"New Fish Day"

This past Saturday was new fish day for me! :) Two new sets of fish were added to my aquarium.

For awhile now, my friend Paul and I have been talking about doing a "guppy swap". We both have fancy guppies. Guppies tend to have a lot of babies. But eventually they tend to get a little in-bred in the same fish tank. So we decided to swap guppies with each other, to get some new genes in each of our aquariums' gene pools.


Then last weekend, my friend Rick mentioned that he & Heather have some silver dollar fish that they wanted to get rid of, so he asked if I wanted them. But, of course! :) [I think that if it were typical to find stray fish, like other people find stray dogs or cats, I'd take them all in. Of course those stray fish would have to be hanging out in puddles or something.] I had to do a little research first to make sure that the new fish would get along with the guppies, platys and rasboras that I already have. From what I read, silver dollar fish are fairly peaceful and they're herbavores, so they should all be fine.

Rick asked me last Friday if I wanted to get their fish on Saturday, so Paul asked if we should do the guppy swap that day, too. And we did. We all met at Paul's. Fully equipped with my little styrofoam cooler to minimize temperature fluctuations for the fish, and water spillage in the car, I brought my guppies and received new guppies and silver dollars.

The guppies acclimated very well. They couldn't seem to wait to get out of the bag and play with the other guppies in the tank! They have a slightly different color than the guppies I already have, so that makes a very cool addition to the tank!

The silver dollars are very pretty and much larger than any fish I've had before. It's cool to try out a new kind of fish in the tank. However, they seem to be a lot more skittish! I was going to help them get acclimated by introducing water from my fish tank gradually into their little bowl before putting them in my fish tank. But as soon as I removed the lid from their bowl, they started flipping around like crazy!! I'm surprised none of them actually got out of the bowl. I quickly replaced the lid, and they immediately stopped their flailing. I thought maybe I could move them from the bowl to a large bag instead, so I could float the bag in my tank for awhile. But I wasn't able to do that by myself either, mostly because of their crazy flipping around every time I removed the lid. By this point these fish had sprayed water all over my shirt. :)

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to turn the bowl sideways so I could at least fit it partway down into the tank, remove the lid, and just dump them in without any water or temperature acclimation at all. I hated to shock them like that, but they just weren't making it easy for me! ;) All 3 fish immediately swam to the bottom of the tank. One laid down almost completely on his side. That didn't look too good, so I was kinda worried about him. Another one was leaning up against a rock. The other was hanging out in a plant near the filter. He kind of kept getting sucked back toward the filter, then swam away from it, and repeated that process a few times.

Within 10-15 minutes the one laying on his side got up, and all 3 of them swam around a little. But mostly they just hid out behind the plants in the darkest corner of the tank. At least they were all sitting upright and a little less jumpy.

Today they're still mostly hanging out at the bottom, and I have yet to see them eat anything. I even made a point of pushing the food down in the water so it would sink down right in front of their faces! They still didn't eat. I guess whenever they really get hungry they'll eat. Or maybe they just don't want me to watch.

There's too many guppies and that makes it hard to name them all and keep them straight. But I think I should come up with good names for the 3 silver dollar fish. Maybe then they'd feel like a more welcome addition, hehe. Maybe Huey, Dewey and Louie? Larry, Curly and Moe? Anyone have any other ideas?

For every action...

...there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Newton's 3rd law)

I gave blood yesterday for the first time, at Nationwide Arena, where the Columbus BlueJackets play hockey. My friend George went with me to give blood too, and for moral support. The whole thing went pretty well. My iron count was fine, I passed the barrage of questions, so I was allowed to give.

The nurses were really nice, and made my first blood-giving experience a good one. I didn't want to look when they put the needle in or took it out, so the nurse warned me when to look away. Where I was sitting, I was able to look outside where it was sunny and warm, and that worked out well.

