Fishing

Sometimes Pistachio is a good sport with Chloe, like she was in this picture when Chloe began chewing on her collar and dragging Pistachio around the floor by her collar. I put a stop to the torture after I took this picture.

Right now I'm waiting for Chloe to wake up from her nap. My vertebrate collection is due on wednesday, and I still have no amphibians, no fresh water fish, no turtles, and only one snake. I've decided that there's not much I can do about the amphibians and snakes since catching them either takes luck or a lot of animal catching skill, of which I seem to have neither, but I do know how to fish. So, I borrowed a fishing pole from the bishop here. Oddly enough, that was the first time I'd ever met him. I thought I was bad at social interactions. Well, he's even worse than me. But he let me borrow a fishing pole, which I really needed, so that gets him 5 points. So, once Chloe wakes up, I'm going to feed her lunch, put some sun screen on her, and we're gong to try one more time to catch animals. I drove out to the national seashore last night looking for anything at all (roadkill included) and didn't see a thing. I did see a dead bird, but I can't take birds in. Oh, but I did get to see some squid yesterday! It was so cool. My boss took me and his sons out to do a seine (I don't know how it's spelled) net in the Corpus Christi bay. I took one end of the net, and his son took the other. We got a few immature fish that I think are different from what I already have. But the last time we took the net out, we had about 4 tiny squid and a big crab. Of course, those are both inverts, so they didn't do me any good, but they were really cool. The squid were totally clear and they were about the size of a thumbnail, but they had little red speckles throughout their bodies. And of course, they had the really mean looking eyes. You know, squid and octopi are two of the most advanced invertebrates. They are active hunters, they have cephalization and good eyesight. Anyway, that was a lot of fun for me to see, because I didn't even know we had squid in the bay. There are so many critters living out there, and I'm totally oblivious. I like to pretend that there are no sharks, but people catch them all the time. Anyway, once Chloe wakes up, we're going to go to a bait shop to get some bait and see if they possibly have any weird fish or eels or rays or something that they would be willing to give me. And then we'll probably walk down a few piers and try to get some fishermen to give us their throw backs. After that, we're going to a park on the Nueces river where I'm going to try my hand at fishing. I used to go fishing a lot when I was young, but it's been years since I've been fishing and actually caught something. And I only have one hook, so I really hope I don't get snagged. If today wasn't Saturday, I'd go to walmart a buy a few extra hooks, but it is Saturday, so I will not go to walmart. I can't handle that. In fact, when I was picking up the fishing pole, the bishop said I should go to church. I told him that I'd considered it a few times, but because of my phobia of shopping in large groups of people, the only time I can go grocery shopping is on Sunday morning. I've tried early morning on every other day, and it's still no good. In the mornings, the grocery store is filled with old people who walk slow and stand in front of the eggs for hours at a time. I can't handle that. But not on Sunday morning. I guess that's because they're all at church. But some day I may get my shopping done early and maybe I'll go to an hour of church. It's not going to change my mind or anything, but maybe I can meet some nice people who live close to me. That would be nice. I wanted to find someone to go fishing with me today, and I realized I really don't have anyone. I have my one friend Ryan, but she wasn't really up for it. I guess one friend isn't really enough. One friend is ok with your best friend in the whole world lives with you (Miguel), but it's not good when he's 18 hours away. I miss Miguel. I don't miss his empty beer cans all over the place or other annoying habits, but I miss him.

Well, Chloe's still not awake, and I'm coming close to writing a short novel, so I guess I'll wrap this up.