I probably shouldn’t have messed with a good thing. That said, the results are still forthcoming.

I was telling Karin just yesterday how “perky” blue has become, swimming around in his little bowl, building bubble nests, exploring, hiding, eating. Throwing some extra gravel into the tank seems to have triggered some kind of pyschological fish-nirvana, making the little guy happier’n heck.

I was out walking in the chilly fall air this lunch hour and I found myself at the pet store again. My ears were a little nippy from the wind, but warming myself up among the rows of fish supplies, I noticed that they were selling snails. (Mom and Dad recently had an episode ridding their aquarium of snails, but I’m not too worried.) I bought one of course, bundling the inflated bag with three ounces of water and a little golden snail bouncing around inside, under my jacket and speed-walked back to my office.

I’ll spare the sound effects, and simply write that the new invertibrate was added to the water. Initially I thought it had died from the cold, but as of twenty minutes ago he’s officially made one thorough lap around the mini-quarium.

Blue isn’t so enthusiastic. He’s been sneaking up on the little snail — which is roughly the same size as the fish — and inspecting it from about an inch away before darting back to the other end of the tank. It’s like a little game, and he repeats it over and over — though mostly, I think, because his memory is probably three seconds long and he has forgotten that there’s a snail in the tank by the time he gets back to the other end.

The snail doesn’t seem to care, instead scooting along the plastic bowl at a snail’s pace, and occasionally dropping to the bottom, resting, and making the climb back up.

So, it’s a whole new ball game. (A basball metaphor in tribute to the World Series! Go Leafs!)

Perhaps, like Lenore’s bunnies, they will eventually work towards becoming the best of friends — sharing stories about life outside the big green bowl — reminicing about times past — and generally having a good time of it all. For now, well, it’s just a weird sort of mini-universe.