Batty
(All bat photos except <---- that one are from the bat conservation website. Most of our pics didn't turn out well, as it was too dark to get a good shot.)
I’ve always loved bats and found them cute and intriguing and kind of wished I could meet one and spend some time getting to know more about them. I'm proud to say I have a couple of bats on my left arm tat, as my friend and artist, Allegrea, knew I loved them. I left there thinking maybe I could get into bat rehab, so I could frolic with them. Unfortunately, I could not hand feed them live bugs/grubs, so I don’t think I will be able to move to Michigan and start a new career. I will definitely be planning a trip to Michigan to visit the sanctuary!
We’ve never had one within our house, but I grew up in a house where we got occasional visits. I’ve grown up knowing all too well the swift breeze they generate when flying over my bed at night, the subtle little squeaks, the sound of their thin rubbery wings flapping overhead. I got to see them up close, and they are damn adorable. I couldn’t understand why people found them so repulsive! I still don’t! I’ve been lucky enough to touch them on multiple occasions. I wasn’t hurt and certainly didn’t get rabies. They are cute, cuddly, scientific wonders!
Their echolocation abilities are phenomenal, and the evolutionary process by which this skill was perfected is absolutely breath taking!
Saturday was a full chore and errand day. We had H this week from Thurs. night until Sun. night. M worked Sat., so I had to take the kids out with me to run errands. Because I know they would have a lot more fun playing at home than having to run out with me, I let them pick one stop, but they had to agree on it. Miracles abound, and they came up with a store they agreed on: Hobby Lobby. UGH!
H is my little calculator and keeps very close track of my spending, as there must always be equity between them. Though he tends to focus on $, she makes sure everything else is equal, too. When he is with us, he is a member of our family and is treated as such in every way. That means if L gets something he gets something, too, and it also means that when necessary, he is disciplined as a member of our family as well. So once the kids were done with their cat figure shopping, they had certain other sections in the store they wanted to check out. That’s where it started to go to hell.
They each wanted to look in different areas, and so we had to negotiate the order of walking through the store. After L had thrown a couple of things in the cart (a sheet of stickers and a compass/protractor set for her school work this week), H became sulky and informed me that it wasn’t fair that she already got a lot of stuff ($7 dollars worth) but he didn’t have anything. He hadn’t found anything he wanted yet and hadn’t even asked, but it was apparently showing favoritism, which isn’t allowed. He was sulky until he found a calculator/notebook/clock set that he wanted for his office. Once things were even for him, he was happy.
Then we had to have arguments over who would push the cart. Being brilliant as I am, I solved that one by having them take turns. That wasn’t quite enough though, because then they had to argue over whether the non-pusher could touch the cart while it was in custody of the approved pusher. FMR!! I was ready to smack their hard little heads together! New rule: Only the cart pusher can touch the cart. Seemed like that should have done it, but no. Apparently the current cart pusher was touching the cart during the previous cart-pusher’s reign, so they had to touch it just one more time to pay them back. I took the cart back and nobody was allowed to touch it.
We finally got out of there and back home, where I spent the remainder of the day on animal chores and housework. The kids took over the entire living room and the front stairs with one of their very elaborate and huge cat towns. They kept busy with that until bed time.