My fish tank gift to Maria for her birthday was a success, she loves watching the fish and plotting the aesthetics of the fish tank. We have two fish and two bumblebee snails, the Pleko didn’t survive the transition, despite a stream of algae tablets.

When I bought the tank, I got some colorful plastic plants and a couple of natural green real plants.

We both soured on the plastic plants quickly, we went back to the fish store and got more real plants and went all green. And we are thinking of Mother Earth these days, she doesn’t need more plastic.

Surprisingly, the fish seem to love the new aesthetic, they swerve in and out and around the plants, nibble on them, it is meditative to watch Frida and Diego swirl gracefully slipping in and around the green, they do seem to know they are real.

I think we may go back and get a few more natural green plants.  I’d like to see more tall plants along the back of the tank, and Maria, ever the artist, agrees.

The new tradition is to sit in front of them after dinner and sip some sherry. How snooty of us, but how nice. I’ve never had sherry  before, it’s kind of neat. And I never thought I’d be sitting around starting at fish again.

I canceled my writing class tomorrow, I don’t want to get anyone sick,  Maria has given me the gift of her cold, and fortunately, there is a bit of syrupy cough medicine left, perhaps enough for one small sip.

I’d love to go see the “Black Panther” movie tomorrow, I’d like to write about it. I hope the cold is a one night thing.