Dad's Christmas Present to Me

My dad will be 80 years old in 2008. He was married to my mom for 55 years before she died. He always struggled buying her a Christmas present. Sometimes I just told him what to buy, or I took him shopping. Buying any kind of present was not a priority in his life. Until he became a widower.

His first Christmas alone we started walking together at the mall. He agonized over what to buy each family member for Christmas. I shopped with him to help him with his ideas. The second Christmas was a little easier for him. After that he shopped on his own and seemed to enjoy the process. Except the spending his money part.

He says the hardest present to find was the one for me. Two Christmases ago he bought me and Allie beautiful diamond necklaces. I was so touched. He didn't spend a lot of money on them, but it was a lot for him. Last year he bought me a diamond tennis bracelet with a real garnet clasp. I try to wear it around him as much as possible. The diamonds are tiny chips clustered together to make them look bigger.

This year was the best present yet. He drives by a trophy store every day and wondered what it was like inside. He went in and got the idea of giving me a trophy. The picture above is the present. Isn't that the sweetest thing! I love it and treasure it.

Big Puffer and little puffer bites that hand that feeds them

Honeycomb moray eel

It has been such a long time since I posted on this blog. I have so much news, but I will have to take a little time, sit down and write!

The Friday, October 26th post was all about puffers. I talked about diving the next day in the Reef. Big puffer bit me. It hurt so bad I screamed under water, then looked around embarrassed and realized that no one could hear me. It hurt so bad I could hardly clean. I was trying to feed our new moray eels. You have to entice them with small fillets of fish, wave them around in front of them to get them to come out and eat. As I took each fillet out of the food container I would wrap them in my hand to keep the big fish from swooping in and grabbing the food. Big puffer came up from underneath me and grabbed my index finger thinking it was food. He doesn't have teeth or a beak, but grinding plates that allows him to crush shells. My finger was numb for a week and sore for a month.

There was a little girl (about 4 yrs old) that watched my dive through the whole 45 minutes. I kept waving at her. I could tell she was fascinated. After I finished the dive I walked down to the door in my wet, cold wet suit. She came running over to talk to me. Her grandmother told me she saw me get bit.

Yesterday I was diving and was told to hand feed little puff. I had two mussels in the shell. I was fumbling trying to take the meat out of the shell and he got too excited to wait and bit the tip of my left thumb. It didn't hurt that much. Now the only thing left is to get bit by a moray. Don't won't to experience that because they have to cut open the bite and leave it open because of infection. Makes an ugly wound.

Harvey says he hates the thought of getting bit by something. It doesn't bother me much. I haven't worked with the water snakes and anacondas yet. I do have a little fear of their bites. After I get bit (if I ever do) I won't be as concerned with it. There are some people who get bit, cut, hurt, etc. I'm one of those people. Just stupidly unafraid. Wait till I post the story of my two broken finger tips that are now healing.

Diving in a Shark Tank

The best part of my job is diving. Each and every time I dive I think that I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. We dive every Thursday morning in the shark exhibit tank to vacuum and clean. I'm off on Thursdays but I love diving so much that I volunteer as a diver each and every time I can.

We drop a big net into the tank and move all the sharks to the far side of the tank. There are two people on each side of the tank holding the net against the walls and watching for sharks. One person holds a long PVC pipe to move the sharks away from the net. If a large shark gets over or under the net the dive watch bangs two metal weights together to alert the divers.

I was by myself cleaning next to the tunnel when I heard a strange metallic sound. Any type of noise alerts you to stop breathing (the bubbling from your regulator is very loud) to look and see around you. I looked up to see the 300 lb lemon shark rolling in the net. She was about 10 feet away from me and had caught herself in the net with her teeth. There is always an adrenaline rush when you realize a shark is in the tank. I swam up and over the net to alert the other two divers when I realized no one on top had noticed. I surfaced and yelled that a shark was in the tank then descended to find the other two. By that time they had swam over the tunnel. We sank to the bottom to wait and see where the shark would swim. She swam past us, at the edge where we get out. Just as she passed we started to swim to the edge just as she made a sharp 180 degree turn toward us. We stopped swimming, sank back down and waited for her to pass. Usually someone on top takes a pole to maneuver her away from the divers. We swam across the tank and surfaced. We take off our equipment one by one while one diver stays below to watch the shark. We are all calm and cool. But it is so exciting when this happens. We ended the dive then because we were mostly finished.

I love my job!

Navy Yeoman

Received my first real letter from Nick today. He is doing quite well and seems happy. He was made Yeoman in his division. He's in charge of making appointments, paper-work, filing, etc. This cracks me up because he is not a detail person. He loves it because he has more freedom. He said boot camp was not too hard so far, you just have to listen to instructions and pay attention to detail. He says his glasses are horrible. Big black ugly things. Also, he is second oldest in his division of 76 men. Another guy from Tulsa is the oldest at 30.

