{"id":4915,"date":"2019-04-17T16:33:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T23:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=4915"},"modified":"2019-04-17T20:59:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T03:59:40","slug":"the-one-that-got-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=4915","title":{"rendered":"The One That Got Away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"http:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/TheOneThatGotAway.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption>Audio for The One That Got Away<br><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">We lost a loved one this month.&nbsp; A very special lady who will be in  both of our hearts always, as she has for so many years now.&nbsp; For people  who say online lovers aren&#8217;t real, I say two things, first that they  are and second they are better than \ud83d\ude09&nbsp; Because in our avatar worlds we  can do more, be anything and love more deeply than the daily dishes and  laundry might allow.&nbsp; Suffice to say she was loved.&nbsp; Each of us mourn in  our own way to be certain sometimes we seek a shoulder or soliloquy, a  dark room and old country heart break tunes or we pre-occupy our  mourning mind with a project.&nbsp; That&#8217;s just us  wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve-open-book kind of people.&nbsp; The redneck of  course can walk away from anything (and anyone, I am no exception to be  sure &#8230; except that I&#8217;m not \ud83d\ude09 )&nbsp; He also believes that anything worth  DOING is worth OVER DOING.&nbsp; You know, go BIG or go HOME.&nbsp; And this  month his focus has been his 75 gallon fishtank that sits in our  meditation nook in the threshold between our closet, bedroom and bath.&nbsp;  It&#8217;s a wonderful small space that is simply filled wall to wall with  this massive tank that holds some massive fish including two Eclipse,  one 7 inch severem and a rare African Sail that fancies swimming upside  down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the redneck wasn&#8217;t in front of the fishtank he was on youtube \nlearning everything there is to know about rhizomes, carbon dioxide and \nsubstrate pH.&nbsp; I&#8217;m certain there was more, but there is only so much I \ncould soak up from his summaries.&nbsp; And in truth, I mourn in my own 3D \nmodeling way.&nbsp; But I could tell he was super focused on his new \nundertaking.&nbsp; He had a detailed plan that was growing faster than the \nparrot fish was eating the new anubias.&nbsp; He&#8217;s be quick to correct me \nthat the severem was munching the west african marsh plant, but I&#8217;ll be \ndarned if I didn&#8217;t see the parrot fish nibble off a chunk of it so she \nhad at least a role to play in it&#8217;s mysterious disappearance.&nbsp; It&#8217;s all \nabout &#8220;loss&#8221; anyway is it not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As grieving goes through stages, it&#8217;s no surprise that just as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brightest.io\/green-new-deal\">green new deal<\/a>\n was picking up steam, a road block came by way of a citizen uprising.&nbsp; \nIn this case it was the chiclids who absolutely love live plants more \nthan live food &#8230; to eat.&nbsp; I know how frustrating it is, when my mesh \nisn&#8217;t weighting the way it needs to.&nbsp; Even virtual gravity can be a byte\n buster when we are trying to walk&nbsp; a straight line.&nbsp; And so it was, all\n of this new information &#8230; a man with a plan &#8230; and no place to \nexecute his vision.&nbsp; Did I mention the $189 full spectrum programmable \nsunrise and sunset simulating four foot light that is arriving today?<br>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were options of course.&nbsp; We could&#8230; buy more aquariums!&nbsp; But \nwhile I respect his &#8220;enthusiasm&#8221;, I was hoping for a more pragmatic \nsolution.&nbsp; And while he truly loves his big fish, he was beginning to \nsee that the ideas that were in the iris of his mind were forming a \ndifferent type of tropical fish tank with smaller residents who would \nlive in harmony with the green house effect he was planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.craigslist.org\/00303_5SI2LOlKmHu_1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>So for the man who can walk away from anything, he began calling pet  stores to see if any of them would take some fish for store credit (or  for free because he really just wanted help re-homing these swim fins.)&nbsp;  But no luck.&nbsp; None of the chains or small business fish stores where  interested in taking on outsourced fish.&nbsp; Then he found a local facebook  group and carefully looked through past postings to confirm that they  had people putting fish up for adoption.&nbsp; And they did.&nbsp; He spent a long  time getting good pictures of the crew he needed to remove and he put  up an post only to be taken down within minutes from the moderator who  informed him that pet sales were not allowed.&nbsp; It wasn&#8217;t worth pushing  back with the posts for other fish and tanks that were in their past  listings and so another wave of disappointment came down the stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But that&#8217;s what life is, is it not?