Maybe It's A Puma

So sometimes life just works out in such a way as to give you a perfect moment. Today, I got two of those in the span of 10 minutes.

I hadn't slept at all the night before, despite takeing eight sleeping pills over the course of 10 hours, and lying in the dark for eight of them after getting only maybe four hours of sleep the day before, if that. It was a crappy contenuation of a couple of crappy days. I had to drive and hour to get to a gathering of my pagan friends, and I was 30 minutes into it and realized I left my pot luck item (two dozen deviled eggs) sitting in the fridge. I was in pain, exausted, and still had another half hour to go before I could relax, and another ten hours or so before I had any hope of getting home to sleep. I was driving my "new" car, Mom's old 2001 Nissan which I really don't like, and that was just makeing the pain worse (the driver's seat is worn out, so it hits just the wrong pressure on my siatic nerve to cause me a lot of pain, and even put me on a cane for a day or two after driving, sometimes) and really, the day was just crappy.

I rememberd something I wanted to mention to my group, but was tired enough I was afraid I'd forget by the time I got there, so I reached into the pocket in the driver's side door, hopeing Mom would be like me, and keep a few pens in there so I could scribble a quick note to myself on the back of my hand while driving (kids, do as I say, not as I do ::handwavey of "I've now fufilled my Acting-Like-A-Responcable-Adult duties for the day"::). Instead of feeling a pen, however, beneith a map, some extra napkins and an unoppend deoderent (thankfuly unoppend as it was cucumber scented, which I am very alirgic to, and also the ick, used doderent safely avoided), I felt an odd bottle in my hand. Confused, I pulled it out, and pulled it up so I could see what it was.

This is what I now found in my hand :



That's right, ladies and gentelmen! While on my way to a pagan gathering, I pulled out of the door of my very atheistic mother's car, a bottle of HOLY WATER!

I stared at it blankly for a few stunned moments, before I burst out laughing so hard, I nearly had to pull over. Of all the WTF things to find in the door of my new car...

I hit the button on my bluetooth (Washington is a Hands Free Cell Phone state) and told it to call Mom and then had the deilght of asking her, "Mom? Just out of idle curisoity...why do you have a bottle of Holy Water in the door of your car?"

I think Mom had her own moment or two of confused silence before she went, "OH! I bought that for you at a garage sale ages ago. I guess I forgot to give it to you." ::LOL::

Yes, folks, this is why I love my mom. She may not get the gay thing, she sure as HELL dosn't get the pagan thing, but when push comes to shove and she wants to get me a nice little "thinking of you" present, she buys me a 50¢ bottle of Holy Water.

My Mom? Is awesome.

But you know what made the day even better? As if that weren't enough to turn it around already, because it totally was, I went from feeling like absolute shit to a happy human being in the space of about 30 seconds, I really did. But about three miles after I got off the phone with mom, I kept picking the bottle up out of my lap, looking at it again, and laughing some more. I turn from one busy highway onto a smaller highway that has long streches of farmland on either side, and just the occational car passing, when I look up over the top of my bottle of Holy Water and what do I see comeing towords me?

The Metallicar.

I sware to God, I am not makeing this up. As I was holding my bottle of Holy Water in my hand at the top of my stearing wheel, I see comeing towords me a mint condition, black 1967 Chevrolet Impala. With two men in the front seat.

Ladies and gentelmen? I do believe I just had the most perfect moment in fannish history of crappy days gone unexpectedly good.

My Mom? IS AWESOME!!!!!

Dad got home from his surgry. It all went off without a hitch, and he is safely medicated and getting some sleep. Things could not have gone better.

They've moved up Dad's surgry date. He's now going under the knife this Tuesday.

No worries, this is a good thing. Joe's had increcingly debilitating arm pain for more then a year now, with half a dozen difrent diagnosis, everything from pinched nerves to bone cancer to Carpel Tunnel.