Once I was all hooked up, it took just a little over 6 minutes to fill the bag, which evidently is pretty good. It's too bad that 6 minute process took more than 1.5 hours from start to finish, including paperwork, questions, prep and wait time. But they were pretty busy, and all things considered I think the got people through relatively quickly.

After giving blood, you get water and snacks. The donor snack area was set up in an area where people had a view of the ice rink in the arena. The BlueJackets were practicing, so George and I stayed around and watched them practice for a little bit while we enjoyed our snacks. That was pretty cool. After 15 minutes or so, that rounded out a total of 2 full hours for the whole thing. It was a long "lunch hour," but then we had to go back to work.

My arm doesn't even hurt today - I am so impressed. Even when I go to the doctor's office and they take a very small amount of blood, and the needle isn't in my arm as long, my arm usually hurts for a day or two. I often bruise around the area where they put in the needle, and my whole arm hurts a little bit all the way down to my fingers. I do not feel any of that today! The only thing that does hurt is where they had to prick my finger first to test for iron count.

So now for something really ironic, maybe even karmic part about the whole thing. It is the reason I mentioned Newton's law. My mom had to take my dad to the hospital around 2 or 3 am yesterday morning (which is important, but no need to get into too many details on that to make my point here.) In short, he got up in the night to use the bathroom and passed out. After some tests, they found that he has multiple ulcers and a torn esphagus, which caused bleeding, which is why he passed out. His blood count was low, so last night at the hospital they gave him some blood to replace the blood he had lost. And today, my mom said he did look much better and he said he felt much better, and he should get to go home in a couple of days.

The first time I ever gave blood, was the very same day my dad received blood.

I know my dad was about 300 miles away and it's not like he got my blood, specifically. (I don't even know my blood type - yet.) But I can't help but feel a sense of balance from it all.

Summer.. summer... summertime

I just love summer. I love the sun, the warm temperatures, and hanging out at the pool. I love sitting out on the patio at a restaurant. I love not needing a jacket, and being able to wear shorts and tshirts at night and not be cold.

I haven't been out of town for little weekend or 3-day trips nearly as much as usual. I do kind of miss taking little trips. Although I'm not sure what I'd want to do or where I'd want to go right now. I should give that more thought.

I stayed in town for the July 4th independence day holiday. Much thanks to Becca for having everyone over - it was a good time! I think I got some pretty good pictures, too.

However - like it or not- fall is coming. And although I'm bummed about the prospect of the colder temperatures and shorter days to come, I guess fall has a few it's own positive things. The NHL hockey season starts up! The first Blue Jackets preseasons game is Sunday the 16th. And new TV shows will be starting soon, too.

Even though I haven't been up to my usual, there's been some new things going on that I haven't done before. New things keep life from getting boring.

• 5k race - I participated in a 5k last weekend. Several of my friends ran. I walked. :) Yet, part of me has a hard time feeling like that was much of an accomplishment because any able-bodied person of my age can walk. Who cares? But I guess it's better than spending the day on the couch, so I should be happy that I got out there and did it. Thanks to Sheila and Amy for walking with me! And I'm so impressed with my friends who came out to run - good for all of you!

• Giving Blood - I'm signed up to give blood for the first time - ever - next week. I'm a little nervous about it and I'm not entirely sure what to expect. I don't even know my blood type. I don't freak out around needles (although I don't like them either - but who does?) But I definitely can't stand the idea of watching blood coming out of my arm. I even have to turn my head away at the doctor's office when they draw only a small amount of blood. Hopefully I can manage to look away for longer than a few minutes, however long giving blood takes. But it's part of a promotion to get free preseason BlueJacket tickets, and my friend George is going with me to give blood too. That's a good idea on their part for a promotion, since hockey tickets are enough to make me put aside my dislike of needles and blood and give anyway. George says that most times when he's had a "blood buddy" who's a woman, she always get rejected for having low iron. So I'm trying to beef up my iron this week by taking supplements. Hopefully it helps, because if I'm gonna do this - I'm AM getting those tickets! :) Wish me luck!