Batty

It’s 3:30 a.m. I should be sleeping but I’ve gotten into the habit the past week to wake at some hour in the middle of the night and unfortunately have a really hard time falling back asleep.

This has seriously messed with my nights –and- days. Sable is the cause of the interruption, but she stayed outside tonight (the piddle pads haven’t arrived yet and the morning mess from her staying in at night was getting to me, it’s what happens when you have a 6-week old puppy in the house) and yet here I am, still awake. I should be more tired. Actually, I am tired, but my mind races for about an hour after I wake, so I’m hoping that putting up a quick post will derail that and let me fall asleep again.
WARNING: The following is not for animal lovers or those with weak stomachs.
I had to get up though, and check on Sable. It’s her first night outside by herself and I worry about her drowning in the pool or being carried off by a bat. There is a fence around the pool, meant to keep out humans but with enough clearance underneath to allow a little puppy through. She discovered yesterday while the kids were swimming that she can squeeze under and at a couple spots can climb onto the pool ledge. Joy. The bat thing isn’t off either. Two nights ago Ian and I were outside checking on things when we heard a horrible shrieking sound. At first I thought someone was beating a creature in the street, and actually that wasn’t far off. We searched out the guard and found him poking something with his shoe, and that something was shrieking in reply. A bat with a foot long wingspan. According to the guard, this bat swooped into the guard house and tried to bite him (I’m not one to doubt, he was sitting inside a well-lit guard room and bats are really fast so it’s not like a) he went out looking to whack a bat or b) he was sitting outside in a dark spot and the bat mistook him for food). He whacked it with his baton and broke both its wings in the process, leaving a trail of blood where the mangled body had hit the ground and was unceremoniously kicked to the side. The guard said it was a fruit bat, but it looked a little small and a little too vicious so I’m thinking it was an insectivore. Doing a search in Google for “West African bat” doesn’t yield much useful information.
Bats are ugly. Any impression I had before that they were kinda cute is all gone. They’re really ugly and really mean. And this is why I fear leaving Sable outside all night, though I do take comfort that her favorite place to sleep now is the four inches between the glass door and protective gate.
*yawn* It’s 4 a.m. now and I should be more tired from the unpacking we did yesterday. Our boxes from Arlington were finally released from the port and it’s so nice to have the den shelves filled with books, movies and games. We have some bathroom supplies, cleaning supplies and even some food items. The kids have school books! Only one picture frame broke, which is amazing because I have never seen a worse packing job and a bigger attempt at breaking everything in the inventory. The most obvious infraction was a box with only two items in it: the fragile wooden birdcage we bought in Hong Kong and the 2004 Mosby’s Drug Guide, a book that is 3 inches thick and weighs approximately 10 pounds. The broken frame had been placed on top of an open box of random computer parts. Our DVDs and books were dumped unceremoniously into boxes, with a single piece of packing paper laid on top before sealing. Food boxes were mangled, even cans arrived dented. Just about every box was crushed to some degree, some where the tape had popped open, others had simply been crushed so badly the sides ripped open. If you have the choice, stay far away from Paxton Van Lines packers. Some part of this is our fault, of course. We were there for the packing and missed what a miserable job they were doing in order to not be in the way or hovering while they worked.
Now that I think about it, might be the Chinese food we had for dinner. The food was surprisingly good (since we were the first to arrive at China Town Restaurant, the owner put in A Bug’s Life, dubbed in Chinese, for the kids) and Ian’s thinking if we go in a few times and ask for carry-out, we might be able to have China Town deliver just like the pizza place.