In the end, more people diagnosed him with a sever case of Carpel Tunnel then anything else, so that's what they're going with.

Joe does not deal well with medical shit, at least not when it's his own. He's pretty freeked out about this, despite knowing how safe it is (and damnit, Krista, for telling him he could research the surgry online! ::facepalm:: Why do you think I was working so hard to make sure he DIDN'T FIGURE THAT OUT?!). Thirty years of sobriaty means he can't crawl into a bottle to deal with it, and fear of that desire to crawl into a bottle means he's reluctant to take enough medication to controle the pain. So surgry to finish things? Very much of the good.

So, the new plan is for Joe to get surgry on his right arm on Tuesday morning. Simple surgry, they won't even be putting him under, just giving him a local. ...Which, yeah, probably a mistake, considering my explanations in the above paragraph, but... ::shrugs::

Anyway, if anyone thinks of it, happy thoughts for him on Tuesday would be very welcome. He always does better, knowing people are thinking about him when he needs it. He's a strong believer in the power of thoughts.

In totaly unrelated information you don't really need, this is my first test of the new DW Crossposting Platform. Let me know if it comes out wonkey for anybody.

ETA: Hmmm, everything works just fine on crossposting, including the tags, but not the Icon. The crosspost on LJ goes to Default. Eveything else works just fine. Odd...and the HTML code looked fucked up on LJ when I go to edit, but it works fine, just looks fucked up. Odd.

So everytime I get something fun, or a bit of enjoyment outta life the last few days, it has to be imideatly ballanced by something dreadful. I have a cute little SGA AU moment, then a few hours later, I have to rush Mom into Urgent Care.

So I had a fun day off in the snow yesterday, and I loved it. I got as much enjoyment out of every flake as I could because I knew it wouldn't last. I got egg nog and fresh apple cider, I made sugar cookies, I spent all day by myself watching the snow, and I loved it. And also, since we're not doing Christmas this year (no gift exchanges between the family or sibblings, we'll all dead broke), Dad is going to buy me a Christmas Tree. He wants me to have a good first Christmas on my own, even without presents. It'll be a counter top tree, but it'll be my first real tree in like a decade. Mom's alirgic, so we had to give them up when I was a teen. I can't wait to smell that smell again. ::wistful sigh::

But then, well, today the goodness officaly ended.

First up, Mom has an infection in her leg, just like I told her a week ago when it was minor and managable. If she'd just gone in when I told her to, she wouldn't be going though this now. They took of her stitches this morning, but her leg definatly has a full on infection. She's going to be fine on antibotics, but she has to scrub the peeling skin off every evening in the shower. It hurts like fuck. (And need I say it again, would not be nessicary had she just listend to me...)

The other fun news...Grandma isn't just comeing for one night tomorrow night. She's comeing for three nights. She's staying from Tuesday morning 'til Friday. ::headesk::

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!

I can not stand this woman. Krista is staying too, which isn't that much better, because that means I gotta wait on her, too and not just Mom and Grandma, because heaven forbid Krista get up and get her own damned soda, or blanket, or light turned off. ::growls::

Susan is going to be the only bright spot this week. At least her I don't mind takeing care of, though I still hit that, "Here, she's your kid, you take her back," point pretty quick. ::sighs:: She just has a calming effect at the same time, unlike the other three.

I probably won't post much, in order to spare you the screaming and gnashing of teeth. I do have one fic, the next CSU fic for Riptide, ready to go, so I will post that sometime this week when I need a pick me up. But right now, my Riptide fics are only getting one or two replies, so I think I'm oversaturating the market, compared to my first two fics. I should probably just hold off and post it in a month, but I don't wanna wait that long.

