BY PAMELA JO BOWMAN – MESA ARIZONA — We have spent the last month trying to consolidate two households into one. In my home, I now have two LARGE desks, two pianos, two of too many kitchen items. Four cars for a two car garage. But the items that have altered all of our lives are … the Wii and an aquarium. Now you are probably thinking of an aquarium like I always thought of an aquarium. A glass rectangle with a couple of fish and a fake green seaweed thing to float around. Nope, that would be too simple. I have an aquarium that covers one of my walls … a wall that used to be the home of my children’s portraits. Not anymore. Now we have barrels and buckets and water systems and a constant hum throughout our house. We also have a luminous glow that emanates from that room. On Saturday mornings, I have a hose that snakes through my back door down my stairs and into the aquarium. Sometimes it smells a tad fishy. I’m not too fond of fishy.

At night we sit around and watch the fish swim. And the fish watch us … play. Family unity has come to mean something entirely different than eating dinner at 5 p.m. In our family, we bowl, play tennis, golf and my personal favorite … we box. I kick butt! All this in the comfort of my family room! Turn down the air! All this exercise is making me sweat bullets! Or it could be a hot flash, I guess. Hmmm. Back to the aquarium for meditation. By the way, anyone interested in a player piano? Wii deliver.