TT goes to Fishy heaven

"Adieu... my fishy friend!"

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TT was no more. Dead as a door nail you could say. But TT was not a nail. So he was dead... dead as any belly-up floating fish could be. And Little Miss Rain was sad...

Two days before, Little Miss Rain had been happy. "No school today!", Mummy had said after calling up the school that morning. The ice storm had hit the city pretty bad. Little Miss Rain had heard the pounding the night before and the snapping of branches under the weight of the ice. She had been scared and had crawled between mummy and daddy for comfort. Next morning, it was quiet. The trees coated with ice looked pretty and glistened in the morning light. Little Miss Rain, still in her pygies, sat her self in front of the TV and clicked the remote. Nothing happened. She tried again... Not a hum! "Oh, sweety! We don't have power. The ice storm as broken all the power lines."

"Oh!", thought Little Miss Rain. "That's why the house had looked dark that morning. She heard daddy say that the Governor had declared a state of emergency. She wondered what that was. Did it mean that now she would have to remember 1 more state in America instead of 50?

The power company had said that it would take at least two days to get the power back on. Brrrr... that meant no heat! Mummy was busy gathering up blankies and packing food from the refrigerator. They were going to stay at aunty Pippie's place till the power came on.

They were almost at aunty Pippie's place. Little Miss Rain was happier than before. There were lots of kids to play with at aunty Pippy's place. "What could we play? Hide-and-go-seek or maybe we could play treasure hunters and find treasure in aunty Pippie's attic...". Little Miss Rain's mind was whirling with excitement when mummy asked, " Did you feed TT before we came?". "Oops!" Little Miss Rain had forgotten all about TT. She had been thrilled when she had got TT as a goodie bag at a party. But then TT wasn't a fun fish. All he did was just float in his bowl and moved and hid and didn't even move when she tapped the glass.

Mummy looked a bit upset. She had wanted to bring the fish along. Only God knew when the power would come on and the poor thing would freeze to death. But it was too late to go back. "Hopefully the power would be back and TT won't turn into a lump of ice.", thought mummy. She had gotten fond of the fish... ever since Little Miss Rain brought it home and conveniently chose to neglect it after the first couple of days.

But the power didn't come on in time. And now TT was dead... not as a door nail but as a belly-up floaty fish. And Little Miss Rain was sad. Mummy was sad too. "Don't be sad sweety.", said daddy. "We could get another fish." Mummy glared at him. "You know...", daddy continued. "He's up there in fishy heaven and happily swimming with lots of other fishies. TT's probably as happy as a happy fish can be. Don't be sad... What would you say if we order pizza for dinner. I know you love it!"

"Fishy heaven? Really?", sniffed Little Miss Rain drying her eyes. She had never thought of a fishy heaven. That must me a real nice place... She tried to imagine what it looked like. Oh boy! She almost forgot. Pizza for dinner!

"Daddy can I order any topping I want?", she asked in glee. TT was already forgotten.

Distracted by diffraction...

"Eureka!! Diffraction!"

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Been distracted from blogging. Accomplished a few things that makes me kinda' see a glimpse of the end of this thing which is "Piled high and Deep". Scares the hell out of me to think of graduation even though it might still be a while longer. Being in grad school is such sweet life. Sheltered living to the max. The pay's decent enough. Doesn't put you on the lap of luxury but it's decent. You get to come and go as you please. Take the day off if you don't feel like going in. People don't expect too much of you 'cos you're still a "student". Strange how thoughts change. Beginning of this year all I could do was gripe about how long it'll take me finish grad school.

Also been kicked out of Kottu. Guess I haven't been making the required number of posts. Looked at my stat counter summary today. I still get a good fifty or so hits a month. Interestingly most of them were re-directs to an old post from Google searches for "squirrel+sex". Makes me wonder about the things that would need to be bobbing in ones head to type in a query like that. BTW, the squirrels still love morning sex and they still scamper over to the other side of the fence for acorn shopping.

Slept through a major ice storm last night. Left most of the city without power but by some miracle the street I live in was spared. NationalGrid told my lab mate that their best bet was two days to get the power back. Two fricking days!!!! Had to take a major detour to get to school today 'cos almost every street I turned to was blocked by fallen tree branches. My next-to-next-to-next door neighbor had a huge branch land on top of his truck. The school parking lot was almost empty. Heck... think I'll go home...

EOL

Stumbled upon this by chance.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is a free online encyclopedia aiming to document the 1.8 million species currently known to man. I think it's a real neat idea and I don't think I've come across a similar concept before. It's so cool to have information on any species that's ever been found on this planet just a few clicks away. Already there are a huge number of entries for species native to Sri Lanka but a lot of these pages still need to be annotated. Maybe wild life enthusiasts such as gallicissa and others could bring some of these pages to life.

Also, this is the brain child of Ed Wilson who I think is a very cool scientist.

Split hairs... or not?

Amusing story...

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - A Cambodian couple hoping to avoid the country's convoluted divorce process have separated by sawing their house in half, local authorities said Thursday.

Husband Moeun Rim and wife Nhanh divided their house, some 90 kilometers (56 miles) northeast of the capital Phnom Penh, into two parts last month after deciding to separate, Cheach commune chief Vorng Morn told AFP by telephone.

"They agreed to split the house into two parts. The part that belongs to the husband has been removed, but the one that belongs to the wife is standing upright there. She stays there during the daytime," Vorng Morn said.

He said the couple, who are both around 40, decided to split after the husband accused the wife of not taking care of him when he was ill.

Full story...

Wonder if she ended up with half a loo....?

Back to bloggin?

The weather's chilling out. The season's first frost advisory is out tonight. Dreaded thoughts of winter.

Sleepless nights... What better way to pass time than clearing out cobwebs in my blog. The summer has come and gone. The chaos not so chaotic now. Maybe thoughts might condense into a blog post or two.

Things that make me smile.

There are somethings in this world that never fail to lighten up your spirits. "The Owl and the Pussy Cat" by Edward Lear is a poem that was introduced to me by someone special and it always puts a smile on my face.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat
by
Edward Lear

I

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, “O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

II

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing! O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?” They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood With a ring at the end of his nose, His nose, His nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

“Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.” So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon.

For folks who love Edward Lear's nonsense verse check out the complete collection on Google Library.

Of clocks, alarms and waking up(s).

The mercury's stuck in the miserable ranges below 0. Winter never really bothered me much till I moved into the New England area. Thinking of twenty below spells in the winter months ahead just depresses me. Another issue for me during winter is that I find it really hard to get my bum out of bed in the mornings. Rest of the year I'm up and about and all perky by 7am enjoying all the morning sights and sounds. But come winter, I thank all deities and holy ones for the invention of a thing called the "snooze button". I make maximum use of the snooze function in my alarm clock and I have a backup alarm (with a different tone) that tells me that I've snoozed dangerously close to being terribly late. Maybe it's about time I got my self a Clocky!