Most days I go out to the mailbox when I hear the postal truck lumbering up my street. My mail lady is a woman about my age, and we get along really well. Some days we sit out there for thirty minutes or more, chatting about everything from family issues to music.

Some days I stay inside so she can get her route done more quickly. Yesterday was one of those days.

When I went out to the box to see what my mail lady had brought, I got all excited!! Inside my box was this quite lovely package, all wrapped up and with my name on it! My good buddy Art had already warned me that I was getting a Christmas present in the mail, but it was still very exciting when it arrived!

I brought it inside, where Grace was amazed by the pretty packaging. She kept saying, "What's that? What's that??"

I found a knife to cut open the tape holding the packaging together, and inside I found THIS:

YUMMY!! Chocolate!!!! With cherries, no less! I had to test them for quality assurance, and boy, are they yummy! I have to make sure I don't eat them all in one sitting!

But in sadder news, I have to report that sure enough, Ob, the orange fantail, went to the Big Fishbowl in the Sky last week. I have no idea what caused his demise. He was the most gorgeous bright orange, but then it looked a bit like he was developing ammonia burns on his skin. I tried my best to keep the ammonia levels safe, and they were testing out inside the safe zone. Ob was almost always on his side, hanging out in the corner of the tank or under the rock at the bottom. He ate just fine and seemed to revive when I would feed them. Finally I took him out of the tank and put him in a fish bowl with some water from the tank, and gave him some peas. I read on the internet that sometimes that will alleviate some of their problems. I made sure to put the fishbowl on top of my dryer in the laundry nook so the fish would be out of reach of my cat, Storm, who gets into EVERYTHING. The next morning, poor Ob was no longer moving, and the door to the laundry room had been pried open. So I don't know if Ob went to the Big Fishbowl in the Sky because he was a sick fishy or because my cat scared him to death.

I'm not terribly upset about it because he'd been acting so sick since I bought him. Gracie noticed that there is one less fish -- she kept asking where the other fish was.

My water levels seem to be stabilizing a lot now. Gob is quite content in his new home, and the water in the tank has cleared up quite a bit. In a few weeks, I'll go down to the local pet store and get another gold fantail. He'll be Ob, Junior!

Maybe I'll get a Black Moor too after a while and name him Nob. Hee hee hee!