"So Long, Charlie." Issue #80

Hey, news for anyone that doesn't know...

IT'S COLD, yo.

Last year in Seattle was kind of a weak year for snow, but with snowboarding season in full effect and the kind of weather we've had last weekend I have to say I'm more in the winter mindset than I've been for years. Frisbee sledding here I come!

Thought I'd throw up some pictures from a show I had in Walla, Walla a few weeks ago, and after posting them was thankful that this past weekend wasn't the one for which I had to drive over The Pass. An Abominable Snow Monster may have heard some songs, but the fine folks at ISENHOWER CELLARS would for sure have not...




The title of this week's blog is "So Long, Charlie" because my fish Charlie died. Yeah, it sucked. Sure it's "just" a fish, but Charlie was truly the first pet that I've owned separate from the family dogs growing up and the first pet Wifey and I had owned as a newly married couple. I think it's probably more of a symbolic thing. Charlie was a red betta. Charlie wasn't very nice either. Every time I would feed him he would swim up to the front of the fish bowl and flare his gills; the way my scaly fried would challenge me for Alpha male status. Surprisingly, he never won that title. Charlie was also very old. Normally bettas only live for a year, but Charlie's anger issues took him to the ripe old age of three. After a month of laying on the bottom of the fishbowl and starting to turn white from what seemed to be a fungal infection, I decided that it was time to put him out of his apparent misery. Research showed that the most humane way (at least in 2008...thanks internets) to do so would be to put him in the freezer and let him slowly fade into eternal sleepy times.


So, last week after getting home from the studio I decided that it was time and feeling very guilty put him in a purple plastic cup and set him next to the OTTER-POPS for the night. It just felt mean...like I was a death dealer. Obviously somebody needs more experience with the life/death process, but as someone who still has all his grandparents I'd rather start this way...

The next morning I opened the freezer to see little Charlie laying in the bottom of the cup fast asleep hopefully dreaming of open waters with an endless sea of Bloodworm-pellets.

So long, Charlie...you were a mean mother, but you kept it real.

KS