HENRY LECTOR, and the Oompas Parole

Henry the homicidal goldfish has company.  No, not in his tank.  We know better by now.  Art is fish sitting his girlfriend's beta while she is on vacation.  The beta is named Capt'n Jack (of course).  For some reason Art thought it would be a good idea to set Capt'n Jack's fish bowl right beside Henry's tank.  The poor beta has barely moved from the far side of his bowl while Henry swims back and forth like a great white shark trying to find a way out of his tank and into the little bowl.  Its 'Hannibal Lector' kind of creepy.  Poor Capt'n Jack!

I did some shopping for Zack's trip.   I was thinking that it would just be a bar of soap and a toothbrush... I was wrong.  There's shampoo, razor and shaving cream, deodorant, toothpaste, mouthwash, hairbrush, hair ties, hairnets (he'll have to wear a net since he refuses to cut his gorgeous hair), and batteries for his mp3.  Cripes, I'm out of over $50!  But that's okay, I see it as an investment.  He'll never find me a future daughter-in-law if he stinks.

The three younger Oompas are in trouble.  They got into an argument over jumping from the trampoline into the pool.  First of all, that's a big 'no no', and I said so when we got the pool last year, and again this year when the pool thawed and was cleaned out.  The Oompas seemed to have forgotten that and when Rocky saw Becca jumping into the pool yesterday, she wanted to as well.  Unfortunately her older sister and brother decided that it was too dangerous for her.  (Well, duh!  Isn't that what I said when I forbade them from jumping from the tramp into the pool?)  Naturally Rocky had to come tattling when she couldn't break the rules with them.  Now none of them can go into the pool or on the trampoline.  And Art and Becca have to be nice to their baby sister and include her in their activities for the next two weeks.  AND... they have to help plan and put on her birthday party.  Ouch!

Okay, it may not sound like a very severe punishment, but believe me, it is already having the desired effect.  So far today there have been no... (none, zero, ZIP!) arguments between the younger Oompas.  Becca has taken Rocky with her to her friends house two days in a row.  And Rocky hasn't tattled, not once!  Its almost peaceful here.  Why oh why couldn't the Oompas have broken the 'no jumping from the trampoline into the swimming pool' rule earlier in the year.  It might have saved me a whole lot of grief!

I saw a vaguely familiar face this morning on an AOL photo blog and wrote to the screen name on a hunch.  My hunch was right, it was a long lost friend from 20 years ago.  How cool is that?  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Thank you Al Gore for inventing the Internet!