Also, it's nearly time for my now-anual Year In Review Writing Meme, and I want it counted amonst my finished & posted fics. I put a lot of work into my recent fics, and I want them all counted. ::G::

Okay, signing off before I start screaming again. Just wanted to update you guys. Mom's in pain, but she'll be fine with the antibiotics. Grandma is just...well, there's no helping that. ::sighs::

ETA: I forgot to say, so I'm saying it up here so people see it. Tonight in the US, CBS is airring a movie called "Front Of The Class", which is a bio-pic of Brad Cohen, who grew up with a case of moderate-to-sever Tourettes, and went for years without a diagnosis. He eventualy went on to take what he went though, and all the challanges he faced in school with this illness, and became an incredibly famous and well loved teacher himself!

So anyone who's heard me talk about my TS and wondered what it is? Try this movie. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't say how accurate is it, or how close to my own story it is, but the TS Assocaiton is premoting it and backing it and saying it's well done and an fairly accurate protrail of his guy's life. So if you're intrested in what TS is (when it's not just shouting obsenities like in LA Law or Duce Biggalow ::eyeroll::) and what our lives in school can be like, give it a try. It's set to air at 9pm on CBS tonight, Sunday the 7th.

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Just a quick update today. Mom was much better yestday then I was fearing she would be based on past surguries. However, it's like saying "The hurricane was downgraded from a mark four, to a mark two." It's still a fucking mark two huricane! It's just not a four anymore. ::sighs::

I only made a few pointless trips between up here and my place, twice when she asked for ice, and they don't have ice cube trays up here, but I do. Then I bring them up, and she means "No, I don't want ice water, I want cold water." Despite asking "for ice in my water". Only no, she just wants bottles of watter, not glasses, a straw will help. Only no, because the bottles are too tall and the straws fall down inside, and why did I bring her bottled water, the ice dosn't fit inside the bottles, and she spacificly asked for ice water. ::blows bangs out of face::

But really, that was better then I was expecting. I don't mind getting up and down a bunch, she just had her knee replaced, I was expecting that, I just hate going up and down the outside stairs in the rain for no reason. And also, she asks me to make her food, and she insists she wants a lot, she's hungry, but then eats four bites and dosn't want any more, and dosn't want the same thing twice, so it gets wasted, because with my OCD I can't finish her ceareal after she eats some or anything.

Dad was good, he escaped to went to the store early on and made a huge batch of macaroni crap, because early on mom said she wanted spagettii. Mom isn't eatting any of it, but it does mean I have something to eat up here, something I can just throw on a plate and nuke and it's good to go. I can eat a ton (metric) of macaroni crap before I get too tired of it to want something else. We ate it a lot when I was a kid, and it's pretty filling, between the pasta and the cheese and the ground beef. The corn adds a nice accent to every few bites as well.

Mom's cutting down on her meds, of course, like she always does. She was takeing the painkillers every three hours, but now she wants to only do them every four. I'm thinking I may force them on her ever three, if for no other reason then to make her sleep a little more. I got no sleep last night, and am exasuted. I can't nap myself, because she insists on keepin the door to her room closed to keep the heat out (Mom's like me, can't sleep when she's warm, has to have a cold, prefurably freezing, room in order to sleep), so there's too big a chance I'd sleep though her calling for me. But when she's sleeping, I can rest, at least, and not have to get up and fetch stuff. I'm just sitting here, watching some TV and working on the beta for the third Cub Scouts AU ("Army Of One", I'll probably post it sometime later this week, I want at least a few days between fics so people don't get tired of reading them).

She's already tried to clean the house while my back was turned, yesterday. I have to sweep twice a day or more, just to keep the broom out of her hands. And she's still trying to pick stuff up as she walks past, and she just can not lean over properly, and she won't just ask, "Hay, Torra, can you please grab this?" ::sighs:: She won't let me help her get in and out of bed or the chairs anymore at all, she figured out how to use the handle of her canes to grab onto her foot and lift it, since she can't do it herself. ::sighs:: She's already hurt herself badly once doing this, when the cane slipped and went flying, leaving her to fall back onto the bed. ::sighs::

And since I seem to have the habit of ending a post on a totaly and compleatly difrent subject, today's "in totaly unrelated news": I Haz A Shower Again!

