My mother-in-law called. Yes, they're fine. The house sustained minor damage - probably missing shingles and dinged siding - and the lot looks like the result of a couple of raccoons in God's own yard waste can. Aside from that, everybody's well.

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I lost one of my new cory fish today. This time I feel no guilt. He looked unhealthy the day I bought him. In fact, I told the store guy that, but he shrugged and told me to exercise the store's two week guarantee policy if anything happened to the fish. (Yeah right.)

The guys who run this fish store are serious stoners, baked out of their minds most of the time they're working. It's not worth arguing with them; they're not working on the same plane you are. I normally buy my fish elsewhere, but it happened that this store had acquired a great stock of schooling adult cories, so...

As a precaution I did an extra-large water change today and will probably change the water every 2-3 days for awhile instead of once a week. Sometime this weekend I'll see about replacement.

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( Dinner with the chefs )

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Off to be productive, or at least look like it.