Meet the latest addition to our household: Squeak Fisch!

I&#039ve been meaning to get a pet fish for quite some time now, but I&#039ve never gotten around to it. Been busy, I guess. Or lazy. It&#039s scary how similar those two seemingly opposite things can be so similar. Regardless! What happened is this: Our neighbor Lushbaugh got the go-ahead from his landlord-person to get a pet that lives in an aquarium or cage. He&#039s been wanting a pet for sometime now and has been bemoaning the fact that he can&#039t get a cat as cool as ours (&#039Cause we all know Kitty&#039s the bomb, mostly because she&#039s dangerous.) though he is excited that now he can get something living to play with other than mold found in the fridge. So he rang me up and asked if I wanted to go to the petstore with him. I was just sorting laundry, so I figured, heck, why not? and agreed. We looked at snakes (I want one so bad!) and the mammal-type critters, and I got very distracted by the fish. I looked at the saltwater fish and the freshwater fish and the catfish and snails and all that, but I eventually stopped by the bettas. I&#039ve always liked bettas. Their color and fins are so beautiful, and because they natively live in puddles and small areas, they can survive in very tiny bowls. Then I saw one which was so beautiful I just knew I had to get one! I got a little aquarium, some gravel, some food and a couple little decorations and bought the whole lot (very cheap too, I might add).

I was calling Squeak &#034Butch&#034 on the way home because I realized that he&#039s a male so the name &#034Betty&#034 wasn&#039t going to cut it. &#034Butch&#034 sounded okay for a while, though deep down I knew I was just going to let Kitty name him when I introduced them. She was on her matress in her room when I got home, and the first thing she said when she saw him in his little plastic cup was &#034squeak!&#034 so that&#039s his name. Squeak. The &#034Fisch&#034 part is just &#039cause that&#039s the word for &#034fish&#034 in German, my latest hobby.

After setting up the aquarium with the plastic plant, gravel, and little columns, I added the water and water treatment solution before balancing Squeak&#039s cup in the mix so the two water temperatures would balance out before putting him in his new home.

Kitty showed more interest in Squeak&#039s food and the empty packages than she did in Squeak, but she did poke her nose at him a little bit, trying more to smell the water than to watch the fish.

Finally, I let Squeak loose to explore his new home. At first, he just floated around the bottom near the gravel, but since then, he&#039s been eating and wrestling with the plant. Currently, he&#039s exploring the ancient ruins of the lost city of Atlantis on the right side of his bowl. Hooray for Squeak!

Posted: September 11, 2004 at a quarter after two.