed a touch of fin clamp last week. I've been treating it with with Aquari-sol but there has been no improvement. On Saturday I left for the Pirate's house, and when I got back today he had developed a serious case of fin and tail rot and a touch of ick. Great. The fishy trifecta of death. Whatever. I've gotten weaker fish out of worse jams than this.

I cut the rotten bits off his tail with scissors to stop the spread, and I've treated the aquarium with salt. The only tricky bit is that I can't raise the water temp because the tank is too small for a heater. Any clever ideas on how I can raise the temp of the water without boiling the little guy?

*****

This bit is embarassing. I've been having serious farting issues. Even more serious than normal, that is. It's actually starting to interfere with my life. I've become afraid to go out. Just to give you an idea of how bad it is, when I was at my first day of work on Friday, the other receptionist kept asking me if I smelled "that sewer smell." I managed to convince her it was coming from outside whenever someone walked in the door because they were doing sewer repairs down the street. Yeah, it's that bad.

I know dairy gives me gas, and since I'm out of my dairy-aid pills I've given up on cheese and milk.

I know red meat give me gas, but I can't afford to eat dead cow anyway.

I hate beans, so I never eat those.

Mostly I eat wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, couscous, live yoghurt, and loads of fresh veggies and fruit. Just to be safe I've cut out all the broccoli and cabbages.

I have no idea what could be causing this flatulence, but it's constant (several times an hour, all day, every day) and it's noxious. Even I can smell it, and when you can smell yourself it's a bad sign. I've been contemplating seeing a doctor, but I really don't think they'll take me seriously. Any bright ideas out there in the ether?

Wildlife Exotique

It was a wild, wild weekend. (When is it not?)

Here is our local finned wildlife, doing what it does best. Nothing.

Our local furred wildife, attempting to reach his food bin by busting through the yellow, plastic cap on his mushrroom hut. *sniff sniff* I can smell eet! I know eet's there!

Here is our local feathered wildife. This winged mofo is trying to decide if I would pose a threat to his chicks were he and his bitch to roost on the ledge outside my window. I'm trying to convince him that yes, yes I would be a HUGE threat to his chicks. Noisy, shite-squirting, raucus, garbage-eating fuckwads. (You have no idea how unsettling it is to be sitting at your compter happily blogging working and suddenly look up to find a seagull, 6 feet from your face, at head level, staring at you through your window. Fuking unnerving, I can tell you.)

This weekend Pirate and I went to Longleat Safari park, where we saw even more wildife. It was wicked good. If you havn't been there, go. It's so much better than a zoo. The animals have loads of space to move around, and you drive through the park in your car. We saw lots of things.

We saw white rhino things:

And things with babies:

And more things with babies:

(This is a rock wallaby. See that second little head sticking out there? I want to be that baby. That is the warmest, coziest, snuggliest place ever. I want to live in a pouch.)

And monkeys on cars:

(These monkeys are experts at destroying windshield wipers and radio antennae. Pirate did not want to stop the car in this area because he didn't want monkeys tearing it to bits, like what happened the last time he was here. So the converstation went more or less like this:

Me: Aawwww! Monkyes!
Pirate: Aaagh! Monkeys!
Me: Stop the car, I want to take a photo.
Pirate: No! We're not stopping! The car is NOT. STOPPING.

Result: dozens of blurry monkey photos.)

There was some hot lion on lion action, complete with audience:

And butterflies on flowers:

And the wildest wildlife of all:
(photo removed)

Wild Thing, I think I love you!

We also had a couple really good talks this weekend. There was a lot of stuff that needed to be said. We talked about our chosen career paths and the ways in which we might be able to reconcile the logistical differences of our respective careers, etc.

We also talked about our religious and philosophical differences. I'm not going to go into detail, but we have very strong opposing beliefs on some subjects, and it's an issue I've been reluctant to discuss for a variety of reasons. It got quite emotional for both of us, and we havn't come to a final resolution, but we are a lot closer than we were 48 hours ago and I am feeling much reassured. It was agreed that if we can handle this issue, we can probably handle anything.

Betta blogger

(Did you see what I did there?)

Here is (brave) Sir Robin!

(bravely) attacking a piece of flake food...

(bravely) circling another flake before moving in for the kill...

I wanted to get a nice photo of him with his fins all fanned out and doing his "I'ma kick your fucking ass into the next pond" display, except Robin doesn't have an "I'ma kick your ass" display.

