Good thing the book I'm reading is good enough to keep me up till 10:00

I was in bed reading last night when I heard a noise from Robin's room. I was pretty sure she was already asleep, but sometimes she leaves things on the bed that later slide off, or the order imposed on the piles of stuff on the floor gives way and something shifts.

I almost ignored it, then I replayed the sound in my head a few times and realized I couldn't reconcile it with the usual sources of nighttime sounds.

I turned on the hall light and looked in. Robin was sleeping and most of the stuff lying around was about where it usually is. Then I heard something and looked down to see...



Maybe I should mention that we have something squeaky in the ceiling above the kitchen, along with a handy access hole.

The night before, the squeaking turned to scrabbling and I was concerned that maybe our one-time rodent visitor had somehow managed not only to find its way back in after we blocked that access hole (an unused drain pipe in the garage), but had also found its way upstairs (not that hard) and up into the ceiling (really a bit of a stretch) and was carousing with the usual squeaky-makers. I was half asleep at the time, and only got as far as hoping nothing died up there, because there is really no way to get it out if anything does.

ANYway, I saw a toy by the doorway move, so I knew there was somebody there, and when I looked closer, I realized it wasn't a toy at all, nor yet (fortunately) a rat, but in fact was the wing of a little bat. Well, actually it was more of a mid-sized bat, trying to figure out what to do next.

I went and took the pillowcase off my pillow and by the time I got back, it had scrabbled to the middle of the doorway, in a nice pillowcase-sized open space, so I laid the (Winnie the Pooh flannel) pillowcase over it and gently gathered up the edges.

I put it down outside and it scrabbled (I know I keep using that word, but if you've ever seen a bat walk, that's the only word for it; they're all feet and thumbs) under the balcony railing, sat for a second, and then flew away.

I know bats always look drunk when they fly, but this one really truly almost hit the power lines--twice--so I wonder if maybe it was new to the whole airborne thing and that's how it ended up taking the trapdoor in the floor ("ceiling" to you and me) rather than whatever their usual means of egress is. In any case, I suspect its parting thought was, "I'm never going through that door again."

Maybe we have bells up there too.


[Oh, and I would have taken a picture, but somebody has my camera. We'd better get a gecko picture out of it, is all I can say about that.]