Tag Archives: sad things

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Mr. Laguna

It’s been a whole year since I started my newsbruiser journal, woo! I contemplated celebrating the anniversary by changing the timing of my year-end review, but I’ll hold off. A lot could happen in a month and a half, yes?

Mr. Laguna is sick. I nursed him back to health from some bloating issues, and then all of a sudden there was a really rapid onset of finrot and fungus. Back to the hospital tank he goes. He looks absolutely miserable–he always had the habit of biting his own tail, so the pretty crowntail fins you see in the picture never lasted very long, but otherwise he’d been fairly spunky.

Mr. Laguna will always remind me of how people in a place where I just never quite fit in strove so desperately to make me feel at home. I’ve been intending to write to the Long Wharf folks to say hello and give them a rundown of how things are going for me, but I would hate for my contact to be in the form that something has happened to the beloved former office fish.

Mrs. Laguna spends most of her time in the wrong side of the big tank, swimming up and down and back and forth to try to find a breach in the glass wall that will allow her to cross over into the hospital tank where Mr. Laguna resides.

Spaz and Ottobot seem oblivious, as catfish tend to seem, though I found that yesterday when Mr. Laguna was still in the big tank and I discovered him being sick, he was laying on the floor of the coral castle, and Spaz was laying next to him. (I’ll keep an eye on Spaz to make sure he didn’t catch anything)

Update:
I should have known better that this sounded like a preemptive eulogy. Mr. Laguna died today.

Personal Blog

Bittersweet Homecoming

Sorry for the downer of an I’m-back post, but this is important.

Many of you knew that my beloved Fish has been ill for about the past month. He’d seemed to have stabilized when I left for my trip, but according to my mom, it was only today that he took a turn for the worse.

It was like he was holding out for me; waiting for me. His breathing was labored, he’d lost all his color, and the tell-tale pineconing scales of dropsy indicated he’d finally lost function of his kidneys. Tonight I had to euthanize Fish.

I put him down the best method I knew how with what I had available. I made him a coffin out of a box and tissue, taped it shut, then trekked out to the backyard. With a stick and my hands and a flashlight in my mouth, I clawed out a grave for him in a special spot, and there he is buried. His coffin reads “To Fish: I love you. Thank you.”

I remember when I first brought Fish home. It was a lonely winter term, and I needed a companion in a maddening, desperate sort of fashion. I did all my research and plucked him away from the Danville Family Pet store, choosing him for his purplish hue. It was a significant event, to get a pet, because I had finally begun to get over the loss of my cat, Max, who had died a year before. I was ready for my own pet again.

He was a fine companion in a lonely time, and gave me someone to care for and to pour out my love upon. He played with me. He danced when I came in the room. His favorite screensaver was Bezier curves. He held a fierce grudge against any camera.

Fish was tough. During his 2+ years of life, he got ich, fungus, velvet, and beat them all. He drove to Connecticut and back. He grew to nearly 4 inches in body length, making me think he had a bit of the giant gene in him. He was fierce, and didn’t hesitate to flare at any stranger who approached the tank.

He was a fine and beloved pet, and had a good life. I only hope I gave as much to him as he did to me. I loved him. I miss him. He was a good fish.

Thank you Wheeler, Will, and Ken for enduring me.

Personal Blog

Merry Christmas

It’s been a bittersweet holiday. On the one hand, the family gatherings this year have been more close feeling and energetic than I can ever remember. Perhaps it is because I’ve been away from home for the first time, perhaps it is because both my nana and our close family friend have survived their respective bouts with cancer and are thriving. Either way, I enjoyed the feeling (I also impressed my grandfather with the mad fire-building skills I picked up in CT, no starter logs for me!)

On the otherhand, it has been a sad time due to the unexpected death of Brendan’s stepfather. He and Brendan’s mother had barely been married a year, and I cried when I first found out what had happened. Brendan and his family are of the kindest, most generous and caring people I have ever met, and it hurts me deeply to see them have this to go through. Brendan, you are awesome and strong and I am always here if you need me.

Tomorrow will take back up to Connecticut, let’s hope my airline doesn’t go bankrupt until after that happens

Personal Blog

Good and Bad.

I was watching a friend look at my webpage today, which is somewhat of a bizarre sensation, and she was going through my “By Others,” section. I realized how much I miss my online communities, and a wave of longing for consistent internet hit me again.

I miss the DT community quite a bit, I’m going to be so out of the loop on the message boards when I get back from the summer. I’d already been so busy at the end of last year that a visit to DTMirc was a once-in-a-blue-moon-sign-of-the-apocalypse sort of thing, but I still miss everybody, and I miss the art forums and seeing how everyone is improving. Graaaaah, I’m such an internet junkie!

Yesterday was somewhat of a bittersweet experience. On the fun side, Assassins opened and was a fine performance. It was funny, and quite dark and intense in places, which I was not expecting. Everyone laughed at the scene with the dead dog that I worked so hard to make, and I beamed all proud-like (I would show pictures, but it’s somewhat grotesque). Anyway, the show was great and things were looking up for the evening.

On the un-fun side, back at the housing complex, after the show and before the opening night party, we found Jill’s (the housing complex’s cook) cat, Linus. He had been hit by a car. Losing a pet is tragic, but losing one in such a way is incredibly wrenching. There was a group of us gathered around to comfort him. His back was broken and he was crying, as were the rest of us. Someone had gone for Jill, and she came to get him, but there are no nearby vets that are open 24 hours for emergencies. I bawled all night, out of sympathy for Jill, as she’d already lost a cat earlier in the summer, and for Linus. He was dead before the morning.

The day was drearier because of it, and was just the start. People are starting to leave for the summer, the stresses of getting Peter Pan open press harder on all the shops, people being called home because of mysterious family emergencies…it’s all a bit much to happen in one day.

At any rate, I am not overly saddened. Things will start looking back up again, I’m quite certain.

Personal Blog

Wow.

While I was home for the weekend, my parents informed me that a chemistry teacher who used to teach at my high school had died. Of course, I thought this was terrible to begin with, but I found that he didn’t die in a car wreck, or of a disease…

No, he was crossing a stream in Hawaii, was knocked down by a wall of water, and was swept over a 190 ft waterfall.

…

What a way to go, Mr. Brown, what a way to go.

Personal Blog

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Last Friday night, when I was at home for break, my old cat, Max, climbed up into my bed to sit with me for awhile. It was no unusual thing, but he hadn’t done it all break until then, so I sat and enjoyed a quiet, intimate moment with my cat, whom I’ve had since the 4th grade or so.

It was the next morning when he started to get sick. It was sudden, unexpected, and very very bad. We tended to him all day, wondering if perhaps it was a day bug as he has had once before in the past, and on Sunday he’s looking *slightly* better. However, it was still an unsettling goodbye for me when I went back to school, he barely responded to my hand.

Back at school and full of school worries, and it lifts me a bit when my dad calls to say he’s taken Max to the vet, and that he seems to be doing much better. I smile, I suppose it was just a bug.

Until yesterday. I got the message on my phone to call my dad “if it wasn’t too late” around midnight, but those deeper senses urged me to call anyway. Max didn’t get better afterall.

Losing a pet is always a cold, wrenching experience for me, especially when I’m trapped far from home when it happens. I wish I could have been there to comfort him, or at least to say goodbye. But maybe it was Max that was saying goodbye to me last week.

I am cold now and lonely, and the tasks of the week seem to be breaking my body down again. I suppose I am sick or pushing myself too hard, but I think I just miss my friend.