I’m single Mom all week, and I’m finding balance difficult. I should be writing my biz profile for the newspaper right now. But I’m writing here instead. Because I’m feeling neglectful of you, my pretties.
We now own a pretty little fishie, whom my boy has named either Scratch or Electric. Or both. He’s a Betta fish, and mostly maroon, but with purplish-blue fins and sides.
About 24 hours after Scratch was ushered via plastic baggie to his lovely new home, I walked into the boy’s room to find Houdini sitting on the shelf next to the fish tank, gazing lovingly at our new pet. The cat had on his “isn’t this interesting?” look–his small head cocked sweetly to one side. Ever so gently, he placed a paw against the side of the tank.
Luckily, there’s a mesh top that fits on the tank, which I don’t think even Houdini can pry off. And we have, of course, overcompensated, and filled a medium-sized tank with enough water for several small fish as opposed to just one. So I don’t think the cat can push the tank off the shelf. Which is good, because it’s directly above the boy’s bed.
I tried to get a photo, but as soon as Houdini saw me with the camera, he scrammed. He clearly didn’t want me to have photographic evidence linking him to the fishie. Just in case.
Scratch ain’t a dog, but he’ll do for a while.
That’ll be all, pig.
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When Sonny Boy was in Kindergarten, we went through 4 beta fish - all named Sammy. He thought it was the same fish. My favorite death story was when he took it for show and tell and another boy knocked the fish in the floor and picked it back up - squishing it. Caleb started screaming, and another mom was there who said she would fix the fish. She did - she ran to Walmart while they were on the playground and got another one! It was a different color but she told him the excitement made his color change.
I had a betta named Fang who lived for about five years. And this was during my peripatetic post college years, so it wasn’t like he was getting any special care - or any care at all, really, except that once in a while someone would stumble by his bowl and go “Wow, dude, cool fish.” We were all sad when Fang finally passed on the the great aquarium in the sky - here’s wishing you a similarly long lived piscine friend!
I read Houdini “scrammed” as Houdini “screamed”. It was funny.