How Artemis Winter learned to teach

This was more red wine than martini, but the concept is still there.

Artemis Winter was a flexible little fellow.  He was flexible physically and flexible in his pursuits.  He was endlessly curious, and since he rarely encountered opposition to his exploration, he was very confident in his abilities.

As mentioned before, Artemis Winter lived with two cats, a ferret, a cockatiel and a fish (in addition to all of the people he lived with) and these animals gave him lots of insight into other ways of being and other ways of exploring.

From the cats, he learned to stand in the way of anyone sweeping, to take the vacuum cleaner as a personal affront, to hate having water flicked at his face, to crawl between people and their reading, and to sit in the midst of puzzles and other piece-work .

From the ferret, he learned to pounce on people from unexpected quarters, to lie flat on the floor and pretend that he was invisible, and to hide in the back of the sofa, poking people in the butt when they sat there.

From the cockatiel, he didn’t learn much except that he couldn’t fly.  He did pick up the habit of pecking other people’s noses with his nose and a sort of shuffling sideways head-butt.

From the fish, he got nothing.

Artemis Winter was really quite fond of fish in many forms: he had stuffed fabric fish, he had small plastic fish, he had squirty fish for bathtime, he had magnetic fish for catching with a magnetic pole.  He even had fish sticks for dinner sometimes.

The fish, named Ubiquitum, puzzled him for a long time.  He was fascinated with its swimming.  He liked to watch its water being changed.  But he didn’t really see anything to learn from it.  He seemed disturbed by the inequality of this pet experience. 

Then one day, while Artemis Winter was in the Dragon Park, he saw someone teaching their dog to do tricks.  Right then it came to him!  If he could not learn from the fish, the fish could learn from him.  He, Artemis Winter, would teach the fish to do tricks: to swim in circles horizontally, to swim in circles vertically, to do flips out of the water, maybe even to dance.

Artemis Winter had been learning Capoiera with his father and swimming with his mother, so he felt fully confident that he could accomplish the task he set himself.

He convinced his mother to build a shelf over the couch for Ubiquitum’s bowl, then convinced her to getter a larger, more shallow dish for the fish.  In the new dish they replaced the green gravel with blue and red gravel to match the fish, replaced the plastic plants with living bamboo, replaced the fake coral with a little carved gingerbread cottage.

Then Artemis started his training routine.  In the morning he would do 100 front flips off of the left arm of the couch.  Then he would do 100 back flips off of the right arm of the couch.  Then he would push the coffee table flush against the edge of the couch and run in 100 circles to the left.  When asked why he ran in circles only to the left, he would reply with "left is ubiquitous, hook off the jab."   Since no one was entirely certain what this meant and Artemis Winter was unwilling to elaborate it was allowed to stand as the reason.  Then he would do a tap/hip-hop dance routine with wild abandon (sometimes he fell off the coffee table) on the coffee table and be done for the morning.  He would repeat this each afternoon and often in the evening as well. 

On the 22nd morning of this, Artemis Winter gave up in defeat.  Ubiquitum showed no interest in doing flips, circles or dancing at all.  He would usually come to the front of his bowl to watch, but he was not learning at all.  Artemis Winter did not despair for long however.  He thought long and hard.  He stared long and hard at the fish bowl.  He looked through glasses from the inside to see what the view might look from there.  He dragged his blackboard in front of the couch and drew diagrams and plans. 

The next morning, he decided he had a new training regimen for the fish.  He never started it though.  The ferret intervened.  It seems that after all, Artemis Winter had taught someone to do front flips and back flips, run in circles to the left and dance with wild abandon.  At the time Artemis Winter usually began his flips, nothing much was going on so the ferret (named The Midget) crawled onto the left arm of the couch.  She did 100 front flips off of the left arm of the couch.  She did 100 back flips off of the right arm of the couch.  She looked at Artemis Winter until he pushed  the coffee table flush with the edge of the couch.  Then she ran in 100 circles to the left.  Then she did the most spectacular dance anyone in that house had ever seen.  She tapped all four feet at once, she writhed, she squirmed, she flipped and flopped and then she stopped.

Artemis Winter made no comment at all.  He put away his black board.  He moved the coffee table back.  He left the room quite stoically.  But then he broke down in a storm of giggles that wouldn't stop until he had eaten three bananas and a peanut butter sandwich.  The fish stayed where it was in its new and improved home.  But, sometimes Artemis Winter and The Midget would put on a show for it.