I don't know what they did to fuck up my shower durring the work, they wern't suposed to touch it other then to actualy shower at night (since the water tank at the rental was about the size of an acorn and you only got about 20 seconds of hot water a night for one shower out of three people), but they did something and broke it. It was at least usable for awhile, though mostly just a fine mist came out, not a spray, and what spray there was, went in all directions excetp down.

Well, even that broke afte while, and for the last week or so, it's been toatly dead. So I've been showering upstairs, and going nuts, I hate having to go outside and into someone else's house just to get a shower.

Dad had to put a new showerhead upstairs (I dind't bother asking why, as it's a brand new shower top to bottom), so he went down last night and put a new one in for me, too. I was too tired to use it last night to try it out, and dad asked me to be up here at 10am today to take care of mom (turns out, they were both still asleep so I didn't need to be), so I didn't have time this morning. Boy am I looking forword to that shower. I'm sore and exausted and it sounds wonderful.

Okay, Mom should be up soon, so I'm gunna finish this beta. More updates as stuff happens.

First up: Surgry.

Mom's first knee surgry is on Wednesday. Well, her first knee replacement surgry is on Wednesday. They're doing the left leg. Right knee will follow in six months to a year. She goes in for her pre-surgry tests in a few hours, and then will have to stay in hospital for about three days afterwords. Apparently she has done something to piss Danika off. She does not know what, so it'll fall to me to take care of her, which I do not have a problem with.

I'm really not all that stressed about this surgry. She needs it, I've been saying that longer then she has. This is a good thing.

In fact, I won't even be here when she goes in, which I do feel a little bad over. Tuesday is the Guild Chrismas Party, which I promaced up and down to people there that I'd attend (probably with yet more cornbread in tow), and even Krista is takeing Susan to show off. And my back just will not make that drive both to and from Seattle in one day. So I'll be staying Tuesday night at Krista's. Which I don't really want to do, since I'm still kinda pissed at her about July. So I may say "fuck it" and drive home anyhow if I find her inssurferable. But I wanna see Susan. Without any compotishion. ::snickers::

So I'll go up to the Guild party on Tuesday, Mom'll go into Surgry Wednesday morning, I'll come home Wednesday afternoon or evening, and Mom'll come home sometime around Friday or Sat, depending on her healing...probably Friday...Thursday if someone dosn't keep an eye on her at all times.

---

*


Compleatly apropos of nothing else, the results of my Happy Birthday Sparkly Text Poll...turns out, more people like it then hate it. But I did have one person say they hated it, and I hate to have something that someone hates. So despite the fact that the majority said they love it, I may do something, like a just the size, so it's not quite so...so much. We'll see. Next up is Skip's birthday, and I promaced him the full works, so he'll get the usual, but past that, I'm not sure yet. I don't think I have anyone else on book 'til the New Year...

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In other and also toatly unrelated news, I changed the quote in my sidebar. I've deside to try one full year where I post a new quote on the 1st of each month (or there abouts). Last month I did this, too, but forgot to say anything.

So for those who missed it because they only read my posts on their own flist, last month's quote was :

"Never judge a book by its movie." -J. W. Eagan

And this month's quote is:

"An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives wtih, insists on boring future genorations." -Charles de Montesquieu

I thought the quote was appreoprate considering December is the season of one of the most awful bores, Charles Dickens and the dredded "A Christmas Carol".

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In a sadly related topic...I've started writing in a third new fandom. Riptide. My first finished fic is in the hands of the beta, and I'm debating wether or not to also claim it as a Small Fandoms Fest fic so I can get more eyes on it. It actualy fits two prompts, so reallly the question is "which does it fit better?"

And tinx_r, before you ask, no, I did not want you to beta this one, because I wanted it to be a suprise gift. You got me into the fandom, it's only fair you should get something nice in return. So you can help me beta my other one, the Stutter fic, but this one is just for you. andeincascade should get it back to me tonight, so I'll post it either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how many mistakes she found.

