My Goldfish Friend

I bought a goldfish yesterday.
Some might consider it an impulse buy, but I don't believe a 75cent fish is ever an impulse buy. It's a gift you give yourself.

The whole thing, from fish to net to flakes to blue aqua rocks, cost me $6.72. I'm using one of my mother's large vases as the bowl. I named her Buffy. My friend also bought one, and named hers Joan Jett. Together we're "new fish mommies."

Buffy's a pretty, amber sort of gold, with a black spot running from the tip of her dorsal fin all the way down to her mouth. The rest of her fins are gold in the middle and rimmed with black, lacey edges. She's the most beautiful goldfish I've ever seen, and I love her.

I read in a book about a lady who had trained her goldfish to recognize three taps on the glass rim meant it was feeding time; I'm trying to do this with Buffy. The author never said how long it took for the goldfish to catch on. My fish hasn't quite gotten the idea of the flakes being on top of the water, and she seems pretty unaware of my vigorous tapping on the rim of the vase everytime I go to feed her.

I'm sure we'll have a breakthrough eventually.

I also read on a random website that sometimes goldfish need enrichment in their boring, glass bowl lives, and that every now and then I should surprise mine with extra nourishment and nutrients. Take, for instance, cucumbers.

Cucumbers.

I can't imagine.

How small would you have to chop them?
And how many would I give her? How much is too much?
Would there be an even bigger mess to clean up than the mess she leaves from fish flakes?
Would the leftover cucumbers turn the water a gross sort of pale green?
Do cucumbers mold in water?
Wouldn't the mold contaminate the goldfish?

.... Feeding cucumbers to a goldfish?? Fancy that!

Fish really are fascinating creatures, though. I feel like I could sit by my bedside table and watch her swim around and around for hours. The way they move alone is inspiring to no end. I've always been jealous of sea creatures and their ability to effortlessly propel themselves underwater. Sometimes it doesn't even look like their moving, they're just floating. "Being and breathing," just like my favorite Yogi Baron Baptiste says about meditating during Twisting Triangle pose.

It's a strange thing about goldfish, but I feel like Buffy will help me with my writing. I can't explain why, but it really just feels like good authorship to have her around. I'm not sure if it's her presence that is making me feel so inspired, but I've already got big plans today for me, my laptop and my saved, unfinished Microsoft Word documents.

It's a little unnerving knowing I'm sharing my room with another living creature, though. I haven't had a pet of my own in a really long time. There's a quiet sort of reverence and awe that comes over me when I observe her in all her secret, marine splendor. A respect for Buffy's life.
I know she's just a goldfish, but she's a living, breathing thing. All living things deserve respect. Even the small, curious looking beetle I found on my pillow yesterday, which I carried all the way downstairs and outside to put on a leaf.
You get what you give, you know?

Suffice it to say, I really hope she doesn't die in two weeks. I'm already hopelessly attached to the way she voraciously eats, and also the way she just stays, floating in one spot and her odd preoccupation with swimming backwards until her Caudal fin touches the glass wall behind her.
She's kind of an odd duck for a goldfish, by my understandings. I like that about her, though. She's got gumption.

Before I close this goldfishy post, I want to share something I learned yesterday about the communication habits of Chameleons.
My two friends and I were at the pet store, and one of them fell in love with an adorable young chameleon with its tail curled up, lazily, yet cautiously crawling up the small branch in its terrarium. Later in the day, she was looking up Chameleon care facts, and shared with me one of the most amazing and astounding things I've ever heard.

Did you know that Chameleons change color not only to camoflauge themselves for predatory or protective reasons, but also to communicate with each other?

Witnessing a feat like that is something I can't even imagine.
Stumbling upon two beautiful, highly unique creatures unaware of my intrusive presence, communicating with each other by usage of bright flashes of varying color, and affectionate flicks of their unnaturally long tongues?
What are they saying?

If I were a biologist, I would make it my life's work to study the patterns and meanings of Chameleon communication. In fact, the whole thing makes me want to be a biologist just so I could study it anyways.

God has created the most fascinating world, hasn't He?



My loves,
My doves,
my eggs.