An Update, a Mystery, and an Outrage

This weekend we went to Bellingham to surprise my dad for his birthday. He was asleep when we got there--it was closing in on 11:30 pm--but my mom made me wake him up so he would know what I came for. What followed was this conversation:

Mom: Wake up, honey. Someone's here to see you.

Dad: What?

Me: Surprise! Happy birthday!

A minute of chatter including "thank you"s, etc.

Dad: How long have you been planning this?

Me: A few weeks.

Dad (to Mom): Did you know about this?

Mom: Yep. I actually kept a secret!

We mostly ran errands on Saturday, but we did make it to Lynden (a Dutch settled town near Bellingham) in an effort to go mini-golfing. My dad loves mini golfing. Sadly, the mini-golfing place was no longer open. But as a consolation prize, we got to take these:

 

  

Last night for Jason's dad's birthday, I made creme brulee. For the first time. I'm always a little worried about my first attempts in cooking; they frequently turn out like this. What I've come to realize, however, is that the only cooking I can manage to truly mess up is simple cooking: cakes from a box, chocolate chip cookies, etc. Which means that for a first effort, my creme brulee turned out quite well. Next time, I would torch it from the start (we tried using he broiler to caramelize the sugar originally), which would keep the creme part from cooking with the brulee part. I didn't get a picture of the finished product to share because I was too busy licking my ramekin clean, and I mean that literally. But if you're curious, the recipe came from Epicurean.com and can be found here.

As for the mystery, this ought to be a shocker. Remember those strange aquatic beasties Jason and I found while hunting for tadpoles? Yeah, they disappeared. Which makes for another batch of aquatic pets we've somehow managed to lose. Here's the evidence:

See? No strange beasties swimming in there! (It is kind of hard to tell because of the swamp murk.) In this case, we suspect that the transfer from swamp to tank shocked them into changing into some kind of flying beast instead of a swimming one. So if you see a strange orange mohawked flying creature, wave goodbye to it for us.

And finally, the outrage. Before I go on, take a moment to look at the date stamp at the top of this post. What does it say? Hmmmm? Oh, yes. March 8th. And I'm writing this from just outside Seattle, where the weather is fairly temperate all year round. Except for on March 8th, 2010, when it randomly snowed.

 

It didn't stick, but it's the principle that matters! Also, I hate snow, so when I hear of it snowing anywhere, I get angry. That's why I never watch the weather; I just look it up online. 

Anyway, now I have to go to work and I'm probably going to be late if I don't let this post get on its way. I have a few projects planned, so we'll see if I can actually blog about real things instead of just making fun of people. Should prove to be an interesting experiment.

Le Grand Mystere du Petit Poisson

The sad tale of our many aquatic friends is long and complicated (and also a tragedy) so I will pass on relating the whole story for now. Suffice it to say, since November, we have been the owners and protectors of two small scum suckers. That sounds like an insult, but it is merely the truth.

Anyway, after our last eight fish died (that's the tragic part), I was trying to distance myself, in case my bad karma killed our new fish. Every once in a while I would look in, see how they were doing, notice that the tank continued to be a scum-free fishy apartment, and go my way.

But after a weekend trip, we couldn't find one of our little fish tenants. Usually scum suckers are not difficult to find, as they tend to attach themselves to the sides of the tank, but I couldn't find our friend anywhere. We searched the filter, and he was not in it, alive or dead. He's not in or under any of the rocks. And we were only gone three days, not long enough for him to decompose. And we have seen neither gill nor fin of him since. So here are the theories:

1. His brother in sucking turned cannibal and ate him.
2. He made a bid for freedom and leaped from the tank, ending his days in agony in an unknown locale.
3. He has been relocated by the witness protection program so he can testify against the neon tetra mafia he worked for when he lived at the pet store.
4. He’s Harry Houdini, reincarnated in fish form, and he has escaped his watery confinement to become a celebrity among fish.

Personally, I lean toward the witness protection program option because I've seen what tight groups those neon tetras form. Also, they are very flashy and I don't know where they get the money to keep themselves in such style. I have a feeling that Le Grand Mystere du Petit Poisson will remain unsolved--at least until we move in April, when we will probably find his poor little carcass, not quite decomposed enough to hide the bullet hole from the neon tetra gun that did him in.