You shall love them too.

Because Adam and I got a shiny new shipment of new breeding stock bettas in. I'm slowly trying to build up what I lost a year ago due to some mystery disease that took over my bettas. So now we're working on getting some new pretties to buff up the stock since all we really had was a couple of home bred darlings and Wal-Mart rescues, as well as a pair of rather misplaced Mahachais. Now that we have new pretties, of course I spent near all night working on getting decent pictures. Mind you, for every one decent picture I have, there are a thousand tossers. People have complimented me on them but I wish they were better. My flash washes out the color and my autofocus will not allow me to take decent fry pictures.

Anyway, bettas ahoy! Now if only the job Adam wants would be posted so he can snatch it up and then we'll know we'll be staying in SL for a couple of more years. Not moving to Colorado right away? Stinks. Making decent money and having our landlord merge our apartment with the other apartment so that we can have a betta room? Spectacular.

Dah girls (I don't take ANY credit for some of the names Adam has come up with):

Sylvia, blue steel butterfly halfmoon female and sib to Atticus Finch:



Powder, Adam's platinum white halfmoon female:



Gertrude, a fat Wal-Mart rescue:


Meeka, my Mahachai female:


Pegasus:


And here I am going to divert. There are plenty of breeders who have success in keeping females in community tanks. However, before anyone sets one up, think about the consequences. I lost two females to a large female who decided that she wanted to be the only one in there. Pegasus now looks like this despite well over a month of melafix treatment. So again, before you think you can dump a whole bunch of females together, consider the risks. It was touch and go with Pegasus for a long time, but she's pulling through. I'm pretty sure she's blinded in her left eye. It's a real shame because she's the mother of the current fry who are turning out amazing and chances are she'll never be in shape to breed again.




Viper, sib to Pegasus and Galactica. Super, duper aggressive.


....

Now the boys:

Pokey, a red crowntail Wal-Mart rescue:


Mika, Mahachai male:


Galactica, dad of the current fry:


Blue, veiltail Wal-Mart rescue, still healing from badly nipped fins:


Charlie, another crowntail Wal-Mart rescue that was in a bowl of water so shallow his dorsal fin had dried and stuck to the side:


Everett, yet another veiltail rescue, also suffering from horribly nipped fins:


Atticus Finch, a blue steel butterfly halfmoon male:


Black Baggage (an Adam name...), a doubletailed black orchid halfmoon male. Nipped his fins a bit in the transit, but they aren't too bad:


Dan, another Wal-Mart crowntail rescue:


Frecklebutt (Another Adam name), a overhalfmoon male of crazy coloring:



Aqueduct (Adam's final naming excursion), a marbled mustard gas halfmoon plakat giant. Our big boy, 2.8 inches and only 3.5 months old! He'll bulk up and get bigger. Its a shame our flash is so ridiculous, it completely wipes out his marbling.



The kids!

When they were itty bitty:


Now! There's four of them that made it through the process of natural selection. There's only two pictured because my camera hates me and hates their colors.


Of course, and in the memory of the ones that are gone:

Fanny, murderized by Viper and Gertrude:


Frida, died of unknown causes:



Betty, murderized by Viper and Gertrude as well:



So there. Fishes. Love them.

Babblings on the road.

I've glued whiskers on my face
to feel my way through.
It's so crowded in there
six-car pile ups in every lane.
Everything echoes
justine, justine, justine
and they all stand at attention
in tidy rows to take the plunge
Me, me, me!
I never was her but she's taken over
colonizing my neurons
monopolizing my veins
clogging my lungs with her traffic
whispering in my ear,
Don't forget amelia
reminding me of my humanity
stripping me down to a familiar
haunting a stomach of highways.

Correctional Facility. Do not stop for hitchhikers.

It's amazing how many correctional facilities one passes when spending a week going from Illinois to Colorado. More specifically, it's amazing how many there are in Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, and Colorado versus Iowa. Whether granted or not, I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief as I passed through the child's scribbles Omaha calls their roads and went into the safe blackness that is 29 North, and even better, 20 East. There's something soothing about knowing that the only thing you have to watch out for are deer, raccoons, farm cats, and the occasional misplaced turtle. Once the fear that a crazy man or woman is going to pounce on your car or trick into a misadventure that ultimately leads to homicide fades, driving is a much more pleasant task.