Ande is also my second beta on my DSSS fic, and she got me the edits back last night. After I make the changes, it should be good to post! Which is kinda flooring, considering how paniced I was this time a month a go, when I just thought it was due in 14 days, instead of now when it's actualy due in 14 days.

I am wondering, though, how many other peoploe are done or nearly done. Judging from my flist, not a lot. It seems like a lot of people are struggling with getting their DSSS fic written this year. I find this...intresting. Not really sure what it is past that, but it is intresting. I wonder if my slice is truly indicitive of the whole, or if my slice is squeded slightly one way? Maybe I'm a dragging influance? Though I finished, so I don't see how, this time...

* Because I can use HR lines to seporate subjects matters if I want to. ;-p

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ETA: The counter guys are here installing Mom's granate countertops (which apprently they cut wrong), and I'm trying to identifye the language they're speeking to eachother in. It's either Russian, Ukrainian, or some Polish derivitive, I can't quite tell...fasinating, though. It dosn't sound quite like any of the three, but close to all of them...

Happy Samhain!

That's right, today is the pagan new year, and since I don't have my usual Samhain Rit to work on this year to get it out of my system, I'm inflicting it on you here:


            
   Happy Samhain!   
   Happy New Year!   
   Happy Halloween!   
            

And for those of you people reading this whom I know to be major Supernatural fans? IT IS NOT PRONOUNCED SAM-HA-NE!!! It never has been, it never will be. The holiday is pronouce sow-win. It's galic, it's not suposed to be pronounced the way it looks, no galic word is. The language is both the best friend and worst enimey of a dyslexic. Ignore supernatural. There is no such thing as sam-hain. It's Samhain, and don't you forget it. ::winks::

(But no, really, it's pronounced Sam-win, honest, you don't prounce the H or the N...or the M....or the O....but you do prounced the other H.......)

In other totaly random news, the 25th was my dad's birthday (it was also SueMary's, which I did not know 'til it happened), but he kinda started hateing birthdays after his 40th, so as my gift to him, I'm not useing sparkely text in association with his name.

When he left for work this morning, he showed me one of his gifts from Mom, which is a pair of bright green Converse high tops without laces. Clay and Brian both used to have the exact same high tops in the exact same color (only with laces, of course). I asked him where his laces are, and he says they have elastic built in so they stay on.

So I said, "So for Halloween you're going as a poser?"

"I'm a rocker."

"Your Converse have elastic."

"Rocker."

::snorts:: ::shakes head:: "Poser."

My gift to him? Not saying this to him in public. ::snickers:: Or with sparkley text.

In A Random Remodling Update: Still not moved in yet. Garry (who's had five back surguries, BTW) is down sick, along with everyone else, so we can't move in 'til the floor gets put in...or at least that's what they're saying now. I may move in sooner, but right now I'm in this sorta limbo of most of my stuff being in my appartment, but I still have stuff on the DVR here, including like six hours of Night Court, which I'll lose when I move, so I don't really wanna finish until my DVR is at least mostly empty, but all I have here is a sleep shirt, a change of cloaths, and like five skeins of yarn...

Oy. Vey. ::headesk:: Today sucked.

Started out just fine, got a halfway decent night's sleep, and while I woke up tired, it wasn't taht bone-weary tired that's made it hard to move for the last week. I got my stuff packed up and ready to move within just a few hours of wakeing up. Got it all piled in my car, headed off to the rental...

and Morti's engein shut off right infront of the driveway.

