Dead and deader

Ding dong, the fish is dead. Which old fish? The orange fish.

And also the orange and white fish. And also the orange fish we bought to replace the orange and white fish. But not the orange fish that we bought to replace the original orange fish.

Fish killing. It's a gift.

Now all you folks who keep pestering me about coming clean about the state of our fish can go back to doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing. And I can continue working. You know, that thing that I am supposed to be doing instead of bowing to your demands for a new post.

~g. mango thinks fish are food not friends

So long, and thanks for all fish names

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Name! That! Fish! contest. There were some fantastic suggestions, and it was very difficult to choose the winners. Please do not cry if your fish name was not picked. With our history of pet maintenance, we will be able to use all of your names in the near future.

WINNING NAMES

Congratulations to Jacquie and THE ONE WHO TYPES IN CAPS UNNECESSARILY for their winning suggestions. Your respective suggestion of Fish and Chips, and Milli and Vanilli have tied for first place. So we took one name from each combination.

Introducing Augustus Fish and Theodore Vanilli. Simply referred to as Fish and Vanilli.*

The tasty snack that smiles back

*Unless they do something that requires admonishment, in which case we call them by their full names.

HONOURABLE MENTION

Brucie: Sushi and Sashmi
Zacc: Timble and Tumble
Jacquie: Hook, Line, and Sinker
Anonymous : Shocked and Appaulled

AND ALSO TOO AS WELL

I am officially done the Re-Edit of Doom. Please join me in celebration and general merriment.


~g. mango is an editing geniass

Here fishie, fishie, fishie

Tomorrow is your last day to Name! That! Fish!

The Intern and I will announce the winning names on Monday.

~g. mango loves her some contestes

Missing in Action

Louis had a hard time adjusting to his new pet pals. When we brought the nameless fish home on Thursday, we put his mayo jar next to their bowl so he could see his new pals. He spent the better part of the day pressed up against the glass, arms and legs fully extended towards them, looking longingly at the new arrivals in the fruit bowl next door.

Being the weak little mango that I am, I finally caved to Louis' passive aggressive melancholy and put him in with his new fishie friends on Friday afternoon. He seemed fine at first -- a little apprehensive about his new pals, who, I guess, looked a lot smaller from the safe confines of his mayonnaise maison -- but very excited about the new toys he had to explore in the fruit bowl. He particularly enjoyed the coffee cup, and curled his little froggie arm around it while he played hide and seek with the fishies. It was cute. It was comical. It was shortlived.

For though Louis seemed pleased to be in a new domicile, after a few hours he started acting strangely. He avoiding the fish completely, swimming close to the top of the water when they passed by. So close, in fact, that he began sticking his little non-air breathing, aquatic frog nose out of the water for short intervals.

So before I headed off to bed I fed him, and spoke to him in low comforting tones to assuage his grief. Which seemed to work, and he was back in the water for a night of fun.

Or so I thought.

To my dismay, on Saturday morning Louis was nowhere to be found. The Intern and I searched high and low. We checked every inch of the fruit bowl, moved the coffee cup, inspected the filter. Checked the kitchen counter to see if he had made a botched attempt to escape and had found out the hard way that he can't breathe air.

Nothing.

The only plausible explanation is that he was eaten alive by ravenous frog-eating fish. But the Pet Expert said Louis and his new pals could live in harmony. And the fish don't look any fatter. And there are no frog remnants in the water. So, have you seen him?

Please call 1-800-MIA-FROG if you have any information about the whereabouts of Louis Grenouille.

~g. mango needs something other than aquatic amnimals to talk about

Name! That! Fish!

WORDS

After the death of our beloved Sammie, and weeks of searching for an affordable aquarium wherein to house a replacement Sammie, the Intern and I had the luck of finding a fabulous fish tank in the earthquake room in the basement of our bachelorette pad.

And behold it was a fish tank, and it was good.

So good, in fact, that we rushed out and got Louis some playmates (see Fig 1.1). Louis and his new brothers will move into the fish tank once the water has been purified, clarified,and whateverelse-ified. But for now Louis still lives in his mayonnaise maison. And our new fishies reside in a fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.

And let me stop all the naysayers right now by saying that it is a huge fruit bowl, that bowl is. A huge bowl with a pump and a water filter. A huge bowl of cleanliness and aeration. So resist the temptation to report us to the Humane Society, the SPCA, and PETA. Thankyouverymuch.

The new fish are as yet unnamed. And I am pretty much stuck for names, having exhausted my creative genius with Samuel L. Fish and Louis Grenouille. So the Intern suggested inviting you, my beloved public, to suggest names for our newest family members. And thus, a contest was born. A contest to Name! That! Fish!

So, please, Name! That! Fish! And that other fish, while you're at it.

Let your voice be heard by leaving a comment. You have one week before the contest closes. On your marks, get set, go!

PHOTOMAGRAPHS

Fig 1.1


Mulberry 1.2


Breadfruit XP

~gaze upon g. mango's fish and shudder!

Clay on words

I finally got off my butt and found something recreational to do with my extra time. Or, at least, I checked out a pottery class offered at one of the local churches. It's one of those "learn-by-doing" configurations. There are teachers there, but they pretty much let you do your own thing. So this week I tried my hand at a mug and a squarish plate. Both are still drying at the church, and both look very basic and lop-sided. But

a) I am a beginner
b) that's okay with me
c) I don't have enough patience to work on something that I know will look like a beginner made it whether I spend 15 minutes or 15 hours on it.

The mug is incredibly ghetto and reminiscent of the pieces I did the last time I did pottery in 1988. I knew nothing about proper handle-making, or drying times, or what leather hard meant at that time. And I sure as hell don't know anything more now. So chances are the handle has already broken off and the mug itself has exploded in the kiln.

I am particularly proud of the plate. I used a plaster mold, two different colours of clay and a little artistic license around the edges. I cut away most of the clay to give it a modern/artistic/oops-i-don't-have-enough-clay look. Hopefully it will survive firing.

I'm going back next week to paint it. . . or glaze it, or whatever you call it.

~ hey, give g. mango a break, she hasn't done this since she was six

Ding dong the dog is dead

Well, perhaps not dead. But no longer in my house.


~g. mango's mirth overfloweth

The people have spoken: Part Three

Writer's block is my favourite kind of block. Good thing the people spoke. And good thing I've been saving this post for a rainy day. Mosey on over here to see what the people said in episodes one and two of this series.

NEW CITY

Vancouver is:

• surrounded by water on three sides
• in the shadow of gorgeous mountains on one side
• the laid backest small city in the history of forever
• not too flat
• not too hilly
• very green
• going to stay very green if Vancouverites have anything to say about it
• mild and merry
• sometimes mild and soggy
• in the midst of spring
  
• full of culture
• easily traversed via public transit
• full of friendly drug addicts
• full of friendly car thieves
  
• a great place to raise children despite its friendly felons
  
• a great place to be 2o something and single
• seriously lacking in accessible Tim Horton's
• only a four hour flight from Toronto

~which means Toronto has no excuse not to visit g. mango on its day off