As I was writing about the bat, I was reminded of how fascinated Sister Crime Boss was about the first incident. Today, when I updated her that we are again awaiting the results of rabies testing, she said that she hopes it turns out ok. I misunderstood and thought she meant that she hopes the bat is ok. I reminded her that the bat has certainly met its demise due to the testing.
Her response? "Oh, good." And then to clarify, "I'm a lover of all creatures great and small, but it a bat came around, that's it."
As a reminder, she prefers freezing them to death rather than anything less pleasant.
Showing posts with label Bat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bat. Show all posts
Bats, Cats, and Gym Rats
The other night The Wife was making a horrible racket - I was more than a little put off by being woken, but snapped awake when she said, "Something is in the house!"
I jump out of bed in a daze and follow her. She grabs a shoe. I think, that doesn't make sense, but ok, we don't have any baseball bats, so she could throw a shoe... My heart was apoundin' as I trail her, armed with that shoe, from room to room and downstairs. Finding nothing, we head back to bed. Me somewhat perplexed and her saying, "I am not hallucinating!"
'Course, I did think she was hallucinating or at least that her imagination was a bit overactive. I went back to sleep and thought not of the incident again.
Until the next night, when, shortly after I'd gotten to sleep, I am once again not-so-gently roused, and this time she was saying in a voice somewhere between a whisper and a scream, "I saw it, there is a bat, get up, GET UP, you have to get the BAT!"
I jump out of bed and follow her. Again. Now I recall the shoe from the night before and it suddenly makes more sense - not an intruder, but a much smaller thing. I follow her, but this time I find myself in the lead.
I look in the bathroom.
Nothing.
I ruffle the curtains.
Nothing.
I go in the spare bedroom.
Ack! There is a bat hanging out on the wall! I shut myself in the room with the thing and instruct TW to go immediately and get a Tupperware. She does, gives it to me, and leaves me alone with the little creature.
It is a stand-off. I swear that thing was eyeing me.
Nonetheless, I gathered my courage (I may have shrieked once or twice before gathering it) and miraculously got the Tupperware over it.
We debated just letting the thing go, but remembered the warnings from DPH before and kept the poor thing to turn over to animal control for rabies testing. Hopefully the results will come back with less suspense than last time. The animal control guy did say that there hasn't been a case of bat rabies in two years, so that is somewhat reassuring. I will update on this if testing comes back positive, but otherwise just assume we are in the clear again.
On to other things. Namely CATS. So, if you've been reading past posts, you know that BatCat and Stubby have been expelled from the house and are now porch kitties. I can't recall if I mentioned that I made them a cat house. I am extremely proud of said cat house:
Do you see how I built it directly into the porch. It was big enough for both cats and was fully insulated so that it would be a proper shelter come winter.
Well, turns out - and I guess I knew it all along - these two cats can barely tolerate each other. And BatCat, formerly known as Bitchy Queen, will have none of this sharing business that was suggested by having only one house. She would sit inside and should Stubby, also known as Scaredy Cat, get anywhere near the door, a yowling fest would occur.
So I had to remake the cat house. I should have done it this way in the beginning - with two door. Would have been so much better for the remake, but I just wanted them to be the warmest, and two cats huddled would be much warmer than one cat huddled. So I got to work. I had some leftover board from the first project, so all I had to do was get more trim and something for the cat doors (missing piece from the last one). The boards weren't long enough for the whole facade, so I had to saw and refashion it to make it long enough and accommodate doors. Then once the facade was done I had to redo the insulation on the inside so that instead of one long house, it was two smaller houses. I'd planned on spending two or so hours on the project. I spent 8.5 hours on it.But Voila!
Not bad, if I do say so myself. You can see that BatCat is turning up her nose at it, but by morning she had gotten her act together and had made herself at home in the right kitty condo.
I don't know where Stubby is keeping warm, but at least now I can be assured that he has a proper shelter should he choose to use it.
