Category Archives: blather

Going batty (part 1)

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This is a post I never expected I’d need to write: I’m in the process of scheduling to take the entire family to the ER on Friday to get a series of rabies vaccination shots.

It all started last week, when dh woke me early on Friday morning with a flashlight to the eyes. We hadn’t lost power, which would be the usual event for flashlight wielding. This time, it was a bat in dd’s room, he said. DH has been a light sleeper since the kids were born. I’ve always been a pretty solid sleeper, but exhaustion makes it worse for me, and I was pretty tired that night. Adrenaline kicked in once I made it down the hall to dd’s room and saw a black thing swooping and racing around the room in wide circles, only a foot or two below the ceiling.

It zipped past me up the hallway to the living room and began circling there. (Our house is ranch-style, so the majority of the “general living” space is right there when you first walk in and there’s a hallway that leads to the bedrooms, on the other side of the house.) It then whipped past the two of us as we crouched in the hallway, back and forth, up and down the hallway. DH had asked how to get rid of it or capture it, and the best I could think of was to trap it in one of the rooms and open the windows (removing the screens) to let it fly out on its own. In this case, with it flying around in the living room, the front door seemed the best option. DH opened the front door and the storm door, and once he held a beach towel up to (seemingly) block the hallway to the bat, it flew out of the house through the open front door.

Of course, we didn’t sleep after that. We were both panicked, freaked out, and completely flush with adrenaline. Unable to sleep even though we were completely exhausted, we reached for a Globe Magazine and started to do the crossword. An hour later, the crossword was done…but we were now 45mins away from dh’s alarm going off, and sleep seemed so incredibly pointless and impossible. We soldiered on, trying to distract ourselves from the fact that we were still terribly on edge, and we got our day started. My day was full of meetings and ran long; dh felt ill early in the afternoon and picked up my slack by getting the kids from school when I was running too late to do it myself.

He called a wildlife company to come out and see how the bats were coming in – but they couldn’t come until Tuesday…precious days later.

We took a guess that maybe the bat had come in through the air conditioning vent in dd’s room, so the following night (and the remaining nights) we kept dd’s AC vent open only during the day and shut it each night. Seeing as how we were having a heat wave, we needed the AC, but we counted on the bats not being active during the day – if they were even up in the attic.

*  *  *  *  *

Monday night came and I was running late getting to bed. (Sense a theme here yet?) I was putting my cell phone down and about to get up off the couch in the den when I looked up and spied something black and about 5-6″ wide on the blinds on the other side of the room. My heart started to beat awfully fast, and completely incapable of coming up with anything better – I yelled out dh’s name, hoping he’d hear me in our bedroom and come running to my defense. The bat took this opportunity to fly just past me and did a few swoops not too far away from me, perhaps sensing that it had the upper hand, and I was shaking.

DH came to my rescue and sent me to our room, telling me to shut the door behind me. I raced down the hall and shut the doors to both kids’ rooms, then shut the door to our room. Not even 2mins later, I heard the sound of our front door shutting; DH had convinced yet another bat to get out of the house. We quickly went through the entire house, closing all of the remaining open AC vents. It seemed impossible that only a few hours before the bat-people were coming to the house, we’d have yet another unwanted visitor…but we did.

The wildlife company came to the house and (according to dh) immediately determined that the chimney was the source of the problem. They told dh that there was no sign of bats in the attic (either visual or olfactory), although they did give the caveat that “they like to hide”. Gee, thanks. That helps me sleep at night. They identified the chimney as a problem because the cap on the top of the chimney wasn’t tight enough and didn’t have a one-way door that would restrict access into the chimney by undesirables. Thankfully, they had time on their calendar, and they went all over the roof, replacing the cap and adding that one-way door, screening in other things and sealing others. They left behind an invoice for $700 that had a “bat-free warranty for 3yrs”. Again, will this help me sleep at night? I spent 45mins ruining my nails with a roll of old duct tape, putting a few layers around the fireplace door to try to seal up the gaps between the fireplace door and the marble feature wall it’s set against. The lack of a flush, flat surface created gaps that a bat could easily get through, according to the wildlife company folks.

