So I flared nicely for the dark haired one who usually feeds me today. She took me out yesterday and cleaned my bowl and plant, freshened my water and added just the right amount of aquarium salt- it's nice in here! If it wasn't for the pellets it'd be just right. She's good about keeping the place clean, but you'd think she'd get the memo about the food. I haven't been able to communicate with them about the bloodworms, but I think that it'll be better soon.

I just got told that my Chica is coming back!!! The place is all abuzz.

I've missed her- she was much more devoted to my care than these folks. I mean, they're good to me, but the blonde really went out of her way to make me happy. She is a really good human, and I'm looking forward to showing her how beautiful my fins are, and getting bloodworms.


Have I mentioned the pellets? Well, I'm sure that the foster family will see how much I love them and make it up to me.

Hey Chica- hurry up!

You'd never believe how hard it is to get to this. These black haired humans my Chica left me with are always online, or in the bathroom with me. Never a minute to myself, I tell you.

And as if I wasn't enough- like they give me half the actual attention my blonde did- they got a new cat. She came by but the small human took her away, with a long scolding. I guess the small one is hers. Shame, I could use the company- although this new kitten looks a bit wild.

Honestly, the conditions since the blonde left me here are deplorable. Pellets! They've got me on pellets! Worms don't happen often enough at all. And the male human, when he changes my water, sings the oddest song- something like "the Pete is not dead....oh, I'm so glad, the Pete is not dead..." Which I am fine, thank you- I flared the mirror and left a nice bubble nest before they changed my water again yesterday. I like the frequent changes- I just wish they understood about the worms.

I've been flirting with the dark haired female- I think she's getting the hint as I heard her telling the male they should see about getting me something I liked to eat.

My chica who went to Korea has written the most disturbing missive today.  Apparently she is being abused by a cat.  You, as a feline imperial ruler, I implore you to make some sense of her predicament.  I understood that cats had excellent hygiene, and yet what she describes --shudder--

She is at lurkingheretic</lj> 

 

(p.s.

lunakitten</lj>

 ,  PM me, how is the old man fish anyway?)

The light schedule has gotten a little more consistent, though I'm sure the number of days I've counted don't match the actual time of year. I mean, it's supposed to be May, but the weather has gone from hot to gloomy, which is supposed to mean June. Still, pretty comfy in this lighted cage "the bathroom". Every few nights the glass on the bowl gets steamy and this is fun. Every several nights the chica takes the paper wall off and lets me flare at my pretty self in a full length mirror.

The food--still live worms, chica is trained well. However, those worms tend to be a little chilly on the inside, like they've been in a refrigerator and warmed. She drops a whole lot of them in and less often than before, so they crowd together to try to evade me. Used to be they'd just crawl under the plant, but I don't let them get that far.

Life ain't bad, and I'm still the most beautiful being in the place (don't tell the cat).

---------
Human-chica here. Been keeping the worms in the 'frig, was wasting too many of them otherwise. I rinse them out in tap water just before feeding them to Pete which I suppose warms them a little. It does make them more active. It's also easier to forget to feed him when I have to go to the 'frig to get them, so it's once a day rather than twice, and occasionally skips a day. He seems perkier this way.

No idea why the steamed glass amuses him so--any clue?

It is in fact May, but the weather has been unseasonable.

Chica has gone mad.

I'm in a different environment, a bathroom sink without a window.  It took  her a few days to put a light in there so I could have something resembling day and night, though sometimes I think she forgets and the days and nights are weird long or short.  One time she left it on for what seemed like forever and I got green algae on that end of the bowl. 

There's a small human who put paper in here once.  Once.  That will not happen again.

Needless to say I look forward to water changes!!  Filtered water with drops of conditioner.  At least the minion understands that much.

My old plant got moldy spots on it so yesterday the chica got me a new one.  Same colors, but  it only has two stems and it's so tall it pokes out of the bowl.  I am sending her back for a better one.  The short plant was a wonderful hammock and I will have that again.  I will.  It is so decreed.

Yes there's a cat here.  Rugrat the gh-gh-ghost doesn't hang around much anymore, but this live cat does peek in once in awhile.  As long as I stay in this...cave!...she leaves me be.  One time chica put the bowl on the bookshelf by the sunny window, and I was very nearly lunch.  Which would have been bad for everyone, because I'm certainly more bony than a can of tuna!

Sending the chica for more bloodworms today.  The last batch went bad and I've had to eat pellets.  ick.  Better than starving, but not by much.

Life has been good, what can  say?  Sure, the chica sometimes goes away for two or three days at a time, but the worm offerings are usually enough to keep me from starving.  I just hang out in the silk-leaf hammock, make some bubbles, and conserve energy until she gets back.  It's an easy life.

