Hey! The hubster came home with a lovely necklace! And he swore up and down that he hadn't read my blog yesterday - which I guess is probably true, because he was all horrified that I would post about BJs, knowing that my mom reads this blog.

Bunny Jammies is what I was talking about, Mom. Steak and Bunny Jammies. Wink, wink.

Anyhoo...

We've had a number of, uh, incidents lately with animals. All three of the fish (Princess, Coochie and Dish) have been returned to the ocean to swim with the fishes (buh-duh-dum!) and Donna the Dog brought us a dead bird. I assume she just found it, since it was already stiff, and luckily she didn't try to eat it.

We watch a lot of Animal Planet around here. I worried briefly that the dead bird would upset the kids, but they were fascinated and wanted to help me bury it. With garden trowels we dug a deep hole, and I gingerly placed the bird at the bottom. I asked the kids if they wanted to say anything, and my oldest decided we should sing. We gave the bird a rousing rendition of Baa Baa Black Sheep, and a few rounds of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We were having so much fun singing that it took us a while to remember we were supposed to be sending the bird off.

Our attention back to the task at hand, I asked if anyone else had anything to say, and my son leaned over and whispered into the hole, "I love you!"

My youngest promptly took off running and flapping, yelling "Tweet! I bird! I bird! Tweet!" while I filled in the bird's grave. The kids chose one of our landscaping rocks to mark the spot, and with a final "Bye, Bird. Love you!" they returned to playing.

You know when my time comes, I wouldn't mind a similar scene. Joyous singing, a few comic impersonations of me, and a few "I love yous" sound just about right. But that's just me. Maybe the bird had a different take on it.

Since the fish died and made their way back to the ocean, the kids have been bugging me for new ones. I hemmed and hawed and finally sent the hubs and the two oldest kids to visit my brother at the fish store. He let them each choose a feeder goldfish.

My daughter took a long time choosing her fish, and had my brother swishing and scooping. My son took a brief look, spotted a good'un and caught it with his bare hand. My hubs was SO proud of that.

I think it's time we scale back on wild bear television specials.

So, yes. We have two new fish. Named Princess and Eddie. I'm a little disturbed about the trend to reuse the name Princess, but Eddie? So much better than Coochie. I can live with that.