Porcupine Puffer Fish

We quarantine all new fishes in a separate building before putting them in the aquarium tanks. We treat them for parasites and diseases. We have a large Caribbean Reef with some large fishes including one huge puffer and one small puffer. Big puffer bites little puffer and even took him into his mouth while trying to take his food away from him. Little puffer had to inflate before big puffer would let go. Little puffer's eye was injured and is now blind in one eye. He has been in quarantine for several months. We received a baby puffer recently and has been in quarantine along with little puffer.



Each department has their own name according to what animals they care for. The puffers are cared for by "Warm Salt" (there is cold salt, fresh water, inverts and shark quarantine). Warm salt decided both puffers were ready to be back on display and put them together in one small tank (80 gallons). Baby puffer was happy and swimming around. Little puffer was anxious and breathing hard. He sunk to the bottom of the tank and just lay there. We were all worried about him. He started swimming and kept bumping into the glass so we knew he didn't see well. Until he saw baby puffer. Off he went, like a rocket, and bit baby puffer on his back. We all know what puffers do. He blew up and little puffer had to let go. When baby puffer finally deflated it looked like his hair was ruffled and sticking up, except they are spines. He kind of looked cute, you wanted to stroke his spines down. The biologist intervened a couple of times using a net to keep them apart. She finally had to take little puffer and put him back in the big reef tank and just hope big puffer leaves him alone. He seemed so happy to back in his big tank and away from the boring quarantine tank.

When I dive in the Reef I have to be aware of the big puffer because he is such a bully. We have to feed him at the top before divers get in because he is so aggressive towards food. His favorite food is live crawfish. Once I was moving my hand in the water and it felt like I had touched a cactus then I realized big puffer was following me around. It taught me not to wave my hands around. One of the volunteer divers decided to dive without gloves and insisted he wanted to wear his gold wedding ring. Puffer bit his ring, smashed it and the volunteer had to have his ring cut off.

I'm diving in the reef tomorrow. I'm thinking of taking my underwater camera with me and taking pictures of the people on the outside who will be taking pictures of me. Just think, these visitors have pictures of me in a wetsuit. Yuck! I've got to remember to take my swimsuit back to work so I can wear it under my wetsuit. All of the 20 year olds are buck naked under their wetsuits. They still have these perky boobs and flat stomachs. I have to take an old swimsuit because it has to go in a bleach bath along with my wetsuit and mask. More about this later

Good Karma or Bad Karma?

Harvey is always saying, "The Aquarium is a dangerous place to work". I've had stitches twice for cutting myself while filleting fish. I've been complaining that we don't have an exhaust hood in the chem lab because some of the chemicals we use during testing is carcinogenic. Namely the molybdate mixed with amino acids. I have to hold my breath when dumping it in the sink and rinsing the cylinders. Have you ever had a whiff of industrial strength hydrochloric acid? It sends up visible fumes. I have to wear a mask and rubber apron and gloves. I still cough.

The guy I work with is a royal jerk. He's mostly stoned. He'll go for a couple of weeks being the nicest guy. Then "Mr. Hyde" shows up and he gets real nasty. He gets turned in by other employees because of yelling or talking ugly to them. I'm trying my best to learn how to get back in his face, but that's just not my personality. I HATE confrontations. Sometimes our boss comes in to tell me something she wants us to start doing and she tells me to tell him. Cop-out.

Well, one of our hardest jobs is to make salt water. We fill up a 9,000 gallon tank with filtered fresh water. Then we slice open around 40 boxes of salt. Inside the boxes are two 27 lb plastic bags of salt. We lift them up to a cat-walk where I stand, receive them and stack them up 3 steps. He slices them open with a box knife and pours them into the top of the tank. Talk about a dirty, sweaty job. I try to look on the bright side and realize I'm getting a weights work-out. Well, yesterday I was stacking away when he (not going to use his name to protect myself)walked underneath the catwalk. The bags were wet after sitting outside for 3 months. That made them slippery. They slid and one fell off and hit him. Smashed his hand against a pipe and macerated his hand into two huge gashes. The funny thing was I didn't particularly feel bad about it. He was yelling and cussing and dripping blood everywhere. They bandaged him and sent him to the work-med clinic for stitches. We had to spend 45 minutes cleaning up his blood he flung everywhere. We were concerned about his blood because of his drug use and his past, so we were really careful. We used tons of industrial bleach.

One of my funny co-workers said, "Well you know how bad karma can really be good karma, considering he was the one who got hurt". I was shocked when he said that, but he said, "Come on, Cheri, you were thinking that too, weren't you?" Well, yes, I was.

Sending my son to the Navy

Yesterday I drove Nick to the Navy recruiting office so he could leave for boot camp. I had such mixed feelings. I was so glad to so him go and get out of my house. He had been lounging without a job since the end of August. He didn't try hard enough to get a temporary job and must have had enough saved from his camp counselor job he could be a goof-off.

Nick is 26. He joined because he was doing nothing with his life.

I was sending him off to learn to do a dangerous job. As I hugged and kissed him good-bye I was thinking about how parents feel sending a kid off to Iraq. I'm lucky but who knows what will happen in the next 6 years.

