"Make a Fish Fund"

This is the coral and Bruce before our disaster. The coral is almost back to this condition...very resilient.

Reef tank update: The two corals we saved are in good condition now. The one that separated from its base has grown a significant base in the last three weeks. The Green Star is getting better, though we lost a good share of what we had. There is algae in there, but I choose to see that as a good thing. There is hope. I think one reason Cora wants to clean house so badly, is she wants to go ahead and buy one of those Aquapods…or Sun Pods…the self contained, beautiful 12-24 gallon tanks. If you are interested in donating to our “make a fish fund,” we take checks, Paypal, and credit cards.

As for today, Kinders are cool, but the ones I had today must have had a dose of badness before school. I had to send more to time out than normal. Mind you, it may have been that I was not necessarily in the mood to put up with trivial crap between little boys attempting to jostle for position on their puny ladder of status. I attempted to break the meanest of them.

There were the cute little girls and boys who gave me little cards and pictures. Those are the ones I live for. I got a great little butterfly from one of the little girls…little sister to one of the girls I had in my 8th grade social studies class. A couple months ago I overheard the older sister tell the young one to be nice to Mister Huffman. Since then, I have tried to be nice to the little sister, too.

I got home and made a half-assed attempt at cleaning house after I called the dentist to attempt to reschedule, since I am booked to teach all next week. My dentist is closed on Fridays, so I needed to do it today. I called shortly before 4pm. They are scheduled to close at5pm, so I figured I was safe. This is the second time they have been GONE this early on a Thursday. Gee, must be nice to take a well deserved afternoon off from the extremely wearing practice of poking, torturing, and robbing people. Those poor, poor dentists. My heart goes out to them. I hope they get some rest.

I was not home long before Cora got home and pushed me from the kitchen. She was determined to make dinner…I did not want to stop her. I grant her this, she makes some GOOD food. We had spaghetti tonight.

I sat here, under my laptop, and thought, boy it is sure bright out. I decided to do something. “Clean house?” you ask optimistically. No. I decided to go out and finish my drop tank project.

I installed another pulley, threaded the rope and then pulled that sucker up. It was probably a third of its weight, since I never did get the fourth pulley up (ran out of bolts…stupid me). Anyway, so I hoist this sucker up, steering it with great effort and significant difficulty, away from a dresser, a pile of bricks (don’t ask me to explain why I have a pile of bricks, I cannot explain it any more than Cora. I further cannot explain why I defend this pile of bricks when Cora wants to be rid of them), and a coffee table that I never intend to put in my house. So, it finally gets up and I let it swing out over the afore mentioned obstacles. I continue to hoist until it is almost as high as it will go…then I realize, “Shit, I have no cleat to loop the rope around”…I look around, clueless, nothing. I look out the door. About 15 feet away there was a 2X4 driven into the ground as a support to the fence. If I let it down, it would surely have smashed everything I had worked so hard to avoid bumping.

I wrenched on the rope and staggered out there, keeping the drop tank suspended. I looped the rope around the stake and secured it. I then walked back inside to create an anchor for the rope. Two large bolts, screwed with great care and effort, at a distance of about 14 inches angled away from each other finally made a good cleat substitute. I walked back out there, the sweat cooling on my back. I give the rope a yank and loosen it, then pull myself into the shed. I secured it, then just to be sure my drop tank does not become a dropped tank, I tied it to another rafter. I feel like I got something done, though. Besides, Cora wants to make the house spic and span this weekend. I don’t foresee my lovely bride allowing me out of her sight long enough to do something I would enjoy, so best I get it done now.

Below you can see a picture of my beautiful drop tank sticking out of the back of my beautiful Tacoma. Cool, aint it? 10 feet by 30 inches! Gotta love history.

I came back in to find Cora chatting on-line with Kim…good to know I wasn’t missed. I sat down and she pointed to the fish tank (mine, which has steadily been getting more and more overgrown with algae). I stared in wonder for a moment. There were fish in my fish tank. I mean, I knew there were fish in there, it’s just that the algae had grown so well on the glass that it was difficult to make them out. I said as much to Cora in my shock.

Well, finaly, I teach middle school math tomorrow…yeah, I hate math, too.