Today though...oooh she made me angry!  Tricked me into eating a vegetable.  A piece of skinned pea.  She dropped it into the water at about my usual feeding time, and I gobbled it without thinking.  She tried a second one but I was wise...fool me once as they say.

Last time she changed the water, she put me in the cup I came here in as a holding tank.  It was too small.  Hard to imagine I could ever have fit in that for more than a few minutes.

Tailfin split is almost completely healed now.  Yay!

Trained the chica to put her face next to the tank and not just her hand.  She'll do almost anything for a little gill flare and some bubbles.  The worms are fresh and plentiful.

She talks about missing Doc, how she needs a better place, how she misses getting pictures of Neko-chan.  She talks about something called 'forty'.  I'd make her coffee if I could--that seems to help.

Still have plenty of red but it's not as bright as when she first brought me home--I'm not a young pup anymore either I suppose.

Back on Friday the chica (my human) changed the water in the bowl.  Again I leaped, and again the clumsy woman damaged fin retrieving me.  One of these days she'll wise up and buy a net.

Meanwhile though, she goes out and stays out all night.  Not too odd, but when she didn't come back by noon I wondered.  Day went and night came and it started getting pretty warm in my home and still no sign of chica, not even lights in other rooms.  I worried.  I asked Rugrat (my ghostly companion) and he said that while this was unusual behavior that she usually came back eventually. I'd eaten the worms that I could get at but I'll bet there are a few hiding under the plant.

So I asked Rugrat what I should do, because I was getting pretty worried.  He said he used to let himself out onto the patio and bring back prey, and when he couldn't do that he'd make prey out of the linens and scatter them on the floor.  Offerings, in a sense.  These things weren't options for me, so I started bubbling.  I bubbled for what seemed like hours, past sunset and well into the night.  I made a bubble nest that had to be as thick as I am!  Surely the goddess in chica would come and see my offering.

Pathetic, isn't it?  You don't know what you've got until you miss it, or her.

She comes back, looks at the nest, and hurries to provide fresh worms.  I didn't hesitate to eat them, but now I suspect she'll expect extravagant bubble nests all the time, because she knows I'm not as haughty as I play.  But then, neither was my ghostly friend in his day.

Life is good.  Water changes are down to once or twice a week.  Blonde starts a new "job" tomorrow so hopefully that will mean more goodies for me.

Rugrat taught me to say "Don't pickmeup".  Yeah, didn't work for him either.

The split in my tail is healing bit by bit, and the finrot is a bad memory.  The red stripes in my fins are completely gone though, just a little red left in my gills.  I'm almost completely blue.  Pfooey.  I guess eating nice squirmy bloodworms 90% of the time has that drawback.  Or maybe it's the water conditioner?  I don't know.

Got some good quality mirror time today.  Eating like a horse, though trying to be finicky enough to eat the smaller worms first.  I get kibble about once a week--I guess when the worms get icky and the blonde can't get to the store.

Pete
the Piscine Piggamous Peacock

The human hasn't been letting me post much--claims she's "defragging" the computer, but really how long does that take?

Could be my sense of time is off too.  Electrolytes....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!  I have so much energy I'm pacing the tank.  She tries to tire me out by giving me more mirror time and more worms.  This is kind of fun.

Turns out the reason the cat who's advising me doesn't eat me is that he's a gh-gh-gh-ghost!  Nice enough guy for all that, and very good with How To Rule Your Human tips.  http://www.catster.com/cats/69816

Getting my water changed twice a week now.  Got the human to invest in some water drops that are electrolytes (weeeeeeeeee!), dechlorinator, and allegedly some kind of aloe vera to help heal the fin damage.  It's called "Splendid Betta Complete Water Conditioner". 
Even got her changing the water she keeps the worms in.  Is that a hoot or what?!?

On the less fun side--she's damned clumsy.  One time about two weeks ago, she was changing my water.  Instead of using a net or grabbing me in a cup, she reached her hand in the bowl and tried to scoop me up.  I'm strong and I panicked, so I leaped! ...into the sink.  That had no water in it.  She tried to pick me up and I was not amused.  By the time she got me into the changing cup she'd made a bad tear in my tailfin.  I'm still beautiful, don't get me wrong.  Will it heal, or am I doomed to go around with a bifurcated fin like some goldfish?  Let me tell you, she is getting miles of guilt over this! 

Keep those water changes coming, chica!  And maybe, if you're really really good, I'll make you just the tiniest little bubble nest like I did last week.  But just a little one.  Don't want you thinking I'm easy to please.