&nbsp; Everything comes down stream, we\n cross the river, we dip our toe in the water, we sit on the river bank \nwaiting for a nibble on a line we tossed in hoping for the right byte.&nbsp; \nSome of us are super aware of every piece of gravel in our internal \naquarium.&nbsp; We know the temperature of the water, the chemical changes \nand every ripple on the surface or deep below.&nbsp; Dang, I can sometimes \nfeel the flow of cerebral fluid on my brain, but then again I&#8217;m often a \nquart low \ud83d\ude09&nbsp; But other people, not mentioning any names (Monks) is \ncontent to take it all in without labels or scrutiny.&nbsp; So much so, that \nat times he&#8217;s completely unaware that his sunny disposition has changed \nand a green furry trashcan dwelling muppet has taken his place.&nbsp; And you\n know, that&#8217;s really okay.&nbsp; No one needs to be perky and pizazz all the \ntime.&nbsp; We each get to have our dark times for however transient or \nlingering they may last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I imagine it may be helpful if we are aware of the color of our mood ring, but even if others don&#8217;t see they are in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OPf0YbXqDm0\">uptown funk you up<\/a>, all it takes is a little grace and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ErvgV4P6Fzc\">patience <\/a>to\n sit beside them at the waters edge and wait for the tides to change.&nbsp; \nEasier said than done at times of course.&nbsp; As my 2 year old grandson who\n loves to count exclaims ZERO PATIENCE!! when he&#8217;s having a melt down \nand we are trying to settle a bit with counting.&nbsp; That kid is going to \nbe the king of one-liners when he grows up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last plan for the fish kingdom was to place an ad on Craigslist \nto see if any hobbyist had a spare 100 gallon tank in need of some super\n groovy residents.&nbsp; I was working on my own 3D-mesh-therapy so I didn&#8217;t \noffer to help (for transparency sake I probably declined to help).&nbsp; But \nthe redneck is tech savvy and put up a wonderful ad and made sure HIS \nphone number was in place of mine on the account we use together for \nsuch purposes.&nbsp; So I assumed (you know how that goes) that text messages\n would be coming to his phone.&nbsp; The ad went live just as Chinese food \nwas coming to the front door. Or perhaps it was the doorbell that \nprohibited him from checking over the ad one last time before \ncommitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;d forgotten completely about the ad being up while we were lounging\n with our housemate in our room watching The Voice.&nbsp; Until my daughter \ncame to the door.&nbsp; She was amused, shocked and with a slight smirk \nannounced that there was a man standing in the driveway asking about \nfish.&nbsp; Mind you it was after 9 p.m.&nbsp; No one had even rung the bell and \nI&#8217;m fairly sure we had forgotten to even turn on the porch light.&nbsp; Gigi \nand the redneck both thought she was doing that lyin&#8217; thang and teased \nback that they weren&#8217;t biting.&nbsp; But she insisted it was true.&nbsp; She said a\n truck drove up in the dark, and saw her husband in a second floor \nwindow and hollered up to him about fish!&nbsp; I locked eyes with the \nredneck and said some version of YOU PUT OUR ADDRESS LIVE ON THAT \nAD?!!!!&nbsp; Before I could even contemplate the consequences he had jumped \nout of bed and ran to the front door.&nbsp; In a moment he was back with a 5 \ngallon bucket from Home Depot and two large nets.<br>\n  <br>\nThe next few minutes were a blur of water splashing everywhere (I don&#8217;t \nknow if you&#8217;ve tried to capture an unwilling 8 inch catfish before) but \nhe succeeded in safely netting the four big fins.&nbsp; I walked with him \ndown the hall and turned on the lights at the front door.&nbsp; Small wonder \nthe dude was waiting with his truck lights on. It&#8217;s DARK up our road at \nnight.&nbsp; He looked in the bucket and saw the black sail and said he was \n&#8220;bitchin&#8221;.&nbsp; Which he is.&nbsp; He talked a bit about his other tanks, \nsomething about peacock bass (who knew? .. ok the redneck knew but I had\n no idea &#8230; much like I had no idea that he had put our address on the \ncraigslist ad).&nbsp; The guy said he&#8217;d emailed us (I rarely check the \nwebmaster account it only gets junk mail) and when he didn&#8217;t hear back \nfrom us he said he just drove up to see if we still had them cause he \nreally wanted them.&nbsp; <br>\n  <br>\nAs soon as we were back in the house we DELETED the ad.&nbsp; Everything \nhappens for a reason .. does it not?&nbsp; These fish were meant to go to \nthis stranger in the dark with the pick up truck.&nbsp; I don&#8217;t know why \nthings happen.&nbsp; Sometimes we don&#8217;t even know who they are.&nbsp; But letting \ngo of expectations, people, places or swimming things is just something \nyou do when you are watching the river flow.<br>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We lost a loved one this month.&nbsp; A very special lady who will be in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4915"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4921,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4915\/revisions\/4921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}