T&L

Sunday was one of my two prized days off in June. It was completely marvelous.

We slept in, hit up Panera for a leisurely breakfast, ran a few errands over at Kenwood Towne Center, and then went to the Guardian Angels parish festival. Since moving to Ohio, I’ve learned that church festivals are a whole different ball game in the midwest than in Texas. There’s carnival rides and games and food and live music and auctions and gambling and eating contests and beer. They’re fun. We roamed about, soaking in the attractions, played a few games (the duck races are my favorite!) and I filled up on an order of two of my most favorite fat kid eats – jalapeno poppers and a snow cone! I only get them a few times a year, but they’re worth the wait because they remind me of Texas (and they’re unbelievably delicious!) Ted and I each bought a duck to race. I selected number 26 and Ted chose number 6. Neither of our ducks won the jackpot, but when the race was over, we found our two ducks, floating side by side at the very end of the duck line-up, promptly in last place: together. We may not always win, but at least we never leave the other one behind – even in duck races.

After the festival we picked up some cherries, strawberries and peaches to hold us over for the next week and then we took my Buick over to the DIY carwash and gave it the internal and external washing, vacuuming, and polishing of its life. Of course, it promptly began to rain 12 hours later. But the car was in perfect shape for the drive-in that night! We looove the drive-in. The weather was gorgeous, so we took the shiny Buick out for a spin and went to go see Madagascar 3 and What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the former of which was hilarious and the later of which was entertaining but I’d only recommend seeing it if you actually have kids yourself. But the night was perfect! We ordered classic old-fashioned cheeseburgers, which totally hit the spot, and then we snacked on peaches, peanuts, lemonade, and ice cream cones (yeeeeeah, it was fatty day) while we sat outside, surrounded by a cool summer breeze and glowing fireflies and enjoyed our movies until 1 a.m. Between movies we ran around the parking lot and played, like five year olds. It was totally awesome.

A perfect day off!

I know I say this every time but the craybies are getting SO BIG. Like, insanely, ridiculously BIG.  They pick at each other and chase each other around the tank and zoom up and down the plants and leap from plant to plant like trapeze artists and zip from one end of the tank to the other and climb the filter and air hoses and shovel in food like we’ll never feed them again. They, literally, grow overnight when they molt and we wake up in the morning and we’re like “HOLY CRAP BELUGA! YOU’RE HUGE.” They’re so big we’ve upgraded them from fish flakes to veggie rounds, just like their mamma used to eat. And they, apparently, love them just as much as she did. In no time they’ll be chowing down on frozen peas and shrimp! We threw in the first small piece yesterday morning to see what would happen and one of the bigger crays zipped around from out of nowhere, grabbed it, held it to him like we were handing out diamonds, and dragged it under the rock with him (for safe keeping) so he could eat the whole thing and not have to share it with his brothers and sisters. Typical siblings. They all do that, given the opportunity. They only look sweet and innocent.

I’m so happy they’re thriving, and we installed a live streaming video camera beside their tank so we can watch them during the day while we’re working (yes, we know we’re weird), but we’re also a little sad because we know it’ll only be another week or so before they’ll be too big to all live peacefully together and we’ll have to find some of them a new home. But how can we possibly choose who to keep and who not to?

Anyone want a blue cray?

(The answer, obviously, is YES.)

But they’re so great! Really, really great. And so fun to watch. They may just be 15 craybies, but they’re starting to develop such distinct personalities already. Some are snippy, some are swimmers, some are bosses, others are push-overs.

They’ll do silly things like sneak up on each other when one is preoccupied devouring a veggie round and suddenly clamp down on their tail with those big old claws, startling the poor guy and sending him flying across the tank in shock….then the snipper will proceed to steal the veggie round and eat it for himself. Absolute sneaks, I tell you!

Love them!

There’s a little secret we’ve been keeping.

