We have a pet

We went to a Japanese festival in uptown Charlotte on Saturday. Since Brian's company works with a Japanese company in a joint venture, we are getting to know a lot about the Japanese culture and eating a lot of sushi. We watched drummers and made oragami and ate more sushi and noodles and met Brian's collegues. Apollo kept seeing kids with bags of goldfish and started begging for us to get one. We learned that there was a game in the courtyard, where for $2, you could try to scoop a goldfish into a bowl with a rice paper net. Once your rice paper net dissolved, your turn was up. I thought the chances of capturing a goldfish were pretty slim, and since the proceeds of the game went to Tsunami Relief, we let him play. Sure enough, his net dissolved before he could corner and capture a goldfish. Little did I know, each kid got a goldfish in a bag regardless. So, elated, Apollo walked off with a baggie of water and Goldie the goldfish.

Of course, now we had the problem of keeping the fish alive. We had to go to Walmart and get food and water purifier. We already had a tank at home. Athena was dying to go clothes shopping, so Brian dropped us off at the mall, while the boys took care of the fish. On the ride to Walmart, Brian hears Apollo screaming in the back seat, holding Goldie flopping in his hands, water all over his shirt, and the baggie nearly empty. We're still not sure what happened--did the baggie open? Did Apollo want to pet the fish? They put the fish in what water was left, and Brian bought a .38 cent goldfish to replace Goldie in case he was dead when they got back to the car. But happily, Goldie and Goldie 2 have both made it to day 2. Which is good since the only tank we could find was the 30 gallon tank we bought for the turtle we had 2 years ago.

We don't do well with pets in general, and I'm thinking that if the fish last a week, we will be lucky. If they do, we'll have to invest in a smaller tank or a table to put this one on and some more fish to fill it up.