The Ninth Strange Day

Cardinal Richelieu is the new betta.

While out shopping today I bought a new betta to replace Rasputin. This one’s a nifty reddish colour (the previous two were blue) and was already active and interested the minute I put him in his new tank. He swam right over to the other fish and looked at them and they looked at him. Then they all ate fish food. After that, he started exploring. Like Fionn had been, he’s a little more aware of life outside the tank and has already figured out how feeding works.

Kitti came home today and saw him. “He looks like a cardinal” he said. And so, betta₃ became Cardinal Richelieu.

I’ll just call him Rish for short.

It is with great sadness that I report the betta is well and truly dead. He actually died two days ago, but I left him stuck to the filter pipe in case he was getting better at faking it.

The first betta I owned was named Fionn mac Cumhaill immediately after I got him.

This one never had a name. He didn’t have the charm or personality of Fionn. Considering he spent a few months playing dead, he didn’t have much charm or personality at all.

He deserves a name, though. Considering his frequent “Oh, he’s dead. Wait! Now he’s swimming!” episodes I’ve decided his name was Rasputin.

And so, Rasputin is now sleeping with the fishes and no longer… sleeping… with… the fishes…

I’m Chevy Chase, and the betta is still not dead.

Today, unexpectedly, I got to try out the “Fireworks” setting on my camera.

We went to the Inner Harbor on a whim and as we were walking toward it, the fireworks started. We were actually able to get pretty close and I took a bunch of pictures.

I also tried video. That’s below the cut.

After the fireworks, we cruised The Discovery Store (everything 30-50% off because the stores are closing). Kitti said I was not allowed to buy the Discovery DNA Explorer Kit, which was marked down substantially.

They didn’t have the Forensics Lab Kit. I kinda want them both.

After that, a late dinner at La Tasca. I had goat cheese and tomato salad. Kitti had mixed olives. We shared garlic bread with tomato and cilantro, and a pitcher of sangria.

I really wish the weather could hold like this for the rest of the summer.

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So I’m sitting here playing a game and I get a word stuck in my head. This happens to me a lot. I’ll just be minding my own business, usually playing a game that requires no actual thinking on my part (the “click a whole lot to shoot at things” type of games) and my mind will wander and sometimes it comes back with a word in its mouth. All proud of itself that it caught a word, and the poor word is just hanging there twitching.

Then the word escapes and starts flying around my head, banging against the windows, trying to get out, trying not to get eaten and I can’t do anything other than sit there with this word going around and around and around until it dies, gets eaten, or escapes.

Tonight’s word? Mawkish.

Mawkish. Mawkish. Mawkish. Around and around and around.

See, the biggest problem for me getting words caught in my head is the fact that I’m an auditory thinker. Some people think in pictures or words… me? I hear things. When I read a book, a voice gets assigned to each character and that’s how I hear them when I read. Adjustments have to be made along the way as I learn more about the characters, but the fact that I have a voice for each one never changes. Even the narrator has a voice. Usually something neutral or just pleasant. Something that makes for good voiceover. John Cusack, for example. Good voice. Steady. Clear. Very firm and slightly authoritative, which is good for a narrator. Anyhow, I hear it, so it’s a lot harder to ignore. I can tune out background noise, but when it’s the noise in my own head it’s a lot harder to block. It’s like you can lower the Cone of Silence, but the conversation inside the cone is so loud that it makes your ears ring and your head pound. Like you can’t ignore a person shouting right in your ear.

Mawkish. Mawkish. Mawkish. Unrelentingly going.

I keep playing my game, doing all the clicking and mouse-moving to keep my little robot alive and rack up more points, and the word is just there there there there and I’m thinking “Why mawkish? Where did it come from? What does it even mean“? And I can’t answer that. I don’t know where it came from and I don’t know what it means.

Mawkish. Mawkish. Mawkish. My robot is suffering. I’m getting distracted thinking about this thing and I miss a couple of easy shots and miss a couple of bonus pickups.

Then I start thinking “My mom would know”. My mom knows words instinctively. She knows words other people forgot centuries ago. She knows words that aren’t in general use yet. I think she knows a few words that aren’t even invented. Okay, maybe not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did.

Mawkish. Mawkish. Mawkish.

By this point my robot’s just about had it. I watch the little guy hang his head in defeat, quit the game, and open the browser so I can look up goddamn mawkish and maybe finally get some rest.

mawkish - effusively or insincerely emotional; “a bathetic novel”; “maudlin expressions of sympathy”; “mushy effusiveness”; “a schmaltzy song”; “sentimental soap operas”; “slushy poetry”

Okay. Now I know what it means. One mystery solved. I still don’t know how or why it got in my head.

By the way, if it’s the sort of thing you can do, think of John Cusack when you read this. I have a feeling it’d be funnier if he did it.

As far as first days of summers go, I’d have to rate this one a success. It was actually cool and not humid when I went to work this morning. When I left work it was overcast and windy. Sure it was more humid, but it wasn’t hot and the humidity was because it was about to rain.

So at five o’clock today, the longest day of the year, it looked like dusk. This makes me perversely happy.

That’s actually the best thing about the Summer Solstice. You know from that day forward the days will get shorter and the nights will get longer. It creeps me out when the sun is still out and it’s almost 9pm.