Because he's a pussy fish (Vaginus ichthus).

I held my finger up to the tank. He swam away.

I held my hamster up to the tank. He was strangely interested (kept following Bluto around as Bluto circled the tank looking for sunflower seeds), but not agressive.

I held a mirror up to the tank. This will get 'im for sure, thought I. Bettas are territorial, and when they percieve another male in their territory, will display aggresively. If two males actually come into the same bit of water, they will fight, often to the death.

(My old betta, Klingon, kicked my friend Betsy's betta's ass. I felt bad for Betsy, but I was so proud of my little aquatic warrior. It was a complete accident, mind. It's not like we were making them fight. It just happened, and it just so happened that my fish thrashed her fish. Hee hee.)

So I held a mirror up to the tank, and...

...he hid in his treasure chest.

*sigh*

I am feeling rather like the father of the gay prince in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

(Me: Go on! Kill him! Kill him and take his pond! He's got HUGE... tracts of duckweed!
Sir Robin: But I don't want that! I want to sing!...)

Anyway, he's a happy little guy.

Ooh, look! He's blowna bubble nest! Horny little scaled bastard.

When mating, the male betta builds a bubble nest, and after copulation with the female the fertilized eggs float in the sticky bubbles for protection. That he blew bubbles so soon after moving in to his new tank shows that a) he's happy, feels that this is definately his territory, and is ready to get on with life, and b) that he very much wants to get laid.

So basically like every other male i know. Ok then.

Weekend excitement

Wow what a busy weekend!

Thursday (weekends start on thursday now), Pirate picked me up and took me to a leadership development seminar. (he gets browie points at work for attending these things.) the speaker spent the first 20 minutes talking in cliches, and the next 90 convincing me of a point about which i needed no convincing. so it was all a bit pointless, but it included dinner and it was an evening with the pirate, so that was ok.

Friday Pirate came over after an evening shooting (he's a toxophilite), and we went to a party where we had to leave after 5 minutes because we couldn't hear the other guests over the music and we couldn't see them through the pot smoke.

Saturday we

1) picked up my new evening gown, which is the first part of my birthday gift from the Pirate. (my birthday was in January, but it took a while to have it made.) Photos forthcoming.

2) went up on the Downs and ran around in the wind and mud playing catch and learning how to bowl a cricket ball properly. (I'm a bit rubbish, but he's a qulified coach and i'm an eager student, so i'm sure i'll get there eventually.)

3) went and got my Wishy! (This is the second half of my birthday gift.) My Wishy is lovely. He is a betta wishy, and his name is Sir Robin. We named him that because instead of attacking his reflection or a finger held up to the tank, he runs (bravely) away and hides behind his plants. Photos forthcoming.

4) went back to Pirate's house and took a walk around the countryside where he lives. We saw a family of baby rabbits, and i truly don't know which was the cuter, the baby bun-buns, or the Pirate's reaction to them. I've never seen a grown man coo like that before. I can't wait to make him a daddy someday.

5) had kielbasa for dinner

6) watched Kill Bill.

7) made sweet, sweet, lurve.

Sunday we

1) slept in and had a lazy morning lounging in bed, warm and snuggly (this is getting really nauseating, isn't it? oh, well.)

2) spent an hour being wishy-washy over how we wanted to spend the afternoon. those types of conversations drive me nuts, and usually the P is very decisive, so they don't happen often. thank god.

3) finally decided to go bowling (tenpin). Probably not the smartest idea in the world given my back, but it worked out ok in the end.

4) had a horribly, horribly, awful, terrible, unhealth, gross, disgusting, delicisous, amazing, fantastic, delectible, orgasmic lunch at Burger King. I havn't had a whopper in almost 2 decades. My GOD was that good. I so needed that.

5) eventually located the bowling alley (after 40 minutes of driving around with me suggesting we stop for directions and him continuing to drive while we both openly admitted we didn't know where we were going. argh!). At Hollywood Bowl I learned that people in this country have NO CONCEPT of proper bowling alley etiquite. The next post is going to be a manners guide to bowling tenpin. I kicked the Pirate's ass two games in a row. But that's not too surprising, since I've been bowling since I was 7, and on leagues since I was 11.

6) Watched Kill Bill 2.

Pirate is coming over again tonight, so I guess the weekend isn't quite over yet. I really like these Thursday to Monday weekends. I could get used to this.