little bitty girl

Once upon a time, before we started dating, Stefan had a beautiful glass fishbowl. It was quite large and contained three goldfish, named after his then roommates and himself.

"Paulo" was the fish with a big hairy mole after his Portuguese namesake, "Stefan" was the beautiful albino fish and "Tom" was the grumpy, fat fish. As legend goes, "Paulo" and "Tom" killed "Stefan" because it was too beautiful, Paulo then killed himself out of boredom and "Tom" was left. Two sets of roommates and four years later, "Tom" still happily swum around the fishbowl. Stefan was convinced that he had the record for the longest living $2.99 goldfish.

By this time, I was in the picture. I was quite adamant that "Tom" was lonely but Stefan insisted that "Tom" liked his bachelor ways. So, one weekend when Stefan was away at a tennis tournament, I decided to buy "Tom" a girlfriend named "Maggie." His current roommates nicknamed her "Ugly Maggie" but she really was quite beautiful - all white except for the orange in her tail. She had little black polka dots on her bum. Anyways, little did I know you were supposed to quarantine new fish and when Stefan came home, both Maggie and Tom were dead. OH, THE GUILT!

We buried them both in my mother's backyard, wrapped in exquisite Japanese paper. I was never one who could flush fish down the toilet. Since I was a little girl, we have given all our pets proper burials.

Stefan and I soon moved in with each other after this incident. He forgave me my sin and we decided to start anew with two new goldfish. One was named "Peter" and the other was named "Lily" and then began my education in how perfinicky fish really are.

NOTE: Parents, never BUY your kids goldfish! They are impossible creatures to look after.

Did you know that goldfish have personalities and can be constipated? Well, Peter was the sad sack fish. He was almost constantly constipated. He would lie on his side and swim around and I would have to put him in an emergency container and feed him boiled peas. He would poop an extra long poop and be fine until a couple of days later. Either that or he would somehow get tangled in the weeds and Stefan would have to rescue him. I spent many nights on Google fretting over him.

Lily was a strong headed, fat little thing. She was really such a bully and would always try to push Peter to the walls of the glass bowl during feeding time. We would have to throw food into two different spots to distract her. Sometimes her bullying would get so bad that she would have to spend a "time out" in the other container.

A year after constantly looking after them, they (thankfully!) both died and went to join their other siblings fertilizing my mother's rose bushes. I think I made such an effort because I felt so guilty over the death of poor "Tom."

Anyway, we still have the stupid fisbowl. So, last weekend we got succulents for the glass bowl. We're not known for taking care of house plants either so we figure this is a good alternative. If we somehow manage to kill the succulents, then I won't really know what to say!