Just...turned off. ::sighs:: Thank the fucking Goddess it was right infront of the rental, and not in the middle of the street, or god forbid on the freeway or something like I was planing to drive today. ::sighs::

So I was stuck at the rental all day waiting for a car to free up so I could get to the autoparts store. The only explanation I could find was how low he was on oil. Knew it was a long shot, but it was a theory at least. Mom said she was just gunna go over to talk to Joe...she didn't come back for five hours. ::sighs::

Finaly got a car in the evening, got to the auto store, got the oil, put it in...and nothing. ::sighs:: The engein is turning over, but it won't do that final kick to start. It just keeps turning over and over and over. And as bad as that is, that's still really good, I know. That meens the engein hasn't seazed or frozen, and it means it's probably electrical, not something like a broken part that'll cost me a thousand dollers to have re-cast or something.

So I gotta get my car towed to the shop tomorrow and shell out a bunch of cash to fingure out what it actualy is. Hopefuly it's just a blown fuse or a battery that's just hit the end of it's life or something. ::crosses fingers:: The car is a '92, so the warenty is looooong gone, so any fixes are comeing right out of my own wallet. ::sighs::

I'm gunna be using Mom's car until Mortis is fixed, she and Joe are gunna share the truck. So at least I'm not stranded again, like when I was a kid.

In other fun events of the day, I spent an hour or so trying to get the digital cablebox in my bedroom of the rental to work. Long story short, Comcast sucks once again, and they're gunna have to send someone out on Sunday to look at it. Again. ::sighs:: Between all the times comcast has fucked up this week, with all the "we'er sorry" bonuses and tokens they give our account, I'm not only gettin a DVD-R Cable Box free, but use of it for the next thirteen months free...and the digital box in the living room free too. :;shakes head:: They'er gunna be pay'n us to watch by the end of the month, I sware. ::sighs:: Which is just wasteful as we won't have digital cable when we get back home.

I was plannin to pick Nick up from Joan this afternoon, but by the end of the day, even though I had a car, I was just too tired to go back out and get him. ::sighs:: I miss my newt. I'll get him tomorrow.

Oh, and in the best news of all today... So some of you may have heard me mention that since we started work on the house, every little cut and even bug bite I've gotten has been getting infected. Figured it was just something in the walls getting released or something. I know how to take care of them, no big, I'm not even afraid to lance my own wounds and treat them myself, and none of them were that bad. Well, it turns out Mom and Joe were having the same problem...and now Joe may have MRSA.

Yah. Dad may have MRSA. The superbug. ::sighs:: One of his minor cuts on his leg went from a small prick, to a four inch wound and growing. Doctors are worried.

We'll find out in a few days. His infected toe isn't getting better either, which if he does have MRSA is an even worse sign. He's on all sorts of anti-biotics, of course, but... ::sighs::

Yah. Fuuuuuuuuun day. Can't wait for what joys tomorrow is gunna bring...

ETA: My first night here, and I've already had to call the cops. Guy going in and out of the neighborhoods at 90mph, up onto curbs and lawns. ::sighs:: I don't think the dispacher thought I was serious. First thing she said was, "You're callinga bout a speeder?" ::shakes head:: Yes, I'm calling about a guy driving though people's yards at 1am and 90mph! Silly me, I thought that the cops might want to know about this guy before he ran over someone! Silly, silly me, sorry for wasting your time, Ma'am.

ETA 2: Aaaand she clearly couldn't give a fuck, the guy is still going up and down the street at 90mph. ::sighs::

So....yah, that was a little adventure last night.

I was watching the S3 premeair of Eureka, when I heard Joe shout something panic-laden in the hallway. I rushed out to see what had happend, and he started shouting at me to "get back inside, close the door!" So I did, with the first thought of "OMG, Nerve Gas?!" ::facepalm:: I'm such a geek and over-imaginitive reader.

I shouted out, "What's wrong?", of course, and he (rather calmly considering how freeked he was) explained that we had bats in the house.

I proceeded to start laughing my ass off.

I went out into the hallway (quite calmly), as did Mom (also calm), to get more info (Dad was still quite freeked and kept trying to tell us to get back inside).

