I'm Crabby

I've been crabby the past few days and today, my crabbiness reached critical mass. It started out okay as I was trying to tidy up the kitchen - finally - for the umpteenth time. I was putting away my nifty Tupperware spaghetti holder and the plastic top flew off like a Frisbee at the beach. It lodged behind the refrigerator, hiding amongst the detritus and cat hair, which, by the way, is omnipresent in my existence. So, I had to move aside the garbage chair (my great invention) and try to retrieve the now dirty, hair laden disc. This precipitated moving the refrigerator (luckily it's on wheels) and then thebringing out of the vacuum and what ensued was a half hour deep-cleaning exercise that included every damned inch of the back and the front of the goddamned refrigerator. Then the rewashing of the lid and the realignment of the garbage chair and then wiping everything down once again and I forgot what I was going to do earlier. By then, I was off and running off at the mouth with expletives and a generally bad attitude. Oh, I was going to make coffee. That was it. I looked over towards the love seat in the living room and noticed that my two male cats were sleeping soundly on top of some material I had just (before the lid incident) taken out of the dryer and folded, anticipating its use to make a slipcover for a chair in the living room. The two were busy shedding in their sleep all over the light-coloured material that had been pristine and clean mere moments before. Why had they not stayed in the bed that they had already defiled with their hair. The sheets were just washed the day before and they had quickly established their beachheads amongst the white fleece and flannel.
Note: all these activities are interrupted by frequent trips to the washroom due to the blood pressure medication I'm currently taking. It now takes a lifetime to pee these days. Whole books have been read in one day as a result of these frequent forays to the washroom. E-mails sent from my Blackberry; eyebrows plucked; crossword puzzles completed; all done while waiting for my bladder to finally empty. I have dozed off occasionally. Of course the mind wanders. What ever happened to that guy I was so crazy about in my sophomore year at UB? How many inches is 12 cm? Where did my life go so terribly wrong?
I recall a phone call from the previous evening when my drunken crazy-ass neighbour accused me of 1.) running up his gas bill and 2.) complaining to the SPCA about his dog and 3.) not finding him devilishly attractive. I mean, he's got two functioning teeth, a grizzled beard, bad breath, filthy clothes and looks like he hasn't bathed in weeks; what's not to love? The phone call devolved into a screaming match and I finally ended it with a triple-dog-fuck-you. What did I do to deserve this? I ask myself as rehashed the event while perched on the toilet. Then there was the e-mail from someone I hardly know, who somehow got himself involved in a situation that was none of his business, but felt that I needed to hear his opinion of me and a friend, which was not complimentary. Besides the WTF response, I was forced to remind myself of previous dealings with this douche and the relative peace I had experienced in the five or so years since our paths crossed until now. I knew there was a reason why I avoided this guy like the plague and here he was back again, being a douche. As the Chinese New Year of the Ox is being celebrated, I am beginning to wonder if my own personal New Year will be the Year of the Douche, or Assholes-I-Have-Known-Who-Moved-Away-and-Then-Came-Back. Not to worry. When one asshole closes a door, another one opens it.
I sometimes open my e-mail with dread. Not the Strand Blog e-mail; that's a hoot. My personal e-mail. Daily findings might include an e-mail from my delusional friend in Tennesee who takes stalking to a whole new level by tracking down old boyfriends, manufacturing fantasies about how they were fated to be together and actually convincing them to buy into the fantasy. Of course, they must be either alcoholics, convicted felons or both by the time she hooks up with them. Her last conquest, a boyfriend she hadn't seen or heard from since high school recently died of alcoholism-related cirrhosis, but she has already embarked on her next conquest: a guy who is just out of jail for beating his wife. But he had such beautiful, curly hair before he shaved it off in stir. Previous boyfriends were an Am-Way salesman who was a closeted gay; a broken-down country and western singer - hence the Nashville trip; and a former secret service agent (at least that was what he told her when they had a fling in Spain thirty uears ago. She was unsuccessful in connecting with him as he did not answer her faxes and letters. She was convinced that his wife was destroying these messages before he could see them, because, if he got them, he would leave his wife and come to her, as they were "fated to be together." Oh, and she's changed her name three times since I met her in Crystal Beach, which she said she came to because, as a child, she visite the amusement park with her parents and her father remarked that "one day you will live here." It was also the place where she tracked down the gay Am-Way salesman. (He has since moved on to Key West with his lover.) When he finally told her the awful truth, she was thrown into a deep depression that had me really worried - until she found her last love, the cirrosis-laden alcoholic who was living in a flop house in North Carolina when she tracked him down through his estranged father. Since her husband's (she actually married this one; she was wife number three,) death, she has once again been very depressed and long distance or e-mail help has been spurned while she cast around for her next victim/boyfriend. And we have a winner! The ex-con has moved ahead of the pack to take his place in her pantheon of star-crossed lovers. I'm still waiting for her to flesh out the fantasy as this one doesn't fit the usual MO. He's not a blast from the past; he's a recent addition; someone she met through her husband. For some sick reason, I'm anxiously awaiting her latest fiction. I particularly loved a recent one (that ended badly; he just wanted to fuck her, not "be with" her as he was already married,) the has-been C&W singer. That was an inspired fantasy: she claims that she saw a picture of him in a bar in Toronto where he supposedly had appeared and she "knew right then" that she would meet up with him later in life. Amazing, isn't it? Maybe that's what I need to do: find some old boyfriend from the battlefield of my life and resurrect him as the fantasy prince charming who was torn away from me by sinister forces and who I can now reclaim from the internet and live happily ever after.

