Final Score: Bat 1, Fiddlesticks 0

I'm not really sure, but I think he came back last night. I dunno--either it was a very big moth or a very small bat. He circled the ceiling four or five times, then vanished and did not return. I was not really in the mood to deal with a bat attack, as I was already being attacked by something I ate earlier in the day, so I was glad when he went away. Still, I've decided to cede the territory to the flying rat--I've moved out of that bedroom, which can be sealed off at night. Now he can haunt the ceiling to his black heart's content; I don't think there's any way he can get into the main part of the house when the back bedroom door is shut.

This actually solves a number of problems, while creating only a few new ones, as far as I can tell. The floor in that back bedroom is not level, and thus neither was the bed, which made sleeping difficult. I believe I've mentioned that the big window never really closes, making the room fairly breezy and cool. Plus it gets very light very early, and also is in the line of fire of the nighttime airport beacon, and I won't miss either form of light pollution very much. Maybe I'll convert the back room into a dining area, so I can enjoy the morning light and views that way. Hmmm.

My new bedroom, upper left, is in the front of the cottage (southwest corner), has level floors and tight windows. It's near the stove, so it will be warm in winter--I only hope it's not too warm. The bathroom is off this room, which might cause a problem if I ever have a non-amorous overnight guest, but is a godsend when my stomach behaves like it did last night. The move allowed me to put some of the borrowed furniture to better use than I was giving it, and it permits me to have a furnished front room, right and below left, rather than a largely empty space. One newly-created problem is that the bedroom has a beautiful red and blue Persian rug, and even my color-deficient eyes tell me that my brown bedding scheme clashes with it. Click the picture to enlarge it, and you'll see what I mean.

So far, however, I like it. I hope the bat does too.

Oh, My Aching Back

Over the past three days, I have unloaded and stacked two cords of firewood (see left--there's more than what's shown), installed and set up my landlord's new 47" HDTV (in an upstairs location), and loaded, transported, and unloaded a new refrigerator, which necessitated removing the doors, which further led to an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the doors.

I am officially tired. But I'm glad to have the wood, and very glad to have the fridge. Today comes the real heavy lifting--I'm going to Costco to stock the refrigerator.

Die Fledermaus, encore

Guess who came to pay me a visit last night?

A little after two a.m. I was awakened from a restless sleep into an even more restless hell. It seems the Rohnerville Aiport, situated atop the bluffs just across the Eel from stately Fiddlesticks Manor, added the Bat Signal to their all-night-every-night rotating beacon, and out came my housemate from his hiding place in the attic. As I lay terrified and cursing beneath my comforter, to which I ascribe life-saving powers, the bat (perhaps equally terrified) circled the bedroom looking for a way out.

This being the second-shortest night of the year, I briefly considered remaining huddled under the comforter until daybreak, which I figured was only a few hours away. I wasn't going to get any more sleep anyway. But then I realized that this was not a solution, as the Capeless Crusader would just give up and return to the attic, set to haunt me another night. (Alternatively, he might chew through the comforter, get into my hair, and bite me, causing me to die a slow and agonizing death from rabies, as all bat-bite victims do. I still remember a news story from my childhood, in which the victim somehow, miraculously, survived a bite from one of these huge bugs, the first time in the annals of history that anyone had not succumbed to this most horrible of fates. At least, that's how I remember it. It is possible that I'm conflating this story with "Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot," however.)

I knew I had to engineer a way for Batman to get to the Batmobile and get the hell out of my bedroom. Fortunately, I had the tools at hand. At the head of the bed, shown left, is a large window through which I can look out over the Eel and enjoy the morning light. (And through which my companion can see the Rohnerville Bat Signal.) This window has no screen and opens by releasing a single catch. Indeed, it never really closes, staying open just enough to let the night breeze in and keep the bedroom feeling like it's partly a campsite.

With visions of The Big Chill in mind (in that film, a skylight is opened to let the bat escape, only to have more bats fly in and join the attack), I bravely reached an arm up out of the mountain of bedding and flipped the latch to open the window, then retreated under the comforter, exposing my vulnerable, quivering self just enough to see the top of the window so I could monitor the bat activity. Shortly thereafter I saw a bat seemingly pass through the window; in which direction I could only guess. (Bats fly so erratically that it's tough to trace their paths, especially with one eye peeping out from beneath a comforter.) I guessed/prayed that he'd gone out to fight crime, and quickly pulled the window shut. Perhaps a minute later, the bat, or one of his relatives, fluttered back over my bed. I've no idea whether he'd failed to leave, or whether I had let an incremental bat in, or whether I had been a multi-bat household all along, but seeing that I was out of ideas (and that I had to go to the toilet really badly), I reached out and re-opened the window.

