Pat the phish, the neon paparazzi, Pee and Dee

In all the chaos that is my life these days I forgot to tell you all that I finally replaced Alexa and Peter, my goldfish, who slipped away one after t'other a few months back, leaving me bereft of animal company.

Well, replaced is a strong word. They are irreplaceable.

I finally got my act together one day and bought some fish.

A scarlet ghourami, two hatchet fish, and four neon tetras.

Put them in the tank. Watched them for a bit.

No personality emerged, so I ignored them, apart from feeding them the required amounts.

Very boring. No names jumped out at me or anything.

In fact, they just made me miss Alexa and Peter more. (I know, it's sad, but they had personality and liked music and all kinds of things. Plus I didn't know many people then).

Anyways, after a couple of weeks I was bored one night, so I watched them for a bit.

I don't like the ghourami. He's a big reddish fish with a pot belly and long whiskers dangling down either side of his pout. He swims around the bowl like he owns it. In fact, he reminds me of Pat Rabbitte a bit in his gait. (Except I like Pat).

And he was bullying the tetras. The four of them were huddled together in a corner of the bowl quivering as he sailed around imperiously.

I decided to call them the meeja.

So anyways, time passed and suddenly we were at the housewarming for our neighbours who just bought a house up the road. Which took place last Saturday in the pouring rain, so it wasn't really a warming, more a shivering under the gazebo on the patio avoiding the clumps of water falling from the sky.

Or an Irish Barbeque, as we call it at home.

Happily though, I ended up sitting beside a molecular biologist from Carolina called Amy, who had dressed for the Carolinas in June, not the Maritimes in June, but who was nonetheless interested in my fish dilemma. 'Buy another ghourami', she advised me, 'one about the same size'.

I considered that for a moment, and was trying to think of how I'd explain about how there was only one Pat Rabbitte the phish really and that wouldn't work because he'd take lumps out of another similar fish, when she sensed my hesitation and said I could buy a rake more tetras, so they'd have safety in numbers.

So now the meeja have turned into the paparazzi, and Pat Rabbitte the phish is the one skulking in the undergrowth.

Serves him right for scaring them.

I have two hatchet fish as well. I decided to call them Pee and Dee, because there's only two of them, he he, he. (People from Canada will not get this, Irish political Humour, d'ya see).

So there you go, the menagerie is complete again.