And on a final note: I am back at the gym. Hallelujah! It has been two full months now and I've gone every morning, M-F, and only missed one day from being sick. Mozart is finally sleeping in the morning long enough that I can sneak out before he stirs and then I get back just about the time he wakes up. This was foiled only once, and I packed him up in the stroller and walked to the gym where he stayed while I did my weights and then we walked back. That, of course, won't happen in the snow, but that was an especially accomplished morning. And the other gym rats thoroughly enjoyed him. They now ask about him regularly.
And best of all. I feel great!
Our bat made the paper!!
I just love it! We are the first incident listed in this article that was on the front page. They don't list us as the home being invaded by the bat, or give the bat a name or anything. But hey, there's some notoriety for ya! I didn't have time to scan the article, but here's a photo. Notice the fold, and how the headline is above it - this must truly qualify as serious news. Gotta love small town papers. That's BATastic!
Whew! We're in the clear!! The woman at DPH said on Friday that Boston usually calls early afternoon with the results so we should have the results by then but that she would definitely call me by 3:30p either way because if by that time we hadn't heard the results we were all going to have to have the shot. This sounded great to me and, really, I wasn't worried because everyone I'd spoken to said the rates were either very low in this area or that they hadn't seen any cases this year. That was until juuuuuust about 3 o'clock when I hadn't heard yet. At that point I began to get a little worried. By 3:15, I was a little bit more worried. And by 3:28 I was poised with the number to call and check up on this woman who promised to call. At 3:30 on the dot I dialed the number and: No one picked up. Aaaaack!! I attempt, unsuccessfully, to get some work done. I tried the Wife's number, ready to tell her we'd better give our insurance a heads up that we'd need the shots, and she wasn't there either. I didn't want to leave that message as I didn't want to believe that we'd all have to line up and be subjected to a series of needles. As I was about to dial her cell, at 3:48, mine rang. It was the DPH lady. She'd been out all day, had three messages, hadn't checked them yet, but just wanted to check in with me before I began to panic - um, a little late, but thanks. She hung up to check her messages. I waited anxiously. At 3:52 she called back. She greets me pleasantly. I say, "Yes?" - all the while holding my breath. She says the results are in. I say, "And?(!)" And she FINALLY say, after pausing again, "the bat tested negative." Woo Hoooo! Huge sigh of relief!
Now maybe I can stop the obsessing - really, I've been dreaming of bats non-stop since the Bat Fiasco. Along the way I've gathered some fun facts about bats. Much of this I learned in the moments after the arrival of the bat, by way of the Wife spouting out, iPad in hand, facts that any good bat-hunter should know. And further fun facts were by way of continued obsession - many, many websites, and random people telling me bat tales. In the order with which they pop into my head:
Now maybe I can stop the obsessing - really, I've been dreaming of bats non-stop since the Bat Fiasco. Along the way I've gathered some fun facts about bats. Much of this I learned in the moments after the arrival of the bat, by way of the Wife spouting out, iPad in hand, facts that any good bat-hunter should know. And further fun facts were by way of continued obsession - many, many websites, and random people telling me bat tales. In the order with which they pop into my head:
- Bats can get through exceedingly small spaces - 3/8ths of an inch to be exact.
- If trying to catch a bat wear leather glove as bat armor. You need to ensure that you do not come in contact with the bat because rabies can be transmitted through bites or scratches.
- The methods of catching a bat are as follows: If on the ground, use a towel to drape over it and scoop it up - ensuring your are wearing your bat-armor-gloves. If perched on a wall, trap it behind an oatmeal, yogurt, or tupperware container. If in flight, use a butterfly net - not a fishing net as the bat will likely escape due to the larger holes. The net, it the least suggested form of capture as it increased the likelihood of human-bat contact.
- Unless you saw the bat enter your house, you don't know how long it's been there and you should contact your doctor about the rabies shots.
- If you do let it go, put it on a tree or up high somewhere. They have a hard time taking off from the ground and they'll hop around pathetically for a bit before being able to take flight.
- While bats are commonly referred to as rodents, they are not in fact related to rodents, and are more closely related to alpacas, hippopotamus, and dolphins!! (what?? can this be real???)
- There are megabats and microbats. But not all megabats are bigger than microbats.
