of dead fish and therapy . . .

so today . . . i had to flush a fish.

don't panic! it wasn't my fish. it was ms. martha's fish . . . (i would typically post a picture here, but, you know, the fish is dead. and i didn't think you would really enjoy looking at a picture of a dead fish.)

we got our fish at the same time from a very generous parent. we have had them about three weeks. my fish has been doing fine, but martha has been worried about hers. she says he lays on the bottom of the bowl a lot and puffs out his gills. i guess the puffing of the gills is a sign of stress.

maybe the stress killed him.

i don't know, but this worries me. i am not a fish, but right now i am a quivering mass of stress--it is everywhere i turn--even when i sleep! last night rollie woke me up, because i was kicking him. of course i was kicking him! he was trying to steal my handbag! wait, no, someone else was trying to steal my handbag . . . and i was yelling for rollie to help me and i was kicking the thief while trying to at least retrieve my phone and ipod before my purse was wrenched from my grip . . . and then i woke up. you see, even in my dreams there is stress.

this afternoon ms. martha came in to check on my fish. her fish seemed ok this morning, but after lunch she noticed he was kind of hanging out on the bottom of his bowl and his little fins were not moving. when she gently swirled the water, he kind of went with the flow and then sort of listed to one side . . . yeah, he was dead. she left my room to go "take care of it," but was soon standing in my doorway again.

"i have a little problem," she said.
"oh?" i said.
"yes," she said, "i can't flush him."

what? the fish is dead. dead fish get flushed. so what is the problem?

"i just can't do it," she said.

ok, i love animals. my first question about a movie with a dog in it is, "does the dog die?" because if it does, i am not watching the movie! i just can't! but a fish? and yet, martha was standing in my doorway looking like she was either going to cry or be sick, and the kids would be up from their naps soon, and she couldn't really have them spending their afternoon with a dead fish, now could she???

no, of course not. "would you like me to take care of the fish for you?" i asked. "yes, please," she said. so she watched my class while i went into her room to deal with tito miguel.

and there is the problem. the fish had a name. when you give something a name, you start to think of it like it is a person. and that makes it hard to deal with it's tiny dead body.

it did look pretty sad. and it made me think of my own seemingly healthy fish, serenely (i think) floating around in his bowl. i would miss my fish if he died. he is beautiful, and it is sort of calming to watch him just float around and fan out his beautiful fins. and i know he watches me. i'm sure he just wants food, but i sort of feel this silent communication when he is looking at me. "hello fish," i think, "i'm just sitting here working at my desk. thanks for keeping me company and not whining or arguing or asking me for anything. well, except food."

(yes, i mentally talk to my fish, ok? did you not hear me say that i have lots of stress right now?!?! and if talking to the fish on my desk gives me a few moments of peaceful calm during my crazy day, then that's what i am going to do!! it is certainly cheaper than therapy!)

i thought kind thoughts about tito miguel, and then i flushed him. i felt like the terminator. but it made martha's day a little easier. and since she doesn't have a fish to talk to anymore (at least until tomorrow when tito miguel's twin takes his place,) it was the least i could do.

but believe me, i told my fish all about it . . .

a techie savant moment

so today . . . i have been experimenting with twitter.

as with most things social media related, diandra got me started.

last summer when she and i were visiting my parents, she helped to convince my mom to switch to sprint and buy a palm pre. we spent the rest of the week acclimating her to the new phone. well, technically diandra did the acclimating--for two reasons. first, she already had a palm pre, so she knew how it worked and what it could do. second, i did not. my palm pre did not appear until christmas . . .

but my treo would still do quite a lot. so she got both of us set up with twitter accounts. i used mine while we were on vacation, and diandra was around to help me. then i came home, never to tweet again.

until today.

i've been thinking about it for a few days though. lately, i've been having these random, kind of funny thoughts. but they are short. however, i am pretty good at embellishing, so maybe some of them could have been expanded into blogs--but by the time i sat down to blog them, i couldn't remember what they were . . .

the brain--it is a terrible thing to waste.

i was telling rollie this, and he said, "maybe you should just make a note in your phone. that way when you got ready to blog, you could remember what you were going to write." i thought that was a pretty good idea, so i pulled out my phone and prepared to make a note--only to realize i already had a file on my phone for these random ideas. i had just forgotten.

the brain--you know.

my next thought was that instead of writing it down, i should just record it vocally. my phone will do that, won't it? hmmmm? i am pretty sure it will--i'm just not quite sure how to do it . . . so i shelved the whole idea and decided that if i couldn't remember a thought from the time i had it until i blogged, it probably wasn't worthy of my attention anyway!

and then today while i was sitting at my desk, my fish kept staring at me. i've been worried about my fish on the weekends. every monday i expect that he will be dead from lack of food. i have repeatedly been assured that he will be fine, but still i think he will be belly-up on monday morning. the school secretary feeds him a little extra on friday night, and apparently he will also nibble on the plant roots that share his water, but the weekend seems like such a long time to be without food . . .

yesterday he kept looking at me. i finally fed him a tiny bit more. today he kept looking at me. i thought, "what if he is starving to death? what if i kill my fish because i don't want to feed him enough?" (which is purely selfish, because i just don't want to have to clean his habitat--but that is a story for another blog . . . ) and then i thought "i should tweet this!"

i don't know why i thought about tweeting. maybe i thought someone would read it and give me some insight into fishy thinking. diandra is probably the only one who follows me on twitter though, and she would probably die of shock if i actually tweeted something. but i decided to risk it. i was actually hoping it would show up on facebook. other people's tweets show up on facebook. (why didn't i just post it on facebook, you ask? because i wanted to include a picture to prove the fish was staring at me, and i couldn't figure out how to get the picture onto facebook from my phone. there! are you happy now?!?) i guess i was hoping it might just magically appear, and i needed some answers, so i gave it a try . . .

. . . and i not only tweeted, i tweeted WITH A PICTURE! yes indeed! i figured out how to tweet a picture. i was pretty darn proud of myself! i rarely accomplish any electronic or internet milestone without the help of someone more tech savvy than me. but today i did!

as i thought about it throughout the day (because i did, you know--i thought about it all day and about how smart i was and about what else i could possibly do . . . ) i decided that a tweet is just a tiny blog in 140 characters. the truth is, some thoughts just aren't big enough for a blog, but that doesn't mean that they might not be amusing or entertaining. so i am going to be tweeting more often. i think.

and since you may not all have twitter accounts, i spent some time figuring out how to post my tweets onto my blog. so you don't even have to sign up on twitter to follow me--you can just catch up when you read the blog! isn't that clever? at least, it will be clever if it works like i think it will.

now if i can just figure out how to get my tweets to post on facebook . . .