Once again a bat seemed to fly through the opening, but this time I left the window open, figuring that no bat in his right senses would fly in, and if one did, I'd need the window open anyway. (It's important to learn to think like a bat.) I left it open for what seemed like an hour but was probably better measured in seconds, and when I was satisfied as to the lack of bat-activity, pulled the window closed again. Using the light from my bedside radio, I monitored the situation on the ceiling for, oh, 30 minutes, then crept out of bed to the bathroom, doubled over and cursing my height the whole way. Once safely back in bed, I lay beneath my protective covering of cotton and alternative down and stayed on alert until about 4 a.m., but no bats returned to disturb me any further.

I still can only guess where the bats come from and whether they are back there right now. Just about the only similarity my cottage has with Bruce Wayne's stately Wayne Manor is that the bat ingress/egress is a closely guarded secret. I assume that they live in the attic, which is supposed to be separated from the house by the ingenious application of a piece of plywood, but even with the help of Braulio the farmhand I could not get this awkward, heavy board to fit flush over the opening (see left.) I presume that the bats laugh at my feeble hope that they will not bother to fly through the 4" opening left by the misapplication of the plywood. What I don't know is if they can get into and out of the attic from the outside (they could have come in through any number of open windows while the place was unoccupied, during which period the attic "door" was on the bedroom floor). They're probably up there right now, snickering at how easy it is to terrify me. Maybe I need to get some really powerful bug spray.

Is This Thing On?

"By the way, I don't have your cell number. Can you give it to me?"

This inocuous statement was in an email from my landlord, received yesterday. I gave it to her in a reply email.

That makes four times in the past month or so that I've given her my cell number.

There are several ways one could react to such a question, and perhaps it gives a little insight into my psyche to discuss what mine was.

One could, of course, have no reaction at all, and just provide the number. In fact, one could even be unaware that this is a repeated request. I strive to reach this level of Nirvana.

Some people might chuckle at the questioner's evident disorganization, while others might become annoyed and fire back a response along the lines of "write this down and quit bothering me!" But I am neither of these people.

I take this and similar questions as further proof of my insignificance. She knows she needs my number, as I am her tenant and she might need to get hold of me. But I'm so inconsequential that as soon as the question is asked, interest in the answer drifts away like a puff of smoke. Then when it occurs to her that she hasn't got my number, the reaction is not "oh I forgot to write that down" or "where did I put his number?," but rather that the subject has not even come up.

Amateur psychoanalysts can probably read even more into the fact that this resonates with me strongly enough that I feel I must discuss it with someone, and furthermore that the "someone" turns out to be a blog post. I'd rather not hear their conclusions, should they reach any before losing interest.

In the meantime, I'll patiently wait for request #5.

Life on the Farm

I just paid a brief nocturnal visit to my cottage (I'm housesitting tonight) and was greeted by a

>>> bat. <<<

It was fluttering around the ceiling of the room I have designated to be my home theatre. I spent the better part of the afternoon hooking up components and balancing speakers and so forth, and I guess the bat was anxious for the premier.

I expect a certain amount of wildlife, even rodents, as there are some places where the interior of the cottage and the exterior of the Lost Coast are not strangers, but I wasn't expecting to find them on the ceiling. The anti-rodent expert (or experts) I soon expect to hire away from the local animal shelter should take care of the four-footed variety but may not have the ground-to-air weaponry for this new threat.

I suppose the bat came from the attic, which has been standing open for a couple of weeks; the large piece of plywood that is intended to separate homey cottage from creepy attic has been standing on end in the back bedroom awaiting, well, I'm not sure what. Tomorrow, when I hope my mosquito-eating companion is back up there and asleep, I may see about replacing it. I hadn't tried before now as I figure it's beyond my spatial abilities, but now I have a new and urgent motivation as I am supposed to sleep in the cottage tomorrow night.

Movin' on Up

I now have a firm-ish move-in date. After house- and pet-sitting for my landlord next weekend, I'll move 50 yards up the road to my cottage on Monday week (6/15). It's been cleaned (the last tenant kept turkeys in the pantry~~), and we've decided against painting the interior (because I don't care in the least about such matters), so all that remains is that a missing window get replaced and a new (used) refrigerator get acquired, delivered, and installed. Here's some quick photos taken this afternoon, which was just another day in paradise:
The exterior is going to be repainted one fine day.

Here is the view out the north-facing window, which is more or less in the kitchen/dining area:

The back yard has some garden plots, a fence line of wild berries, then descends down a bluff to the Eel River.

Here's the source of heat, of which I hope to need little: The table and chairs stay, alongside numerous other pieces of furniture.

There's two bedrooms, and someday soon two beds. Plan a visit.

Nobody ever said...

...that growing up would be easy. *sigh*