More Hazards

The trouble with leaving so much time in between writing is that not only are there too many things that have happened, with many things getting lost in the shuffle, but also big things loom and overshadow all of the little stuff, making it hard to focus on anything else.

So the big thing that’s happened lately is that M’s try outs are over and she is playing JV soccer, not varsity. She worked very hard over the summer, and I am two parts angry and one part heartsick for her. But since any further comment would irritate her and would lead me to say unkind things about people who are not my daughter, I am not going to write any more about that here.

Something that happened only a day or two after that last post is that we had yet another evening visitor. Cute W and I were asleep in bed when we woke up to the sound of high pitched squeaking. Oh, crap. We thought it was an injured mouse dragged in by our cat. Cute W got up and started rummaging around in the corner of our bedroom, which was a total and complete mess because this happened in the middle of GISHWHES, and so that corner of the room was piled high with all sorts of random costumes and props like a pink princess dress, cowboy gear, tutus, and other paraphernalia for various stunts. Here, for example, is me doing a Western-style quick-draw with a tea cup and saucer:

But I digress. The point is, there was a pile of stuff to be moved around and still no mouse to be found. The squeaking had stopped. We gave up and turned the light back off and got back into bed. And then, you guessed it: more squeaking.

Once again, lights on, looked around, no mouse, no more squeaking, and back in bed.

After that, we decided that when the squeaking started up again we’d stay in bed and listen harder, and Cute W retrieved one of his trusty headlamp flashlights. So when the squeaking started up again, he was able to shine a spotlight on the most adorably terrifying sight I’d ever seen. It was another bat, and this guy had somehow gotten trapped in our window. We don’t have A/C upstairs, so we have one of those window fans where you open up the window, stick the fan in up against the screen, and then shut the window onto the top of the fan to secure it. Somehow, the bat had gotten himself stuck between the outer screen and the whirring fan. He was trapped, and in an effort to save himself, he was squeaking wildly and pawing the edge of the fan with adorable, teensy bat paws!

Sadly, we were half asleep and not entirely functional, because we totally should have taken a video of this. It really was both adorable and terrifying. He was working those little paws, and it seemed entirely possible that he might find a way to poke through. Instead of taking a video that would have made us, you know, internet famous or something, we were just hell-bent on eviction. We closed our bedroom door and then my wonderful husband took one for the team and sent me into the bathroom with the door shut behind me. He shooed the bat out with very little trouble, but not without noticing that the bat had sharp and menacing teeth. Phew! And then we went back to bed.

Since then, we’ve traveled around and experienced emotional turbulence here at home, and I’ll fill you in on some of that later.