The plagues....
Apparently I have angered the gods, somehow, as I was visited by three plagues over the weekend: The plague of the ick, The plague of the snow, and The plague of the headache.
The Plague of the Ick
Perhaps we got too excited and put in too many fish at once. Perhaps we did something wrong and were owed some bad karma. In any case, when I returned home from school on Thursday, nearly everyone in the tank showed signs of ick. I phoned Frank, who was working late, to ask him to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home to get some ick treatment. Although all were still alive Friday morning, Saturday greeted us with no neons (and only five bodies found; the crayfish looked fat) and three out of four barbs dead. Petcetera fortunately has a 30 day guarantee on all fish, so I took them back that morning for my refund (the neons came from another place, and were pretty cheap anyway). I managed to actually find the one person who works there who actually seems to know things about fish. (I also exchanged a live plant we had gotten there that was not-quite-so-living anymore).
Later that afternoon, my beloved Sharky (the red-tailed shark) was floating, so I took him back as well, and had the same guy test our water. Our ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite levels were all high, so he recommended some ammonia absorbing rocks for the filter.. charcoal takes out the N compounds, but we have to have the filter out for the ick treatment. So we put the filter back in for a few hours before the nightly water change before the next dosing. Later that same afternoon, the last barb bit the dust... the crayfish was quite happily munching on it for a while. I wasn't about to make a third trip in one day, plus I had somehow gotten back full price for the three I'd returned earlier, even though it's buy one get one free. So I fished it out and flushed it.
Sunday morning. The goldfish, the only one who did not show signs of ick, was dead. Sigh. Later on I caught the crayfish eating a gourami and chased him away so I could save it to return today. This morning, one more gourami dead. All that remains is one sad looking gourami, the plecostamus (who looks ok, although he did get ick spots), adn the caryfish. The crayfish looks best of all, having moulted and dined on bits of several fish. We'll let things stablize, possibly dump out all the water and start over, and then get new fish very gradually... three at a time at most, and one week apart. Sigh.
The Plague of the Snow
The original forecast for Saturday was 10-15cm of snow. Of course, we didn't really believe them, as we'd been having some beautiful weather in the teens during the past week. Well, it did sort of snow on Saturday, but it was more like wet flaky rain than real snow. Nothing stayed on the ground. And Sunday was supposed to be well above zero again, so anything would melt that did accumulate. I had been hoping to get my bike out and ready for Spring, but accepted that I would have to wait until Sunday.
Sunday morning I got up and looked out the window. White. White everywhere, covering the ground and continuing to fall. No bike preparation possible. Horrible, horrible snow on April 3rd. Yuck. It basically snowed all day, and several centimetres did stay on the ground (maybe 5?). The sun came out by the end of the day, but there is still snow coverig most of the ground today.
The Plague of the Headache
I'm not sure what I did to deserve this. With absolutely no provocation, I woke up Sunday morning with a terrible headache. Which was made worse by seeing all the snow. I took some tylenol with some OJ, and then ate a piece of toast. My head gradually felt worse, and I felt kind of sick to my stomach as well. It felt kind of like a flu-headache, but I didn't have any other symptoms (body ache, sore throat or cough, etc.). Just the headache. I soon had to crawl back into bed, being unable to maintain any position other than completely vertical. I slept off and on throughout the day, unable to bear even TV. I was still hungry, and could only eat a yogurt smoothie through a straw because that's about all you can eat when laying down.
I felt a bit more normal around 6pm, being able to obtain a propped up laying position to eat soup and watch Battlestar Galactica. I felt gradually more and more normal, and felt pretty much like myself around 9 or 10pm. Of course, after having slept all day, plus the time change, I was awake til after 2am. But I feel ok today (stomach still a little unsettled), so I guess the sleep was relatively restful. I think it helped that I found some amazing new sheets at HomeSense... 440 thread count 100% cotton. I don't think I'll be able to go back to anything less! Only $58, marked down from $78, and compare at $120! So luxurious...
Overall, not the best weekend. And my headache is why I was not online at all yesterday. If the phone rang, I didn't hear it.