and the cat came back, the very next day...(cat? catfish? what's the difference?)

monday night, matt heard a crash in the living room. i was asleep and missed it entirely, but he woke me up and asked if i'd heard the same. just to be safe, he went to check to see what fell. no idea. assumed chi-chi was jumping around, and went back to bed...

the next morning, we were about to leave for work... i was saying goodbye to chi-chi when i saw this brown, frayed... *thing* next to her cage. i leaned in, and realized... that the *thing* was pleco.


flashback. when matt moved the 10 gallon to his house from school, he did it before school let out. so sam was left with the tank for a week or two. one night, he heard with splash, followed by some wet thumps. investigation. pleco had jumped out of the tank, caught himself (suctioned himself) onto a surface behind the dresser that the tank was sitting, and was... well, stranded there. they threw him back in the tank, and fortified every exit of the tank: covered all the openings and weighed down all the flaps.


back to semi-present. we'd moved pleco from the 10 to the 30 on sunday, and then he'd apparently jumped out again monday night. around midnight. i found him tuesday morning. about 7:30. he was dried up. the lack of liquid sank his eyes deep into the sockets. the eyeballs were about half the size they were supposed to be. he was moving, but barely. matt asked for a bag to throw him away in, but couldn't do it because he was still "breathing." the other fish in the tank were picking at him (as in... "mmm... fresh food..."), so we put them into convalescent homes (well... the barb went into the convalescent, and lemon went into the net breeder).

it was weird all day. i was so mad at myself for not taking precautions after moving him into the new tank (i'd figured that he tried to escape after the first move because of the water quality change--the move killed yellow and kenyi, the other two fish in the tank at the time of the move). we were planning on buying raphaels--striped and spotted--to clean up the tank, since we couldn't replace him with another pleco.


matt always joked that pleco was going to be his best friend. that he was going to bring him out of the water when he got big enough, and the two of them would watch tv on the couch, like buds. the truth... pleco's the only fish left from the first batch. our first tank. we'd sold the silver dollars and the remaining bala (the other bala disappeared over winter break) back to the store because they'd gotten too big for the tank (you're not allowed to have anything bigger than a 10 on campus). it was a sad day. i cried. not that that says much, but i don't think i was the only one that wanted to. they were our friends. we raised them. we hoped they would be going to good homes.

now this. but, when we got home, he was still alive. in fact, he was better than alive... his eyes had grown back to their original size (though i don't know how well he can see...), and he was moving better. he's peeling now, and parts of his fins are dead (fins grow back... right?), but... it looks like we have a fish that survived outside the tank for... oh, 8 hours or so. we've abused him: he's lived in the most horrible water conditions, he's lived in a 10 gallon from the time he was smaller than my finger until... well, he's probably 7 inches now. in a 10 gal. poor pleco.

we bought him driftwood when we were setting up the 30. i don't know if he likes it much, but he was suctioned to it the last time i saw him before he jumped out of the tank.

i haven't seen his eyes moving around like they used to, but... one step at a time. somehow, he's not dead... he may be a disabled pleco from now on, but he's our pleco.

***

mike & co. showed up yesterday. they had to go to the airport to pick someone up early this morning, so they crashed at our place. we went out for korean bbq with joe and abdullah. back at the apartment, i pulled chi-chi out of her cage (so she could have some exercise so she wouldn't quack everybody awake last night), and mike's brother wanted to hold her. i handed her to him, and she was calm about it. later, when she was running around, he tried to pick her up again (makes sense, right? she let him hold her before...), and she *freaked.* she's an animal of prey and fears being picked up. being held, on the other hand, is fine... (don't ask me).

she spent most of her free time around the "office" area. where there weren't lots of people. when it was time to go home, i grabbed her, and everybody got to pet her... the guys wanted to get a boy chinchilla, make lots of chinchillas, and make a coat...

...

no.

***

matt left this morning at 4:45 or something insane like that. everybody else left at 5:15. when i woke up, my tongue was bleeding.

don't ask me.

a sad weekend for winnie the pooh...

the voices of tigger and piglet died this weekend.

winchell died friday morning, and fiedler on saturday.

what's weird... is that i was just wondering aloud about winchell last week. and it's not something i bring up that often.

this makes me mad...

local government knows best--it can seize for nothing.

that's all...

i couldn't have written it better myself.

comic rambling with verbal gems. eric neel's reaction to game 5 has inspired me to bring bball back to the blog (yes, after assurances that i wouldn't... because of last year's foaming at the mouth... or whatever that was--i'm torn!)

hilights?

