Memorial Day holiday weekend

We went out to visit my Gramma, in Solomon’s Island. The weather was BEAUTIFUL Sunday and Monday (low 70s and slightly breezy), so instead of spending the day in the car, we stopped at some wineries (nothing worth noting), and at the Cyprus Swamp visitor center and went on a nature walk – I adore nature walks with boardwalks. Then we went for dinner at CD Cafe, walked the boardwalk, and then went home to Gramma’s and tried to see the planets grouping. There were too many trees and her dock access pointed the wrong way, so we only saw what we think was Jupiter. Oh well, at least there were no mosquitos out yet!

Today we had a lazy brunch of cheese omelets (Ben is a GREAT cook!), toast, and apple slices. Then we raided Gramma’s bookshelves (she claims she’s trying to pare down her collection, but I saw the bag of new books by the front door), and set out for the Calvert Marine Museum and Lighthouse. It is SO much bigger than I remember as a kid. We didn’t get there until about 12:30 and then we met for lunch at 2 at Kim’s Key Lime Pies for another tasty meal in town before hurrying back to the museum for the 3 PM boarding of the Wm. B. Tennison cruise around the island! It was so nice to get out on the open water, and we almost had the boat to ourselves. I guess everyone had started heading home already at that point.

We’ll have to go back; there are entire buildings more of the museum to see, and we never did make it to visit my Gramma at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, where she volunteers, more wineries to visit, and there’s a Railway Museum that I didn’t know existed!

Maybe we’ll become weekend [subsidized] people ;-)

 

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this week in bullet points

Saturday we had a great lunch at Rabbi Marc’s to say goodbye and to greet Julie Geller before her channukah concert that evening. We skipped the concert and Jason and Diana invited a whole bunch of friends over to have a little going away get-together for us.

Skiing on Sunday was GREAT, I’m still sore; probably because I bruised my right calf pretty well, oops. I need to not tighten my boots as tight as they go just because I can.

I spent Monday (usually my quiet day off to do yoga) packing my office.

I’m moving on both ends, packing up the office at CBS, where I’ve been the temporary office assistant for about 2 months, for a renovation. They just finished the sanctuary/social hall renovations and are starting on the office today! New carpets, fresh paint, and rearranging the furniture, woohoo!

Ben was published in NATURE magazine yesterday!!! Here’s a link to the press release that he claims any college graduate should be able to understand (I don’t!): JILA Physicists Achieve Elusive ‘Evaporative Cooling’ of Molecules

Ben’s parents arrived last night, they both have a cold/cough thing of some sort :(

He is currently out for brunch with them while I have some quiet time and iron his gown and hood (he has a poofy, blue doctoral hat, it is not very flattering)

My dad should arrive around lunchtime today (my mom is currently posted in Germany)

Physics Department graduation is this afternoon, then we’re going out with all the parents and some friends to a fancy-ish Mediterranean restaurant (The Med)

University Convocation is tomorrow morning and then just the 5 of us are going to lunch at The Kitchen (a local farm-to-table restaurant) before his parents fly to Kansas

Packing is going kinda well, we mailed most of our books (about 400 lbs so far and another 150 still to be mailed) and sold our crummy Target furniture on Craig’s List

A friend Diana is adopting Mr. Fishy and taking him into her second grade classroom

We still need to give away a few pounds of butter, ice cream, frozen spinach, etc. from the fridge/freezer. We can only pack unopened pantry goods on the moving truck.

Still planning to move into my parents’ basement for a while we look for a house in Silver Spring/Takoma Park, MD (about an hour from McLean).

And that’s life for the moment. Pretty Ben-centric and surrounded by boxes!

PS- U-Haul has great boxes! They’re so much sturdier than the ones we stole from the recycling bin at the book store….

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Poor Little Fishes

Cherry Shrimp (x5 magnification), Image via Wikipedia

Right after my last post about my new fish, they got sick. Covered in ick sick. Poor little guys. Ick is basically aquatic lice. No fun at all for the fishes, but the shrimps got all plump and happy from eating the parasites in the water. They BOTH shed during treatment (something they supposedly wouldn’t do if they were sick or felt threatened).

I started treating them with Nox-Ich, as recommended my my local fish store: treat for 12 days by adding 2 drops per 5 gallon every other day, given right after a 50% water change, add a pinch of sea salt and a healthy squirt of Stress-Zyme, and remove the carbon from the filter system before starting treatment (or the carbon with just filter out all the medicine). It worked!

With all those sick fish, I only lost one of my rasboras, the one absolutely COVERED in ick spots, sometime on Sunday. That brought the school count down to only 5, which is too few too school. I was afraid that they would start to stress, so yesterday I bought 5 more (up to 10 total) an two baby cherry shrimp. The shrimp don’t seem to mind the medicine at all, although I’ve read that the full dose can kill them.

The ick must have hitched a rid on some old plastic plants I had laying around and added to the tank about 4 days before the ick outbreak. Stupid old plants and water parasites that can survive outside of water for YEARS. Oh well. I’ll keep treating the tank, with all the new friends I added last night, for another 4 days (2 treatments), just incase any of the new fish are carrying parasites too. Then I’ll have to buy a pair of baby stockings and put a leg over my filter intake so that my shrimps can breed! Baby shrimp! I’m so excited!

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I’m still here!

I’ve adopted some new fishies for my 5 gallon tank, they are TINY and fun to watch. They don’t bother Rocky Balbetta or their two little cherry shrimp friends. This photo shows them bigger than real life, mine are only 16-18mm long!

My two cherry shrimp (the male looks like this, the female is all red and is a more filled out under her tail) are about 2 cm from nose to tail.

My betta, Rocky Balbetta (named after Rocky, obviously), is a while/pearl/pale pink fish with black eyes. I can’t seem to find a good online photo of someone else’s fish and I’m too warm in my blankie and want to get off the sofa and photograph my own fish :P

Anyway, other than babysitting a few times per week, fish watching and cleaning the tank 2x week (I’m trying to encourage the shrimpsto breed -should take about a month- by keeping the tank sparklingly clean) have been keeping me busy. Oh, and my normal unemployed addition to Sims 2. I have the University add-on and would really like to get the pets one and some of the Ikea furniture add-ons as well.

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