Now, you've gotta understand, we have bats around us at all times. They've been roosting in our chimney ever since we converted our woodstove into a gas stove about 10 to 13 years ago (forget exactly how long). We had bats before that, but only a few who'd roost in the shadow between the chimeny and the house, but once we closed off the flue, we got dozens calling the inside of the chimneh itself home. So I grew up around bats. Had bats at the house I spent my early yeas in, too, because it was on a "lake" (Climax Lake, which was really just a pond with a huge ego). So the idea of bats inside didn't freek me out, other then the fact that we have had signs of rabbid bats amongst the group in years past.

Scoping the place out, we found the first one hanging from the now empty curten rod in the livingroom. That one was pretty easy to get out, dad raeched over to the screen beneith it (which REALLY freeked him out, but he wouldn't let Mom or I do it), and poped the screen out and used it and a handy broom to sweep him off the rod and out the window.

He thought he'd seen two more, but thought one had maybe gotten outside while the door was open (how he thought they got in at the time), so we were just looking for one. Looking around the house, we realised that, hay, we curently have a whole section of wall missing where we took out the pitcutre window and made that the new front door, which meens we have huge hole leading directly into the attic space, which is in turn, connected to the chimeny. Huummmm.

So that's the curent belief of how they got in, crawling though the attic. Mom desided to pin a tablecloth over the hole, and stuff the remaining gaps with pillows. When I went to enter the kitchen to get more pushpins, I found the second bat on the floor.

The first bat was clearly healthy, so I wasn't worried about either rabies or plague, but this one was flat on the floor, crawling around, instead of flying. BIIIIIIGG bat danger warning sign right there. Bats with end-stage rabbies loose their ablitiy to fly well, and offten fall to the ground and crawl around.

That startled me, but didn't really freek me. But I freeked it out, and it crawled under the dishwasher. Dad tried to take the chance to get though the kitchen to open that window and pull the screen out...

That's when he saw the one in the sink. ::snickers:: Talk about freek out! He didn't scream or squeek or anything so un-manly, but boy did he jump! ::laughing::

The one in the sink was trickey, the walls of the sink were too high for him to climb out, and there was a bowl full of water inside the sink, and we didn't have any gloves to reach in and safely pull him out.

That beguan a whole, very amusing process of the three of us trying to get him out. Finaly I just had to reach in (carefuly, he was very aggitated) and pull the bowl. The poor bat was pretty soaked by that point, because we'd sloshed a fair bit of the water into the sink trying to get him with the broom.

Dad and Mom both had screens from the windows and were using them as sheilds, and I had the broom. Once we got the bowl out, I put the broom back into the sink, and encuraged him to crawl up onto it. Which he did almsot imideatly, once the bowl was gone. As soon as he crawled up, I just moved him out the window, and gave the broom a shake and he flew off. No big.

Mind you, the whole time we're doing this, we still have the one that's possibly sick at our feet, and Mom and I were both barefoot. Liiitle nurvewracking there.

We then proceded to try to get that one out, which was less amusing this time, and more a comidy of "aww, damn."

Long story shorter, that didn't like the broom idea, and instead ended up running away from the broom and figuring out how to crawl behind the dishwasher. No way to get him out easily. I tapped the whole area off while Dad tried to call animal controle. Turns out animal controle only gets involved after someone has been bit, and only then to catch the bat to test it for rabies.

Since we couldn't get him out, we got back to work on house repairs, until I heard him start to try crawling out from behind the cubbords again and desided we could give this another go. I pulled all the tape off I'd put to block all the cracks, and instead taped one of the screens over the area instead, using tape to fill the holes made by the cubbords jutting out. We then just waited for him to relax enough crawl out again. He spent awhile crawling around the screen trying to find a gap. Once he was calm-ish, Mom and I pulled the screen, rushed it to the window before he could fly off, and got him outisde the window.

All done and good, right? No more worries! We delt with all three of the bats (mom thinks that it was one of them that had brushed agasint her foot earler in the night when she thoguht she had imagined something touching her), the holes in the walls were blocked again, and it was around 10:30 so Mom wanted to go to bed.

