I haven't forgotten you

I just still have the flu.

I can't shake this one, guys. Five days (maybe six, if you want to count last Friday when I started feeling crappy), and an ongoing low to moderate fever, headache, ew. John made me delicious lentil soup, so that helps.

I had to buy hermit crabs for school today, and I think that maybe I'm kind of a softie. See, I spent way more on the crabs than I can actually get reimbursed for. But! I feel really bad for creatures that live in cages. And I learned that hermit crabs are unable to breed in captivity, so every hermit crab you see in the pet store was caught in the wild somewhere. Think about that. Insane. (Yes, I know they have brains smaller than a sesame seed. But still.) So anyway. I bought the hermit crabs a ton of stuff. Lots of sand (I heard they like to burrow). Dechlorination drops for their water (the chlorine can build up on their gills). Sea sponges for their water dishes (otherwise, small crabs can get caught in the dishes and drown). The list goes on. Also, since I heard hermit crabs are social animals (in the wild, they live in colonies of hundreds or thousands), I bought up every crab in the store. (Sure, it's only three, but still: I'm going to go back in a week or two 'til I have eight or ten.)

Thing is, I don't even particularly like hermit crabs. I just feel bad for them. I feel a little like my grandmother though all this. When my mother was a teenager, she had a cat. Cat the cat. And my grandmother hated Cat. She had no interest in him whatsoever, except in keeping him out. She wanted him outside or n the basement, no two ways about it. But Gma didn't really like the idea of cat food -- it seemed so unappetizing. So, on a fairly regular basis, she would go to the butcher to get liver for Cat. And she would cook it for him. Not because she really wanted Cat in particular to have a tasty dinner, but because the idea of anyone having unpleasant food just seemed wrong.

I am the Gma of hermit crabs.

(Update: John just arrived home from work with a bouquet of tulips for me. This has 100% made my day. Aw.)