THE OPOSSUM WHO CAME FOR CHRISTMAS

Now that I am sufficiently sated from an absolutely wonderful, delicious Christmas Feast with friends, it's time to get back to reality and the problem 'possum who came for Christmas. He's still here somewhere ~ out in the attic loft, probably making a nest amongst the junk I have stored out there. I first noticed him as I was hanging my Advent Calendar against an outer wall. I could hear scrabbling close to the baseboards where the outer wall meets the attic roof. In that one foot window of opportunity, the opossum managed to start a small hole in a weak part of the wall. Soon, I saw the hole widen and a snout appeared. Yep. It was an opossum all right. Trying to get into my living room from the attic. Quickly, I found a large piece of wood and jammed it up against the hole and wedged it in tight. In daylight, I ventured into the attic and looked for the beast, but he was hiding, or he had gone outside through whatever method he had used to get in. For days, I looked for him and for the hole that brought him inside, but to no avail. In the darkness of night, I could hear him scrabbling around out in the attic, but I was too nervous to go out there as the lighting isn't good and frankly, I was afraid he'd jump out at me. (I've heard they can be vicious when provoked.) My three cats were absolutely no help at all. They pretended to not notice the sounds of an impending invasion. I told friends about my intruder and they all advised me to contact my landlady. I kept putting it off, knowing that she really couldn't do much to help and by this time, we were fast approaching the holidays. The big snowstorm arrived and while out shoveling, I spoke with a neighbour about my problem and he said he noted pawprints coming from my place. I took that as a good sign that my little friend had given up and moved on to warmer quarters as my attic is not heated or insulated. (BTW, I have the greatest neighbours. They ploughed my driveway; snowblew the sidewalk in front and helped me get my vehicle on the road.) My neighbour also brought me a cage to catch the little beast on Boxing Day. I was feeling complacent that my 'possum problem was over and settled in for a nap on the dark afternoon of Christmas Eve. Two of my cats snuggled up with me in bed and we drifted off into a pleasant sleep. I awoke and noticed that it was after 5:00 p.m. and it was pitch dark. I had an hour to get ready to go for a Christmas Eve gathering at a friend's home, so I ran around turning on lights. When I got to the living room, I quickly turned on the table lamp next to my little antique crib-turned-settee and suddenly, the room was awash with light, revealing the opossum just sitting on the cushions, like he belonged there. The cats had finally awakened from their nap and wandered into the living room, completely ignoring the 'possum. It was as though time stood still for a good five minutes, while I figured out what to do. Gotta take a picture of this. No one will believe it. Camera was recharging in the kitchen and I quickly snapped off a couple of shots. Okay, now what do I do? I notice that my intrepid intruder had gnawed a huge hole around the wood covering the original hole. I went out in the attic and got a large cupboard door stored there and got that ready. I took a broom and found that it was very easy to coax the opossum back through his hole. Soon as he was out of the living room and back into the attic, I plugged up the holes with a two by three foot piece of solid oak. So much for that. I went to the party late, but I had the perfect excuse on my camera. It was quite the hit of the party, but I was very nervous when I came home several hours later. I immediately did a nose count of the cats; looked at my makeshift barrier (OK) and breathed a sigh of relief that the critter didn't make a return visit while I was gone. Didn't hear anything on Christmas and went to the feast and stayed several hours (boy do these people know how to put on a partay!) Still no sign of my Christmas Eve visitor, but on Boxing Day, I once again heard scrabbling behind the wood barrier. And then my neighbour came by with the trap/cage. The onus is now on me to catch the critter and take him somewhere and let him go. (Can't kill him.) Where does one take an opossum anyways? What function do they perform on this earth except to look so ugly they're cute? They sure have sharp little teeth, capable of chewing wallboard, but what else are they good for?
The only other 'possum I ever heard of was Pogo Possum late of newspaper comic fame. He was a favourite at my house when I was growing up. I didn't care for his comic strip, but, to adults, he was the sage/satirical/commentator on the times and he was very political. Written by Walt Kelly, the strip took on such sacred cows as Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover and various other political figures of the time. The famous line, "We have me the enemy as he is us," came from Pogo.
Who knows? Maybe my visitor brought a message, like the three ghosts who visited Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve so long ago. Maybe I should start a political comic strip. Or maybe I am the enemy. Naw. Nothing that deep. I need to call my landlady.