The human here.  Yes, I forgot to change the water until it got icky.  Pete stopped eating near as much as he used to, started hanging out in the open corner instead of the silk plant.  I knew for sure when, after I changed the water, he would not flare at his mirror.  So I took a close look, and saw some red fringey stuff at the end of his lower fin.  I reached in and brushed it and sure enough, some red stuff came off!  :(

Poked around some sites--cleaning water all the time is my first step.  Time to get some quarters and go to the filtered water machines, as I don't trust my home Britta system to filter out enough chlorine (actually, I have pool testing strips--I could probably find out for sure).  Some of the sites mention aquarium salt--???  I'll have to look into it.  I barely have enough money this time of year to feed myself, so that is unfortunately something to consider.

Any tips are warmly appreciated.  I'll post a picture as soon as it's done downloading.

p.s. the little guy got a tiny portion of a fresh pea, smuggled home from the sushi restaurant, still wouldn't eat it!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbarahs/871451923/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barbarahs/871451451/

(crossposted to betta_flare)

The other day my human was out overnight.  She left me a few extra bloodworms so it's not like I starved--quite the opposite, I think this bowl needs cleaning again.  However, there were these two really big animals with really big teeth who came into my bathroom, tore up three rolls of 'toilet paper', emptied the trash can that sits right under my bowl, and scattered things out into the hall!  I hope they don't come back.  I'm glad they didn't come after me.

Now I'm glad for that dayglo plant.  I just hang out there and hide among its branches, and hardly come out except to get food, make bubble nests, and flare at the guy in the mirror.  The human only puts the mirror there for a few minutes a day.

(Human here.  Is he hiding because the dogs got in the room, or did he even mind that?  Keeping the door closed from now on, dammit.)

The dizzy lady gave me a pea with the skin taken off, that smelled faintly of teriyaki sauce.  It now lies in two pieces on the floor of the tank.


Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-ya!

3 liters of fresh, clean, bottled water.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  Even worth putting up with the little cup thing for a few minutes.

Feeding has gotten slimmer but it's still plenty, so I can't complain.  Still don't have any LJ friends though.  :(  Nobody to suggest tank decorations.  Nobody who can tell the dizzy lady whether Sea Monkeys taste good.  Nobody to admire my lovely self (yes that is me in the icon picture).

Yep, she's a frustrated cat person.  But I can work that.

For one thing, I never lack for food.  I can even be picky and only eat the floaties and still get plenty, don't have to pick off the floor anymore at all.  I shouldn't have done that on day one either, but I was hungry from being at the pet store!  Now I can be finicky.  I'm starting to hint at color flakes and live brine shrimp, we'll see.  I know she was pricing "Sea Monkeys" but I don't know if those are edible.

Now the cleanings, eh, I live with that.  It's annoying to have a straw poked into the bowl, but it's better than a dirty bowl.  Annoying, however, is when she uses the straw to stir the bowl.  It's like being on a treadmill!!!  She says she doesn't want me to get bored, but I think she's the one who doesn't want to get bored.  When she drops things on the countertop it makes my whole bowl rumble, and I jump, and she seems to like that.  Dizzy humans.  She swears I crunch when I eat, but I don't get how she can hear that out in the air.

I'm a betta fish who was brought home by this crazy woman.  She came into the pet shop and played with the cats, so I was sure she was going to take one of them home instead.  She even let this brown tabby gnaw on her finger.  Weird.  That and I always thought female humans had long hair, and this one doesn't.  Go figure.

Anyway, she'd said something about a dog who eats cats, and then stared at the rack where I was among all the other bettas.  She moved me around a couple times, next to other guys with similar colors.  Said something about the other guys having 'plumage', but I knew they were just hopped up guys who liked to spread their fins out.  I'm a calm guy--I figure I'll live longer that way.  Eventually though my deep blue color with the red stripes won out, and she picked me up with a can of food.  The lady behind the counter tried to sell her some water clarifier, but she didn't go for it. 

Instead this lady lurkingheretic  walked next door and bought two big blue bottles of special water.  LOL I'm spoiled already, I thought.  They say cat people are very indulgent.  I was looking forward to a very cushy life.  Then she walked, and walked, and walked.  Was she going to walk all the way home?!?  No, she just parked a long way from the pet store.  She dropped the water bottles into a car and then sat down at a table.  WTF?!?  What a weird woman.  She sat down with me still in that little cup and painted her nails off-black.  I was hoping my new home wouldn't come with black lace and red velvet, or I was going to have to something drastic.  She named me 'Pete', said there was a song called 'Indigo Eyes' that made her pick out a fish in my color.  After her nails dried she put me in the cupholder of her car and drove home.

Home is now a 'Garfield' fishbowl, pretty roomy compared to what I'm used to.  No decorations yet--can any of you help me with that?  Suggest what lurkingheretic can decorate my bowl with?  Send her something?  She says she has stuff in 'storage' but I dread to think what that is.