After Cooper's excellent suggestion of blogging weight loss support, I am going to create a second blog - this time a cooperative blog, intended to be a place where participants can give each other support and make each other laugh. I'll post a link here when I get it up and running. If you would like to join in, leave a comment or email me :)

In other Losing Things news...we have had an incident that is flat out odd.

A few months back, my mom bought the kids each a goldfish and one large bowl with gravel, a plant and a rock to swim through.

Stats (Day One):
3 healthy fish
1 healthy plant
1 decent sized bed of gravel (clean)
1 rock with hole in middle, upright (clean)

The fish were received with glee and promptly named: Princess (my oldest's) Coochie (my son's - and may I say ??) and Dish (the baby's). All was well in the bowl of Princess, Coochie and Dish - for like a month.

Stats (Day 30):
3 healthy, if overfed fish
1 plant, floating in dismembered strands
1 decent sized bed of gravel (filthy)
1 rock with hole in the middle, upright (growing things)

Ew! Ick! Poopy fish water. Must be changed. I donned my rubber gloves, removed the fish after much splashing, cursing and one close call with knocking the whole thing over.

Dump filthy water (and half of the gravel, right into the garbage disposal! Another brilliant demonstration of my mad skillz!) Wash bowl. Wash rock. Wash remaining gravel. Fill bowl with tap water, forget chlorine remover. Add kit and caboodle and put on top of microwave, whereupon hubs informs me that this is incorrect feng shui placement. Spend afternoon convinced that I've fatally poisoned the fish with chlorine, and belatedly add squirt of remover.

Spend half hour trying to pick gravel out of disposal. Brainstorm! Stuff dishtowel into disposal to dry. No. Spend 10 minutes with hair dryer aimed into disposal. Yessss! Insert vacuum hose into disposal, and hold in place with wooden salad tossers in the shape of bear claws, from Alaska doncha know. This should protect me from possible electrocution (along with wearing tennis shoes) in my best estimation. Freak out for a minute, then turn on vacuum.

Surprisingly, this sort-of works. We still find a rogue piece of gravel now and then, but seems to have been resolved. Genius!

Stats (Day 60):
2 healthy-ish fish
1 sickly fish (Princess)
1 sad-ass plant, all chewed up
Pathetic smattering of dirty gravel
1 rock with hole, laying on side
Water - opaque green

Bleh. Ugh. Ick. Princess is swimming on her side. She looks mangy.
So. Much. Algae. Perhaps this is ancient feng shui rebuke. I remove fish, plant and big rock, dump gravel into colander. Gross out about colander getting slimed with fish poop and decide to buy new one. Wash wash wash. Reassemble troops. Put on kitchen counter next to coffee maker. Hubs decides to keep his trap shut about feng shui.

I then set about ignoring the fish, until I noticed Princess floating peacefully at the top of the bowl right before bedtime. Hummed Taps and performed ritual flushing. Buh-bye.

Flash forward to two days ago (which would be Feb 2, 2005, yes 2005, not 2004 as I had posted earlier. I will be forwarding the drugs to all parties who have requested the time travel special.) As I reached over the bowl to grab a paring knife to slice an apple, I was rammed from behind by the baby, and dropped the knife into the bowl. It landed harmlessly in the gravel, and since the bowl is once again gur-rody, it is time for the ritual cleansing.

Stats (Feb 3, 2005): (okay?)*edited again to note that WTH? Why does it say February? Why? What AM I smoking?*
2 vaguely suicidal fish
1 filthy smattering of gravel
1 stalk with two leaves, floating
1 rock laying sideways, propped against bowl side, green.

The fish allowed themselves to be captured with no effort. If there had been a sandy shore, they would have beached themselves long ago. Sigh. I retrieve plant remnant, gingerly remove knife, wash gravel and big rock in dedicated fish poop tainted colander, clean bowl, and reassemble. Fish give me fishy looks. They look so morose the way they just open and close their mouths like that. Glug. Glug. Glug.

Fast forward to this morning. My daughter asks to feed the fish. I hand her a few pellets and she drops them into the sparking (if I do say so) bowl.

"Mom! Coochie is missing a front fin!"

"Nooo. Look again."

"Mom, look. The fin is gone."

"Wow. You're right. Wow. That's WEIRD."

Now I am left to ponder where the fin has gone. Did it disinegrate in the foul waters of Circus Lagoon? Did Dish go nuts and eat it? Was there a rumble? Did I *gulp* slice it off when I dropped the knife? I never saw no stinkin' blood. Did I touch a dismembered fin when I was washing out the bowl? That thought right there is worth a creepy heebie-jeebie dance.

Ew. And they trust me with real live children.