Off to the Great Fishbowl in the Sky

It is with a surprisingly heavy heart that I report the passing of Swimmy, Kiddo's pet goldfish.  Swimmy's life came to an end at approximately 4:45 this afternoon.  I can be that specific because we'd spent the day on Piscine Death Watch, keeping vigil over the tank in Kiddo's room.

I'd noticed Swimmy seemed a bit off a few days ago when I was in Kiddo's room putting away laundry.  You see, Swimmy's typical response to catching sight of any movement in the room was to begin swimming frantically back and forth at the top of the tank in a bid to get fed (or, more accurately, fed again as Swimmy was indeed fed first thing every morning).  The other morning, however, Swimmy ignored me, choosing to stare morosely at the bottom, back corner of the tank.  I waved my hand in front of Swimmy's face, which would ordinarily elicit a response, but nothing.  I mentioned this to Hubby but he said he wasn't worried because Swimmy had been swimming and splashing (did you know goldfish like to jump? True story!) as per usual when he was reading to Kiddo at bedtime.

When we got home from church this morning, Kiddo went up to her room to change and immediately came back downstairs to get us.  "Something's wrong with Swimmy!!!" Uh oh.  Sure enough, Swimmy was sideways and sort of hovering near the top of the tank.  Swimmy did not look good.  Kiddo was really upset, to say the least, and asked us if we could take Swimmy to the vet, which, um, no.  Hubby did a 25% water change, removed all the decorative plants and vacuumed the gravel in the tank, which turned up a lot of uneaten fish flakes and led us to the conclusion that Swimmy had not been eating for at least a few days.  Double uh oh.  Hubby helped Kiddo add a dose of Stress Coat to the tank water, and then we waited and watched.  I was hoping for a miracle but not holding my breath.

Since it seemed a foregone conclusion that Swimmy was not long for this world (and sure enough, the end came within hours), we were faced with helping Kiddo through one of life's Big Lessons.  You see, we have been very fortunate in our family not to have experienced much death in recent years.  Since Kiddo was born in 2003, our only losses have been her great-grandmother (my grandmother), who died when Kiddo was 18 months old, and our old cat, Katie, who died when Kiddo was just two and a half.  She has no memories of those experiences, so in fact this pet goldfish (of no great significance in the grand scheme of things) was about to be her first true personal experience with death.

And this is why I am sad.  Not because I will particularly miss the fish.  I'm not especially fond of fish as pets (and after all, Swimmy did try to kill me) or really any pet smaller than, say, a guinea pig (and Hubby has put his foot down that we will emphatically *not* ever be getting a guinea pig).  I prefer pets with which one can interact, ideally a cat or dog.  No, I'm sad not because of Swimmy's passing, but because of Kiddo's devastation.  I know it's the circle of life and all that, and it is a lesson she needs to learn (and she did understand the concept of death in theory prior to today), but man, it is just so hard to have to witness her heartbreak and grief, even over something as inconsequential as a goldfish.

Kiddo opted for a ground burial over an aquatic burial (which is a good thing considering Swimmy's size - I feared a burial at sea would wind up with a plumber's bill for a backed up sewage line due to his rather impressive corpse) and so Hubby dutifully dug a hole in the front garden, right by the house.  Kiddo wrote a small memorial (and the tear splotches on the paper broke my heart anew):

and we tucked it into the grave with Swimmy.  Once Hubby had finished filling the grave back in, we placed a special stone on top of it, given to us by Kiddo's beloved kindergarten teacher -

because it seemed fitting.  I told Kiddo that we can buy a plant to put there too, once the planting season starts.  She likes the idea of Swimmy having flowers.

And there you have it.  Swimmy, the ginormous, carnival fish who scared large dogs and Mommies alike.  From humble beginnings

to more elaborate digs

and with a brief moment of international fame when Swimmy was a finalist in a photo competition and thus was featured on the Simon's Cat website:

Swimmy made my kid happy for four years of her childhood, and that means a lot, even if Swimmy was just a fish.