JFK REMEMBERED

One generation remembers Pearl Harbor; another 9/11. For most of us Baby Boomers, it was November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas that will forever be etched in our minds as the first time we shared the gut-wrenching grief and sense of loss with the rest of the world.

Those who can give personal memories for all three seminal events are dwindling; the narrative lessens over time. Today marks a milestone in time and remembrance. Forty-five years have passed since the day Kennedy was shot. My parents often recalled what became known as a "Day of Infamy" Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941.) However, I was too preoccupied with childish concerns to understand the significance of that event. Historians are still debating whether the US knew ahead of time that Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was to be attacked by Japanese war planes that would kill thousands and destroy the Pacific Fleet, thus precipitating the US entry into World War Two. No one will argue that it was an event that brought the nation together in grief, outrage and the resolve to avenge the deaths and destruction of the attack.

I was born on the cusp of the Baby Boom; we were the first of the wave of children who would crowd the school systems and later challenge just about every tradition and value of previous generations.

It had started out okay for us. A new president had been sworn into office in January, 1961. With Kennedy, came a hope that America would move ahead; conquer space; and overcome discrimination and injustice. The Kennedys were a beautiful, charismatic family who were the source of fascination and even satire. Just about every home had a copy of Vaugh Meader's "First Family" an LP that was a send-up of the Kennedys, especially Jacqueline Kennedy's White House Tour that was broadcast into living rooms all across the country. Despite the satire, Americans loved the first family and pictures of Jackie and their two adorable children were seen on covers of magazines practically every month.