I stayed up to help Dad work on the wireing, Mom went to bed. Finaly around 12:30 Dad and I gave up too. I wasn't in my room for more then five minutes before I heard my mom say just below a scream, "Joe! There's one in my bed!!"

I rushed iin, and found mom more freeked then I'd seen her in years! She'd been trying to sleep when this fourth bat, who'd probably been in there for hours by this point, and crawled up next to her.

Perfectly understndable freek out on her part, in all honesty. I'd sure as hell have been freeked out, too, at that point.

Since I was the first one into the room, I took over the duties of catching that one, with backup help from Joe. Took a few minutes of chaseing it around the bed before I finaly cought it underneith an empty trashcan and slid a cardboard box between it and the bed and got the whole kit 'n kaboodle to the door in their room and released it outside again.

I honestly thought Mom was gunna pack up then and there and get a hotel room for the night. She was really freeked, and Dad was still freeked from before. Honestly, I think I was the only one who was still, "Oh COOL! BATS!" ::laughs:: In fact, I know I was. I love bats, and it was only that second one under the dishwasher who didn't act healthy.

Until last night, I'd always been able to make the arugment of our bats being more benifishal then dangrous, even when Mom talked repetedly about getting rid of them every summer, expeicaly after we got the boys.

After the first two bats, I was still able to make that argument, expeicaly since the bats hadn't flown into the house, but cralwed in from their own nesting site because of our action. They didn't seek us out, they just followed the sounds of the bugs inside from having doors open all day because of the work being done.

After the whole producting of catching the third bat, I'd lost Joe. By the time Mom found the bat in her bed with her?

Yah, they called the exterminators this morning. ::sighs:: No chance in hell of saving them at this point. I was still sleep when they went into work today, no I haven't yet heard when the exterminator will come or anything, but I doubt they'll wait long. We can't exactly leave pillows stuffed in the wall for long.

In the end, I'm just glad we got the four we had back outside without them being hurt, or any of us being bitten. I'm just sad that that won't save them in the end. ::sighs::

Well, I'm back in the room I grew up in, and boy isn't that a mindfuck. ::laughs:: ( Listen To Me Talk About Today's Events And The Room I Grew Up In )


Aaaanyhow. So, yah, I'm gunna be living in here until August 2^nd, when we will move into the rental (curent tennants are set to move out by the 1^st, and they don't look like they'll move out any sooner).

On the entirly good news front, ( I'll Be Getting A New Matress Imideatly )


Demolition inside the house still hasn't started, and dosen't look like it will until Tuesday at the soonest. Turns out they can't acutaly start tearing out walls until they get the new doors. So I'll have tomorrow in the house to myself (which is good, my headache is pretty bad right now from being the end of the month and the stress of this week by itself, even without the med issues), which'll be nice. But starting Tuesday, I'll probably have to go back to spending most of the day at Joan's. (And I am so gunna owe her so totaly big for helping me here, and takeing care of Nick for me. {{{hugs}}})

I think that covers all the major events of the day. All in all, it was more good news then bad, but still incredibly stressful. The fact that I'm not gunna have to be moving from room to room each night of the week dependant on who's staying where, and what work is curently being done, but the stress of moving into her at all was bad, plus the heat 'n all that. So things just kinda keep going one good, one bad. The day was made much, much better by my being able to escape into the Team Whimsy Epiode Viewing Chat. I've watched DS a few times with other people, but only ever when I was trying to get someone hooked on it, too, never with people who were already fans. So that was just a blast byond words. Wish I had been feeling better durring it, I spent a lot of time being quiet and just watching the vid and keeping up with who was talking, tossing in comments here and there. But the chats are gunna be weekely to go over match fic ideas and support and all that, plus some more viewing chats, too, so I should be more active for the next chat.

And now I'm sure I've babbled at all of you for long enough. Thanks for listening.