(I should note that Kiddo is already asking for another goldfish.  I mean, what she really wants is a dog, but unless the Invisible Fence Fairy pays a visit to our back yard and makes it possible to be able to let a dog out to do his/her business without requiring a human to get dressed, leash the dog up and take it out for a walk every single time it has to go, a puppy isn't happening this year.  So, we've talked about it and have agreed we'll get another fish soon...)

On the seventh day...

He may have rested on Sunday, but not us. Then again, it isn't actually our seventh day in the new house, but only the third full day. Let me give you the rundown of what we've done so far:

- Ripped out dark pink (some call it mauve, I've also heard it called rose) carpeting and underlying padding from the living room, dining room and upstairs hall, leaving it in place only on the stairs until the carpet dudes come to install runners and W2W on the lower level.

- Decided between "Pearly Fleck" and "Natural Fleck" carpet samples I'd driven around in the van for a week for the lower level and staircase runners. (Natural Fleck won, and yes they WERE TOO different colors. Really. The differences were subtle but real, dagnabit!)

- Removed the tack strips, complete with ninety million nails and eleventy million staples, from just about everywhere there had been carpeting, with actual Smith Family Feet stepping on the aforementioned nails and staples only four times in the process (and three of those were mine - yee-OUCH) (Oh, and for the record, Hubby and Kiddo did all the tack-strip removal, I pulled nary a staple or nail myself.)

- Removed large, padded area rugs from all three bedrooms.

- Removed the matching Pink/Mauve/Rose swag valances from all the downstairs windows, which were installed by means of hammering in seven thousand brass upholstery nails (the fancy kind that one sees on leather, wingback chairs in Rich Old Man Studies) along the top of the window frames.

- Unloaded the truck, minivan and car, thereby ensuring we have Boxes Everywhere.

- Cleaned 44 years' worth of Oldster Grime Remnants from various surfaces, with many more surfaces to go.

- Mowed the front and sides of the yard, bringing the grass level down from Holy Heck, Did We Buy a Plot of Jungle? to Well, it Isn't Perfect But You Can Tell it is Just a Lawn, Whew.

- Hauled all the carpeting and padding out to the curb, where it really didn't look any nicer in the sunlight.

- Made one very expensive trip to Walmart, slightly less expensive trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Target and one trip to our new "home" grocery store, following which I vowed I will never, ever shop there on a Saturday afternoon again, ever. (Holy tourists and slack-jawed yokels, Batman!)

- Consumed our respective body weights in pizza, subs, soda and Dunkin Donuts, with one lovely respite meal delivered via one of the college boys hired to help us move, made by his mom - pulled pork BBQ, baked beans and a ridiculously delicious apple pie.

- Officially signed the death certificate for our grill, which I was surprised Hubby even wanted to try moving, as it was barely more than a mass of rust molecules held together only by a thin layer of Residue of Meals Past. Also subsequently finished cooking sausages and hot dogs in the Ancient and Tiny Oven instead of grilling our first Saturday night dinner in the new house.

- Asked "Have you seen the........." eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Answered "It was in a box........." eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Snarked "WHICH box? Where?" eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Snapped "I don't know - just go LOOK for it, all the boxes are labeled!" eighty-five thousand, six hundred and twelve times.

- Ate another donut because of stress of all the damn boxes.

- Instituted Rule in which if one opens a box looking for something, one must then unpack that entire box.

- Threatened to Ignore That Rule and then counter-threatened to Divorce Immediately if the rule was ignored.

- Ignored the Rule anyway (but so has he, so ha ha hardy ha ha).

- Scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed at the Weird, I Don't Want to Think About the Origin or I'll Totally Freak Out discolorations and stains on various bathroom surfaces.

- Realized I didn't really miss having Tiles with Ancient Grout in bathrooms over these past 9.5 years of having New, Non-Tile bathroom fixtures (grew up in a house full of Tiles with Ancient Grout).

- Went to eat another donut because of the stress of Weird Discolorations and Stains but discovered the donut box was empty. Because that was the one box in the house that had to be empty, right?

- Worried about the health of Kiddo's goldfish, temporarily housed in a dirty tank with nonworking filter on the hearth of the fireplace in the family room, but decided to wait it out until Hubby cleans it all out and fixes it up.

