Toshi & Maxx

Over the weekend my little sister and my nephew came over and we had a slumber party. Well, after a full day of soccer and soccer parties it was now time to entertain TOSHI. WTF? Yeah, if anybody knows me they know I don't like animals. No, it's not that I don't like them. I don't have time to play foo-foo with a 2 pound dog. He's not even really a dog, he's more of an oversized vermin. He's a yorkie and he is sooo spoiled. First of all, I don't allow animals in our house. Our own dog has only been in when she spent two days cooped up in the bathroom when we adopted her and she had been fixed so I felt sorry for her. Ivey sleeps in the garage at night and she's well taken care of, but she does not come in the house. Well, except for when she lived in here during the hurricane. But Brent was stressed and I was four hours away so what was I going to say? But Toshi, oh Toshi, Toshi, Toshi. He doesn't know it yet but we'll be going to fist city pretty soon. I told my sister he was going to be sleeping that night (as in sleeping with the fishies). She didn't think it was too funny but we did. Three of us, well four, including Toshi, slept in my bed that night. He stayed on the bed all night and didn't move too much or else we would have heard that stupid bell around his neck. I slept pretty good but I think Toshi just laid there and stared at me, wondering what my next move was going to be. I'm sure he thought I had something sinister up my sleeve, but I really didn't. I always tell Tricia "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too," so I'm kind of surprised she slept at all. All in all, I have to make sure everything is washed and cleaned before Brent gets back and there are no traces of Toshi. Although I did tell her he needs his voice box removed because that yip-yap dog barking is soooo annoying.

We had fun and made s'mores. The boys stayed up all night playing Halo 3 and Madden or whatever. I watched the complete 2nd season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." That show is sooo funny. I'm usually pretty picky about what shows appeal to my sense of humor, but this one is sooooooo RUTHLESS. They attack everything, politically incorrect or not. I guess that's why I find it so funny. If you haven't checked it out, do so -- you may think it's as funny as we do.

See, the boys understand my humor towards animals. I really do like dogs (not cats, highly allergic) but I feel we can't be the "perfect" owners and wouldn't take care of an indoor pet properly. Don't even get me started on the fiasco with the two "female" hamsters. Well, about a month later my two females had 14 babies. 14. Liam thought she was getting sick and throwing up and out came the babies. BLOP, BLOP BLOP. I was running around the house screaming and called my neighbor to see if I should bring them to the vet. Then I got a hold of myself and I was like "nope, not gonna happen." Needless to say, my sister in Louisiana took them off our hands after the babies kept disappearing (don't even ask where they are because I have no idea). She brought them with her and her husband let all of them go in the woods behind their house. Yup, gone, just like that. But she did have two hamsters that she loved dearly, Thibodeaux and Boudreaux. Well, one went blind and one had tumors after she took them to the vet to find out what was wrong. She cried. I laughed. How can you get attached to a freakin' hamster? I just don't have the molecular make-up for that. However, my boys and Brent may disagree. Recently, Maxx, our 5 year old, very big oscar got sick in his tank and was growing these things all over his head and his eyes began bulging out of his head. I thought he had hypothyroidism -- I'm not even sure a fish has a thyroid -- but Brent was adamant that he had an incurable fish disease. I wanted to call the fish guy in town or bring him down the street to a vet but Brent thought he'd do better if we released him into a pond full of really big bass, catfish and gators. Oh yeah, great idea! I, on the other hand, felt this murderous act was disrespectful to Maxx, as he had been a really good fish for all these years. So, after work Brent took a 5 gallon bucket and scoops him up. Maxx literally filled it up. He was so long and really fat! He didn't seem that big in the tank. Well, they loaded him on the four-wheeler and took him to the pond to get it over with. I was a little pissed. For two days I had been meticulously staring at his tank because Brent told me that his eyes were bulging out so much that they literally could pop out of his head and float off, well, that was too exciting to miss. So you can imagine my disappointment when he carries off the x-large fish, eyes intact. You know, for once just let me witness something really gross. Something I'll have bad dreams about for weeks. Something that will forever change the way I eat my friends from the sea. But noooo, off they go. So Ian and I were talking about what was happening and he started crying ... and then I felt this salty substance squeak ever so slightly out of the corner of my eye. I sniffled. He reacted. "Momma, are YOU crying?" I explained to him that I felt like Maxx was part of the family and how much I was going to miss watching him eat crawfish, lizards, crickets, roaches, and anything else we'd feed to him. He would literally jump out of the tank and eat it from Brent's hands when it was feeding time. Well, when they came back about a half hour later, Liam was totally crushed, emotional, crying and sobbing. It was sooo sad. But we all had a good cry, we said a fond farewell to our good friend, and promised we'd get some bass to put in the tank soon. Ciao!