Fish for December......by Joyce oroz

It’s December, time to take a trip to the aquarium, observe
the fish, their fabulous fauna and their freaky friends. Why December? Because
Christmas is coming and the average frazzle-minded shopper-planner person needs
a little get-away. How do I know that fish relax the mind? Because it happened
to me.

I entered the aquarium with food-lists, gift-lists,
to-do-lists and lists-of-lists buzzing in my head and weighting me down.
Moments later I was laughing hysterically at three rambunctious otters romping
and wrestling in and out of the water. Their fat fluffy bodies flailed and
flounced in pretend otter fights. They were having more fun than a sea animal
should be allowed to have and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Subsequently, my grandchildren led the way to a giant kelp
tank where a scuba-girl fed a variety of fish-types from a small bucket that
held an endless supply of recycled fish parts. She talked to us in garbled utterances
as she fed small squid to passing sharks.

Moving right along, our motley party visited Betty and Bee
(penguins) at, of all places, the penguin pond. Bee did her laps under water by
pressing her beak against the glass while working her wings back and forth (about
ten miles worth), coming up for air periodically. Betty preferred to pose,
penguin-style, on the rocks above, while Reggy waddled down the path looking
studly in his black and white tux.

Then came the octopus, spread-eagle and suctioned onto his
glass enclosure. His arms were as long as mine but he had six more of them.
From there we trekked to the opposite end of the building where we found
displays of swimming jellyfish, seahorses and silvery anchovies. Suddenly my
stomach growled and I had visions of fresh pizza. Fortunately, the restaurant
downstairs had everything we needed.

After a great lunch, we climbed the stairs and stood in the
dark in front of a giant (humongous) glass tank where sharks prowled, giant
turtles did the breast stroke and tuna loafed. Or was that lunch? At that
point, my mind was so relaxed, I would be lucky to remember the way home.