- Met two of the neighbors (one from across the street, one from next door) who came over to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood, and waved at the other next-door neighbor as we headed out to the Ridiculous Grocery Store.

- Had our first official visitor who wasn't a service person (Yay Kristin!) who kindly didn't comment on the state of disaster in which we currently are dwelling.

- Had a locksmith come over to re-key the locks so that the number of keys we needed to carry to enter our home was something less than a million (seriously - two locks per door, five doors into the house, and a different key for each lock. All the keys had Oldster Code on them in the form of various combinations of dots in various shades of Pink/Rose/Mauve and red nail polish. Not being 86 years old, we were unable - okay, unwilling - to crack the code).

- Verified that there are in fact four eggs in the robins' nest above the light on our back patio, thereby saving the nest from being knocked down by Hubby because it might damage the exterior.

- Freecycled the first of our eleventy billion boxes as we finally, finally got some unpacked.

Whew.

Alas, there still are many, many, many, mannnnnnnnnny boxes left to unpack, miles of wallpaper to strip (haven't stripped a single inch yet) and many surfaces left to de-Oldsterfy. When we came through the house on our final walk-through the other night, we were sure that the Oldsters had hired a cleaning crew to come through, because on first glance, everything looked all clean. We had spent hours - literally, HOURS - cleaning our house before we left, down to thoroughly mopping the floors and wiping down all the counters, cabinet shelves and drawers. And the fridge and freezer and the washer and dryer, too. I even washed off the damn lint screen in the dryer. Once we moved in, though, we realized that not only had they not hired professionals to clean, they really hadn't cleaned anything themselves, either. I mean, it isn't filthy, but there is a definite layer of 44 years of accumulated residue on everything from the rails of the wrought-iron railings on the stairs to the doors and walls and shelves... The terms of the contract state that things will be "broom clean" upon occupancy, and I guess they were, it just wasn't the same level of broom clean that we did at our old house. Sigh.

So, we plow onward through towers of boxes and gallons of cleaning products. Things are starting to find homes where they belong, like the linens and pantry items, and my goal for the end of today is to have the kitchen unpacked and put together so that we're no longer hunting through towers of boxes in the garage or on the lanai for a spatula or pot holder or what have you. Hubby is going to take out the orange shag carpeting in the office and continue working on the wiring of the house (cable and phone lines need to be run basically to every room, as it was only on the lower level and in the kitchen, and he didn't want to pay the Time Warner dude to do it when he could do it himself). Kiddo is going to continue to alternately offer to help us with things and write plaintive notes saying "Der Mom, I just want to do sumthing fun. Love, Kiddo" or "Der Mom, I wish there was sumthing fun that I culd do insted of work. Love, Kiddo" though she did act like a kid at Christmas when I opened up one of the boxes for her room and tossed a variety of princesses, dinosaurs and My Little Ponies on the floor for her to play with yesterday. Crazy Cat is no longer cowering behind the dryer, and is now prowling about the house as if she owns the place. She even has barfed up hairballs in the middle of the night for the past two nights - clearly she is feeling much more comfortable and at home. We haven't yet unpacked my computer (I'm using Hubby's laptop right now) or found the camera cords, so I can't share any pictures of the progress so far, but I will as soon as I am able.

And now Hubby has finished showering in the newly scrubbed, newly shower-curtained, newly installed showerheaded Pepto Bismol shower, which is my signal to get off the computer and back to life in the land of Moving. Yee-ha!

Hope everyone is having a delightful weekend that doesn't require the opening or unpacking of any boxes or any Oldster Residue Removal!!

