What were you thinking?

He relaxed, and said simply, "O Duck Spit!"

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it, and you can't make me say different. And, just to prove the point, the next time things are headed downhill for me, I'm determined to remember, I'm gonna add character and use my very own ODS expletive!

Puffer story is not all that exciting, but, continuation...
I spent my summers working at protecting a local salt marsh, heading out on the school's boat (actually, it kinda looked like a piece of a dock broke off and someone stuck a motor on it, but it was quite functional for all that), and generally pretending to monitor water conditions, learn stuff and earn some extra credit at school while actually accomplishing little more than attaining what seemed to be a never ending level of sunburn. (Yup, I know, but I still manage to burn no matter what, high SPF's just make the redness fade faster.) Anyway, scene set.

Late-ish summer, the Gulf Stream heads through the particular area of New York where we were working, and we'd be out pulling a seine net from as deep as we could stand to where we could actually see what kind of rocks and cans we'd managed to snare, because the Gulf Stream brought all kinds of special rocks and cans you didn't normally see in NY through with it -- you knew that already, no? Seriously, though, it was quite memorable. You could literally feel the abrupt change in temperature like a wind blowing through the water... Your ankle would be cold, your hips would be cold, but the water passing your knee was gloriously warm. Totally amazing! And it did bring fish you didn't normally see. This particular day we were hoping to catch some eels as we thought we might be able to get them into one of the tanks at school and keep it going there. (Not the smartest idea we ever had, though we did ultimately manage to get a few into a bucket without getting bitten. Don't recall the final disposition of said eels, though I also don't recall ever seeing them in a tank.)

But you're not here to hear that -- you're here to hear how, in this net with huge holes, this tiny, adorable little fish managed to find its way into my hands cupped with water. I picked it up, and it promptly threw up in my hands (water cupped therein, I'm happy to say -- it's not good for puffers to puff in the air), or at least it looked that way to me. Then it pulled itself together, jumped out of my hands and swam away. I never did manage to identify it, beyond, of course, it being a puffer that definitely didn't belong where it was. But I've been smitten ever since, and it really does feel like Bertie is finally my puffer come home!

Long way to go for not a ton of story, hope it was at least entertaining... Catch up with you again soon!