Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Speaking of Fish

Meet Marco Polo, our newest acquisition. He’s a little nicer to look at than Monday’s Mr. Blobfish.

When my daughter went to her water polo banquet the other night, she texted me halfway through the festivities:


I won a new pet fish.


Oh, great, I thought. I hoped that was some kind of code name for the awards they were handing out. A few moments later she sent a new text:


What should we name it?

Good grief. What was she thinking? What were the banquet organizers thinking? I pictured her coming home with some half dead feeder fish in a baggie. The poor thing would probably be gone by morning. I decided not to respond to her text. Better put off naming it, just in case.

I went to the garage and dug out our fish bowl. We’ve had two bettas that lived long happy betta lives, but the bowl has been empty for a while. My daughter texted me again:

Coach Kristy thinks we should name it Kristy.

I thought about texting back that we should name it Stop Texting Me Or You’ll Lose Your Cell Phone Privileges, but that would have taken too long. I now had a fish bowl to clean out. Urgh. If it was still swimming in the morning, I’d go buy gravel.

When the banquet was over, my husband arrived with daughter and Marco Polo, who to my relief was a hardy-looking betta. The fish came complete with a bowl tied with a fancy ribbon that included food and feeding instructions. My daughter had already removed the floating candle that topped off the arrangement. I’ve never been a fan of using live fish for centerpieces, but I have to say Marco Polo looked pretty well attended to.

Now our pets represent four animal classes: fish, bird, reptile, mammal. Make that five, if you count the spiders in the bathroom.

11 comments:

Kelly Polark said...

You have quite the zoo over there! Very pretty fishy!
Our house is crawling with ladybugs and box elder bugs because it was sunny and warm yesterday.

Kimbra Kasch said...

Oh I love Betas - so beautiful - so blue...

We used to have fish but we got a small shark and after one year or so he started to eat his cellmates. We turned him back into the petstore :(

Lily Cate said...

So far we've maintained the Two Pets at a Time rule... but I forsee that becoming more of a guideline in the future.
Sonny wants some fish and a kitten. Mr. Cate actually wants a bunny.
One of these days, some of those are going to show up on our doorstep.

ICQB said...

What a beautuful, blue beta!

me said...

Ohhhh I LOVE LOVE LOVE Marco Polo!!! :) Kewl!

Suzanne Casamento said...

That's a very pretty fish. I'd call him, "Mr. Blue."

But the name is up to you guys.; )

Bish Denham said...

It's a good thing you like animals! At least Betas are easy to take care of. They don't require a tank and filters and all the other stuff that goes with having a fish tank, which I've had...(read that not any more!)

Adrienne said...

Kelly - I think it's supposed to be good luck to have a ladybug in the house! I don't know about lots of them :)

Kim - Aw...I guess you can't blame a shark for being a shark...

Lily - As long as they don't show up as things the cat dragged in :-0
But yeah, sometimes the critters just find you :)

ICQB - He is pretty! I just have to find new stones so we can see him better.

Paris - Thanks!

Suzanne - My daughter wasted no time naming him, but Mr. Blue sounds like a cool character :)

Bish - I had all that growing up, too. And it all started with a fish I won at a carnival!

Brenda said...

What a beautiful colored fish...I hope Marco Polo lives a long and happy life...

LW said...

Marco Polo what a cute name, what a pretty fish....


Louise

Rena Jones said...

Very pretty fish!