During the week of St. Patrick’s Day…I found 3 four-leaf clovers. Like…real ones.
So…obviously…I kept them. They have been sitting on top of the chifferobe ever since. I had every intention of pressing them in my favorite, first edition copy of To Kill A Mockingbird…but still they sit. Today…I found one on the floor. Crushed up into a gazillion dried up clover pieces. And that just proves my point that nothing is safe in this house. Probably…some ball came sailing over the balcony and knocked my poor, little clover off it’s perch. And probably…there was a kid involved. And probably…they don’t even care!
Plus…let’s go ahead and talk about the jack-in-the-box that is at my feet right now. I tell you…that thing is what nightmares are made of…clowns popping up out of nowhere…when you least expect it. And I’m scared to move the thing…because it might get mad at me.
Let’s move on to happier things. Like the County Fair…where things like chili cook-offs, super potato sack slides, cheese on a stick, classic country music, and ranch rodeo’s take place.
The County Fair and Rodeo are one of my very favorite things on this planet. And I wait all year for that thing to roll back around.
This weekend…we took our first trip out. It’s a place where I feel completely content. The kids are happy. My boots are on. Nobody cares what you look like. And everybody is there for the same reason. We all love Texas. Your only concern is getting the goldfish that your sweet Annslee James won home…with enough water to last the night.
This is Clemy. It’s full name is Clemy Clemson Clarkson. I voted for Deshaun…after Clemson’s quarterback…but Flicka James calls him Clemy. Notice how much water is in that little tanky thing. We will come back to that later.
I took this screen shot because it is a very happy moment for me. It’s when my little girl let go of her fear of the super slide and decided that wild freedom ain’t so bad.
This fish was rescued from the tea-cups, rode in the bottom of a stroller for half the night, and was re-filled with water before we headed home. It endured a lot of sloshing.
By the time we got him home…Clemy was swimming in about 2.5 inches of water. I carried Clemy in from the car…and then went back out to get his sleeping owner. She mumbled sleepily…”where’s my fish.”
“He’s safe, my love. Go back to sleep.”
I’m not going to lie. Her love for this fish transferred right to me…like all things that are important to our children do. So I spent a good hour…at midnight…researching how to keep a goldfish alive. I prayed Clemy would last the night…and turned out the lights.
The next morning…I closed both of my eyes as I entered the kitchen…scared out of my mind that I was gonna see a floating Clemy…
…but there he was! Swimming in his 2.5 inches of water like he owned the place.
I promised Annslee that we would go to the pet store after visiting Honey to get Clemy the necessary supplies to live a good life.
And that’s where that girl found a light prism!!! Honey’s crystal flower was making rainbows all over the living room. And I took that as a good sign of things to come.
And then my mom and dad showed up! And that man had just won a golf tournament! He’s no stranger to winning all kinds of golf tournaments…but this day was special. This was the day he got his groove back. And the day that prism rainbows covered Honey’s house. And the day that Clemy was getting his new home.
Ok. So…it turns out that there’s more to keeping a goldfish alive than a bowl and some food. Those carnival workers should really put a warning label on that throw-ping-pong-ball-into-a-fishbowl-and-win-a-fish game. This fish wasn’t gonna be free.
A goldfish has to have a small filter. Because if it eats it’s own poop…it will die. And it has to have water conditioner. Because if there is chlorine in the water…it will die. And the water temperature has to be not too warm…and not too cold…or it will die. And if it doesn’t get enough light…it will die. And if it eats too much…it will die. And if it gets startled…it could jump out of it’s tank and die. And if you put anything with bacteria on it in the tank…like a shell…it could die. And if the rocks in the tank are too small…it could get one in its mouth and die.
So…$63 later…Clemy had a tank…a filter…clean rocks…a clean turtle friend…some kind of hut thing that Annslee felt he needed…water conditioner…and an owner who was taking this thing very seriously.
As soon as we got home…we got the tank ready. I sterilized the turtle and the other thing (whatever it is). I cleaned the rocks. I added the water and the water conditioner and let the tank sit for two hours…to ensure room temperature water. Just as we were going to move Clemy to his new home…Annslee noticed water all over the counter.
You guessed it.
The tank had a crack on the bottom. And the pet store was closed.
After locating the crack…I called my friend, Cara. Because I knew she would fully appreciate the problem. Plus…her husband likes fish. And he fishes. And he builds things. So obviously…he’s gonna know what to do.
“Does she have any apoxy??
“Nope.”
“Does she have any silicone????”
“I don’t think so.”
“Superglue??”
Done.
I have a teenage driver who will go to the grocery store for me if I tell him he can get whatever snacks he wants.
He took Aiden. And those two came home with 3 tubes of superglue…1 bottle of rubber cement…and pop tarts.
I heated up my glue gun while they were gone…because short of building a house…a glue gun can just about construct anything.
So…I had spent hours preparing this tank already…and I thought…
“If there is any way that I can make this happen with the water in it…I’m doing it.” Superglue is remarkably sticky. This is not my first rodeo with this stuff…if you’ll remember the Christmas ornament triage post from a while back. So…I know. It can stick.
I had a lot of little people invested in this situation.
You can probably guess.
This did not work.
And…once again…I ended up sticking my fingers together AND to the superglue bottle.
At this point…I was down right pissed.
I can’t believe I’ve allowed this stuff to get the best of me again.
So…after unsticking my fingers and admitting that we were gonna have to pour the water out and start this whole process over again…I dumped all of my beautifully, fish proofed water out in the sink.
I coated that bad boy with the rubber cement…and then used 2 glue sticks on top of that. It was a hot southern mess.
But if this doesn’t make it all worth it…
My girl had breakfast with her fish this morning.
We’re not gonna talk about the fact that I got up twice in the night last night to check on this fish…and to make sure the tank wasn’t leaking.
What we are gonna talk about is how I believe Annslee and I have proven to the family that we are ready to take on 2 of the chickens that happened to hatch in her 1st grade classroom today!
And how I’m taking my theory that a glue gun can solve the majority of the world’s problems to the bank.