House recap - not the cranky yet hunky doctor kind, the actual home kind

Hubby and I, in between painting and painting and scrubbing and packing and painting some more, have been perusing the real estate listings for our hopeful new home for the past few weeks. After much deliberation and staring at every teensy detail of the online photographs available, we narrowed down our list to 11 homes that met (at least on paper) all our basic criteria. This afternoon, we went out to lunch (using the gift card Mom and Dad gave us for our wedding anniversary back in January - thanks, Mom and Dad!) and then took a drive past the homes on our list. Several are in the same general neighborhood and they all are within 10 minutes of Hubby's office, so it wasn't like we were traipsing here, there and everywhere (um, except when we'd get turned around on the side streets of unfamiliar neighborhoods...). It turned out that three of the properties were having open houses, so we walked through those three, and the rest we drove by very slowly a few times each, idling in front for a bit if the road allowed. (According to our real estate agent, "drive bys" are a common phenomenon for houses on the market, especially in the first weeks of a new listing.)

Well.

I suppose the good news is that we now have fewer houses for which we need to make appointments to see. Like, all three that we walked through today. The first one seemed to have employed trick photography in its online listing - the kitchen was nowhere near as big as it appeared in the various pictures. That wasn't the dealbreaker so much as the odd, multi-level split level layout (here some stairs, there some stairs, everywhere some stairs, stairs, stairs), along with the lack of an appropriate space that could be a dedicated office and the really strong mildewy smell coming from the basement.

Speaking of smells, when we first walked in, we met the real estate agent hosting the open house, as you do. She was........ interesting. Older but trying to look much younger than her age. Fake bake veering on the side of "much too orange" with lots of makeup (including baby blue eyeshadow - really, need I say more?), big, dyed hair and an overly accessorized outfit. She had, as the always fantabulous Tim Gunn would say, a lot of look going on there. Naturally, someone who goes to that degree with hair, makeup, clothing, nails and jewelry would go a bit further than is prudent in the body fragrance category, and some heavily floral scent I recognized but couldn't name was wafting off of her in practically visible waves. The whole package was a bit much, but hey, we were there for the house, not the agent. (And she, in all her overdone, overscented glory was far better than the guy at the next house, who apparently had eaten some sort of oniony-garlicky dish for lunch and hadn't bothered to pop an Altoid or seven. He also was fuzzy on the details of his offering - "I think it's about XYZ" and "I'm pretty sure that there is ZYX" were typical for his spiel, and yes, this was the primary listing agent, not some junior flunky stuck with the Sunday afternoon open house gig. I mean, it was his picture - albeit obviously from several years earlier - on the sign out front.)

Annnnyhow, as we walked through the first house, the agent's perfume lingered throughout, along with what smelled like air freshener sprayed liberally to cover (but not quite succeeding) what Hubby was convinced was the smell of dog. (There are not many smells less pleasant than aged, wet dog...) When we reached the first of the bathrooms, Kiddo spotted a container of fake flowers, tulips to be exact, on the vanity (which matched the shower curtain and valance in the bathroom).

"Oh look at those pretty roses!" Kiddo exclaimed to us. "So that's where that smell came from!"

It was hard not to laugh, but Hubby and I managed. We couldn't manage to contain our laughter a bit later however, as we were inquiring of the agent whether we could see the deck and back yard and she was directing us through the garage to the back. She asked us if we had any further questions. We didn't, as we already were pretty sure there was no way we would take this house for near what they were asking but then Kiddo piped up.

"Excuse me, please, I have a question."

The agent smiled at her. Cute kid, shook her hand when we'd first arrived, agent wants to make a good impression on us, no doubt. (I mean, she'd gone to all that trouble to get ready for the open house with her grooming and appearance......)

"Are there any monkeys in the back yard? Like the tiny ones that hide in trees?"

Kiddo was perfectly serious, by the way. She and Hubby had watched one of the eleventy million episodes of Bindi, the Jungle Girl currently hogging our DVR space this morning, and apparently this episode featured some tiny monkey-like animal that made weird, twig nests in trees in which they hide during the day, and of course in Bindi's world, such critters were lurking about the back yard (as is customary in Australia, right Givinya?) so Kiddo was equal parts nervous and excited at the prospect that this potential new house might have such creatures just beyond the deck.

The agent was nonplussed. Hubby and I lost it. The agent tried to answer her with a straight face, but found it impossible. She did assure Kiddo that there were no monkeys of any sort on the property. Kiddo pressed the topic, thinking that perhaps the agent just hadn't seen them, but the agent promised her she'd been in the back yard many times and was positive there were no monkeys of any size to be found, although there were squirrels. Kiddo was unimpressed.

