My books say that I am a hoarder. They know the chances of me reading any single one of them again is slim to none

I cut out his tongue long ago. He will tell no stories.

I have a boat. I sail.

My tool chests, they tell exactly the types of things I work on and what my skill sets are.

If my husband and I were killed today and someone had to clean out our house, they would find the cremains of six pets that we have been hauling around for years. I love my pets. They would also find boxes and boxes of shells, rocks and driftwood that I picked up when we lived on the beach on Whidbey Island from 1996–2001. I love islands, the beach, nature. I have also been moving those from place to place with me since 2001!

My sister just visited my apartment for the first time last month and she said it shows that I like to take care of things.

I have a meticulously cared-for fish tank in one room and house plants all over the place, most of which I raised from seed. I spend a decent amount of time per day just tending to the needs of the various living things throughout my apartment.

Apparently I am not yet satisfied either because the urge to adopt a cat has gotten extreme over the last few weeks.

@Mariah you sound like a good cat mom, why are you waiting?

Boyfriend isn’t on board. Would also have to clear it with the landlord who I suspect wouldn’t be a fan. Boo :( I miss having cuddly pets…the fish hate it when I try to cuddle them :)

My clothes will tell I have good choice / selection. Not too fashionable though.

That I am all about music and cooking. From the audiophile stereo systems and something musical in every room to the drum set, 7 amps and arsenal of basses a d guitars set up in the basement for jam session with my sons. A couple hundred record albums give testament to my eclectic taste in music from dixieland, jazz, classical, rock & roll and the blues.

And who ever scrounges around in the kitchen they will find cabinets crammed with everything you need to prepare gourmet meals and the best cookbooks you can get. The fresh herb garden in the window will drive home the point that I take cooking very seriously.

My photo albums will also reveal I like to take pictures LOTS of pictures and I am very good at it too.

Our butler Carstairs story reads like a rollicking tragedy crammed with sizzling gypsies & a pony named Steven…best save it for a rainy day.

My possesions tell the story of me. Abstract, colorful and creative.

@Coloma After seven years of knowing you I feel I could be your ghost writer or at the very least the your illustrator of your tome! Been a fun “colorful” ride darlin!

@Mariah :: I recently got a fish tank. 10 gallons and five feeder goldfish that cost me 9 cents each. I spent $40 on live plants.

Somehow I have spent 300 bucks on the tank in the last month. The plants are being hard to keep alive (I already lost one) but I love the shit out of my little goldfish. I already named them all and know their personalities. It is a fun hobby. They feel like my kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43TAOY590U0

My garage tells you I’m married to a car fanatic.

You would find some items from long ago that are handed down from my grandparents or great grandparents. Some of the items are: a small prayer book, a few pieces of jewelry, old photos in an album/scrapbook I spent a lot of time on, champagne glasses, a Chanukah menorah, a silver dish with my maternal grandparents’ wedding invitation engraved on it, my mom’s silver baby cup. Some of the items you wouldn’t know had sentimental meaning unless I was there to tell you I guess, but some items I think it’s obvious.

I have little framed drawings of city scapes from various places around the world. They aren’t hanging up, they are just kept on a shelf. I always mean to hang them up.

A few pieces of artwork from my sister, aunt, and grandfather. The artwork is paintings they painted.

A few pieces of display items like bowls, dishes, a small sculpture, vases, and even some fabric from corners of the world given to me by family. All of it is in boxes right now, because I’m in a smaller house than usual. It’s not a lot of items; maybe ten items total.

Everything else I think is pretty much normal every day stuff. My sofas are over 12 years old, my bedroom set and dining room are from when I got married 23 years ago. I still have an old square TV in my living room. I guess what you would see is we spend a lot of money on some material items like cars, but are frugile or sentimental regarding almost everything else.

^^Ha. Another early morning essayist.

If I died today, they would find few personal inanimate possessions, except for some laptops and terabyte hard drives which are the repository of a thousand old films, documents and a vast library of ebooks. There are also a few large flat screens and a recently acquired Roku box.

They would find two confused but good natured border collies of high pedigree answering to the names of Sam&Dave, a mare of questionable provenance who is very particular about who rides her, a bad-tempered burro addicted to sweets who is only happy when raiding the sugar cane patch, two hives of stingless melipona bees and a small, related experiment involving high-quality vanilla orchids. They would also find a gnarly, three-foot Frankincense tree and five small bonsai offshoots thriving in a climate controlled alcove. These trees are tectonically slow in growth but, if properly cared for, should make very fragrant and elegant bonsais sometime in the early 22nd century.