So, to the question that is oft asked: Where were you on __________(Pearl Harbor Day, Kennedy Assassination or 9/11,) the responses are as varied as the people who answer, but few don't automatically answer that question; it stays with one forever. As for me, I was just finishing a physical education class at Clark Gym on the campus of the University of Buffalo. At the time, I was a Phys. Ed. major, believe it or not. Someone said that the president had been shot, so I quickly dressed and went to the student union and I knew it was bad when I opened the main door of what was always a beehive of activity, especially on a Friday afternoon, and was met with absolute silence. As I walked the empty hall, I heard the sound of a television in one of the lounges and went in that direction. Several hundred people stood silently watching the television screen and I joined them. Then Walter Cronkite made the pronouncement: John F Kennedy, president of the United States was dead. The audience gasped and the crying began. All I wanted to do is go home and I did - in a daze. My mother was the only one home; she was crying in front of the television as the news of the assassination continued and the shocked and disheveled Jackie Kennedy made her way to the plane that would carry her husband's body back to Washington, D.C. The next several days were filled with fear and pain; Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in aboard the same plane that carried Kennedy's body back to the nation's capital; Jack Ruby shot suspect Lee Harvey Oswald live on our television; the lying in state; the newspapers; the tributes; the memorial and burial at Arlington. In the middle of all this, John F. Kennedy Jr. celebrated his third birthday at the White House. Heartbreaking.

Like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 the debate over who really killed JFK rages on. Many believe that there was more than one shooter and that Oswald was a "Manchurian Candidate" brainwashed and trained to kill by the Russians/Cubans/Mafia or whomever. It really doesn't matter to me. He was killed and the world was never the same afterwards. Many in my generation gave up hope that things would change, myself among them. Eventually I turned my anger towards something I could change and became involved in union organizing. Otherwise, I might be a retired phys. ed. teacher and coach.

Yes, the day Kennedy was shot changed many of us early Boomers forever; the death of JFK was also the death of a generation's dreams and hopes, although we did not realize it at the time. That would come just a few years down the road in Viet Nam.

JONESTOWN

Drinking the Kool-aid
A common phrase these days, but few know its true origin. It was thirty years ago in Guyana that Jim Jones' cult came to an end when close to nine hundred people committed mass suicide by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit drink. A survivor, who escaped before the November 19, 1978 "massacre," told of numerous rehearsals for the final exit strategy where cult members were told to assemble in the main building of the compound and drink from a vat of a bitter-tasting brew that she said "tasted like that kid's drink, Kool-Aid without the sugar." Later her words would take on a whole new meaning after the horror of Jonestown. Now the phrase, "Drinking the Kool-aid" means accepting the philosophy or position of someone else without question, like a brain-washed cult member.