So, that was the first open house. We were surprised at how little the current owners had done in the realm of decluttering, cleaning, freshening up etc. I mean, this house was built in the late 60s and some of the paint and all of the carpeting and the bathrooms looked like the late 60s. But if we thought that house was dated, the next two were positive time warps. It was like being in the Brady Bunch but without the housekeeper or AstroTurf back yard. (Though that might've helped the swampy, boggy mess the one property featured. Holy environmental disaster, Batman!) From excessive wood paneling, especially in the "den" or "family room" areas (and in one home, the only light other than from the gas fireplace in such a wood-paneled cave came from wall sconces. I repeat: Wall. Sconces. Like "Hey, you know what looks cool and modern? Some lighting sconces like you'd see in a medieval castle, only with orange light bulbs!") to shag carpet to a bathroom entirely done in pink tile (with pink toilet, tub/shower and vanity)... it wasn't pretty.

Now, I get that these are all older homes. I get that the split level was popular back then. But.... but..... but....... do you have to keep living like it's 1974? Agents kept telling us "there are hardwoods underneath the carpeting!" Fine, but for the price you're asking, we don't want to have to pay to have carpeting ripped out and floors refinished. Plus, the bedrooms were all pretty dang tiny, the kitchens were abysmally small (they all claimed to be "eat in" but apparently that's only if you can manage to hover standing at some of the nonexistent counter space or over the sink while you dine) and it was just bad. One kitchen was done entirely in grey and Formica. I swear those were the original appliances from when the house was built in 1965 - I muttered to Hubby under my breath "No wonder they want to sell those with the house!" - and the cabinets were these weird, grey things that looked like they'd be much more at home in a middle school science lab.

Just not good. We further ruled out a couple more houses by driving by - one was on a section of road that was much too busy, and the other was waaaay down this road where the neighborhood went from being on the posher side to seeming a bit.....Deliverance-y. Like rusted conversion vans lurking behind falling-off-the-hinges barn doors and boarded over windows and cars up on blocks, with the stray chicken or mangy looking dog running around. I kept expecting to hear the strains of a banjo being picked from up the wooded hill that ran behind the street. (Though it would've been hard to hear anything much over the Heywood Banks greatest hits cassette Kiddo insisted on listening to for the entire trip. Hubby and I love Heywood Banks, really we do, but 3.5 hours of Fly's Eyes, Pancreas, The Cat Got Dead, Toast, Red Ants, The Garden Weasel, If Pigs Had Wings and The Music's Too Loud over and over and OVER again can start to wear on one's sanity.)

So, we returned home to our freshly painted, sparkling clean, utterly decluttered house with a whole new sense of why our agent was so dang excited to get people inside the door to have a look around. If our listing goes up without the words "Move in condition" and "pride of ownership" featured, I'm gonna be on the phone to him right away. Because really? None of the houses we looked at were in anything close to "move in condition" - all of them would need at the least a good cleaning (carpets, walls, kitchen) as well as fresh paint and/or removal of wallpaper... (And we are SO not excited about the thought of picking up a paint roller again any time soon!!!) Kiddo was impressed with the various children's bedrooms, as they featured themes from Diego and friends to Cars and Thomas to Noah's Ark and Puppies Playing Sports. So, it seems she at least will be an easy sell on whatever we buy.

We went back through our list and looked through the listings once again. We've got a total of eight properties now that we've asked our agent to show us this week. He says he wouldn't be surprised if we have five or more showings of our house in the next week and a half, without doing an open house, even. I'm definitely going to keep my eye peeled for drive-by-ers...

Now, the listing goes live tomorrow, but I took some pictures myself so here is a sneak preview of our house, including Kiddo's room (which he didn't photograph because, as he so delicately put it, "It's a bit....busy." Or as Tim Gunn would say, "A lot of look." The agent did ask us where exactly Kiddo sleeps, and was impressed to hear she sleeps under all of her Stuffed Animal Entourage. Didn't bother explaining it is a sensory thing - she likes the weight on top of her. Who needs a weighted blanket when you have over a hundred - not kidding here - stuffed animals to pile on top of you?)


