A Year In Review

Well, another year has nearly ended. And I suppose I must now do what everyone else does at this time: I must recap the whole miserable year so you can see how awful it was for Matt and myself.

First of all, I threw up a total of 42 times, give or take a vomit. I was on the trans dermal prednisolone, which was rubbed into the inside flap of both ears twice a day....ughh. But a month and a half ago my ears were spared and I am now being forced to endure some pseudo-chicken flavored icky ick blaaaahhhhkkkkk stuff that Matt calls liquid prednisolone that he forces into my mouth with some sort of syringe. Although my ears no longer sting so much, my mouth has lost a great deal of its taste. All that just so I can digest my food. Just feed me mice and crunchy birds and I will be fine. Back to nature...outside into the elements...no, too cold. Maybe in the Spring. No, too wet. Aaahh, the Summer beckons me with its sweet aromas of dumpsters and roadkill. No, too many fleas. Forget the Autumn, too many prankster brats running amok.

Matt and I got an apartment, so no more hotels on our off-time. This means I got me a crow's nest to perch in. That was probably the only really good thing this year, that crow's nest.

Now Matt has a tree that he brought in stuffed in a box. He put it together in about an hour. I never knew you could do that. It had no roots or nothing. Then he put all this shiny junk on it. The junk looks cool on the tree, but no smells, birds, or bugs. He needs to take it back and get a better one. Maybe one with juicy squirrels living inside a knot-hole or something.

We have not heard from batboy in quite a while. He is either hibernating or he's dead. I am hoping for the former so I can have another crack at him. He looked so delicious, like a little angel-mouse (mouse with wings). Yum yum.

So anyway, I (we) hope next year, which should happen tonight sometime, will be better than last year (this year up til now).

"Of Course You Know This Means War!"

From the BBC in Toronto, ON:

[Mice may be responsible for a blaze that killed nearly 100 cats at an animal shelter near the Canadian city of Toronto, officials say.

The fire at the humane society shelter in Oshawa also killed three dogs and some rats that were up for adoption.

An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze.

Offers of help have been pouring in from animal lovers across Canada.

"It's unfortunate and ironic that mice caused the fire that killed the cats," Toronto Humane Society spokesman Ian McConachie told the BBC News website.

"Unfortunately, the mice probably perished in the fire as well," he added.

The $250,000 (£137,000) fire is still under investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal's office.

Mr McConachie said it would be some days before a final report would be released.

In all, only nine dogs, two cats and one rat were rescued in Wednesday's early morning blaze.

They are being housed in a nearby municipal shelter, while volunteers rebuild the burnt-down shelter for the Humane Society of Durham Region. ]

Matt and I are in Georgia now, getting ready to go up to the Toronto area. I will be on guard for any mice with matches and propane or possibly Molotov Cocktails being flung at our big rig, as we risk our lives while adding to Canada's pathetic GNP (while simultaneously shrinking our own trade deficit).

Though I think from recent experience that bats might have been in unison with the waywardly and genetically confused mice creatures that have started this insane war of terror, there has been no evidence to support this hypothesis. If any proof surfaces, I will scratch their little blind eyes out and rip their wings to shreds.

Isn't it strange that a rat was rescued, too? I'll bet the little rat bastard had something to do with it, and I can make him talk if necessary. Perhaps Matt will steer the big truck over to the shelter so I can question him thoroughly.

The grieving process must begin soon...and so close to Christmas.

(I did not invent Pinky and the Brain)

Bat Boy Found In Attic

When Matt and I were passing through town for merely a night’s stay at home, we took only the barest essentials and brought them upstairs in one trip. After we both settled down for the night, I heard some noise coming from the horizontal vent above, but just before, the front door. That’s where the air gets sucked into by the furnace. But this noise was a climbing sound of small feet. AND I COULD SMELL SOMETHING ALIVE and possibly quite juicy, and hear it breathing its little quick breaths of air. I knew immediately what it was ------ a BAT! A male bat, to boot!

Oh, it had been so long since I caught a bat and ripped its little wings off while hearing its little screams, egging me on to rip some more. So I sat below the vent...waiting....and waiting. Finally at about 5am (according to Matt) I started meowing loudly and longingly at the little creature, who straddled the grates staring down at me and thinking he was safe.

Matt could see some figure silouetted on the vent, too, and mumbled something about a mouse. Then the bat moved. He started climbing around on the grate toward his exit. For some reason Matt gasped and uttered "tarantula!" It was pretty early, after all. He ran to the kitchen and got some red container with a squeeze handle and ran back to me. Then he set it down and picked me up and carried me over to the kennel and locked me in! That bastard! Was I to miss out on some juicy, bat fricassee?

Matt started squirting the bat with this awful smelling stuff that obviously made him much too toxic for me to enjoy as a meal, but perhaps not too toxic to tear to pieces. The bat started climbing around to avoid the spray, as he seemed to not like it much. Then he climbed onto the smaller, vertical outside vent (facing the hallway) that Matt could see through the ceiling vent where the bat had been stalked by me. THEN Matt saw it was a bat. "That’s a bat!" Matt said. "I think I got him dizzy," he added.

So Matt took a towel and lowered the ceiling door from which stairs unfolded, and slowly climbed up the little staircase ladder and switched on the light. Apparently Matt forgot that bats avoid light, as his quarry (MY friggin quarry!) crawled up the side of the outside vent and disappeared. With no hole in the wall facing the outside hallway, he must have found a secret passage between two slabs of drywall, making his way to some other lucky cat’s apartment.

Word has it that the maintenance guy took a shop vac into our attic and searched for MY bat and found nothing. So a heavy screen mesh was used to cover the whole outer vent to keep the bat and his very toxic feces out of the apartment. And just to be safe, Matt bought some sticky paper at Walmart to lay around the attic floor next time we pass through again. But if that little fellah makes his way into the furnace air ducts and comes out one of the openings in the middle of the livingroom, I’ll be there. Wherever there is squeaking, I’ll be there. Where Matt sleeps and bats may swoop for a quick meal of blood, I’ll be there. I am a very light sleeper when little sounds are near. I will have my ounce of flesh...someday.

(photo borrowed from Bat Guys)