When we lost Maverick two weeks ago, she was carrying eggs. All the experts told us they were infertile duds, likely laid out of stress from poor water conditions due to cycling or a common per-cursor to her biannual spring molt.

I didn’t believe them.

Crays can technically be pregnant for 6-9 months before actually releasing their eggs. Plus, the eggs were black, and black eggs means fertile eggs. And Mav was continuing to hold on to them beneath her tail, protecting them with mamma instincts, despite the fungus that engulfed them.

And I’m just an incredibly, intensely hopeful person.

But then, as often happens with mamma crays, her developing eggs caught a fungal infection that encased them in a cocoon of cotton candy pink fluff and killed the eggs.  We added anti-fungal meds to her water. Meds that were supposed to be safe for her tank’s biological filter…but apparently aren’t. They jump started another cycle, and between the second bout of ammonia spiking and a case of shell rot that she caught early on, Mav was unable to molt her shell and likely died from a combination of those few factors. We assumed the fungus, while not lethal to her, had killed off all of her supposedly dud eggs.

The morning after she died we still couldn’t bring ourselves to remove her from the tank, because the thought of her tank being empty was simply heartbreaking and, well, just in case she was sleeping or still mid-molt (incredibly, intensely hopeful, remember?). Ted just happened to be looking at her, resting so still and peacefully beneath her favorite rock, when he saw the slightest bit of movement, and then a small patch of remaining black eggs closest to her body, hidden underneath her tail and untouched by the fungus, burst. And over a dozen tiny, microscopic little baby crays floated down. So small you could hardly see them without a magnifying glass. So small that eight of them could have fit onto one piece of gravel. So tiny that they disappeared instantly and you wondered if you were just imagining them. So small, yet so perfectly formed, just like their mamma.

And while we miss girlfriend a whole awful lot, these little guys are nothing if not absolute miracles.

A little hope can go a long way.

Four!

We were told not to get our hopes up. Up to 400 can be born at once, with perhaps only a dozen or so surviving. Craybies have to survive a molt within the first 24-hours of hatching, grow a hard shell, not eat or pick one another to death, make it the first 48-hours without their mamma (they should have mamma for the first 2 days before mamma gets moved to another tank, but ours weren’t so lucky), and survive the high ammonia and nitrite levels that were still plaguing our tank from the second nitrogen cycle the meds started.

Given that all the odds were against them, we’ve tried not to get our hopes up, especially since sweet Mav is still fresh on our minds. But, honestly, we are outright amazed at their strength. But of course, they take after Mav – the bravest, strongest little cray ever. They’re little but resilient! And we’re so happy to still have little pieces of Maverick that remind us of her every single day.

I wasn’t going to write about them just yet, just in case they didn’t make it. But as Ted said, “Why not? They’re a part of our life. And the blog documents our life – the good things and the not so good things.” And he’s right (he usually is). These little ones are definitely a good thing, so we should celebrate and share them.

We never really got an exact count on how many of them they were. It was impossible. They are, after all, smaller than a mustard seed and insanely difficult to locate in a tank full of gravel – especially when they start out microscopically tiny and see-through – so light blue that they’re practically translucent with just a touch of brown (their deep blue color won’t develop for a while yet). On day 2 we counted 15 of them. There could have been more, who knows.

Last night we counted 13 out and about. And they’re growing! It’s hard to believe, but they really are getting bigger by the day. Take it from the people who spend 2 hours a day with their noses plastered against a fish tank, staring at baby crays.

And man, are they fun to watch! They swim backwards, flail their long antennas and skinny legs, scale strings of dust collecting alongside the walls of the tank, hide in the plants spying and playing and climbing, clamor over and on top of each other, perch atop the rock like little kings, and for a while there we were still are plucking them out of the filter at least once a day en route to escape…and because they’re so tiny that the water currents just blow them around the tank like leaves in the wind – which is kind of hilarious to watch but also kind of pitiful and “awwww!” inducing too. The water current causes them to do all kinds of neat flips before they get sucked into the filter, which consequently means they require daily rescuing. Troublemakers though they may be, they sure are cute!