One thing I've found the hard way is that I do not make a good passenger. I have come to the startling realization that as a passenger, I'm prone to car sickness. I'm not talking about the woozy feeling that strikes every so often but passes once one steps outside to stretch. This is the overwhelming feeling of sickness, absolute misery that demands one to re-enter the driver's seat no matter how fatigued they are and no matter how much more convenient it is to smoke in the passenger's seat. Laying down seems to only compound the problem. Gatorade or sweet tea lend no comfort. Walking only leads to further dizziness. Beef jerky suddenly suddenly seems to twist the gut and every passing car, especially the trucks, turn into very apparent threat. After a few hours of moaning in pain as my stomach twirled and danced, and after grabbing Adam's arm several times in a fit of panic thinking that he wouldn't realize the blind road ahead curved, I crawled back into the driver's seat outside of Omaha. I am not a night driver by any means. I lack depth perception and night only makes it worse. But I felt less sick and far more in control when I'm the one at the wheel. I might not be able to tell how far away that semi actually is from the front of my car, but hell, I sure can fake it.

I am convinced that absolutely no thought or planning went into creation of Midwest cities. Taking the interstate through Minneapolis is a nightmare. I will never step foot into downtown Minneapolis as along as I live. Honestly, how many one way streets must a place have? And I for one will never understand how the planners got away with creating all those suicide lanes. Omaha is confuddled by constant construction and uneven, grooved lanes. Even Fort Dodge manages to be a pain in the ass to travel through. St. Louis is a deathtrap and Alton, Illinois is the most poorly lit 'burb I've ever traveled through. Souix City and Ames have never been issues with me (besides the utter reek of Sewer City) and while I've seen each coast, I've never actually been to Des Moines. I don't have the urge to be. So honestly, I can't judge.

Yet when we made our way through downtown Denver and further on to Parker, I was surprised at the ease of driving. Yes, there was the consistent quality of people failing to realize that blinkers are a handy way to tell other drivers that you're going to hope three lanes in front of them. Yes, there were idiots that cut me off and people who felt the need to go only forty when the speed limit was 75. However, I found that it far easier navigate Denver than it has been for me to navigate Minneapolis. I'm not sure of the reasons for this. Perhaps its because Denver seems to be far more sprawling. Perhaps it's because it's not laden with useless one-ways. Whatever the reason, I found myself slipping into the Denver-driver mindset. At the end of the trip, Adam expressed to me his frustration that it seemed I had forgotten that a turn signal can and should be utilized.

I've done a lot of traveling these past two weeks. I'm leaving again for Denver this Thursday morning to hunt down some other apartments we are looking at. I'll be going on my own. Adventures ahoy! I'm greatly considering taking my camera so that I can record my thoughts as I drive. I need someone to talk to and it might as well be myself. But I digress. My last thought on the past few weeks would be how much I love the suburbs of larger cities. There was a point in my life where I thought I would enjoy living in a city. Not so now. It's too claustrophobic. The only trails are made of concrete and the scenery is nothing but devotion to man's ever growing need to expand upwards. A city looks lovely by night from a distance. I like to see the stars. I don't like to look above me and see nothing but a hazy wash. I like to walk out, look up, and wonder if I can ever train myself to be able to blow a smoke ring around the Big Dipper. I don't like the constant noise. I sleep better when the only noise is that of birds and the inevitable early carousing of the cats. The thunderous roar of paw pads tearing through the kitchen with a background setting of bubbling airstones and creaky fans is more comforting than the sounds of traffic and a choking way of life. I like to breathe. I like to look out and see the mountains. Some people are in love with the idea of looking out onto steel rather than a yard. I guess that's for them.

Another thing I love is the unity of suburban life. Up in Minnesota, Chaska will always consider their area better than that of Jordan. Life is better in Shakopee than in Chaska. It delights me to no end to know that the people of Alton will always consider themselves a class above the Grafton riverrats that live on stilted houses. Southern Aurora will always be more high class than the northern parts and northern Aurora will consider southern Aurora stuffy. Cherry Creek is high class and everyone knows Wheat Ridge is scummy. There's something that's neat about it. It's almost like the inane Spencer/Okoboji/Spirit Lake rivalry but on a larger and more active level. Sometimes I think I live off of conflict. I don't think I would be able to settle in a place that didn't look down upon some other town. Life would be far more boring.