The blog version of a Virtual Tour:

The front entrance (oh, and the verdict is that we've left that Window to Nowhere above the front door bare and are just being careful to keep the bathroom door closed!)



The great room. For the official pics and when being shown, the remotes and Kiddo's beanbag chair will not be in view):






The kitchen, which for the official pictures doesn't have either Crazy Cat or her dishes:



(The daffodils are in homage to my bloggy buddy Jennifer, who is also trying to sell her house, but who employs much greater flower arranging talents in her sale efforts than I ever could dream of doing...)

The laundry room, which will not have Kiddo's coat on the doorknob or my coat on the rack during showings. This one won't make the listing, so it is a Blog Exclusive!:


Downstairs half bath. Yes, I cheated - these are the same pictures I posted a little while back.




The stairs, complete with freshly painted baseboard trim. Hubby had to do lots of taping to get that bit done. Not fun!


Upstairs hallway, another Blog Exclusive:


New shots of the upstairs bathroom, now featuring Official Showing Towels (that do not actually get used!):




Our vanity area (shout out to my mother for the excellent suggestion of sticking the various baskets that usually line the counter underneath our bed. Kiddo finds that hilarious, as well.)


Another Blog exclusive.... the walk-in closet for the master bedroom:


Master bedroom:




Blog Exclusive: Kiddo's room (cameo appearance by Swimmy, the evil, carny goldfish):





And last but not least, the guest room (which is still kind of a "slash office" as well, as evidenced by the computer at which I'm now sitting....)





And there you have it! Please send all your Good House Selling and Buying vibes my way! I've yet to buy a statue of St. Joseph to bury next to the sign, but I'm not beyond considering it. I am a superstitious sort who always picks up heads-up pennies, gets a little freaked if I break a mirror, and always throws a pinch of salt over my shoulder should I spill any. I'm good with black cats crossing my path, though, and I got over the "walking under ladders" thing pretty much for good when we were in the midst of painting and walking under ladders just couldn't be avoided.......

Miscellany: Sweet 16, The Silence of the Voles, Google hilarity

Sixteen years ago tonight was my first date with Hubby! He picked me up at my apartment in his teeny-tiny Ford Festiva and we went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner, then to see Last of the Mohicans (its opening night). After the movie, we went to Friendly's for dessert, where I was impressed by Hubby managing to put away an entire Jim Dandy sundae -



- that's FIVE scoops of ice cream, y'all! (I should point out Hubby was only a 19 year old college student at the time, and hasn't eaten a sundae half as large in over a decade...) We sat and talked 'til the restaurant closed. Then, we headed back to my apartment where Hubby came up (oh hush now, I'm not like that on a first date) and we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because I was horrified that Hubby had never seen it. (That's a movie that we still quote to each other on practically a daily basis, and it's a good thing Hubby liked it as much as I do, as that was part of my future-husband-material litmus test.) After that, we talked some more and he left my apartment around 4:15 in the morning. And that was the Great Beginning, sixteen years ago today...

***

So, yesterday I mowed the lawn. It was far overdue for a mowing, and the back yard was especially jungle-y. When I got to the back, I dragged Kiddo's playhouse up onto the deck, as is customary, and shook my head when I saw the obvious signs that some of our community of voles had set up an outpost - vacation home perhaps? - underneath the playhouse - vole poop, little trails, two voles scurrying away and under the fence, etc. We never put any rat poison underneath the deck this summer, where their primary metropolis exists, and I've seen evidence as always that they were utilizing both my food garden and planting beds as their own personal salad bar, so I wasn't surprised to see that they'd been under the playhouse. I began the mowing, iPod on and my Aerosmith playlist cranked up so I could hear it over our loud, old, gas-powered push mower. As I was going over the area where the playhouse had been, I mowed over a largish tuft of dead grass that I had figured was the voles' vacation bed. Coincidentally, as the front edge of the mower hit this tuft, the song I'd been listening to ended and there was a moment of silence just long enough for me to hear some hideous squeaking as the mower blades momentarily caught on something in the grass. I immediately stopped the engine, but it was too late - what I'd just run over with the Grassy Blades of Death was not an abandoned pile of grass for bedding, but a nest containing several small and now quite diced and dead baby voles.

