Ok, yes, this picture is exactly what it looks like: A ton of blurry little baby fish swimming around one of their proud new parents. It is getting a little out of control. I mean, I know it is spring and everything, but for these guys to spawn twice in  2 months seems to be a little excessive. Does anyone want some convict babies? We have about 300 more than we can take care of, at the moment.

I would be moving these little guys in with their older siblings, over the weekend, but it turns out that I will be working the whole time. I was barely able to talk my way into coming in late tomorrow, so that I could run the Brooklyn Half Marathon. Sorry to be complaining, but this situation is stressing me out.

These little guys have been doing great. They are eating twice a day, now. I moved the mama back to the large tank, so she could be back with her homies, and resist the urge to cannibalize any of her young. This week some of them have started to develop their little convict stripes.

These little guys have graduated from eating random detritus to eating ground up veggie flakes. They are also looking like actual little fish, instead of tadpoles or something. They still don’t have a lot of color. But they are very cute and curious. When I get close to the tank to look at them, they all swim over to look at me. It seems like there are about 15 or so that have survived this far. I hope that they are all big and strong enough to make it, now. At least none of them have to worry about swine flu, right?

Last week, I moved the mother convict and all of the fry into a smaller tank, in our kitchen. I thought that they would at least have a chance, in the other tank. Last time the convicts spawned, the other fish had eaten them all in a couple of days. Initially after moving them, a lot of them swam down into the larger gravel and became lodged, or met their demise in other ways. I was pretty bummed, thinking that maybe it would have been better to just leave them in the larger tank to fend against the other fish. I expected them all to have died by the time that we got back from Boston. When I got out the net to move the mom back to the large tank, surprisingly, I noticed that some of the fry had survived. They had even grown a little bit. They move around pretty fast, so it is tough to catch them on camera. They are the little blurs in the image above. The mother is as protective as ever. She stands guard up against the glass, like in the shot below, when ever I even get close to the tank. With a little luck, some of them will last.

Reagan and I have been watching the pair of Convicts in our fish tank, flirt and dig for the last couple of weeks. They have emptied all of the substrate from an area of about 1 square foot, in the back corner of the tank. They piled it all up around their little nursery, like protective walls. We could tell that they were probably going to spawn. Yesterday, Reagan said that she saw the male convict take on Tina (the oscar), who is about double its size, and scare Tina away to the other side of the tank. After hearing this, I suspected that they had probably already laid eggs somewhere. I wanted to try to see them, if I could. So I closely inspected that little corner of the tank. It was really cute to see how nervous they got, with me close up against the tank like that. They were ready to fight. At first I couldn’t see anything. But then I noticed the female herding some little fry back to the pack. She has them all tucked away in a little nook of the rock that sits in the back corner. If you couldn’t see them in the photo above, here is a close up.

We had a freaking awesome time with Piper on Christmas morning. She got so many new toys, she doesn’t even know what to do with herself. I’ll get into that more, later. Anyway, we left Westchester around 1, for the airport. We flew out of Newark for the first time ever. It was pretty much the smoothest trip we have ever had. We got a great parking spot at the airport. We made it through ticketing and security, no problem, sat on an exit row. Blah blah blah.

We are having it great time here hanging out with Reagan’s family.We went to waffle house for breakfast.

Her sister and brother in law gave us tickets to the Aquarium.

Then we saw a hockey game afterward.

After the game, Reagan’s brother-in-law took us for a tour of CNN. It was pretty freaking awesome.

-there was this

-One of our oscars died. He probably didn’t feel loved, since he didn’t even have a name.

-Reagan got sick.

-I got sick.

-My mom got sick.

-One of my photos was in Gothamist, again.

-The biggest item, of course, was that I officially joined the ranks of the LDS, again.

Our Alley at night — ↓

Piper’s doctor called me yesterday to tell me that they switched out her GJ tube for a regular G-tube, again. They said that the GJ tube seemed to be leaking and may have come dislodged. I was surprised that they didn’t need our consent, and that they could do it without a interventional radiology team. But they said that she is doing ok, so I’m not going to complain.

I rode my bike to work yesterday for the first time, since my last one was stolen. I now have the biggest, most expensive bike lock there is. It weighs like 50 pounds. When I rolled up to work, there was a security guard standing near the bike rack. Since I am now paranoid, I went down to check on it a couple of times during the course of the day. The security guy was standing there every time. Where were you 2 weeks ago security guy?!!! Reagan rode her bike to work yesterday for the first time. Her lock is kinda crappy, but she can lock it up right in front of the salon, where she can basically see it the whole time. Unfortunately, she is also paranoid, because of mine being stolen. So she was compulsively checking it. Hahaha, poor thing. I plan to buy a 50 lb. lock for her too.

Marathon training is still going great, for Reagan, so-so for me. Reagan has been getting up every morning to go. I have been joining her for the long runs on the weekend. This week is a 10 mile run. She wants to do it on Friday morning. I like it better when we do the long runs on Saturday, but I’m thinking that it will give me a good excuse to go into work late. I know that I suck at training, but at least I’m getting a lot of riding in. That has to count for something, right?

Our newish little fish are starting to grow. Reagan loves them when they are little and wants them to stay that way. I must admit, they are pretty cute when they are so small. I am pretty impressed that they have all held their own, so well. Even though they all pick on each other, there still haven’t been any fatalities.

For whatever reason, I really just haven’t been into the Olympics this time around. I feel like a total loser, because suddenly this year, everyone seems to be obsessed with them. I used to love them when I was younger, especially track/field and gymnastics. I grew up in the era of Michael Johnson, and Mary Lou Retton. Beijing just isn’t doing it for me though. I have a tough time even reading the highlights from the previous day, each morning. I find myself being more interested in the peripheral political issues, surrounding the games, than the actual events. Speaking of politics, I really enjoyed Jim Nelson’s commentary (as always), this month. It hasn’t been posted on the GQ site yet, so I can’t link to it. But if you get the magazine, I suggest you check it out.

Statistics aside, our household has been affected by the heat in more ways than one. Currently we only have one window A/C unit, which lives in our bedroom. Normally this is fine, because no one is home during the day and we are only in the bedroom at night. Well, yesterday, of all days, I left work early and Reagan’s salon closed early. We needed to get a new A/C unit for the guest bedroom anyway, because Reagan’s sister is coming to stay with us, starting Thursday. So, in spite of suspicions that most places were sold out of window units, we took a quick trip to Target, to find out that indeed there had been a run on air conditioners and that they were out of stock. Oh well, at least we got out of the house for a minute.

Part 2 of this pointless story is that the temperature of the fish water is off the chart. The thermometer only goes up to 78 degrees and the needle is buried. They have been a bit sluggish because of it. In fact, I put a big chunk of chicken in there last night and Napoleon barely even touched it. Now get ready for something really gross. This morning, I went to feed them and Napoleon had some kind of white parasites growing on his head, and the entire front wall of the tank was also covered with them. Gross! If it is from the chicken, then all of you vegetarians are totally validated by this story. I think that it is probably a chicken/heat combo that caused this outbreak. Anyway I didn’t have time to do a water or filter change this morning so I just loaded up the water with copper salt and anti-parasite until I can take care of it tonight. Thank goodness Reagan is working from home today, so that she can keep an eye on them. Don’t buy chicken in the heights.