"And then … boom! Fifty-three minutes of basketball goodness, and just like that, there's a series going on."

...

"Let me see Stones Horry take another big 3 with the clock winding down, and this time with the trophy on the line. I don't even care if he makes it."

...

"Are we on the verge of the Hack-a-Dunc?

"Let's find out. Let it go seven.

"Because that's two more games with Ben's hair."

...

"That's right: Darko and Rasho for all the marbles.

"You with me?

"I thought you would be."

okay, so maybe i don't agree with everything he said. but the spirit is there.

i haven't been paying full attention to the games. no, seriously. remember when i used to get off the computer, ignore my phone, and see nothing but the television screen when games were on? well... for the first four games of this series, i would even go and do dishes while the game was on. four blowouts. teams rolling over and presenting. duncan looking like a giant two-year-old, as pop's playing father figure. and i'm snuggling chi-chi.

but yesterday... that was a game. and i probably woulda compared the dunk to superman and not batman (or perhaps batman because he's in a black uni?), but it was a sight to see.

matt's still mad that the spurs won at the palace. well... i'm not happy about it either, but i'll take it over another home-team blowout where you consider shooting the visitors to put them out of their misery...

***

in other news, chi-chi's now calm when i hold her. she still doesn't like being picked up (hey... would you like a giant picking you up?), but once i pick her up, she's calm--not scrambling to get away. we made a mess of the living room yesterday, so her playtime was in the bathroom (toilet cover down!). she climbed all over me and matt, and even jumped my shoulder to get the lavatory. i had to pick her up from there 'cause, once i stood up (to keep her away from toothbrushes and razors), she had no way of getting down... and she seemed fine with that.

***

i'm starting to get really excited about my project at work. well, i've been pretty exicted the entire time, but before, i was also a little intimidated. automating a process i knew nothing about. but i'm comfortable with it now, and not scared. and i've since worked out most of the big ideas to where i know what i'm doing to a pretty fine grain. and that makes me really excited ('cause now i KNOW what i'm doing =D)

what am i doing? if i told you, i'd have to kill you. okay, maybe not, but i'm still not going to tell you.

***

some people have been complaining about the lack of updates lately (<cough>spoon<cough>), so i will make an effort to update more frequently...

an effort. not guarantees! (no guaransheeds, either!)

there's no such thing as a smooth commute...

well, that's pretty much true. we all knew that. there's always something that's just weird going on, unless your commute's really short (mine's an hour... how about yours?)

of course this idea was inspired by the idiots who don't know how to drive. always getting mad at people that don't know how to drive. even by the ones that do stupid things that don't affect me. but i guess none of that matters.

the stranger thing i've been noticing lately is the abundance of emergency vehicles. yes, i know i drive by two different fire stations, but still... even the stretches of my commute that aren't on the paths that they should be taking most of the time have way too many of them.

***

so... what happened since last update? well, i made dean's list (haha... like it was nuthin!), and, um... we had a giant fiasco dinner at kabuki's, where we tried to organize a sushi dinner, and so many people ordered hibachi that they had to move us to a hibachi table... and so some of us didn't eat until nearly midnight. but most people seemed to have had fun. jess didn't like sushi, and kevin was all over his unagi (i thought he was kidding!)...

matt and i got a chinchilla. her name is chi-chi. she was 4 months old (5 now), or so they thought when we bought her (nobody knew for sure). we also thought she was a boy, but apparently she's a girl. and she's sooo gentle. she won't bite; she'll just put her teeth around you and apply *slight* pressure (to let you know she's not happy), or apply enough pressure to pull your hand toward her. she licks when you have raisin residue on your hand, and she has the softest tongue ever. she was never afraid of hands. had to get used to petting and handling, though. she walks on her hind legs sometimes. she holds her food with her "hands." when she takes treats from you, she'll softly make sure that her teeth are around the food (and not around you), and then gently take the treat away. she gets smarter every day. she's outsmarted me at least once. i love it when she takes baths, and then does the "chinnie nose swipe" to clear the dust off her nose.

yeah, alright. i'll stop. and i'll post pictures later instead.

don't pee your pants waiting for it (like i'm about to now, if i don't stop blogging).