One of our main Christmas gifts to our niece Lorelai was a two-and-a-half-gallon aquarium – plus fish to populate it, and we made sure to wait until Aunt Linda was in town to go on that much-anticipated fishing expedition. Somebody advised us to go to Have-a-Heart, which is a locally owned pet store – rather than one of the national chain stores in town – and I am so glad we did that. They had a plethora of choices and we could rest assured that we were supporting a local merchant, which is always a good feeling.
And what fun it was to follow Lorelai as she went from tank to tank, enchanted by the beautiful colors and shapes of the many varieties available. And I have to say that I caught a major case of Aquarium Fever myself, fully convinced that we needed to walk out of there with an aquarium of our own and a dazzling array of fish . . . but fortunately, my wife was on hand to curb my rather irrational impulses. Yes, it would be fun to buy an aquarium and the fish – but what about the day in/day out upkeep? (It’s sort of the difference between being a parent versus an uncle. One should not buy an aquarium unless you’re ready for the parenthood which is involved with such a purchase.)
We saw a lot of beautiful fish – and were also pleasantly surprised by how reasonably priced most of them were – so we were ready to buy Lorelai 10 or more fish . . . so we were soundly disappointed when the guy manning the fish department told us that we should be purchasing 1 or 2 at the most for this size of an aquarium. At first we thought he was kidding or perhaps had misunderstood our question- but no, that was his advice. Then as it turns out, Lorelai ended up choosing a cute pink fish that was also quite small – so he let us purchase three of them. So it was not the dazzling array of fish we had envisioned, but the day will come when Lorelai graduates to a bigger tank. So our fishing expedition turned out to be a lesson in limits, which is not the worst lesson to teach a 4-year-old. . . or her 48-year-old uncle who’s ready to buy her the whole store.
pictured above: the coolest fish we saw were these angel fish, because they were the only fish that appeared to be aware of us. In fact, there was a moment when every single on these angel fish seemed to be staring straight out at us, floating parallel to one another as though they were a synchronized swimming team.
(Sorry to have been out of commission for a couple of days. Tuesday night both Kathy and her Aunt Linda fell victim to something – food poisoning? the flu? – and so did Polly and Lorelai. Then just as things cleared up for them and we sent Linda on her way back to Saint Louis, I came down with the same thing. All is pretty much back to normal now around here (knock on wood) and we’re hope that we’re done with the “Bucket Brigade” for the rest of the year.)