Friday, November 7, 2014

The Adventures of Sunny


This is Sunny. He's alive and well...swimming and eating and doing all the other things fish do...

We were sure he would no longer be with us last weekend. In an effort to de-clutter my house, I decided that Sunny (K's fish...that didn't have a name until the fiasco) needed to move. So move he did. To K's room... It was a great opportunity to clean out and clean up her room and move the shelf from my kitchen. It was also a great opportunity to clean out his tank. 

I've never had a fish. I'm not a lover of animals. Any animals. So, the prospect of moving a fish tank and cleaning it up kinda stressed me out.  But I can do it. And teach k. And it will be a wonderful moment when we are finished and the tank is clean and we can sit in her room and admire our work.

Except that's not what happened. Did you know that you have to acclimate the fish to the water before you dump it out of your measuring cup back into the tank? Even if you squirt a bunch of fish tank stuff in the water.... Well, I did not know this. Handsome assumed I was knowledgable about not killing fish. I am/was not. 

The cleaned tank and fresh water was moved into sister's room. The shelf was organized and chair was placed perfectly for a reading/admiring my fish nook. Fish dumped. Checked off the to do list. Moving on the cleaning the house (or watching TV)...

As I sat on the couch "cleaning the house", 

K screamed: Something is wrong with Sunny. 

Me: Who's Sunny? 

K: My fish!!

Oh. Well ok. Now what.... So we sat on her perfectly placed reading/admiring fish nook chair and watched Sunny lay on the rock in the tank. 

Crap. I think I killed her fish. And we had just figured out a name for it after 10 months of ownership. I walked outside to Handsome to tell of the dramatic aquatic happenings when he asked about acclimating the fish. 

....

Whating the what? 

Handsome came in and concurred with K. I had indeed killed the fish. 

I apologized. Told her that Sunny lived a long time for a fish. And promised a shopping trip for Sunny Jr. 

K: It's okay mom. I think she's having babies. 

Me: ........(blank stare)..........

K: That's why she's about to die. She's about to have baby fish like in Charlotte's web. (please read that with growing excitement)

Me: ..........maybe..........

She continued to sit in her perfectly placed chair for reading/admiring her fish and I left the room to ponder the unexpected pregnancy and death of Sunny. (Where do we even go from here, you might ask...read on...)

A few minutes later I came back in to check on sister and Sunny. I found K in her perfectly placed chair for reading/watching the miracle of birth and she was crying. Because I had killed her fish. (Worst mother ever) We cuddled in the perfectly placed chair for learning about life and death. And she decided we needed to bury him. (please note: Sunny is still a "him" even though he's about to have miraculous babies and die....)

What a great idea! We can all sit crammed in our tiny bathroom and say a few words as we flush the fish. Nope. Unacceptable. We have to have a memorial. Katelynn got right on it. She decided the time of death was 2:30 and we would have the service at 3:00.  She got to work. Dug a whole right off the front porch so that every time we tripped and sprained our ankle in the hole off the porch, we could remember Sunny. 

We met at 3:00 on the porch...right beside the hole. (PLEASE NOTE THAT SUNNY IS STILL ALIVE,,,,THIS IS JUST A MEMORIAL SO WHEN THE FISH FINALLY DIES, WE CAN JUST FILL THE HOLE UNCEREMONIOUSLY) Handsome conveniently had to run to Lowe's and was excused from the service. Little Man tried super hard to get out of this but I explained in a compassionate and loving voice that he had to man up and stick this out with me. 

Sister created the "rip". 

I didn't know what that was either... Luckily, a week later, we still have it laying around...

The grave marker. His rip. MEMORIALIZED!

Michael and I had to write down what we loved most about Sunny. (And Michael asked who Sunny was during the service...was he not paying attention???) My words were picked to be said aloud. 

"I love that Sunny (is that his name?) was a good fish to Katelynn. I am thankful that he was a good fish for our family"

We had a moment of silence and then went about our day as if there wasn't a death in the family...because there WASN'T. But I feel like we have saved minutes of future time for when Sunny finally does get dumped in a hole right off the back porch. But we will have to dig another one because Handsome could no longer stand it and convinced K that the hole needed to be filled in on Monday. We gave the fish a good 2 days before we gave up on the burial.

Handsome has requested that K not be in charge of pulling his plug...

Joyful today for non-dead fish and for a sister girl that entertains *even while in mourning...

This is where the fish was... doesn't it look grown up (especially with the b-b gun on the ground...

Joyfully full of it,

Tiff

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