A couple of years before Jonestown, I had a brush with a cult when I was covering a story for a local Buffalo newspaper. A prominent local businessman/advertiser had a son who was a member of a well-known cult, the ones often seen at airports in those days, whose official name I have conveniently forgotten. He asked that we do a feature story on his son's group. We received a phone call from the son who invited me to visit their headquarters to write the story. I was to meet my "guide" at 11:00 am for a tour of their spacious Victorian quarters on a tree-lined street in a toney section of the West Side. As I parked in front of the beautiful home, I was immediately impressed that pan-handling on street corners and airports could afford such a large sumptuous setting for the local adherents to the religious sect. I had been assigned a female who immediately told me that I was not allowed to take any pictures, just one of many of the rigid rules of the group e.g. diet, food preparation and even laundry. There was a distinct heirarchy as the "leaders," all men, wore different-coloured vestments and even ate in a separate area of the dining area. I had lunch with them, but I was relegated to the "children's table" with the women and children. We all sat on the floor to eat some gruel-like substance which was prepared in the large, well-appointed kitchen by the leaders. The kitchen was cloistered, something I found out accidently by entering unawares. I was quickly ordered out by the food preparers. Pardon me! We ate in silence, except for one woman who read aloud from one of their religious tracts. The scripture sounded like a pot pourri made up from various Eastern religions. By then, I was looking for my own exit strategy. Then one of the children started to make a fuss, perhaps because of the lousy tasteless food and his mother tried to quiet him. The "leader." a very intense young man, turned from his place at the head of the room and gave the woman such a look of pure hatred and venom that I practically gasped. So much for peace and love and Hare Krishna. After the men went back out on the streets, the women, all young and very docile, resumed their housekeeping duties. The place was spotlessly clean. The dining room floor was cleaned with a special mop and the dishes, which I helped with, had to be washed downstairs in the basement laundry tub. When I asked about the kitchen, I was informed that only the "saved ones" could enter the kitchen. My guide was a novice, having been in the cult for only a few months. No men were left behind at the manse; they were part of the fund-raising committee. So, we washed dishes in the laundry tub and that's when I noticed the piles of gowns/saris/vestments near the washing machine. They were sorted by colour, but also, there was at least a foot separation between the piles on the basement floor. I asked about that and was told that the garments of the novices could not be in contact with the garments of the "saved" as they were not sanctified. I asked my guide about her life before joining the group and she told me that she had come to Buffalo to attend college and was recruited on campus. She said that all the others came from local colleges and universities in the area. She came from a very religious Jewish family (as did our newspaper advertiser's son) and she said that many others were from very religious families. She talked about the daily routine of rising at 3:00 am for morning prayers and worship; another round of prayers at 6:00 am and chores the rest of the day between meals. The day ended late with more prayers. Of course, there was no television, radio, or newspapers. There was a phone, but no one was allowed to use it without permission. Contact with family members was very limited. The group was planning a big celebration on the weekend of a wedding between two of the group's members and a special ceremony to dedicate a plant that was a god. The plant was a large, healthy marijuana-like house plant in an attractive urn on a beautiful pedestal in one of the two formal parlours of the house. I was really wanting to leave by then. Last stop, the upstairs dormitories, a warren of rooms where the women and children slept on one side of the house and the men on the other. "Married" couples did not even share private quarters even though there was plenty of evidence of sexual congress: a number of the women were pregnant, nursing infants or herding babies and toddlers in the rooms. They were not allowed on the third floor where the leaders slept. With promises that I would return on Sunday for the marriage and plant celebration, I put my loafers on and left; got into my car; drove immediately to the nearest McDonald's Drive-Thru; bought a Big Mac and fries; went back to the newspaper and quit.

MAD MEN

Every Sunday evening, the women of the hit series Mad Men parade across the screen in authentic clothes of the 1960s. Packed into girdles; nylons attached by garters; eyebrows plucked to thin lines; and hair flipped and teased, the "girls" of corporate America walked into the secretarial pool, sat down at their IBM Selectric typewriters and kept their eyes open for a possible husband amongst the male denizens who prowl the offices like hunters at a private game preserve. The girls are hoping to meet a man who will eventually take them away from the preserve to a nice apartment or house in the suburbs.
Mad Men, the self-named title for those who worked in the advertising industry in New York City's Madison Avenue, follows the clients and employees of a fictitious agency through the early 1960s. The attention to detail and historical context shows a world far removed from today - even though it was less than fifty years ago. A woman in the workplace faced far more than the mythical "Glass Ceiling." She faced a wall as solid as concrete if she wanted to climb the corporate ladder. Mad Men is a history lesson and a homage, IMHO, to the women who put up with and eventually broke through that barrier to success and well-paying jobs.
When I started working at the phone company during the early sixties, I was attending university and working part time. There was a "company union" because the full time operators (all women) were considered to be working for "pin money." It took years and several unsuccessful organizing campaigns to educate and bring these women forward to realize that their work was worth better pay and recognition. It was also a time when women sought and finally achieved (after a class action suit) the chance to work in the "craft" jobs like switchman and frameman. Notice the titles. That particular ceiling was broken back in the sixties, but the women who took these jobs came to be called switch witches and frame dames. Their work ethic, qualifications and sexuality were questioned by men who got their jobs right off the street - because they were men. These pioneers stayed in those jobs and progressed, many achieving managerial positions or top craft jobs.

