Happy Weirds Day

A few years ago the kids started celebrating my role in their life on Fathers Day because (due to my gender androgyny) Mothers Day didn’t quite fit our situation. Of course, qualifying for what the Native Americans call Two Spirited, Fathers Day didn’t exactly fit either. Their solution? It’s Weirds Day! I love that. When you’re a person like me you have to have a healthy sense of humor. Anyway, the kids are in Wichita with their dad, so Nettl got up early this morning and got me a Weirds Day present from her and the kids: a fully-fitted aquarium and some fish.

This fish thing went exactly as I predicted last month when I bought a regular gold fish (Abercrombie), a calico gold fish (Fitch) and an Algae-Eater — a Plecosaurus, or something like that — (Algernon) for the patio fountain. We were happy with those three, but then I went out and got four Neon Tetras. Bad idea. Fitch, who we now call Caligula, had a feeding frenzy after we went to bed that night, leaving only one (not really a Neon at all, but an Albino Tetra) the only living survivor. I moved him indoors into a fishbowl and named him Claudius. It was at that time that I told Nettl, “I know what’s going to happen. We’ll have an aquarium within the month. Wait and see. I’ve done this before.” Sure enough, Claudius looked really lonely, so I bought three more Neons and kept them all in bowl on top of the piano.

Fishbowls are a lot of work. You have to change the water every day. I moved Algernon to the bowl, but it didn’t really help. Thus, this morning we have an aquarium, another Pleco who we named Hoover, and five more Neons. We now have a total of 13 fish. Now I want some Ghost Shrimp and a couple of water snails. Nettl wants to get two Black Moors. This is exactly how it works.