Learning to Love Fish

That's what I've been doing over the past few weeks.
Aaron and I had a day off together after returning from Rachel's dinner party in California two weeks ago. I had to go to Michael's store of crafty materials to look for a particular vase to make additional centerpieces for the refugee organization's fundraiser. Well, they didn't have the vases, but, while we were floating around the aisles (we drove back at 10 pm, returned to Phoenix at 4:30 and awoke at 8 for a birthday breakfast, and thus, were sleep deprived), we saw this crazy glass pedestal vase thing with a lid. It looked so fanciful that we decided we had to pay the $20 for it.
But what were we to do with it? It was a little too big to put cookies in; too short for flowers to stand inside; and too see-through to just leave on its own. So, since we had also traveled to the pet store earlier that week, we decided that either a hampster or fish would look cute. We also decided at that point that putting a hampster inside of a vase was somewhat ridiculous and maybe even cruel.
This was to be our big adventure for the day.
We went to the best fish store in town and bought 6 snails and 3 fish with other aquarium habitat materials. Mind you, I don't really have any sort of affection for fish. I think they're fun to look at sometimes but I also find them tedious as they don't cuddle and you still have to clean up after them. Anyway, this was just an adventure. So, we put the fish in the new fancy vase, leave for an hour and come back to find one fish dead. That's when my heart hurt a little. I liked his coloring.
So, we left again to find a larger, but equally fanciful fish bowl. That was our mission: it had to be bigger, but still beautiful. We decided that Pier One has all sorts of ridiculous things and we found a tiered fish bowl for $9.99. It was like one fish bowl stacked on top of another so they could go up and down... like a fish condominium.
We awoke the next morning to the second dead fish. That one was fat with googly eyes. Very adorable. That's when we decided we must make sure the last fish lives.
He was doing great until a few days ago. He'd been struggling with air because we didn't have a pump. Last night I was on a mission to save this dear darling fishling, and so I spent $101 on a new set up! Holy mother of jesus, mary and joseph, I now have a complete aquarium, I'm 25, and I don't really like fish. Silly. But, I am still worried about the fish. I must say, he's adorable and if he's alive when we get home tonight, I think it will prove a good time to name him. We'll buy frogs this week. Diving frogs. I'll post pictures later. I know you all must be dying to see our regular old fish tank. This is very exciting for me now. And yes, I now love fish. My fish.