It is disheartening to note that the little aquarium can’t seem to house the latest batch of fishes. Remember Bob Clayton and the community post-Bob Clayton? All went to pet heaven.
Last week, M2 noticed the state of the aquarium and asked,”Daddy, you have new pets? I see some pet water and pet rocks.” Hardy-har-ha.
Maybe it is better to just let the aquarium be a table decor than what it’s supposed to be.
Hubby bought a Bushnell binocular over the weekend. He felt it was a practical buy as we could use it to watch our favorite pro golfers, up close, whenever these players are in town for their LPGA or PGA tours.
But we played with it over the weekend, watching our pets up close instead. Happy and Herbie, the tortoises, were let loose in the garden and we used the binocular to observe them. So cool to view them so magnified and see their expressions.
Then I used it on Rooney, official pet number one. Up close, my Roo looked stunning; with his fierce look and folds, it really took my breath away!
He is indeed handsome. Amazing what a binocular can do to make one see their pets differently. It’s very different looking at him with the device compared to an up close face-to-face as details are zoomed in, becoming more pronounced and thus, the appreciation for his dogginess heightened.
I guess I will put it to good use on the pets for now.
It’s been raining again lately and this has caused a lot of woes in the garden. For starters, snails are crawling everywhere and this is detrimental to the plants. Hubby has declared war on them and the last two nights, he’s gone out to catch them.
Armed with the torchlight from the iPod and iPhone, the girls and him have had quite a catch. M2 decided to keep one and named it Michael, as if it’s a new pet. Don’t ask.
Last night, more were caught and Michael 2.0 became the latest addition. Let’s see if there will be Michael the III the next day…
It was a balmy night and everyone was out in the garden after dinner, even the Roo, official pet number one. He was given a juicy bone and gnawing to his heart’s content, his drool messed up all over the terrace floor. Yuk, slimy!
Then playtime started. His favorite orange chew cow was brought out to tease him into action. Feeling revved, he leaped to snatch it from me and as he trotted towards the terrace, he slipped on his own drool pool!
It was hilarious but the girls missed it. Hubby and I guffawed and thought he would be a clown about the slip.
But he was embarrassed!!! He sobered, limped a little and did not look at us! He literally looked away. Aww… My baby was embarrassed that he slipped and we laughed at him. Hubby had to coax him and gave him a good scratch and some loving. It was so amusing. I hope we hurt didn’t his feelings…
Two weeks ago, I spent a girls’ weekend with M1 and M2 when hubby went off to play golf. It was our usual routine at the mall: a nice lunch, a leisure browse at the bookstore, a quick survey at the pet shop and fulfilling the buying stuff agenda but no major shopping. When we got to the pet shop, we decided to buy Roo a new toy since his cow has been in tatters while his sheep was mutilated beyond use. After much debate, M1 chose the same cow as before. It was a simple rationale: official pet number one loves the color orange and he adored his old cow, even in tatters, so the new cow would definitely be revered as much.
Indeed. That night, we had a happy Roo, tired out from playing with his new cow.
It’s been raining a lot these days and as such, Rooney, official pet number one, has not been exercising much. Either that or he’s been snacking too much. Looking rather pudgy than a studly dog, hubby is appalled how fat he has become. This reminded me of when we first brought him home and he was mistaken for a little pig!
He was a beautiful little yellow ochre, curly stubby-tailed puppy at seven weeks old when we adopted him from the pet shop. Coming from a champion line, we were so proud of our latest addition to the family then. One day, we brought him out for a walk and the part-time maid across from our house, from the balcony above, saw him.
“What’s that? Is that a pig or a dog?” the curious maid hollered loudly, obviously having never seen an English bulldog breed before.
He may be yellow ochre in color with a curly stubby tail but the pooch ain’t no pig although he may have or could have looked like one from afar with his color and short legs. Or it could be his trot or the floppy ears that had him resembling a little pig. I was too amused to be insulted.
Well, six years has gone by and my fat little pig then has grown up to be a fat big pig now!
The community post-Bob Clayton era seems to be doing well. In fact, thriving and happy. So far there has not been any further deaths after his selfless sacrifice except for my phone.
I was admiring the aquarium with its yet-unnamed inhabitants a few days ago and I thought, “Aww… Aren’t you all so pretty!” and decided to take a picture to capture the prettiness, using my iPhone4.
I don’t know what happened exactly but I recall as I was about to swipe the camera from the locked state (of the phone) into action, it did not kick in. Am I that clumsy? I swiped again. And again no response. Then total darkness on the screen!
Horrors! What have I done?! I tried to press the home button. Blackness. I tried the On/Off button. Again blackness. Trying to maintain an unnatural natural calmness in this predicament, I announced, “My phone died.” to hubby and the girls.
“Yay! Mummy can get a new phone!”
“It died?” “How? What happened?”
Obviously there was concern but nobody came rushing forth to comfort me. M2 offered to fiddle with it but confirmed that it was indeed dead. Oh dear. What am I going to do?
Thank goodness the superhero Google Mum in me surfaced and, using the iPad Mini, managed to find the solution to the problem! The iPhone4 has been rescued and up and running fine since. Phew.
Right after I wrote about Bob Clayton, the unthinkable struck! Bob Clayton has mysteriously died. Noooooo….. The first thing that came to my mind was ‘The new replacements for our little fish tank did it!’ How dare they? Or could it still be the unsettling of the water? The pH balance not right?
We will never know. RIP Bob Clayton.
We bought a new little aquarium recently. Simply because the little space next to the stairs lately has been calling for a little oomph there; so we decided a little fish home instead of another piece of furniture.
And when you have a little fish home, you got to have some little fish in it. So we bought three little albino tiger barbs and a little hypostomus plecostomus (in plain English, a sucker fish). M2 named the barbs Huey, Dewey and Louie. The plecostomus’ name, however, was debated between ‘Bob’ (to follow the other ‘Bobs’ in the pond) and ‘Clayton’ as suggested by M1. Undecided which name it shall be, the girls compromised and hence, Bob Clayton it became.
Spot Bob!
For some unforeseen reason, Dewey did not lived pass the week and had gone to pet heaven. Then two days later, Louie followed suit, leaving Huey behind. Poor things. Unaware of Louie’s demise, I told the girls when we were out and they asked about Bob. “He’s ok,” I said and the girls sighed in unison, “Bob Clayton lives!”
We have since bought new replacements, yet to be named. Let’s hope they last a little longer.
Not too long ago, I bought another new orange toy for the Roo: an orange colored chew cow but kept it as a spare for appropriate moments. Normally, toy purchases are not given to him immediately, the release timing has to be just right.
So several days passed by before the appropriate moment presented itself. Time to bring it out for him to play with then! When M1 saw, she lamented, “How come we don’t get toys anymore?”
“Yea, Mummy, we want toys too!” echoed M2.
“Well, you two have been asking for books all these while, that’s why no toys,” I pointed out.
“We want toys!” both said in unison.
“Something that we can play with and not put on the pedestal,” M1 emphasized.
“Hmm. I get toys for you for Christmas then,” I offered.
They may have grown up but still a child in some ways. Toys it will be for them this Christmas then.
Angieneering 
Remarks