Out the rear kitchen door they will find a meticulously kept vegetable and herb garden shaded by a large mango tree, and beyond that a hen coop and a chicken run alive with earthworms just below the surface. If I had warning of my own demise, I would have released my hens into the garden to peck the tender leaves of my herbs to their heart’s content as thanks for three years of morning eggs. Off to one side of the garden is a mushroom cellar and next to that is a small cheese cellar. More experiments.

And to the left of the coop is a small barn complex, home of 38 sheep, 5 goats and the aforementioned horse and burro under the management of an extended family of large, semi-feral barn cats whose hobby is rodent control. In return for this, they get goat’s milk every morning fresh from the teat.

Attached to the barn are rooms for animal food storage, tackle, tools and repair and a small garage that houses a beat up, roofless old Jeep that goes by various names, usually obscene, depending on its behaviour. Yesterday, it started up on the first try, so it was re-christened The Blue Max. However, I am unsure of it’s true color due to decades of sun bleaching, grime and multiple encounters with immovable objects.

Near the barn – too close to the barn – they would find a sign planted into the ground stating that one is about to enter Walden, a 400 sq. ft. failed experiment in sugar cane named after Zonker Harris’ wheat patch in the comic strip Doonesbury. It has never done well and always presents as storm-rent (see burro above.). It’s primary purpose now is as a candy store for Betsy the Burro.

Beyond the barnyard and corral is a three acre mango grove in the center of which is a stockade of vanilla vines and in the center of that is my two hives of meliponas and the small garden house and extraction shed where I harvest wax and honey for local outlets. Inside, they will find some beekeeping paraphernalia and on a worktable, a mildewed, dog-eared copy of Out of Africa, by Karen Blixen. It is suffering the fate of all books in this climate.

To the left of the mangos is a grove of tangerine trees. Surrounding all of this on three sides is 46 acres of tall, majestic pecans – the primary purpose of this plantation – the care and maintenance of which is subcontracted out to professionals. And beyond that are meadows for the sheep, and beyond that is wild, tropical forest.

Except for one of the dogs, the mare, the vanilla orchids, the bees and the frankincense tree and its progeny, none of this belongs to me. I am only the caretaker and keeper of the books.

One thousand feet below the house, and nearly a mile from it by a winding shell road, is a village snuggled against an ice-blue bay rich with shellfish, and at the end of a dock that can be seen from the house is usually tied a 42-foot yacht, my only true possession. We together have logged thousands of nautical miles since my voyage began in December, 2012.

My huge film book and Frank Sinatra album/CD collections. Ask me anything about either passion.

@johnpowell Awesome, what a beautiful little tank. Love the under-gravel filter. Your goldfish may end up outgrowing it but it looks like a really happy home for them right now! If it’s the java ferns that are dying off, make sure you haven’t buried the rhizome as it needs to see light.

Here’s my tank. The HUGE plants off to the right are cryptocoryne wendtii and have been my hardiest/fastest growing plants. They were itty bitty when I first got them about a year ago.

I miss my tank. I kept oscars for years but like your cat my wife is not keen on keeping fish. I actually designed my own under gravel filter for them since oscars are a bit messy. I don’t have any pictures to share :(

Your tank has come along nicely @Mariah! I especially like the Neon grotto! I too love aquariums but currently only have a tank with a turtle in it. I also manufacture a sculpting product that is used to fabricate artificial reef inserts and reef structures that goes into large scale aquariums all around the world like this insert

The art, as is a requisite for my collection, speaks for itself, albeit differently to each. Regrettably, some of the best pieces and my personal favorites are leaning up against a wall on the floor in the master bedroom… I liked them so much I didn’t know where to hang them, then I got busy…

In the master bedroom’s walk-in closet, there are few clothes, but a well slept in queen size bed, and a large dog bed on the ground. Yes, I sleep in there. The master bedroom itself looks more like a living room/office with no bed, lots of plants, guitars, couch, etc…

The more telling items would be found in my garage.. Large homemade electromagnets, some of which have obviously been on fire. Steel auger bits and iron spikes with helix patterns cutout sitting in pools of ferrofluid, some of which are inside vacuum sealed domes, some of which have a gas input. Tanks of various noble gasses spread about. Plasma drivers/power supply units. A thin box with 2000~ tiny holes, covered in high heat paint, with an aquatic speaker mounted to one side, and a propane tank nearby… A canister for holding liquid nitrogen (empty). One 6” round x 0.25” thk plate of YBCO resting on top of an electromagnet array with a tuning fork oscillator aimed directly at it. lol that one would raise a lot of questions Suppose I should mention that many of these things are under sheets to keep from getting dusty when not in use. Ultimately, I think rather than elaborate a story, they would raise questions; unless you knew how to turn them on. Then you’d have a great story!!