*  *  *  *  *

We’ve kept the AC vents closed, and the AC folks are coming out today. We haven’t had the AC serviced in the entire time we’ve had the house (11 yrs), and I want them to go over everything in the attic with a fine-tooth comb. If there’s a chance that they DID get in through the ductwork, then we have two problems: 1) an unwanted entry point, and 2) a potential for energy inefficiency due to cooling loss.

And then we get to Friday’s “fun”. I heard another co-worker had bat issues and he took the entire family for rabies shots. That seemed overkill, but I’m not willing to take unnecessary risks. I called my doctor’s office and the pediatrician’s office (the latter directed me to the state Board of Health). All three quoted the CDC, who recommend rabies shots for those who are exposed without their knowledge (like all four of us, who were asleep for some amount of time while a bat was in the house on Friday morning). The first of the series of shots needs to be administered at the Emergency Room, since the immunoglobulin that comes before the vax isn’t available at the doctors’ offices. That plus the vax will round out “Day 0”. We then need boosters of the vax RELIGIOUSLY ON SCHEDULE on Day 3, Day 7 and Day 14. (There’s a potential fifth shot, Day 21, for immuno-compromised individuals, but that doesn’t apply to any of us.)

The consequence of NOT vaxing is running (even a slight) risk of one or more of us developing rabies, which is fatal. The consequence of GETTING vaxed is the incurring of ER copay (probably about $200 total for the four of us, if I’m remembering the cost correctly) and either $240 or $0 in copays, depending upon whether or not the doctor’s office codes the visits as “vaccination” (fully covered benefits under Health Care Reform – PPACA).

So, this is my T-1 day post…knowing that Day 0 is going to be nuts. That’s when we need to admit to the kids that they’re getting shots because we couldn’t protect them from flying rodents coming into the house. It sucks to have to admit that, as a parent, because you want to protect your kids from everything and anything. But I just can’t run the risk of inaction; the cost is too great.

And, ultimately, I want to be able to sleep again. I haven’t slept well in days, and I’m feeling like I’m in a constant state of panic. The fact that I’m staring down vaccinations (which may or may not cause me to have all kinds of other problems, if they contain thimerosal AND if I do, indeed, have an allergy to thimerosal). Yeah, good times all around.

There’s a part of me that refuses to believe that this is happening, but the larger part is just in robot mode trying to get all the boxes checked as I march towards Day 0 and the start of (hopefully) the end of this traumatic saga. Really, this has only confirmed for me that the only way I like my bats is on-screen, preferably in the form of Michael Keaton or Adam West.

Sigh.

(You can read part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5 – to read the remainder of this saga.)

Oh, Boston you’re my home (now)

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It’s hard to put into words just what today meant to me. I’m not a native. I’m a transplant from Washington, DC, and I didn’t even marry a Bostonian – I married a native of New Hampshire. But, in many ways, I’ve become a Bostonian over the last 16 years that I’ve lived here, and it’s home to me as much as DC is home. (For a native Washingtonian, that’s saying something BIG.)

The first April after I moved to the Boston area, I worked in Copley Square and didn’t quite get why I got Patriots Day off (Patriots Day – what’s that?!) until I realized that my office was at the finish line and there was no earthly way employees could get to work en masse on the Commonwealth-wide holiday. So, I did what any other local would do: went drinking with friends at a nearby pub and then took a break to stand in front of the Hynes Convention Center cheering on the runners who made their way down the homestretch of Boylston Street headed for the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

I quickly caught on to how it works: even if you don’t know someone running, you root for everybody. You latch onto something about the runners and you give them the gas to make it those extra few blocks until they can finally drop from exhaustion. You clap and cheer – screaming at the top of your lungs. You see someone flying by you wearing shorts made to look like their country’s flag and you shout out a personalized cheer (“Ciao, Italia!” got a huge grin from one runner). You read their shirts that tell you their names and you call them out – verbal juice for these amazing individuals.