Yup, they’re every inch (all 1/4″ of them) of Mav’s babies – strong willed and sneaky – just like Mav. Their mamma would be SO proud.

We are proud.

World, meet craybies! Names forthcoming :-)

“God, your ways are wonderful, but sometimes they’re miserable because I am man and you are God. You hold the key. And that’s just the deal.”

– Misty Edwards

We lost our sweet Mav on Wednesday and buried her beneath the shade of a leafy green tree by a pretty, quiet pond near our home on Friday morning.

It’s been a heartbreaking, tough week.

We really grew to love that cray.

She was a part of our family.

Our happy, little family of three.

But all we can do is be proud of how amazing she was, and how hard she fought, and be thankful for the time we had with her.

And think that God’s one damn lucky guy because he gets to hang out with the Mavie now.

It was our turn for a wonderful, happy time, but now it’s his.

But he holds the key. And that’s just the deal.

We love you for always Maverick and we’re so proud of you little girl.

We miss you.

Love,

Mom & Dad

From Sancho (and my mom) on Mothers Day.

They crack me up!

Girl date this week was at the 1215 Wine Bar, again.

Because, apparently, we just can’t get enough of that place.

9 half-glasses of wine (3 flights), a selection of gourmet cheeses, fine meats, bruschetta, truffle oil, lemon olive oil, rock salt, toast, dipping bread, and two great girlfriends.

What’s not to love?

Miracle of miracles!

Mav’s nitrite has gone down!

Hallelujah!

I realize that to anyone not cycling an aquarium for the first time, this is small peanuts.

You see, the nitrogen cycle for a new aquarium takes between 4-6 weeks.

It’s the process by which the animal’s waste builds up in the water and the toxic ammonia spikes, then the toxic nitrite spikes, then the good bacteria nitrates start to build up and spike, and finally the aquarium’s water has been fully cycled and enough good bacteria has built up to have a healthy environment for your aquatic friend.

Only, in all the research we did ahead of time, before we got Maverick, we somehow missed the whole nitrogen cycle thing.

And the importance of cycling a new aquarium before a fish is added.

Epic fail.

Basically, it’s a 4-6 week process of lots of stress and lots of toxic water, and that’s a lot for a delicate little animal to take.

So we did our research.

Everything we read basically said that if you didn’t do fishless cycling before hand, don’t expect your pet to live.

New tank syndrome is the leading cause of new fish deaths.

It was really disheartening, hearing we’d already screwed up and that she would likely die.

But we already had Mav, and there we nothing we could do but let the tank cycle, take care of her to the best of our ability, and hope for the best.

So we added some SeaChem Prime in to detoxify the ammonia and nitrite while they were spiking, and we lowered her water level to allow for increased oxygenation, and we did semi-frequent water changes with RO water, and we tested her water every other day.

She made it through the ammonia in a week.

But hid under her rock the whole time and rearranged her gravel and clearly was not amused.

Then came the nitrite spike.

Which has lasted for an agonizing two and a half weeks.

In which Mav hid under her rock and rearranged her gravel and was clearly not amused.

And I tested and tested and tested her water.

And her nitrite never went down.

Nothing but magenta, magenta and more magenta.

And I was convinced that we were doing something wrong and it was never going to go down and we were never going to see Mav scale another plant again.

And then I tested again yesterday morning…

Miracle of miracles!

Baby blue!!

Nitrite is back to zero and her nitrates are now at 10, which is an excellent sign that the cycle is almost over.

And she’s alive!

I’ve never been happier to see baby blue liquid in a test tube in my life.

So,

We expect that she’ll be out and about, back to her mischievous self in no time.

Scaling plants and attempting escapes and doing flips.

And eating again.

We hope.

But in the meantime,

For our next epic task, we’re planning a gravel switch-out in the next week or two.

