and the winning hobby is...

FISH!

(And the afghan, and S&tC, and--eventually--recipe organization as well as the "my two cents" letter campaign.)

Upon Saturday's death of Bill Lumbergh II (ahem--totallymyfault), and not long after flushing his sad, pale little corpse down the toilet, J.Lo decided we should have some fish that will live. It would be most happy for me, to not regularly kill fish--as often happens in a small, unfiltered bowl--and also fun for K.Lo. So we planned on getting a 7-gallon tank, which was on sale at Petco. Well, apparently everything *fish* is on sale at Petco. And for a mere $5 more than the 7-gallon tank, one can purchase a full-on aquarium kit, including a 20-gallon tank. Yeah. It's shockingly large, at least a whole lot bigger than I'd ever thought we would own.

And so far, everything is going, well, swimmingly. I spent the first few days Martha Stewarting up the place, Greek ruins-style. And yesterday, I added the first two fish, 2 blue gouramis who will most likely be name Jim Halpert and Dwight K. Schrute. We shall see what their personalities reveal in coming days.