You see, while the media covers the winners of the races – the people who claim the medals – they completely miss the other winners. Everybody who runs the race is a winner, as are all of the charities they run for. Once you get outside the small “elite” pack of runners, the overwhelming majority of bib-holders are running for a charity. These are usually medically-related, like Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the fundraising minimums are stiff – typically in the low-to-mid four figures. These runners have been marathoning long before they got into their running training, holding fundraising dinners, raffles, auctions and whatever else it takes to make it happen.

And then came the year when I decided to do my first marathon. I knew I couldn’t run it because my knees would never make it, so instead I walked it. I did it under the auspices of the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk because I would get to walk the same hallowed course that the April runners get to tread. I would go where they went and do what they did (albeit in a far longer stretch of time). The first year, I was in tears coming down Boylston into Copley because I didn’t know if I could finish…but I had to. The second year, I was exhilarated because I came into the finish line STRONG, beating my personal demons back. This third year…I will be somber. And sad. But I will finish, because that’s what you do.

When I was first contacted by a frantic friend, texting me concerned that I was in or near the city, I had no idea what was going on. I was in meeting starting right around when the explosions occurred, 50ish-mi south in Providence, RI, and I didn’t have a clue of what was happening in my adopted hometown. Once I heard, I went numb. Then I panicked – wondering where my friends were. I had frequent twitter correspondence friends at the finish line, like Elizabeth Comeau from Boston.com and Adam 12 from RadioBDC. I had friends of many years near the finish line, who were celebrating the Red Sox win with their traditional Marathon viewing. And I was scared for all of them.

As I checked Twitter, people started to give check-ins and tweet back messages that they were okay, since the cell system was so overwhelmed that Twitter was working where SMS was failing. It would be hours before dh would hear that the members of his triathlon club from our local Y were all okay – painful hours of wondering and waiting.

I can’t describe adequately how I feel right now. I’m numb. I’m sad. I’m horrified. I’m angry. I’m devastated. I’m so filled with hatred for whoever did this. I’m so proud of the City of Boston and everyone who claims a piece of it tonight. You don’t have to be FROM Boston to get why it’s a big deal, or why Patriots Day should be important to all Americans, or why the Boston Marathon is so…INCREDIBLE. So I’ll just leave it at this:

I will walk my 26.2 in September, treading in the same footsteps as those who ran today, and I will remember how lucky I am that I can do that. I will remember how lucky I am that all my friends escaped this without so much as a scratch. I will grieve for those who are lost and I will send my wishes into the stars that those who are injured are able to heal quickly. And I will continue to marvel at the awesomeness that is Boston and feel so lucky to be a part of it.

In defense of Taylor Swift

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My first exposure to Taylor Swift was a few years ago, when dd and her BFF were captured on cameraphone video performing “Love Story” at day care. Suddenly, dd was obsessed with Taylor Swift and we HAD to have her CD’s and we HAD to have them on repeat. All. The. Time. It was around this time that I saw La Swift herself on the MTV Video Music Awards, performing “You Belong With Me” in the subway and on the streets of New York City – the year that she was famously interrupted by Kanye West as she came up to accept an award.

Over the course of the next few years, Taylor Swift became part of the heavy rotation in both our cars, since she was kid-safe alternative to dh’s favored metal and a musical alternative to my standard in the car (NPR). Our ds soon became so enamored of her singing that he memorized words and titles for his favorite songs, often throwing hideous fits in the car if we didn’t let him hear the end of a particular tune.

And so, this is their exposure to her: a pretty blonde girl with a sweet voice and an ability to make infectious pop with twang.

