mo, twinkletoes, belle

were my fishies, oops,
Our fishies. we had mo the longest.
i had been hostessing a concierge party down at coal harbour. On arriving I was puzzled to see a big glass bowl, a really big one, filled with gold fish.

I passed out canape's, made chitter chatter, saw some friends, shot a couple oysters absolut, badda bing badda bang, its time to go home, and my feet are killing me.

On my way out, a slightly dishevelved SD, our very cutting edge marketing guru thrust a bag in my hand, a wet little bag. Inside staring up at me were two bulby eyes. I protested by meekly raising my arms up, waving my hands by my face, random synapses firing off in my brain, bang, snapple crap! i didn't wanna be a fish jailer!

SD wasn't paying attention, she was busy trying to pawn a bag off to the navy blue suit, he looked at me, his eyes as big as the fishies, "You wan-me to eat him?" we looked up at SD, quite concerned.
Aparantly not.

SD continually paraded customer service centric marketing gold from her attic office, and the party was great, the fish idea may not have been a shiny moment but, it brought me to mo.

I began walking, speedily and painfully up the friggen hill, my arm extended clutching the bag as though it were an explosive device. traffic was a beach ball as i found myself pounding on the hood of a car as the driver blindly ran over my quickly backward bouncing feet.

i had no bowl, no tank no nothing to put this dang fish in and so there i was rushing down robson st hoping a few stores are still open. thats when i saw it, the store, chocoloat moose! "whoo hoo", i thought " it's open!"
i got a gorgeous wide lipped vase (i found out gold fish need lots of surface air) all the while wondering just how i was going to broach all this with my partner G.
that's when it hit me, he's always liked fish, i knew he was partial to tropical and, while this orange poop machine wasn't exactly the type, i would give him to G.! that sounded good.

G. was totally into the tank thing, but wanted to take our goldfish back and trade him in for some tropical fish.

I felt terribly responsible, i mean i took him, i could have sed no, but i didn't. i waved my little hands in the air, but what did i accomplish? a bruised toe, a $60.00 useless piece of glass "art", and now this! what was i condeming him too? i kept thinking about navy suit's look of horror as the image of the only function he'd ever seen a gold fish serve, clashed with his consideration of what he was supposed to do with the one being offered to him now.

as we walked in to our neighbourhood pet store, i observed someone buying a bag of what the lady called "feeder" fish. i looked into the bag, and saw streamlined orange bodies, bodies like our fishie, he wasn't a fancy fish no frills or fru fru's for him.

G. asked if mabey we could at least get some tetra's?

that night we sat down with mo, two other gold fish [fancy ones this time] three tetra's, and a few others that left us pretty rapidly.
the goldfish kept swimming up to the bowl, taking turns shaking their things. in a blink they could take off and then for a while, mabey drift non chalantly around the tank.

mo's name came fairly easily, i was drawing up images from his behaviour and appearance... mo, mo, mo... G. was saying it too suddenly in a crescendo we both came out with it mobey, for mobey dick of course. he was a big feeder fish, and if i had my way, he was gonna get even bigger.

twinkletoes came up next, she was a fancy fish, she had long elegant back fins, a rounded head, pretty eyes and her movements were so elegant. her name was obvious.

misfit was next. he sort of listed to the side a litte, seemed shy, unsure but he took his place silently in front as all the others had done as well, and shook his thing, lopsided. we weren't happy with the name misfit, and it seemed he wasn't other. he was soon dead. the unusual black spotting on him was a fuge, we had actually thought it was a special marking the sales person had sed "oh yes, look at that." when we mentioned it to her. i never saw her at the store again. hmmm? mabey she didn't actually work there?:-)'
anyhoo, the tetra's slowly died off too, but mo and twinkletoes didn't just keep going, they thrived. and i loved them.

i trained mo! trinkletoes too but really mo was the best and most enthusiastic. he would follow me or my hands so i could dance and direct him, we could dance together.! i know. i know. but i loved him.

a day came where our tank was looking particularily bare so we went out and got another fish. i was cautious i didn't want to get another sick fish, and i didn't want to expose those we had to anything either. we found belle, another fancy gold fish, she had extreme boulbousity of the crainium. translation: hugely fat head, her tail fins and side fins were beautiful transparent wings, and her colour was vey pale gold.

once in a state of reverie, i became entranced by the dappling of light in
water. the gold fish lit up from within.
like dropplets of living light, suspended in a tiny ocean.
for a moment i felt i had seen below the skin; and glimpsed something mysterious
about the universe.

mo, twinkletoes and belle.
had mo for four years, through our engagement, our wedding and honeymoon, through my anxst-ridden teen nephew's visit, as well as my globetrotting grannies stays.

then one day, after trusting the pet store once again, we returned and got some new gold fish.
the next day, i woke to a massacre. fish bodies every where. i didn't see mo; i just ran and bawled my eyes out, while G. dealt with the scooping and the flushing.

it turned out one of the fish we bought was infected with some kinda lice or something actcthth pluthph (that's me gagging and spitting over the memory) it killed them all.
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i've wanted to do a painting of goldfish for a while now, began a disastorous attempt and ruined a canvas. I really like how my digital sketches of fishies 1 & 2 turned out. they'll be a great base for a new canvas or two.
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