Death during prime time

"We have a problem."

I know that undercurrent of Andres' voice. It means business. I was watching CNN, and he was peering intently into the Aquarium.

"The anemone is eating one of the fleas."

"What!" I exclaimed, rushing over.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The little tube anemone, one of the original three that had been carried over on the Anemone Rock, which had, if you will remember, climbed from the Rock up onto the back wall of the Sea Aquarium, was indeed, and in fact, sucking up one of the sea fleas.

The flea was dead as a doornail, no question about it. What creeped me out was the way it was being eaten. Its rear end was literally being dissolved by the sea anemone. Don't believe me? Here, check this out:

OK so it's blurry. But YOU try and focus on a 2-centimeter violent death on the back wall of a 10-gallon aquarium through refracting water currents with a fixed macro lens. Now I understand all those citizen photographers of the Lochness monster, Big Foot, and UFO's. It's hard to focus when you're excited.

Andres explained that sea anemones are actually poisonous. That's how they catch their prey. Their tentacles sting unsuspecting creatures as they float or swim by, then pull them into their mouths and digest them alive. Sounds like a lot of fun. Could you apply that technique to business development? I wonder.

Sea anemones not pretty flowers or plants that the uninitiated eye perceives them to be (yes that would be me 3 weeks ago). They are what you call "First Animals", meaning they have some serious seniority privileges in the evolutionary hierarchy of Life. In other words, move over T. Boone Pickens.

OK so let's go over this again. The lesson we learned today is,

SEA ANEMONE

+

SEA FLEA

=

NOT A HAPPY ENDING.

p.s. Oh, and by the way, little cute sea anemone. Thy name now be Fleakiller.

Goodbye Bob

As much as it pains me, we had to make the decision. The fuzzy barnacle rock was no longer so fuzzy, and this morning I caught Bob scraping more baby barnacles off another rock.

Then there were the pits and piles all over the sand bottom, coral bits mixed with the native sand. Incontrovertible evidence of Bob's nocturnal processing.

Bad Bob. Bad, bad Bob.

I mean, I get it. He's a large hermit crab. He needs to eat, and he needs to filter. Who am I to stop him from doing all those hermit crab things he does?

But he's just too big for this Aquarium. He needs a larger playground. So I picked him up, stowed him away in my carrying mug and drove him to the beach. Andres and I walked out some way into the sea, put him gently down onto the soft sandy seabottom and waved goodbye as he scuttered off into the open ocean.

He seemed really happy. I know how he feels. Being at a resort is great, but only for so long. There's nothing like the freedom of the wild.

How it all began...

Today, Andres and I took a walk on the beach here in Milford as we customarily do. We have been taking these walks ever since we moved here, weather notwithstanding. If it snows, we wear down winter jackets. If it rains, we put on our Goretex. If it's sunny, we enjoy it all the more. Whatever the weather, we love the ocean and every free moment we get, we're there—kayaking, fishing, walking, exploring.

And so it was that on a cloudy drizzly April day we took our walk along the coastline. I brought my tea along to keep me warm. It's about time spring came, we said. It's April! We suffered through another winter and were sick to death of having to fight the cold.

Suddenly I stopped and pointed down at the sand. There at my feet was a little gelatinous blob.

"Wow, a jellyfish!" I exclaimed.

"Spring is here," nodded Andres. "Spring is finally here."

It was true. These small translucent jellies are a sign of spring. They're also incredibly beautiful, their tiny fragile filters bioluminescing as they work the water around them. We saw a few more as we continued walking. On the way back, I had this idea of taking one home with me. I don't really know why... but I was drawn to it. I had finished my tea, so I filled my mug with saltwater and scooped up a jelly from the water's edge. It was still alive, and perked right up in the mug.

At home, I poured the saltwater into a pyrex bowl. Plop, in went the jelly. I watched it navigate around the bowl for a while, mesmerized by the luminous colors running up and down its edges. That was the poet; the scientist in me wondered where its brain is, or whether it has any sort of consciousness. Oh, yes, and you could see all of its internal organs. I was suddenly really grateful we have opaque skin.

But it really was breathtaking. This perfectly translucent living thing floating around on my dining room table, unaware of a much more complex species observing, admiring it.

What a great shot this would be, I thought.

So I set up my camera on a tripod, thinking I'd take a few shots before turning in for the evening. Famous last words. The jelly would not cooperate. It kept spinning around the bottom of the bowl, turning exactly into the position I did not want. I tried a few different angles, tripod heights, and before long brought in the black backdrop cloth and the studio lamp. I even set the jelly up in a fancy tea glass. Maybe Vogue would notice... and the Jelly would become world famous, bobbling down the catwalks of New York, Milan, London and Tokyo.

I spent the rest of the night taking shots of the Jelly. And little did I know what this magical day had sparked...

if you want to know, read on... !