From dyed white & blue gravel to natural stone.

Apparently the “no-flake” dye gravel is a liar.

Because it does flake.

And it clogs her filter with blue particles and makes her water dusty.

Plus, she’ll probably like the natural stone more anyway.

Since, you know, they don’t have bright blue and white gravel at the bottom of swampy ponds anyhow.

So we’re preparing to begin the one week, 10-step process (literally, 10 steps….would you like to see our note card?) of switching out 25 lbs. of gravel without switching out her water, ruining her newly cycled water, starting another ammonia or nitrite spike, or stressing her to death.

And then after that, if all goes well, we get her a tankmate to stalk.

Never a dull moment.

We live and learn.

And then love Mav.

Today in conversation the topic of the 2001 Cincinnati race riots came up.

I had never heard of them until I moved to Cincinnati and began working at the theatre, which is located one measly storefront and about 15 strolling footsteps away from the corner of 12th & Vine.

12th & Vine in downtown Cincinnati – Over-the-Rhine – was, during the early 2000’s, known as “The Most Dangerous Intersection in the Country.”

Not in Cincinnati. Not in Ohio. In the country.

That’s a reputation you don’t want to have.

Can you even imagine a professional theatre company housed right on that very corner? Sirens wailing all through performances, the sounds of gun shots and shouting echoing all day and night, buildings on fire? In the morning the Artistic Director would clean needles, bullet casings, and drug remnants from the parking lot, and patrons and staff had to be escorted into and out of the theatre by armed guards. They were told by the police to close down the theatre many times because it was simply too dangerous. They didn’t.

Over-the-Rhine, a historically important neighborhood rich in vibrant culture and history that many people deeply love, hasn’t always been the most spectacular of neighborhoods to begin with (at least in the past 15-20 years), but it was the height of the race riots. Storefronts were burning, everything in sight set ablaze in protest, brutal attacks, scores of violence and fatal shootings, and lines of armed and masked police lined the streets.

Think about how that will affect your audience numbers.

I can’t think of many people who’d come downtown to see a show with national advertising like that.

After all, it wasn’t just your standard “bad part of town.”

It was epically bad.

12th & Vine, the most dangerous intersection in the country.

And the theatre survived.

Amazing.

Also amazing is 12th & Vine today.

(via)

(via)

And you should totally click this link and see this phenomenal pic of 12th & Vine today!

We still have Officer Nick who takes care of us at the theatre, mostly late at night or early in the morning and always during performances when the cast and patrons are present (because, let’s face it – downtown will always be downtown and a little added security ain’t a bad thing anywhere), but as a whole, without witnessing it first hand, it’s hard to imagine this sunny, renovated, clean, landscaped, urban, modern intersection as what it must have been 10 years ago.

Over-the-Rhine, Vine street, and the immediate 5 block radius around us now hosts over 40 new eateries, bars, and hip shops that have opened in the past year alone.

Three of those restaurants were voted onto Cincinnati’s “Top 10” list and many, many more of which are truly excellent as well, otherwise they would not have survived here. It’s like a college campus – only the really good places make it.  

Patrons are no longer terrified for their lives to come to the theatre.

People know they will be greeted by well-manicured, clean, and well-lit streets with lovely trees, flowers and landscaping, and plenty of pay lots, meters, and monitored, renovated parking garages. They know it’s a foodie district full of drool-worthy, upscale eats, chill coffee shops, artsy organizations, trendy boutiques, and mod storefronts. There are bars swarming with people during happy hour, outdoor patios, and the restaurants are packed with business folk, tourists, patrons, and people out for a night on the town. You can even live there now in all the freshly renovated lofts and work right in the heart of the city.

Just up the street, no more than 6 or so blocks, is another story. The revitalization efforts haven’t extended quite that far yet, and you can still get a taste of what it was like before – back in the early 2000s.

