This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 28, 2008 10:17 AM.
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Interesting night last night. We had a bat in the house. The kids stayed pretty calm, but the Mrs. and I went into, shall we say, a stated of heightened awareness.
She: "Aaarrgh! There's a bird in the house!"
I: "What?"
She: "There's a bird or something flying around in the -- aaarrgh! How did it get in here?"
I, from behind a door that was open just a crack: "I think it's a bat! Open some windows and the doors! Try to get him to fly out!"
She: "I just took my contacts out!"
I: "Well, you better put 'em back in."
After a few minutes of spastic movements on my part (mostly ducking and hiding), the Mrs. finally shooed the poor thing out the back door with a broom.
Geez! A dang bat!
I remember a time years ago when we were visiting the headwaters of the Metolius, and I stopped in the park men's room there for a potty break. I was seated in the stall in a compromising position when under the door came limping an extremely sick bat, which apparently had been roaming around the nearby campground in broad daylight. I screamed bloody murder and, forgoing some of the fundamentals of personal hygiene for the moment, scrambled out of the building. A crowd of onlookers outside thought it was pretty funny.
Bats are pretty decent, except for the rabid ones, and leaving aside their own personal hygiene habits. We used to have them in the house fairly often in central Oregon, and it was occasionally difficult to coax them back out. I don't think they view us much more beneficently than we them.
We had one fly into the screen at an open bedroom window in the middle of the night. It got stuck, but shook itself free before I could get out of bed. But not before freaking out our cats.
The animal kingdom knows which species is responsible for air and water pollution, habitat destruction, endangerment / extinction of species, resource depletion, global warming, and superfund cleanup sites. And they are very, very, angry.
I do sympathize with you, Jack, during the unstoppable invasion of your home and the distress you and your family suffered. Having a wingbat somewhere in the house is like having LIARS on the radio dial: you know its a bloodsucker and rabid infections are deadly to everyone nearby.
"When you are truly serious that you are willing to 'sacrifice' to DO SOMETHING, then BOYCOTT Cable TV. Click that sucker OFF !! It takes so few of us, like 1,000 in the Portland 'market,' or 100,000 in this country, to bankrupt television and its LIARS."
Practice What You Preach.
You are his biggest fan.
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Rombauer Chardonnay, Napa Valley 2011
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Shingleback, Cabernet, Davey Estate 2010
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Purple Moon, Merlot 2011
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Mercedes Eguren, Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
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Nobilo Icon, Pinot Noir 2009
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Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything
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Stephen King - 11/22/63
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Steve Martin - Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Beverly Cleary - A Girl from Yamhill, a Memoir
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Hope Larson - A Wrinkle in Time, the Graphic Novel
Rudyard Kipling - Kim
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Fran Cannon Slayton - When the Whistle Blows
Neil Young - Waging Heavy Peace
Mark Bego - Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul (2012 ed.)
Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend This Never Happened
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Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
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Deborah Eisenberg - Transactions in a Foreign Currency
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Jack London - The House of Pride, and Other Tales of Hawaii
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Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons
Keith Richards - Life
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Justin Halpern - S#*t My Dad Says
Mark Herrmann - The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law
Barry Glassner - The Gospel of Food
Phil Stanford - The Peyton-Allan Files
Jesse Katz - The Opposite Field
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Donald Miller - A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Mitch Albom - Have a Little Faith
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Penda Diakité - I Lost My Tooth in Africa
Grace Lin - The Year of the Rat
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Steven Hart - The Last Three Miles
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Karen Armstrong - The Spiral Staircase
Charles Larson - The Portland Murders
Adrian Wojnarowski - The Miracle of St. Anthony
William H. Colby - Long Goodbye
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Phil Stanford - Portland Confidential
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David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Anthony Holden - Big Deal
Robert J. Spitzer - The Spirit of Leadership
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Road Work
Miles run year to date: 111
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Total run in 2013: 257
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In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269
Comments (12)
Jack, are you afraid of vampires?
Posted by John Benton | August 28, 2008 10:36 AM
Bats are pretty decent, except for the rabid ones, and leaving aside their own personal hygiene habits. We used to have them in the house fairly often in central Oregon, and it was occasionally difficult to coax them back out. I don't think they view us much more beneficently than we them.
Posted by Allan L. | August 28, 2008 10:41 AM
(Most) Bats eat tons of mosquitos, and the like. The way whales eat krill and plankton.
Bats are about innocuous. Inside the house, though, is not innocuous. Be glad I guess there's no belfry ;-)
Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 28, 2008 10:47 AM
I think the reaction you described is the most common reaction to a bat in the house in the history of man.
Regarding the bat in the toilet stall, what better place to have the **** scared out of you?
Posted by none | August 28, 2008 11:02 AM
Jack, it probably mistook you for Heath Ledger.
Posted by Bark Munster | August 28, 2008 11:27 AM
We had one fly into the screen at an open bedroom window in the middle of the night. It got stuck, but shook itself free before I could get out of bed. But not before freaking out our cats.
Posted by Jon | August 28, 2008 12:03 PM
I'm convinced that this is not an isolated incident.
The animal kingdom knows which species is responsible for air and water pollution, habitat destruction, endangerment / extinction of species, resource depletion, global warming, and superfund cleanup sites. And they are very, very, angry.
Posted by John Rettig | August 28, 2008 12:37 PM
Re: the Metolius incident: a true definition of the term 'batshit crazy'?
Posted by Cosmic Charlie | August 28, 2008 1:34 PM
I do sympathize with you, Jack, during the unstoppable invasion of your home and the distress you and your family suffered. Having a wingbat somewhere in the house is like having LIARS on the radio dial: you know its a bloodsucker and rabid infections are deadly to everyone nearby.
Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 28, 2008 2:40 PM
"When you are truly serious that you are willing to 'sacrifice' to DO SOMETHING, then BOYCOTT Cable TV. Click that sucker OFF !! It takes so few of us, like 1,000 in the Portland 'market,' or 100,000 in this country, to bankrupt television and its LIARS."
Practice What You Preach.
You are his biggest fan.
Posted by meg | August 28, 2008 3:54 PM
I count the advertisers. And then call them to say their number's up.
Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 28, 2008 11:05 PM
Portal to mythical Mayan underworld found in Mexico, By Miguel Angel Gutierrez, MEXICO CITY (Reuters), Aug 15, 2008
According to an ancient Mayan scripture, the Popol Vuh, the route was filled with ... houses shrouded in darkness or swarming with shrieking bats ....
Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 29, 2008 12:05 AM