- Bats aren't blind, but they don't see well at all and they mostly "see" with their ears, so if there are noises about it will make the bat confused as to how to get out, so one should turn off the music, clocks, computers, or anything that makes any noise if you want it to find its way out.
- While a large grouping of bats is now called a "Colony", in the middle ages it was called a "Murder", just as A Murder of Crows, as the black-wings hoards were mistaken for each other.
- The largest bat - called a Flying Fox - has a wingspan of, oh help, SIX FEET!! The smallest bat is called a Bumblebee Bat.
- Bat guano - a.k.a. bat poop - has been used for things such as bullets (really, in the Civil War!!), and could be used to detoxify waste, improve detergents and for antibiotics - but as far as I can tell, it isn't actually used in mascara. And thank goodness, because that stuff stinks in indescribable ways - and I know this from standing outside a great bat cave in years back.
- Oh, and Vampire Bat saliva is an anticoagulant!
Bat Tales Continued...
Thankfully, I did not have to go so far as to commit the murder myself. Another coworker took it upon herself to call the police department and inquire as to the steps one would take in such a situation. Soon thereafter I was on the phone with animal control to set up a meeting for a hand-off of the culprit. Animal Control will "take care" of euthanizing it and get it to the Board of Health for testing. The incubation period for rabies is 10 days. That said, if the results aren't back by day 5 we all need to go in for shots. The concern is that even if you don't think you've been bitten, you can't always tell because the bite can feel less significant than a mosquito bite, and on the off chance that it does have rabies, it is 100% fatal once the person starts to have symptoms. Hopefully the results will be in by Friday and we won't have to go any further than that. Just glad we were able to find it - even if it landed on the Wife's neck - because otherwise all three of us and both cats would be getting A LOT of shots today - the amount of vaccine is by weight. I know two people who are "of size" and they each had to get NINE shots all at once, and a half-pint little one who got 3 shots - and that's just the 1st round - there's follow-up shots, too. My best guess is that I'd have to get 7 or 8, the Wife would have to get 6 or 7, and the Boy would have to get 1 or 2. Really hoping we can avoid this with a negative test outcome. On the bright side, if we do have to get the shots, then we are covered from any further bat/rabies worries for 7 years. The Animal Control guy did say that our area has not had any instances of bat rabies this year, so he is hopeful, but he reiterated that 5-day thing, and also said to call our insurance first to ensure it will be covered/get pre-authorization because insurance companies are not wanting to pay for the shots - you know, the shots that can prevent an illness that is 100% FATAL once any symptoms show up! Uff.
Bat Fiasco
Remember how utterly tired I was just about three hours ago. Yeah. Well, I'm still that tired, but am sitting in the dressing room holding vigil and trying to listen for bat sounds. Bitchy Queen, the captor of the bat, has let it escape and it is somewhere in this room. She has even dared to leave the scene of the crime - I can't believe she would leave! As I start to write this it is 1:15am. I have no business being awake, but there is no way to go to sleep.
About an hour or so ago I was woken from a dead sleep by what sounded like a motor or some such mechanical device dying. A ridiculous racket. I thought our air conditioner was crapping out, but the Wife got up to investigate, suspecting a mouse, then screeched me to full alertness with the shrill announcement that, "the cat has a BAT!"