One of the female characters in Mad Men is the embodiment of the beginnings of the women's movement. Peggy starts her career at Sterling Cooper in the secretarial pool. (She does make one very serious mistake: she has a brief fling with a soon-to-be-married account executive.) She recovers from that to assert herself to write copy for an ad campaign. She shows that she has a better handle on the woman's perspective (Duh!) and she's soon given other tasks, but she has to do this all outside her regular secretarial work, while the mad men she is making look good sit in the conference room, drinking and assessing the physical beauty of the secretarial pool. At the end of the first season, her work is finally rewarded and she is given a very small raise and promoted to her own desk in a shared room with another copywriter. It's a small start, but appropriate to the times.
In the second season, she is learning and evolving into a first class writer and a major asset to the firm. For that, she gets the cold shoulder from the secretarial pool she came from and left out of many of the meetings and extracurricular activities of the mad men. One of those "Hell, yes!" moments comes at the end of the fifth episode when she says to the man whom she was once secretary to, after a meeting where she presented her pitch, "Thank you, Don." The expression of shock on his face was priceless.
There was also a memorable quote from account executive Don Draper when a woman who ran her father's successful department store came to the ad agency to change the image of the staid but well-established store. She disagreed with one of the suggestions, to which Draper, stood up from the conference table and left the room saying, "No woman will speak to me like that!"
And if you think that's bad, you should see how they treat Jews, blacks and homosexuals. All very true to the attitude in the 1960s. I remember it well; I was there. I was Peggy, but without the affair.

WE ALL LOVE YOU LIKE CRAZY

I found out today that my computer as a potentially fatal problem. It's inoperable. It could "go" any minute, or it could last for years. Kinda like an computer aneurysm. The thought of losing Dell is very worrisome. He has been with me for three years now and we've become quite attached. In fact, one might say that I'm addicted to my computer. I spend an inordinate amount of time surfing, reading, doing puzzles (I did hear that doing word puzzles can help prevent Alzheimer's) and writing on my various blogs and forums. But I jest - about something that is very serious.
When my computer was opened up (I was terrified to try this at home,) it was discovered that it needed a good cleaning (thanks in part to Harley who enjoys sleeping on top of the monitor,) so I purchased a can of spray and it was soon clean and dust-free inside. Afterwards, my mind wandered to a recent episode of Intervention, the Emmy-nominated reality show on the A&E network. The episode was about Allison, a so-called "huffer" who was addicted to computer cleaners like the one I had just purchased. She "scores her drugs" at the local Office Max or Wal-Mart and takes a few hits before she's even out of the parking lot. Someone on a forum I visit noted her resemblance to the actress Anne Hathaway and she soon became known as Anne Huffaway. Some enterprising soul made a tribute to her that was posted on You Tube. Here it the link is for your horror and enjoyment: Allison is Walking on Sunshine.
Jeff (We Love You Like Crazy) VanVonderen finally got her agree to rehab, but only after her cats were confiscated by the local SPCA and she was taken into custody and later hospitalized for threatening suicide.
She's now clean and sober, but only for a couple of months, so it's too early to see if the rehab worked and to determine if an how much brain damage occurred.
What is it that causes some people to become addicted while others make it through life without becoming a slave to a substance, person or activity? Allison has a sister Erica. Both were allegedly sexually abused by a male relative when they were little. Charges were dismissed after a traumatic trial, but Erica is okay and Allison is a hot mess, married twice and currently prostituting herself to a sugar daddy for funds for her addiction. Most of the Intervention subjects start out perfectly normal and sometime in their teen years they go off the rails. Most are alcoholics or drug abusers, but Intervention has also showcased gamblers, anorectics, bulemics and even a compulsive shopper. Allison is the first huffer in the five seasons that Intervention has been on A&E. I sincerely hope she is the only one. The humour of the Allison parody aside, addiction is a nasty, tragic business. It destroys the lives of the addict and those around the addict. To the addict, nothing and no one matters except the object of his or her addiction. An addict will lie, steal, cheat and manipulate to support his or her habit.
Think about that the next time you have dealings with someone who is addicted. I learned all this the hard way - long before Intervention.

