getting things back in order

Things to do after arriving home from a ten-day vacation:

Wash and fold giant pile of laundry

Pull ten days off of my page-a-day calendar

Go through a pile of mail, mostly junk

Throw away rotten bananas

Throw away rotten eggplant, broccoli, green beans, cheese...

Open all windows and get some air in here

Buy new food

Get my dog (got him!)

Pull 9-foot-high weeds out of the front lawn

Respond to emails

Blog stuff

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The story of Charlie


I am very thankful that my beta fish, Charlie, did not die while we were on vacation. I gave him a 10-day beta fish feeder on the morning we left. Charlie is very particular about what goes in his bowl. When he's stressed out about something, he turns from blue to grey and then sinks down to the bottom and sulks. As soon as I put that 10-day feeder thing in the bowl he turned grey and when into his zombie-state. I wondered if he'd eat it at all, and was almost certain I was coming home to a belly-up beta fish. Well, Charlie was grey when I came back late last night, but he was very happy to see us and snapped out of it. Now tonight, I took a photo of him, using the flash and he looked like he'd completely conked out, floating sideways and motionless.

Ironic, taking a picture of my fish to show he's not dead, and now the flash kills him. I think he's going to be o.k. though. He is apparently very resilient.