Now that a few days have passed I feel a bit more confident that I am not a victim of hydrophobia nor vampirism.
On Sunday or rather Monday morning at 0100, or so, we were laying in bed and I thought I saw something fly by. Across my upper peripheral vision. I looked up. Yes, I was on my phone. We had our night stand lights on so the room was slightly dark. Something fluttered by, or might have fluttered by, I was not too sure. It was no louder than whisper and darker than the shadows of our chamber.
I thought I might have imagined it. Then it flew by again. It had moved from left to right, then back again. The door was to my left, and still is. Now I was sure that something was flying in our room. It flew from left to right again, but this time frantically followed by Lady Day, the cat. She bounded over the bed and to the wall on Michelle’s side.
“What was that?”
“A moth.” I said. I think I said some other things, but I will not go into such details.
Then I heard it screeching. As I raced, as much as I ever race, to where it, and the cat landed. I figured it to be a small bird, as I am unaware of any moth that makes screeching sounds.
Lady Day, her real name is Billie Holiday, often sleeps on the floor next to Michelle, who provides a nice fluffy blanket for her. Whatever it was, it was between the blanket and the wall. I grabbed a pillow and quickly placed it, as gently as I could, over the intruder, then worked to push Lady Day back. She was quite determined to finish this bout. I was determined not let this creature get further hurt, or fly any further around our house. I shifted the pillow carefully to reveal it was in fact a bat.
That was when my mind added another dimension to this event. Rabies, the dread disease that made Atticus Finch shoot that dog.
I asked Michelle to get the candy jar. I also informed her that it was a bat. Probably in a much more shrill and frightened tone than I wished. She quickly returned with the candy jar.
The candy jar came to mind, partially because candy is always on my mind, but it was also the only fairly large and more importantly, thick, very thick, transparent container that I could remember we had at hand.
I was easily able to get the container over the bat and remove any chance of its escape.
Lady Day was more of a struggle for me. Michelle was able to convince her to back off. She has far more sway over the cats than I do.
Keeping a great deal of blanket between the captive and my fingers I flipped the jar right side up expecting gravity to bring the bat to the bottom. Obviously I had not paid attention to my many years of bat education, both formal and informal. They are just not pushed around by gravity. From the documentaries they made us watch in school, to Grandpa Munster, I should have known that bats love to hang from stuff. They love it so much they sleep that way. This guy (and I throw gender in only as a convenience) was not going to drop into this jar.
After a few pointless tries and some colorful language, I asked Michelle for a sock or other small cloth item she does not mind losing. Very, very carefully, with thoughts of Atticus Finch having to shoot me too, I put the sock in the jar. Awhile later the prisoner gravitated to the sock, like her (I thought I would change gender) own cloth monkey. I then put the lid on and tried to return my breathing to its normal rate.
With lid securely in place and my breathing somewhat under control we carried the child of the night into the kitchen. That is where I filmed what little I filmed. https://www.facebook.com/max.lizt/videos/10214187431813789/
One can see my video-graphic skills. The sound is not good, though that is nicely balanced with the lack of any clever dialog. I think I said something like fly little one, be free. Most likely a quote from Mork and Mindy. It also took me a while to figure out that the light in the kitchen was not enough. But it was enough to show the creature seemed to be no worse for the wear.
From there I got dressed. Yes, this adventure took place in a state of nature. As many if my best adventures have. (At least in my mind)
I carried the jar out in the yard. We generally take spiders and the like out in a small Mason jar, place it on the front steps and let the lid drop off as we jump back in the house. A miniature version of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom releasing a wildebeest back to the Serengeti. Visions of vampire movies filled my head, placing it on the steps would not suffice.
I took him out some 15 feet away from the door, carefully placed the jar in the grass and sprinted back to safety.
Looking out the window I saw the bat fly away to what I hope is a long and happy life. I retrieved the candy jar and sock. I think she threw the sock away, and we ran the jar through the dishwasher several times before reloading it with candy.
Lady Day forgave me for stopping her hunt, my nerves returned to their normal levels of anxiety and Michelle stopped checking to see if I was foaming at the mouth shortly after that.
In short, we had a bat, chased by a black cat, and were saved by a candy jar.
I was watching Fox News or “Faux News” as I often hear it called. It is usually fun to watch Glenn Beck come up with new boogiemen for us to tremble about. Since he was not crying I think someone was standing in for him.
Ann Coulter was on with her usual words of peace and love. She talked about how important it is for airports to use profiling. This was shortly after a rather amateurish, but still terrifying, attempt on a flight over Chicago. Looking for Muslim looking men, not worrying so much about being ‘PC’, torturing whomever we get our hands on, and more of her tough talk. I guess if she were in charge, the TSA could stop wasting time searching white people, or anyone with O’Reilly or Palin t-shirts and concentrate on dark skinned non-Christian people. Watch out for Snoop Dogg and Muhammad Ali. I am not sure if Miss Coulter thinks The President falls into this category, as she said in the same ramble, that President Obama had attended a madrassa while a child.
As I was starting to think about whether, in her view, Obama should be on a no fly list, my eyes were transfixed by her eyes. It was like she had glued butterfly wing-parts to them. Not the typical over-sized lashes of the Minnie Mouse variety, but as if she lost one, so split the remaining one between the two eyes, gluing each half carefully to the outside of each lid. I found it very distracting.
I know she does not fact-check what she says, but one would think she should at least face check. I am sure that Palin does. Face check, that is.
A companion and I were in a local restaurant. We were talking about presidents we liked, or some sort of political thing, when the waitress, who is a good friend of ours, said, President Reagan was the best one. Now I lived through the whole “It’s morning in America.” and “There’s a bear in the forest” crap. I did not buy it then and I still do not see the need to give any praise to the guy who loved all Americans, as long as you were rich, white, Christian, and straight. As I said she is a very sweet person so I asked, “What is it that he did that you liked so much?” I like to get other opinions, learn new stuff, so I was interested in what her answer would be. She looked slightly shocked by the question. Paused, and said she would get back to us on that. We went back to our meal; she went back to her duties. Sometime later, with a sparkle in her eyes, “He never had a ‘you-know-what’ in the Oval Office.,” she stated proudly.