I felt just horrible about it, as I hadn't intended to slaughter an entire nest of helpless babies, rodents or otherwise. I fetched a shovel from the garage, scooped up the gooey, gory remains and carried them ceremoniously down to the pond, where I gave them a burial at sea. (I figured the fish or herons or other pond-area wildlife would appreciate some Vole Tartar.) I mean, as much as I hate the stupid voles and do intentionally try to off them in their adult form (via the rat poison under the deck), I didn't mean to kill a whole passel of babies. To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, now it will be some time before the voles stop screaming............... It also will be some time before I offhandedly mow any lumps of grass, as well. I imagine those baby voles are now sitting up there in animal heaven, alongside the squirrel I ran over when I was 17 and the bird that flew into my car earlier this summer, leaving grisly bits embedded in the front grill, and they're all waiting for their turn to cast their judgement upon me, the careless machinery operator who sent them to their doom...

***

So, from time to time I read posts other folks have written about the weird Google searches that brought people to their blog. Well, I certainly have my fair share of those too, and now's as good a time as any to share them with you. Here goes with a sampling from the past week's searches:

goldfish getting fat

Perhaps installing a tiny treadmill in the tank would help?

coke-bottle glasses thick

Yep, that's me. I could start fires in seconds by holding my glasses up to the sun. Seriously.

kids gotta pee

Yes, they do. True story.

how to make a loud burp without soda

I'm a bit sad that I didn't have any actual answers for this person on my blog...

the mom haircut
and
Mrs. Brady hair

These both appeared several times from different places. Who knew so many folks out there are interested in either mom hair or the mother of all moms, Mrs. Brady's hair?

neti pot hurt eardrum

Well, I told you I don't ever want to use one of those things, and here's just one more reason why.

why is my child barfing all over the bed

Um, I'm not sure, but sorry - perhaps a throw-up bucket would be a good idea?

funk

In which regard: bringing it, smelling it, or listening to it?

How to look like Angelina Jolie

Sorry, I certainly can't help you there. Getting Brad Pitt as arm candy might help, though.

apple bread more with less

This one just doesn't make sense. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

food getting stuck in teeth all the time

Have you tried flossing?

moms in jeopardy

I don't know what you were looking for, but I was on Jeopardy and I am now a mom...

How to remove very big splinter from childs skin without screaming

Well, I certainly would also love the answer to that one!

Boobs in a swimming pool

Yes, there frequently are.

Now, I have had many search hits every week for things like "naked locker room" or "embarrassing public nudity" thanks to some of my older posts, but I'm guessing that the people doing those searches aren't getting the results they were hoping for when they stumble upon my little blog. Hee!

Okay, I could keep rambling on, but I have a list of errands to do and I'm burning daylight here. Hope everyone is having a great day out there in the blogosphere!

Shaking off the funk

As you know if you read my last post, I'm not having a very good week. Today didn't dawn much better - oversleeping after a bad night's rest, a grumpy kid who pitched a fit over Mean Mommy making her drink her milk (MILK! For breakfast! Can you imagine? The horror!), the cat gacking hairballs up on the carpet in hard-to-see-but-easy-to-step-on-with-bare-feet places, then my bare feet, already insulted by cat barf-covered hairballs, being further injured by attempting to navigate the length of Kiddo's room, which is a veritable minefield of dinosaurs and safari animals chock full of pointy, sharp bits en route to feeding the Carny Goldfish Assassin Wannabe... Yeah, by 7:30 it really wasn't shaping up to be a good day. I managed to get the kiddo off to the bus stop with breakfast (however reluctantly) consumed, face washed, teeth and hair brushed and then I came back to the house (already appreciating the silence - no more tears upon her leaving) intending to curl up at the computer for a bit with a cinnamon roll and some hot chocolate (breakfast of champions!) until it is time to head over to school to do Kiddo's sensory diet. And....my computer decides to stop working. Just temporarily, it isn't actually broken, just everything stopped responding and froze right the heck up. ARGH!