Ok. I hate that I am the bug catcher, which has on occasion turned into mouse catcher, but this, THIS, is out of my league! I don't know the first thing about bats! Ok, well, except that their bites - which one cannot necessarily detect - are known to cause a disease that is 100% fatal if contracted and not dealt with. But how do you catch one? What kind of armor do you need? Is there anything you shouldn't do (aside from screech like a little girl and wake up the baby??)? What do you do with the bat if you do catch it? My mind is racing with all of these questions as I am trying to decide what action to take. I feel stripped naked in my measly jammies hopping around after that cat with a squealing, flapping creature in its jaws, which then escapes and I shriek, put the bucket on top of my head and flee the room as the thing is being completely unpredictable. And it flew. Before it just flapped around. But it was flying as I fled the room. While this is happening the wife is spouting out fun facts about how we have to catch it and turn it over to the authorities to get it tested, that you must wear leather gloves, that if it's on the floor you put a towel over it it can't fly - and other things -
But we got it!! Just now! Oh my God that was BAT-CRAZY-MAD! We were holding vigil for over an hour and just when we were about to decide to all just go get rabies shots, because we probably weren't bitten, but it we were then it's fatal, the Wife said, did you check that pile of clothes, and well, I batted at it quite a bit but no bat came out, so I thought it was clear, but we decided to take the whole pile down to be sure, and that's when the bat flew out and LANDED ON THE WIFE!! Right on her NECK! I don't think I've ever heard her scream so loud before! She flung the thing off and ran up the stairs, still screaming!! And then the Boy is screaming, too, because I don't think he's ever heard either of us scream like that, much less waking him from a sound sleep. Thank the Goddess she probably stunned the thing because I finally got it in the container. And the wife was still making little hyperventilating noises when she finally came back down with assurances that the bat was closed up tight. She is now looking up where to take the thing in the morning for testing. And at Google Image for examples of bat bites. It doesn't look like she's got one, but she is scratched up - though most of the scratches likely came from her own flailings, but at least we can get it tested.
And now, somehow, I am supposed to go to sleep and then wake up in 3 1/2 hours to ready myself for facilitating a 4-hour meeting... but oh, we have to figure out how to "euthanize" the bat before we submit it for testing. So now I have to kill the dreadful little thing too. Good Grief.
About an hour or so ago I was woken from a dead sleep by what sounded like a motor or some such mechanical device dying. A ridiculous racket. I thought our air conditioner was crapping out, but the Wife got up to investigate, suspecting a mouse, then screeched me to full alertness with the shrill announcement that, "the cat has a BAT!"
Ok. I hate that I am the bug catcher, which has on occasion turned into mouse catcher, but this, THIS, is out of my league! I don't know the first thing about bats! Ok, well, except that their bites - which one cannot necessarily detect - are known to cause a disease that is 100% fatal if contracted and not dealt with. But how do you catch one? What kind of armor do you need? Is there anything you shouldn't do (aside from screech like a little girl and wake up the baby??)? What do you do with the bat if you do catch it? My mind is racing with all of these questions as I am trying to decide what action to take. I feel stripped naked in my measly jammies hopping around after that cat with a squealing, flapping creature in its jaws, which then escapes and I shriek, put the bucket on top of my head and flee the room as the thing is being completely unpredictable. And it flew. Before it just flapped around. But it was flying as I fled the room. While this is happening the wife is spouting out fun facts about how we have to catch it and turn it over to the authorities to get it tested, that you must wear leather gloves, that if it's on the floor you put a towel over it it can't fly - and other things -
But we got it!! Just now! Oh my God that was BAT-CRAZY-MAD! We were holding vigil for over an hour and just when we were about to decide to all just go get rabies shots, because we probably weren't bitten, but it we were then it's fatal, the Wife said, did you check that pile of clothes, and well, I batted at it quite a bit but no bat came out, so I thought it was clear, but we decided to take the whole pile down to be sure, and that's when the bat flew out and LANDED ON THE WIFE!! Right on her NECK! I don't think I've ever heard her scream so loud before! She flung the thing off and ran up the stairs, still screaming!! And then the Boy is screaming, too, because I don't think he's ever heard either of us scream like that, much less waking him from a sound sleep. Thank the Goddess she probably stunned the thing because I finally got it in the container. And the wife was still making little hyperventilating noises when she finally came back down with assurances that the bat was closed up tight. She is now looking up where to take the thing in the morning for testing. And at Google Image for examples of bat bites. It doesn't look like she's got one, but she is scratched up - though most of the scratches likely came from her own flailings, but at least we can get it tested.
And now, somehow, I am supposed to go to sleep and then wake up in 3 1/2 hours to ready myself for facilitating a 4-hour meeting... but oh, we have to figure out how to "euthanize" the bat before we submit it for testing. So now I have to kill the dreadful little thing too. Good Grief.
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