Average Jane, Underachiever

If you have to ask how my ambitious Monday plans worked out, you either don’t know me or haven’t read Average Jane very long. Oh, I made it through my usual tasks; I just didn’t exactly exceed and excel. Perhaps things will work out better today.

On top of everything else, my new beta fish is ailing. Yesterday I came home to find him jammed head-first down into the rocks at the bottom of his tank, which seemed to be a bad sign. We promptly went to the local pet store and procured some medicine, but although the fish is no longer wedged into a crevice, he’s still bumming around and looks, well, rather hopeless. In the parlance of The Princess Bride, he appears to be “mostly dead.” I hope that time and medication will do something for him.

Note added 7/10/04: I’ve noticed this blog entry coming up a lot in searches for “sick beta fish,” so I thought I’d pass along the best site we’ve found for comprehensive information about the little fishes: BettaTalk.com. Faith knows everything about bettas/betas.

My only unqualified success with a living thing of late has been the pumpkin vine. Man, that thing is getting enormous! The stem is now about five feet long and about as thick around as my thumb, except at the very tip. If I don’t train it onto a trellis pretty soon, it’s going to wind around and strangle all of my zinnias and marigolds.

When it comes to indoor plants, I definitely don’t have a green thumb. Over the years I’ve learned which varieties can survive being watered only when they’re starting to droop, and those are the only house plants I keep around. When my husband got his beta, we displaced a Syngonium plant that had never really thrived. I took it to my office where it now gets watered at least weekly. It has doubled in size in just a few months, and has tons of new, healthy leaves. Kinda makes me feel guilty about the plants that were left in my irresponsible hands.

The best news I’ve heard lately: I’ll finally get my car back this week! It’s been in the shop for almost two months, but it’s almost put back together. After puttering around like a granny in the emergency backup car, I’m going to have to be exceedingly careful not to get a(nother) speeding ticket when I’m back to driving the sports car. Now I have an added incentive to get all my work done this week: I need to free up a weekend day to wash and wax my car!