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.