Happy Birthday, Blackberry!

No, there were no party hats or any celebration for that matter. We’re not THAT crazy. However, we do feel a great sense of accomplishment knowing that we have kept our goldfish alive for a whole year. And even though “she” is just a fish, we sure do love “her.” (It’s Jenn’s fish, therefore, we refer to it as a female - even though we have no fetching idea what its gender is. Nor do we know when she was born, but we bought her a year ago, so she is at least a year old.)

Here’s the story for those who haven’t heard it... Last year, Jenn was given some birthday money to do whatever she wanted with. At that time she wanted a pet, so we spent a lot of time at various pet stores. But between me not wanting a high-maintenance animal, and our landlord being so unfathomably strict about pets, we started looking into fish.

Jenn immediately liked the black moor goldfish. But she was also picky about which one she wanted. We shopped around, and even returned to a few stores days later to keep checking for the right one. After a week of searching, we found her, and Jenn hand-picked her out of the hundreds of fish there. The $5 fish quickly became a $40 fish after the bowl, rocks, tree, and food. Jenn wasn’t sure what to name her, so I said “Blackberry” as a joke, but the more we thought about it, the more we liked it.

In her first year, Blackberry has gotten around. She has lived in two homes, spent some time with the Kenworthys (when they lived in Utah), had a sleepover with Bret, and even spent a week in Snowbird. And although my logical brain says I’m like every other pet owner by inventing a personality for an emotionless animal, she does seem to display characteristics that go against every scientific thing I’ve learned about goldfish. But personality or not, we love her either way.