Hector has just hours left. This video is for him:

Are these times contagious
I’ve never been this bored before
Is this the prize I’ve waited for
Now with the hours passing
There’s nothing left here to insure
I long to find a messenger
Have I got a long way to run
Have I got a long way to run
Yeah, I run

Is there a cure among us
From this processed sanity
I weaken with each voice that sings
Now, in this world of purchase
I’m going to buy back memories
To awaken some old qualities

Have I got a long way to run
Have I got a long way to run
Yeah, I run
Yeah, I run

Have I got a long way
Have I got a long way
Have I got a long way to run
Have I got a long way to run

Yeah, I run (have I got a long way to run)
Yeah, I run (have I got a long way to run)
Yeah, I run (have I got a long way to run)
Yeah, I run (have I got a long way to run)

–Run by Collective Soul

Hector, our phallic “heady” Oranda Goldfish who has been with us for the last 5 years, doesn’t have much life left in his little body.

He’s got quite a bad case of ascites which is a symptom of dropsy. He’s in the late stages of the disease, and thus terminal. I feel for him. I don’t know if fishes can feel pain, but I feel it for him.

We’re debating how to euthanise him. We had to euthanise Willy, the Beta that we had for two years back in the condo. I had gotten him for The Girl when she took refuge at my place to escape her parents. Parasites infected him and he started to suffer. No end of medicine helped.

The internet instructed us to freeze him. That was supposed to be a humane way to help him to pass. We put him in the freezer in his Ziploc bag of water for a week because we wanted to make sure he was really, really frozen. We remembered he was in the freezer after about 3 months. He ended up well frozen and in a much better place.

Now the internet says that freezing fish may not be the best way to euthanise them. I’m going to have to research a little more.

Hector deserves more than a live flush. Besides, he won’t fit.

THINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:

1. Innovative

2. Preliminary

3. Proliferation

4. Cinnamon

THINGS THAT ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:

1. Specificity

2. Anti-constitutionalistically

3. Passive-aggressive disorder

4. Transubstantiate

THINGS THAT ARE DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:

1. Thanks, but I don’t want to have sex.

2. Nope, no more booze for me!

3. Sorry, but you’re not really my type.

4. Taco Bell? No thanks, I’m not hungry.

5. Good evening, officer. Isn’t it lovely out tonight?

6. Oh, I couldn’t! No one wants to hear me sing karaoke.

7. I’m not interested in fighting you.

8. Thank you, but I won’t make any attempt to dance, I have no coordination. I’d hate to look like a fool!

9. Where is the nearest bathroom? I refuse to pee in this parking lot or on the side of the road.

10. I must be going home now as I have to work in the morning.

I was off on vacation during the last week of August last year because my boss took the week off and closed the office. My plan was to clean the windows in the house. We have so many that I knew it would take me close to a week to get them all done.

Every morning of that week I went for a walk with you-know-who. We always passed Y and B’s house on our walks. Each morning we saw Y outside doing his stone work, and each morning we stopped by for 15-20 minutes to say hello. Y was always up early in the morning doing his stuff. B slept in until 11 or 12 each day.

Thursday morning was an extremely hot and humid morning and so when we passed by Y’s place I suggested we take the dogs for a swim in the brook that runs behind both of our houses. Y agreed and said that he would take the opportunity to show me some parts of his forest that he had already shown The Boy.

Down at the stream, the dogs ran and swam happily with each other, but I had to call an end to the fun eventually because I had to get back home to my window cleaning. Walking out of the forest, I noticed Y and B’s younger daughter sitting on their back porch with a friend of hers. The friend watched us as we emerged from the forest and whispered something to their daughter.

That weekend brought the usual visits from Y. He arrived on his own with his dog. We didn’t see B that weekend.

I was back to work the next week, but still did my daily morning dog-walks.

On Tuesday morning as we walked by Y’s place, he waved to us and I thought he was waving us to come over. We walked up to the house. This time B was awake and outside. As we approached both Y and B they both appeared agitated as though they had been arguing. Once I got to the house, B disappeared inside.

Me: Are you alright?

Y: I can’t talk now.

Obviously something strange was going on and I had mistaken his wave to me possibly as a warning not to come over? I felt a creepy sensation of being watched and turned around and saw B spying on me from the corner of one of the windows of the house.

Me: Um. I’d better go now…have to go to work.

The whole experience was so unsettling that I called The Boy to tell him about the situation and how uncomfortable it was.

That night as I arrived back home from work and turned onto our street, I saw B sitting in her car at the corner. Just waiting for something–or someone. I waved, but she looked angry and appeared to get even angrier as I passed by.

The next day was uneventful. But the night…Well that next night was when I came home and saw her car parked outside our house. She was not in it.

Next: The end of a relationship.

Congratulations to Adrian and Kelly, my brother and sister-in-law, on the birth of their daughter, Ella Jade (7 lbs, 8oz).