Tuesday, March 3, 2009

L, Saver of Fish

L called me from her friend's house on Saturday wanting to know if she could buy the friend's fish. I said yes, knowing I'd get the whole story in as soon as she got home. She came in from the cold toting a big round bowl of water with an ugly octopus rock in the bottom. The fish was hovering in the water, seemingly in a state of shock.

It seems that L didn't like the way her friend was taking care of the fish and suggested that they clean the bowl. They did and apparently the friend offered to sell the fish to L for the price of the bowl. As L had only that morning discovered a forgotten drawer in her desk, once used for storing her allowance, she was loaded and it was burning a hole in her pocket.

When I woke her up Sunday morning, her first request was that I check the fish bowl. (Last summer, a friend had given her a fish and the very next morning we found it floating.) She was worried that she was an FK: fish killer!

I checked the bowl. All I saw was the ugly octopus rock. I looked around to see if the fish could have jumped out: Nope. The bowl is spherical, so I thought maybe the fish was just in one of those optical hiding places that curved glass creates. I rotated the bowl 360 degrees. I still didn't see any fish. "Babe," I said, "I don't see her." "Look in the hole in the rock," L replied. I didn't even know the ugly thing had a hole, but yep, there it was, and there she was. The fish was still upright and I could see her fins moving slightly as the water moved with the bowl movement. Assured for the moment that she wasn't an FK, L got out of bed.

As we have 2 cats at our house, I cautioned L to keep her door closed when not in her room. We don't want the cats to go fishing. So she posted this notice on her door:


It looks rather like a sign you might see of the gate of a fence keeping a pit bull away from the neighborhood. I keep thinking of Nemo and his buddies escaping in the plastic bags.

I guess as Lily gets used to us, she will not retreat inside the octopus rock every time we enter the room. L was able to get this picture of her this afternoon. She's peaking out of the hole in the rock. You can see the octopus tentacles reaching around the rock. Welcome to the family, Lily.

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