I'M SLEEPING WITH THE FISHES NOW

Insomnia has been a part of my life for several years now. I have little names and excuses for it, like Sunday Night Insomnia, my most faithful friend who visits me regularly every Sunday night without fail. This is when I spend my sleeping hours ruminating over everything I've done wrong, a sort of start-up for another week of failure. Even when I have something to look forward to, insomnia visits so that I can be reminded that the outcome will fall well below expectations. The other nights of insomnia have pet names. but they pale in comparison to Sunday Night Insomnia. I decided to become proactive and set about to end this hold that insomnia has on me - without resorting to medication. I consulted a number of books and visited a number of websites and decided that the feng shui approach might work best. I painted my bedroom a dark, relaxing red; made light-blocking curtains and bought a new bed with a pillow top mattress. I cleared out the small television that I sometimes watched until I fell asleep. No BlackBerry allowed; no newspapers; no clutter; and no disturbing books or magazines. Cats allowed if they don't spend too much time grooming themselves or decide it's time to play. It worked for a while but I soon started having the usual insomnia and Sundays Nights returned to sleepless nights.
So, I decided to get an aquarium, another feng shui cure for insomnia. As a former aquarium owner, I knew the basics, so I was able to get a used tank and enough stuff to begin getting some fish. I decided to get low maintainance fish, so my first purchase was three rose tetras and two cat fish. I named the tetras Curly, Larry and Moe and the catfish were named Bert and Ernie. (Not very creative, but I didn't want to give them "special" names as they might not last long enough to grow into them.) They seemed do fine, swimmingly in fact if you'll excuse the pun. Buoyed by the successful additions to my pet family, I purchased three more fish: a trio of cherry barbs that I dubbed the Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Ann, but their behaviour soon gave me the impression that I had adopted a menage a trios. In fact their overall behaviour left a lot to be desired. They became very aggressive towards the docile Bert and Ernie who spent their time cleaning up the food dropped by the other, less careful fish. Frankly, I expected better behaviour from the Brontes, but some sort of detente was achieved and Bert and Ernie are once again vacuuming the tank bottom.
I began to enjoy watching the hi-jinks and beauty of my fish family as I dozed off to sleep. One day, however, after doing the requisite "exchange" of 30% of the water, I noticed that the tank was cloudy and it remained so until the next day when I started to panic that I had done something wrong. I went to the internet to a site devoted to aquariums and typed in "cloudy tank" in the search engine. There were any number of fixes offered in the forum, but when they wanted me to join, I groaned. Another clever "username" that I'd have to come up with. Can't I just find out the answer without having to wrack my brain for a username that I won't forget and a password (case sensitive?) I finally decided on fishbellywhite in honour of my legs in summertime and found out about something called algae blush and high ph levels and all sorts of other horrors that can befall an aquarium and its inhabitants. But nowhere was the answer to my question: does the fact that my cats drink out of the aquarium have anything to do with it? I, fishbellywhite would never ask that question on.this.forum. No way. I might be asked to leave for allowing cruelty to my fishes. Okay, so they all cower near the plastic shipwreck whenever one of my boys takes a drink, but they snap back pretty quickly once the cat leaves. He's not interested in them, but he does show a fondness for their flaked food and I have to shoo him away at feeding time. Ares (shown in the picture,) looks upon fish food floating on top of the water as a sort of soup du jour - a lukewarm Tetramin chowder if you will.
Well, the cloudy tank continues, but the fish are still enjoying their smoggy little home. It's those daily invasions by those monsters who steal their food and water that are what gets them angry. Afterward, they go berserk for a while, streaking around in the tank. One of the barbs goes into a death spiral - fins up, in an alpha state until the others calm down. Soon they'll be suffering from insomnia along with me.