Our exposure to her – mine and dh’s – is far different. Of course, you can turn off the TV, ignore the magazines and newspapers, and generally try to shut yourself off from the world, but that’s unlikely to happen these days. So, what we see (in addition to the loveliness that draws in the kids like a siren’s song) is a girl who’s under fire for her penchant for high-profile serial monogamy. Apparently, it’s still fashionable to treat women (at any age) as though searching for love makes her some kind of harlot.

The public (through the media) gleefully chucks men like George Clooney on the shoulder, wink wink nod nod, about his long series of female companions, declaring him a “terminal bachelor” and always dropping hints about the low likelihood that his current flame will stay lit forever. But no one ever drags him over the coals for any of his relationships ending. It may be that he’s just that nice of a guy and his relationships just cool off over time, so it’s really nobody’s fault that he’s been in so many relationships over the years. But then why is it okay to get all over Taylor Swift for having had several high-profile relationships of her own? No one refers to her as a “terminal bachelorette”; they make jokes at her expense and warn their sons to stay away from her because she’ll write a song about their break-up.

Sure, La Swift has dated pop royalty and Hollywood stars – the “It” boys from both sides of the pond. So what is really driving all this bile? Is it because she writes her own songs? Because she plays her own music? Because she’s already dated more young, desirable men than many women can match in multiple lifetimes?

It really comes down to two things: Sexism and a Mean Girl Society.

Sexism: I can come up with more examples than Clooney to show that Swift is being targeted in a fashion that the public rarely ever targets men. The few men who get such treatment often are chastised for more than just their dating habits (like John Mayer, the singer/songwriter and former boyfriend of Swift’s, whose erratic and often self-indulgent behavior garnered more than his fair share of tabloid headlines). She gets called out when men with similar serial dating patterns are put on pedestals for their ability to acquire attractive stables of ex-girlfriends. When Kristen Stewart did whatever it was that she did with Rupert Sanders, her “Snow White and the Huntsman” director, she was put through the meat grinder for cheating on her hot actor boyfriend, Robert Pattinson, and far less grist went into the mill over Sanders cheating on his wife Liberty Ross (the mother of his child). As my 3-1/2yo ds is fond of saying: “NO FAIRS!!!”

Mean Girl Society: La Swift has racked up quite the list of ex-boyfriends, and their total hotness quotient is usually measured in fairly high numbers. [Editor’s note: I’m not attracted to 99% of them, because several of them are nearly half my age, and their mileage is just too low for my personal taste.] She seems to have too much going for her. She’s pretty, she’s talented, she seems to be a genuinely nice person…and she dates all these cute guys. To all the people crying NO FAIRS in their own right, they feel like pulverizing her spirit publicly through tabloid stories and award show zingers is fine…but there’s a point at which you just need to lay off. She hasn’t done anything wrong, and probably the overwhelming majority of those taking pot shots would far rather be in her shoes.

Frankly, I shouldn’t even need to wag a finger at people for stuff like this. It’s just that I don’t want my kids growing up thinking that it’s okay to do this to someone else, and I certainly don’t want it to happen to either of them. Taylor Swift lives a remarkable life, I’m sure. She seems to be simultaneously all over the globe, recording, performing, talking, having her picture taken…ubiquitous. I can’t imagine the pressure she’s under when trying to maintain friendships, much less romantic relationships, when the demands of her current career probably keep her in constant motion. Having been her age (seemingly too long ago) and remembering what it was like balancing a simple enough day job with friends and dating options…I don’t know how I’d handle what she deals with. She’s probably doing the best she can. And if she isn’t, that’s NOBODY’S BUSINESS BUT HERS.

So let’s stop rooting against her. Sure, she’s talented. She’s pretty. She does seem to be a really nice person. Are those reasons to take cheap shots? Nope. So let’s just STOP, because the only joke right now is how pathetically she’s being treated by the media, and it’s not a damn bit funny.