More Free Fish

If winning $300 at the casino wasn't enough, I scored 4 more, VERY large goldfish this morning going into the afternoon.
A couple had posted on Craiglist giving away a few free goldfish and a few free koi fish.
I assumed it another foreclosed/short-saled home that someone had bought and was shutting down the ponds. I guess ponds with fish and plants in them don't appeal to everyone.

It was nothing of the sort. They had transformed their entire back yard into giant conundrum of ponds. 1 pond was very large and was a traditional, built into the ground, pond. Very nice with HUUUUUUUUGE fish in it. The rest of them were above ground swimming pools and sundry giant plastic containers. I am not dissing the people, but there was no landscaping, the ground was bare dirt.

They have made a business out of it and unbashedly said so. I thought they were going to try to talk me into buying fish - a thing I am not going to do right now - they weren't. They showed me around. A very ingenuitive man, he had built his own filters out of all kinds of materials.

They had excellent specimens of Koi for sale - at pretty steep prices I might add. He stated those particular fish were imported clear from Japan and the because of special shipping needs, it costs $300 in shipping costs to bring them over. The cheapest started at $30 and went up from there.

I was getting a bit nervous - so I brought up the ad - said you had a few goldfish and some Koi for free. Yes, he confirmed, a friend had given them to them to give away to whosoever. Thank you. It took 2 hours to catch 4 of the goldfish. They could not, for as long as they kept trying, land any of the Koi, which is the reason I went over there.

But, for free, who cares, I certainly don't MIND goldfish, I just want some Koi. I thought the goldfish I already had in there were big - these fish were even larger.

They were gasping for air by the time I got them home - fish that large in a 5 gallon bucket are going to remove the oxygen in the water quickly. I got them in the pond as fast as I could, so far so good. It's really quite miserable temperature conditions out there. It is humid, I hate humidity coupled with high temps. I can deal with it at lower temps, but this is ridiculous. The water has warmed up - but - their water was not exactly cool, either. Shade from the house is almost over the pond now, it should cool down by 10 or more degrees relatively quickly.

Anyway, that was my detour from house-cleaning today. I am always looking for freebies: if someone WANTS to give something away, I have no problem assisting them in that endeavor if it's something I want or need.

Sunday

Got up at 7:00am, shave/shower/dress, out the door. Took Caleb to Albertson's where he gets to try his hand at his first day of work - an 8 hour shift. I asked him what time he went to bed - midnight! "I'm not used to going to bed early yet". I informed him after 8 hours of standing and moving and working, he'll be quite ready to go to bed much earlier : )

I hope it doesn't affect his job performance today - but - he got the job all on his own, he can deal with any consequences on his own. I have read about parents intervening in their kid's workplace - an unfathomable idea to me. Only if they were somehow abusing him - managers yelling/berating/threatening - I do not tolerate such from the workplace from anyone, I don't care what the title is, you can get your point acros without the yelling, without the threatening and definitely without the berating/humiliation - then they would have to deal with papa. Even then, only if he asked for such intervention (which I doubt he would) Otherwise, it's all good. And it's a good life experience. Unless he figures a way out to get rich quick, he's going to be working the rest of his life, the earlier he starts, the better as far as I'm concerned.

On the way home, a stop at McDonald's. I love McDonald's coffee - I love their food, too, but in these days I have to take a pass on it for diet's sake. Then to Home Depot. Had to buy another door handle for the bathroom, I have tried twice already, they don't sell the correct hardware, I had to buy an adapter deal and then when that didn't work, I also had to buy a different style door handle to make it work. Haven't started on that yet, as when I got home, I decided the kitchen floor was dirty enough and got to sweeping and mopping it.

Next up: living room and rest of house carpeting. I may even use the carpet cleaning on the heavy traffic stuff - hallway and an area in the living room where kids walk through. If I ever get new carpeting in there, shoes are going to be banned from that area permanently.

That's my day thus far, and it's only 9:30. I'm just trying to get geared up in the mind for work tomorrow. I don't WANT to do anything - 9 straight days off are great, excepting for what it did to my mind in terms of working, I wanted to laze around and I did - much more than I have in probably a couple of years anyway.

You know what? It's easier to keep moving and stay moving, cause' when you think you're ready to get back into the swing of things, well, I can tell you starting yesterday and moving into today, it ain't as easy as I thought it would be. Not even close. I feel like going back to bed, honestly, all the more reason to drive myself to get the stuff done around here that I normally would - and then some - on a Sunday.

Dunno what's in store tomorrow at work. Hopefully there will be orders to pull and deliveries to make.

As for now, going to finish something else I was doing on the net and then - back to housecleaning.

Happy Sunday = this is the day that the Lord hath made and I will rejoice and be glad in it!
ben