Oh… and a really old big mirror with a bunch of my quotes written in whiteboard marker on it.

All of it tells a story of creativity and discovery.

@Esedess If I came across your lair….I would write a fantastic story on how your homemade lab was actually a clandestine operation to provide Cube Satellites to be launched from the International Space Station to determine which of the Russian cosmonauts or American astronauts emitted more harmful methane gasses while in space. The ferrofluid and plasma drivers are a dead giveaway you are duly employed by the CIA and the Russian FSB. Take my advice quit Fluther now and chlorine scrub your hard drive stat!

Wowsa Maria. Your plants really exploded. What sort of light are you using? I bought a special florescent bulb that is supposed to help plants but I am having doubts compared to the bulb that originally came in the hood.

This has come to some sort of a crazy addiction. I went to the pet-store the other day for a thing to make water changes easier and I found myself eying a 50 gallon tank.

I got the damn tank to suppress my urge to make children. I think I might have inadvertently went with the more expensive option.

Yeah the tank is a damn money sink. I don’t even want to think about what I’ve thrown at it over the course of the past year but it’s finally at a place where I’m satisfied and probably not going to change much anymore. I started with a 15 gallon and ended up not being able to resist upgrading to 30. The pic of my baby plants is from the 15 while the current pic is from the 30. I’m satisfied with the 30 though and don’t see myself feeling the need to go bigger again, at least until I live in a house. 30 gallons is 3 feet long by 1 foot deep by 1.5 feet tall.

I bought plants that specifically don’t require a lot of light (java ferns, cryptocoryne, and anubias) because I’m a cheapskate and didn’t want to get a big expensive grow bulb. The majority of my plants’ growth happened under this light (I didn’t realize at the time though that it didn’t come with a power adapter, so it’s not quite as good of a deal as it looks like as you have to drop an extra ten for that). The java ferns grow slowly regardless of how much light you give them and the anubias isn’t doing well in my tank, but the crypts are ridonkulous.

But when I upgraded, I got my new setup from a dude on Craigslist who was getting out of the hobby and willing to sell me everything fishy he owned for dirt cheap. I got the tank, its lid, that giant piece of driftwood, an excellent canister filter, an excellent light, and some gravel for $60. So yeah I don’t actually know what the model is of the light I have now, but it’s actually way too much light. I get algae like crazy so I only keep it on for a few hours per day.

CL is the shit for aquarium stuff because there’s always people getting out of the hobby who just want you to take the stuff off their hands. I got my first 15 gallon setup for $15 – that was the tank, heater, filter, and an extra 5 gallon tank for quarantine. Just make sure if you buy a used tank from somebody that you fill it up to check for leaks before you pay them. I got burned by that once.

@Mariah I would suggest joining www.freecycle.org and putting a post there Wanted: aquarium stuff…fish enthuiast would welcome any aquarium related stuff collecting dust in your basement. I can almost guarantee you will be up to your eyeballs with offers. That is where I got the turtle aquarium for free!

Cool, thanks! I gave away the leaky tank for free (I disclosed it had a leak, of course) but otherwise I don’t think I have much fish stuff sitting around that I don’t want. I still have the 15 gallon sitting around…I feel like I might use it again someday – it’s a good little tank – but my coworker mentioned wanting a 15 galloner soon and if she decides she’s serious about it I’ll happily give it to her.

That really is a cool looking tank, Mariah. Wouldn’t it be far out to have a whole wall in your living room like that? Bigger fish, the smaller ones in symbiosis with the larger ones. A mini marine ecology thing. A living piece of art, like your tank is. You know, there’s a bit of money in it for people who can do that for other people.

I once thought I’d like to end up like Doc in his Western Biological Lab in Canery Row. Spend my days out on the water collecting exotic specimens for colleges and pet stores. Wife wouldn’t have any part of it. LOL. What curves life throws at you.

Dude don’t tempt me, lol! Having a monster tank is a goal for later…when I’m not longer renting an upper floor apartment. I live in fear of leaks and flooding my downstairs neighbor!!

I suppose they would see what a contradiction I am.