Category: pets

I know a Zen Master

Uh huh! Yes I do!

The Master knows how to simplify life.

Food, brief exercise, then long periods of, er, meditation.

At least I think that’s meditation.

Yesterday I had an anxious day. Lots of reasons, my own mental weirdness, no need to detail it all here. But really rather hyped up and I could find no way to calm down.

At the end of the day, I sat on the couch, still fretting, trying to let go. That’s when the Zen master came and sat on me.

And did this:

(Turn up your sound…about a 500k file, runs 14 seconds)*

Suddenly I was listening to the sound of contentment. Pure, simplicity of peace.

And I exhaled that tense breath that had been pent up inside my chest all day.

The muscles started to relax.

And I felt…calm.

Damn Feline might be on to something. She should charge for this kind of therapy!

Here, the master holds a yoga pose…and holds it…and holds it…..

*If the embedded player doesn’t work in your browser, you can click here instead.

Mine is a *special* alarm clock

I’m a bit sleepy today.

You see, there is this rather large male blue jay that has decided to make our backyard its home territory.

It is a rather beautiful bird, nice to look at. But the jay does not have the prettiest of all the birdsong.

You can hear the sounds here (at about :08 is the beginning of what my jay sounds like), though I’m not sure that clip entirely does the volume and rastyness of the jay in my backyard any justice.

There is a power line that runs through the yard, and he perches on that, stares into the windows of my home, and squawks. Loudly. It can only be described as a squawk. And Mr. Jay makes this unpleasant sound at about…oh, I don’t know…a half hour to an hour before my actual alarm clock goes off.

So I’m nice and awake well before I ever wanted to be awake.

Ah, but if only I could fit the blue jay with a timing mechanism so that it would raise up its blue jay raucous at *exactly* the time my alarm goes off…well that would be nice.

Because ya can’t sleep through the racket.

And he ain’t got no snooze button either.

The good news is, in case the jay decides not to show up on a certain day, I have a backup alarm.

Another rasty animal who is all to happy to put up a hungry racket well before the alarm clock:

Cranky Feline

It’s a wonder we can get any sort of sleep around here at all.

A bit sad

I’m sad to have to convey that last night, just past 11:00, my little fish Frank passed along.

It seems he succumbed to an internal bacterial infection, which was hard to diagnose, and the antibiotics we put in the water weren’t enough or in time.

He was only my little fish for eight days, but he was a good fish and a member of our family.

Last evening at the grocery store, I ran into a longtime friend and when I confessed I was sad because I thought my fish would die, she said, “ah, no matter. Flush him and get another one.”

I appreciate that many folks would feel that way. It’s just a small thing, a $5.00 fish from the pet store.

And that’s fine. We all go about life our own way.

For me, I’m not ashamed to actually feel very sad and even cry a little for my fish, who had to struggle so much for life so much there at the end.

I knew when I bought him that he might not be 100% healthy. The Good Man and I agreed to foster him at home so he would either recover, or if he succumbed, he would do so in a big tank with humans around to protect him.

And so we did.

I pimped out a nice matchbox coffin for my friend and gave him a proper goodbye in the side garden of our house.

He was just a fish, but he was my fish, and he was well loved.

By the by, Margaret, the female betta who came home with us the same day as Frank is doing fine. She’s happy and does a little fish dance when we walk up to the tank. I never before thought I could find a fish cute, but I have to say, she’s an adorable little fish.

New Additions to Our Family

So, out of nowhere about a month ago, I decided I wanted to get a new pet.

I’ve no idea where this impulse came from. It just did. Considering that we can’t have any more fuzzy pets in the rental place where we live, it became clear that I had to go small.

Like fish sized.

Hmm. Trouble is, the only fish I’ve ever owned in my life was a goldfish from the New Mexico State Fair.

That one lived quite a while, by the by.

So this quest required some research. I looked for a fish that was easy to get set up and easy to care for. The answer was simple, a betta.

I spent hours going through the pages on bettatalk.com and I learned a lot. I made lists. I fretted. I thought about it a lot. And then yesterday, the waiting was over.

The Good Man and I went to the pet store.

And we came home with not one but two new fish friends!

Without further ado, may I introduce you to:

Margaret The Fish

Margaret The Fish

She is actually The Good Man’s fish. When we set out on our journey, we were just going to get one fish. But once we got to the store, The Good Man was so charmed by this inquisitive little girl, she had to come home with us.

I’m charmed by her too, actually.

So heck, easy solution. We decided to get two fishes and let them live in their own tanks side-by-side.

It’s a good solution.

Margaret is a pretty little fish and she’s happy to have interaction and already recognizes us. She’s not eating a whole lot yet so we’re hoping she’s still just a little shocky from the move and will be feeling right soon.

So now that you’ve met Margaret…please meet:

Frank The Fish

Frank The Fish

So named because of his vibrant blue eyes. He has all of the looks and none of the charm of Sinatra.

As you can see in his photo, Frank is a bit of a stalker. He stares at Margaret.

A lot.

In a creepy mouth breathing way.

He’d totally send her inappropriate messages on Facebook if he was a human. Instead he just stares. A lot.

Margaret mostly ignores him.

So we’ve got them set up in their respective tanks and they are doing (*coff-coff*) swimmingly.

As for the existing member of our pet family….

Well, the word indignant comes to mind.

The feline is sort of not amused by these new items taking our attention.

Thankfully, she doesn’t try to attack them. She just watches, shrugs, and walks away.

I suppose all will settle down in the house soon.

And The Good Man and I are learning a lot about how to care for these new friends.

I never thought I’d be a fish person, but here I am, all enamored of my fish.

Tis a crazy, wonderful, mixed up life.