happy birthday to the best fish I know

Today is a big day in my apartment. Today is my fish Alvin’s birthday!!! Well, technically it is merely the anniversary of the date he came to live with me, but that is far more depressing and time-consuming to say and surely he wasn’t swimming around in that little cup in the pet store for too terribly long before I came to rescue him and put him into a slightly larger home. You can read the story of his arrival here: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/04/something-fishy-is-going-on.html

In honor of Alvin’s birthday, I decided to see what was happening on this date in history. And it is not good at all. It’s the anniversary of Columbine. It’s Hitler’s birthday. If I had gotten him a day earlier, he could have shared an anniversary with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI and with Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, as both couples were married on April 19. Plus he could have shared an anniversary with Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected pope that day. Or, if I had gotten him on April 21, he could have at least shared a birthday with Queen Elizabeth II. But noooooooooo. I had to give him Hitler and Columbine. I am such a bad fish owner.

Overall, though, Alvin and I have had a pretty good year together. I think it was a good year for me because I didn’t kill him, and also because I stopped having elaborate fantasies that I would come home from work to find him dead. I’m glad those ended because they were really messing with my head. And I think Alvin would say it was a good year for him because he doesn’t live in a little cup at the fish store anymore, and he could have gone home with some crazy person who might have had cats that would have eaten him by now.

That’s not to say it’s all been roses. As I have mentioned before on my blog, Alvin is a pretty emotionally needy fish, and he gets very upset when I leave for work or vacation, particularly the latter, because it means I leave a feeding pellet in his bowl that leaves the water cloudy and smelly. And that means I’ll have to change the water when I return, and Alvin does not like that one bit because he becomes convinced that I am trying to kill him, even though I speak sweetly and reassuringly to him the entire time I clean his bowl.

Still, we have come to an agreement. I will give him two pellets a day and in return, he won’t die and traumatize me. I can put up with his attitude if he can put up with the fact that he has to live in a tiny bowl with a fake frog. To celebrate his birthday, I am going to make taco salad and we will watch Dancing with the Stars, because most of the costumes resemble the fringe and flash that Alvin himself has. Happy birthday, Alvin!