Going Batty

Yesterday morning I walked in to work and said hello to Jess, my coworker. His response was, "Did you see our little friend?"

"Our little friend?"

"I figured you didn't, else I would have heard a scream."

"Is there a mouse outside?!"

"No, a bat."

"A BAT?!"

I went outside to look. Sure enough, directly above the door, was a furry, sleepy bat. I shuddered, quickly walked back inside, and went on about my day. I made the mistake of mentioning the bat's presence to a few other employees. I had to convince them that it wasn't going to harm them, and it should be left alone. My guess was it would fly away at night to feed and be on it's merry way.

This morning when I got to work, that was not the case. Bat-creature was still there. Let me tell you the bank employees were freaking out!! One said, "it looked black yesterday and gray today. Did it just hit the brick wall and die and now it's starting to mold?" Another told her boss if someone didn't kill the bat, she was going to have to go home for the rest of the day because she was having anxiety attacks. (She's on the opposite side of the building, nowhere near the door or the bat....)

Late in the morning, I see two male employees (higher ups, mind you) march outside to "inspect" the bat. The next thing I know, there's a big discussion that went something like this: "You kill it." "No, you kill it." "No you." "Did anyone bring a badminton racquet to work?" "Where's the big shovel?"

I couldn't take it. I do not like anything that creeps, crawls, or is winged. Bats disgust me. However, this thing was outside and was just hanging out! It wasn't harming anything or anyone, and bats eat mosquitoes.

I asked for a really large cup. I excused myself to the break room and filled the cup with water. I walked outside and stood around waiting for the people in the parking lot to leave. I took one last look around and said, "Sorry little guy" before I threw the water on it. The bat squeaked, chatted it's teeth, and flew away.

I walked back inside the bank and told the men the bat was gone. One guy was really upset because he was convinced the bat had rabies and was going to come back. (And kill us all?) I'm sure he had a psychic-medium-veterinary degree that led him to that conclusion. Another woman was upset because she thought for sure the bat was going to land on her car. (Because cars are common roosting spots for bats?) I just had to shake my head.

I took some pictures of the bat before I doused it, and sent them to a professor at NDSU. Turns out it's a species that not a lot is known about - and isn't really seen in these parts. And my colleagues wanted to smash it with a giant snow shovel.

Enjoy the close-up of the "Silver-haired bat." I'm glad it's gone, glad it's alive - but mostly I'm glad I don't have to hear about how it's going to send people in to a sheer panic. I mean if scaredy-cat Val can be okay with it, when I'm the one that uses the door it was roosting above..... Can I just say I felt totally invincible today?! :o)

**No animals were harmed during the writing of this blog**

Homeownership Is Overrated.

Seriously, if you don't believe me, buy me coffee (skinny vanilla latte, with a dab of whip cream) and ask me to tell you the story of becoming a homeowner. I have told Brent that our next house won't have any problems, and if it does, the landlord will take care of them.

Right now as I sit on my sofa and type, there is a kind young gentleman downstairs operating a jackhammer on my basement floor. The sound of it alone is enough to make my teeth hurt (for some reason it reminds me of a root canal I had November of 2000). He then is shoveling the sloppy wet concrete and rock into a bucket, hauling it upstairs, and dumping it into the lovely receptacle parked in our driveway. There is muddy water all around our basement. It makes me sick to my stomach to go downstairs and see the amount of work that's been done, and the amount of work we have yet to do. In case you're not aware - I'm not really a manual labor kind of girl. I will fish, hunt, camp, play tackle football, hike, irrigate farmland, and feed cattle, but I don't want to fix my basement. Or your basement. I might break a nail. Or a sweat. Or a limb.

All that to say I feel completely in over my head when I think about what's left to do in our basement. These pictures aren't pretty, but I feel the need to share my mess. So gaze with sympathy upon my sawed beams, water filled perimeter, concrete rubble, and demolished basement. If we're lucky we might have it pieced back together by the end of July....?

Oh, and did I forget to mention that the neighbor across the street backed in to my husband's car this morning? Nothing super bad, and no horrendous damage. Just another, "are you serious?" moment of the day. Is it July yet??









Thankfully I found some beauty in the midst of it all....right outside my front door.

The Latest "Buzz"

I have an overwhelming fear. I cannot stand insects, bugs, spiders, critters with more than four legs, or wings, or bug eyes - yuck. Yuck, and again I say yuck. Something happens to me physically when I encounter one of these creatures. I become incredibly tense - especially in the shoulders - I make strange, guttural noises, and my eyes quadruple in size. I literally become scared stiff and I have a hard time moving, speaking, etc.

I recently made light of my sister's situation as we spoke on the phone a few days ago. She was chatting away, telling me about life in Oregon, when her voice dropped about four octaves, and she let out three throat noises that I couldn't spell out for you here if I tried. I heard my nephew start crying, then I heard her say, "I'm sorry Travis, Mommy freaked out about a fly and it scared you too, I'm sorry." A fly. I wish you could have heard her noises. Then you would laugh, for one, but you would understand the type of fear I'm talking about here. My sister apparently inherited the same trait. (But I don't know if I would freak out about a fly.)

I have really been enjoying our weather here in NoDak lately. High 60s, low 70s, lots of sunshine - just beautiful weather. I try to take long walks around the neighborhood each evening to take advantage of the temps and the sunshine. We get locked up for some pretty long winters, so it's hard to stay indoors these days! Tonight was no different for me. I trekked a long way around the neighborhood until I could hardly feel my legs anymore. I came home, was zapped of energy, and Extreme Pita sounded better than cooking.

Brent and I enjoyed some Philly Steak pitas with veggies and sauce, and Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips. (Can I get an "amen" for how tasty those are?!) We headed back home and caught up with our e-mail and twitter before it was time to get some housework done. Brent started organizing the office and I decided to tackle the bathroom. I don't understand how the smallest room in the house requires twice as much cleaning, three times as often. I digress....

I had scrubbed the toilet bowl and got down to my knees to wipe the base of the throne - which is apparently a magnet for dust and hair. Dis-gust-ing. I had to maneuver to really get back there, and my face was all but touching the toilet. That's when I saw it.

It was dark, hairy, winged, and struggling.

"OH MY GOODNESS. (throat noise, throat noise, cough)" That was my best attempt to communicate to my husband what I was really wanting to say which was, "Get in here and kill this thing immediately!" I don't remember how I got from my knees to my feet, and have no idea how it could have happened as quickly as it did.

Brent has been around me enough times to know my, "It's a bug!" cry. He sauntered in to the bathroom and said, "What is it?"

"I think it's a bee!" As I struggled to move my legs to walk myself out of the direct path of the thing, and get as far away as I could.

"Where is it?" He couldn't see it. I had to muster up enough strength to walk back inside the bathroom, extend my arm to point, and try to verbally communicate, "It's there on the bowl right at the base of the lid." Of course it came out, "There, (throat noise, throat noise) RIGHT THERE!"

"Oh yep, sure enough. It's a bee." (Squish) "And now it's dead." With that, he went back to the office to finish tidying up.

I, of course, began thinking, "Is there a hive in my wall? How did it get in? Are there more? Where did it come from? How did it end up on the toilet I JUST cleaned?" I stood trying to regain my cleaning composure. I resumed cleaning, but moved on to the shower. Everything that brushed against me, or that I thought I felt, made me gasp. Every time I felt something on me, I thought it was a bee. I will most likely have a hard time getting to sleep tonight. Brent has probably already forgotten he even killed a bee in the bathroom tonight.

Yuck. Yuck, and again I say, yuck.