It’s really amazing to stop and think about. How 10 short years ago Over-the-Rhine was, at times, a slaughterhouse, and now we can all safely live, work, dine, and play there.

On the intersection of 12th & Vine, where the theatre stood through it all.

And somehow art survives.

And somehow art helps our community flourish and become vibrant again.

I excel at balancing.

Don’t let the 8 legs, 4 arms, 2 pinchers, and a tail fool you.

I can balance on any plant using just one leg or my tail.

Cirque du Soleil’s got nothing on me.

I’m Cirque du Solcray!

I can scale these wimpy plants like a pro.

Though the humans did give me a rockin’ Cave of Wonders, which I love, they only gave me two and a half plants. The acceptable orange one, the adequate white one, and the shrimpy blue one in the corner.

Mmmm shrimp.

Bet you didn’t know I can jump!

I’m like a magician of the sea.

But leap I can!

From one plant to the next…

Blink and you’ll miss me.

Peek-a-boo!

Girlfriend has been a part of our family for a whole week now.

The week has been touch and go and we’re still learning, but she’s really just as wonderful as we imagined!

It seems that she’s finally getting comfortable here.

She was so lively, rebellious, and full of personality at the specialty shop where we got her, but the first several days we had her home she did nothing but hide under her rock and refuse to eat.

I worried that the tank water was bacterial, that the nitrogen cycling process was killing her, that the pH was too high, that the ammonia was too high, that she was molting, that she wasn’t acclimating, that she was sick, that she was scratching too much, that she was dying because she wasn’t eating, that she was lonely or unhappy…and every other worry under the sun.

But the past few days she’s definitely perked up.

Of course we’re not quite out of the woods yet. We’re still in the ammonia phase of cycling her tank, but we’re using an ammonia and nitrite de-toxifier and monitoring her water quality very closely with the test kits, so hopefully all will continue to be well. Owning a cray is like being a damn scientist. Test tubes and chemical drops from her water quality testing kit are absolutely littered across our bar counter. But we’re happy to do what it takes – and it is kind of fun to learn all this stuff!

She shaved at least three years off of my life this weekend when I took a break from working on our taxes outside on the porch with Ted and walked inside to check on her. I found her lying on her side, unmoving, legs sprawled upward, beneath her rock like she was dead. I literally lost my mind and turned into a blubbering fool, sobbing because I was convinced she was dying.

She was sleeping.

Apparently crays like to sleep on their side.

Now we know.

She also gave Ted a minor panic attack when we woke up yesterday morning. Ted went to check on her and couldn’t find her in her tank. He looked everywhere – under her rock, on her rock, on the gravel, and on the plants. Repeat five times.

No Mav.

Since crays are sly little escape artists Ted was about ready to start checking the kitchen floor, under the couch, and in the laundry baskets when he spotted her…at the very top of her tank.

Stuck.

Escape attempt #1: Shimmying up the air hose and digital thermometer cord.

She’s a clever one, that Maverick.

Ted freed her.

She did it again three hours later.

But now Mav has a healthy appetite (she especially loves frozen peas, crab pellets, and algae rounds), sits like a queen atop of her rock at night (when she thinks nobody is watching!) with her pinchers dangling off the side, goes for strolls around the tank, has begun digging up the small blue plant beside her rock for redecoration purposes, stretches often, follows your finger across the glass with her body and her pinchers, plays at night (she’s nocturnal), scales the small plants and air hose, and she really likes the moonlight glow that our blue, green, and purple LED picture frame casts on her tank at night. It must be like sitting on the beach at night.

She gets more entertaining by the day. Short of an actual escape, I can’t wait to see what other tricks she has up her shell.

In the next few weeks we’ll likely pick up a few cherry barbs, zebra danios or clown plecos to keep her company – or, you know, that she can stalk mercilessly.

Yup, she’s a darling.

And we’re so happy she’s ours!

P.S. – Yes, I really did just write an entire post about a crayfish. You may retrieve your jaw from the floor now.