We have welcomed three fish into the family. The whole weekend was filled with tasks to prepare for their arrival — setting up the tank with rinsed blue gravel and plastic plants, filling it with water, attaching the filter, and learning what kind of drops we need to make it safe. Purchasing a heater, a thermometer, and an Eiffel Tower just because who doesn’t need an Eiffel Tower with barnacles in their tank? We’ve learned about tropical fish, and community fish and who gets along with whom, and who needs salt water and who doesn’t. We’ve spent considered, measured, vacillating minutes in front of the tanks wondering which three fish would be the first to come and live with us? We made sure the water was a balmy 80 degrees before we brought home a black kuhli loach — a wriggly eel-like freshwater river fish who was named Black Water Dragon in honor of Chinese New Year. We also picked up a neon pink fish dubbed, Starfire, and a juli cory catfish named Groucho Marx.
Interestingly, I seem to be worried about a lot of things aqueous right now. Not just these fish, but the plumbing we need to get done in the bathroom because our tub faucet has gone from dripping to trickling to an almost pouring. Not so bad if you pretend it’s a fancy water feature we’ve added to the house. But it’s also begun to smell mildew-y reminding me of the city pool locker rooms when I was a kid and that can’t be good. Plus there’s that whole “you’re wasting water in the desert” rant going on in the back of my head.
Oh, and there’s the worry I’m carrying around about my kid’s recent lack of dentistry and what a lax and terrible parent I am. And there’s these damn fish that I’m beginning to feel attached to. I’m checking in on them every time I come and go.
I tell Liam about the aqueous stress and he says, “Well, it is the year of the water dragon.” Hmm, well that’s something to think about. I read that water allows the dragon to “re-direct its enthusiasm”. Ok. Ok, I think, I can work with that. It’s time to think about the flow. It’s time to just get in the current and swim.