That was enough to plunge my mood from "cranky" to "foul" and that just won't do!! I must shake off this funk - I hate stomping about in a bad mood (especially when the carpet is riddled with hairballs and pointy-edged, plastic critters). So, instead of heaving my computer through the window (think if I did that, Hubby would buy me a new one? Probably not, besides, I have approximately one gazillion photos on the hard drive I'd need to move over before it went flying...) I restarted and headed over to Youtube for a little help from one of my favorite comedic geniuses, the fantabulous Eddie Izzard. In case you are unfamiliar with him, let me share with you how he feels my pain on the whole computer thing:

(Warning: there is language in this clip that is well outside of this blog's typically PG/PG-13 bounds. There are F bombs aplenty. If you have delicate ears and/or children in the vicinity, do not click play.)



I feel better now. Okay, it was watching that plus eating a handful of Swedish fish that were calling to me from their bag next to my computer, but I'm gonna go with it - whatever works, right? At least I'm smiling, red-stained teeth notwithstanding. (Note to self: brush teeth again before heading over to school.)

Our big, fat, carnival goldfish

I've had a few inquiries in recent weeks about whether or not the kiddo's pet fish, Swimmy, is still with us. Swimmy, incidentally, is the goldfish that the kiddo quite improbably won by chucking a ping pong ball into a teensy fishbowl at a midway booth at one of the many summer festivals in our area last July. You know the booth I mean, dontcha? The one where you get 5 ping pong balls for a buck and the odds are stacked against you, because after all it is a carnival midway game booth? The only reason we even let her try was because we were soooo certain there was no way we were leaving the festival with a fish. Whoops.

Anyhow, that $2 goldfish (Hubby paid for 10 ping pong balls) has now cost us probably somewhere in the $100 range, between the original bowl, gravel and food we bought on the way home from the festival, to the 10 gallon aquarium, additional gravel and filters we bought a few days later, to the various other fishy accoutrements and "treats" acquired over the past 10 months. (Yes, there are such things as "treats" for a pet goldfish, didn't you know that? The kiddo would be happy to point them out to you in the fish aisle of your nearest big box store...) The biggest recurring cost is the filters for Swimmy's tank, though the hubby was mentioning to me the other week that he'd read somewhere online an article detailing how one can make one's own fish tank filters. It sounded vaguely MacGuyver-y to me, and for now we're still sticking with the box of 3 filters for $5. So, after all that expense and effort, I'm pleased to say that Swimmy hasn't just survived since that day at the festival last July, this fish has thrived!

For photographic proof, when Swimmy first arrived, she (the kiddo says she is a girl) looked like this:

As of this week, Swimmy now looks like this:

(Yes, we were alarmed when the black edging on Swimmy's fins and tail first started fading. What can I tell you? We're not goldfish experts - thank goodness for Google!)

As you can see, besides turning all orange, Swimmy has grown rather large and robust. Swimmy's weekly diet of goldfish flakes, blood worms and algae cakes have served her well. She now can make a definitive THUNKing noise when she swims up to the top of her tank and then flips and heads back down. It's startling to hear this noise from another room, because my biggest fear is that it wasn't the fish causing it, but rather this:

We don't think that Swimmy thinks of the cat as a threat, per se... Swimmy seems to treat anything moving outside her tank as a potential source of feeding and responds as such - swimming frantically back and forth across the top of the tank, making surprisingly audible "pah-pah-pah" sounds as she smacks her little, fishy lips in anticipation. The cat, however, likes to whap at the glass of the tank with her paws whenever Swimmy gets close, and that doesn't seem like a very good idea...

The kiddo actually is fairly good at her pet-tending responsibilities. She feeds Swimmy her daily flakes and she helps with the weekly 20% water change. The kiddo is also responsible for all of Swimmy's tank decoration (interior and exterior) and rotates various "friends" from her toy collection to keep Swimmy company by sitting next to the tank.

So, yes, we still have our carny goldfish, and whew, what a big fish she has become!