MaeLyn's Musings

My last fish is dying. I wrote him a haiku: The last fish is sick Limp, it drifts, waiting for death. I'm like a vulture. I feel guilty, watching and waiting for him to finally die. I've enjoyed having fish. When we first got them, about six or seven years ago, I loved sitting and watching them swim around. It was relaxing. The first night we had fish, the molly started popping out babies and it was an adventure counting how many we had, when the number increased daily, and then decreased daily as the small fry were either eaten by bigger fish or caught in the filter. Only one of the babies survived to adulthood. Over the years we had many kinds of fish. Besides mollys, we had neon tetras, zebra danios, plecostumus, a shark, snails, and even a frog, as well as other types of tropical fish I don't remember the names of. But now it is the end of an era. About a year ago, when the four cats settled in and started stalking the tank, I stopped replacing fish...

Abish checking out the fish tank The cats have always enjoyed our fish tank. They watch the few remaining fish (we're down to two) swim around. They watch intently when I clean out the aquarium and sometimes attempt to help. They love to lie on top of the aquarium and look down from that perch. This morning I noticed that the water level was low, and so I removed the top in order to add some more water. I left the room to fill my bucket with water, and when I returned, the water in the tank was sloshing around rather rapidly. Peter was quick to inform me that Abish  had jumped into the tank! I assume she didn't realize that the top was off, and instead received a wet surprise. Sure enough, I discovered the poor cat, probably wetter than she's ever been in her life, trying to dry herself with her tongue. She wasn't all that was wet either. Besides the stack of school papers and books that happened to be lying on the dresser next to the aquarium that were enti...

I feel sorry for my fish. We have had fish for the last five years, ever since our neighbors gave us a fish tank they didn't want anymore. One of the first fish we got was a black molly that had babies the first day we had her. Only one of the babies survived to adulthood, the others getting stuck in the filter or being eaten by the other bigger fish in the tank. Over the years we've had mollies, guppies, zebra danios, neon tetras, catfish, snails and a frog. We've had fish in stripes, solids and with spots. We've had fish in almost every color. When they died (after a couple weeks or a couple years) I'd scoop them out and eventually replace them with something new. I've cleaned out their tank about every other week for years, fed them every day with fish flakes or freeze dried blood worms, and spent a lot of time watching them, counting them, and searching for the hiding ones amongst the big rocks and plants. They don't demand attention. They don't remi...