He doesn't stay in touch much, but now I'll never hear from him. He tested high on his aptitude tests that he was offered a post as a missile tech on a nuclear submarine. It is a volunteer post and he will have special psychological testing to determine if he can handle being on a sub. He'll make more money and when he gets out he will be eligible for high paying work in the private sector.

Nick was always a difficult kid and he turned into the grown-up version of the kid who screams and throws a temper tantrum in the grocery store. The one who punched his brother (two broken bones and a facial burn) and never got along with his little sister. But then, that worked both ways with his sister. Both of his siblings were glad to see him go. I had to make them stop telling "Nick" stories about what a jerk he was. As his mom, I see his negatives, but I love him too much to hold them against him. I told Allie and Greg that I would always love him no matter what he did, except maybe commit murder. But I would have to be in that situation before I could be sure how I would feel.

Nick will be having the worst two weeks of his life according to his recruiter. I'm sorry for him, but he got himself into it. The best part is that he has to quit smoking. I curious to see if 9 weeks of not smoking will cure him. I really doubt it. He won't get to drink and Nick does love his alcohol. Harvey and I had to hide our alcohol in our house to keep him from drinking it. I admitted a long time ago my son was an alcoholic. He never agreed. Really, only his opinion is the one that counts. You can't make someone stop.

I have started looking at the military in a completely different way now. Two of my uncles were in the Navy, but that seems so long ago. I have to admit I am proud that I have a son in the military. That surprises me a lot. I'm just glad that he won't be on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Wow, I feel better now that I have written this! I'll post something in a few weeks when I hear from him. I made sure to have our family pics taken.

Is he my son or just the new employee?

Greg started working at the aquarium yesterday. He is starting a new job titled Marketing and Production. It was weird thinking that my son was starting his first day on his first real job at the same place I work. How do I keep from crossing the line of mom? I offered some suggestions to him that he clearly was rolling his eyes at. But then I thought I didn't say anything different than I would to any new employee.

Since most everyone I work with is under 30, I call them the "kids". I had taken home 3 new aquarium t-shirts (they provide)for Greg to wear. The kids told me I had crossed the line and that was a "mom" thing to do. I told the kids to keep me informed when I cross the line into mom-land. They promised to do so. And they will do it with glee.

We went to lunch together both yesterday and today. Remember how strange it is your first day anywhere? When and where do you go to lunch? That strange feeling of the lunchroom at school, carrying your tray and thinking where am I going to sit? Will someone be nice and invite me? Do I have to eat alone? Of course, I paid for both lunches. I told him I was glad to pay, but when we went out with the other employees they would start giving both of us grief if I continued to pay for his during group lunches. We all tease and rag on each other and they would really go after both of us.

I'm always cheerful about helping anyone at work. Well, I really screwed myself last night. The aquarium has a big Halloween production called Hallomarine. I noticed a few employees waiting in the office after work. I sat down to talk and they were complaining no one signed up to help. Well, dummy me, said "I'm not busy. I'll help you". They had rented a big truck to load and transport the walls to the Haunted House. We moved 25 huge walls, plus assorted and sundry other decorations. At 8:00 pm my t-shirt was drenched in sweat and I had three cuts on my legs when we finished. The whole time I was helping I was mad at myself for being the Good Samaritan. Plus I missed out on a drama going on in our sting-ray tank. 5 fishes died over the day. It was a big mystery as to what killed them. We were worried they were poisoned with pesticides. I could have been there watching all the drama as they necropsied the fish and did a huge water change. I could have learned something instead of schlepping huge walls!

Day at the fair

Thursdays are my day off. I love the night before a day off, because I think of all the things I'll want to do and have to do. Sometimes I make these ambitious lists, start carrying it around and mark off the things I actually complete. But you know how those lists make you create sublists....like call BMW to schedule windshield replaced...but then you get the guy's voice mail, so I can't exactly cross BMW off the list. Or I need to go pick up the dry-cleaning, but 95% of it is Harvey's and all I really want is my favorite pair of jeans but I forgot to pick up the coupons. So I have to add "find dry-cleaning coupons" to my list.

Well, today is the first day of the fair. I start planning last week to go to the fair. I ask Nick if he wants to go. Of course he wants to go since all he is doing is lying around the house and playing Halo and making dirty dishes (it would take too long to write my litany of what it is like to have a 26 year old non-working offspring in your house, but ask me how the inside of my microwave looks). Then Allie hears about it and wants to go. I also ask dad to go since I try to get him out of the house as much as possible and we would both enjoy doing this together.

I got all my errands finished around noon and was ready to go to the fair. Dad calls while I am in Sam's and tells me Lance needs a ride home from the airport so he will take a rain-check. Nick tells me he has made plans for lunch with his friend John and will be home around 3. Allie calls me and tells me she might get off early from work (around 10 pm) and could she still go with us.

I'm pretty independent and would probably enjoy myself going all alone. Instead here I am on the computer and really want to take a nap. Let you know later if I ever make it to get my corn dog fix.