Posted: March 4th, 2004 | Author: Lori | Filed under: critters, house | 10 Comments »
I came home Tuesday night just in time for the start of Gilmore Girls. I was looking forward to a quiet night on the couch after a stressful couple of days. I threw my stuff on the kitchen table and went over and flipped the TV on. A minute or so later, I went back to adjust the volume. As I did so, I heard some rustling coming from the plant on top of the CD case in the corner. It struck me as odd, since Fiona (the cat) is not able to get up there, and even if she could, there’s no room for her anyway. I went to shoo her away, because two of my favorite ceramic pieces live on the top of that case, as do some other breakables.
Much to my surprise, it was not Fiona up there, but a good-sized screech owl. A quiet, mellow, Fiona-colored screech owl, but a screech owl nonetheless. After a moment of panic and trying to remember if owls have a tendency to get pissed off and peck your eyes out or something, and being paranoid about how it might have gotten in, I decided to just call Mom to ask her whom I should call. She didn’t believe me at first. After I convinced her that it was for real, she suggested calling the police. I’m not sure that they believed me either, but they put in a call to the dogcatcher (?!?) to call me back.
Sometime in the middle of all this I saw Fiona saunter casually into the bedroom, and promptly shut the door so she’d stay in there. I don’t know how she managed to not notice Screechy’s presence, as she gets hyped over birds on the outside of the house all the time, nor do I know why Screechy wasn’t more upset about Fiona’s presence. Maybe there’s some kind of owl/cat nonaggression pact in force that I don’t know about.
While I was waiting for the callback, I grabbed the camera and took a few pictures so that I could prove it happened, and propped the front door open, hoping Screechy would take the hint and fly out. He showed his rather large wingspan and moved from the plant to the curtain rod. Then I called my friend Sara to see if she could send her brother over. He didn’t believe her, but nonetheless came over. As we stood there staring at Screechy (whooo was quite content to sit quietly on the curtain rod and follow me wherever I went with his eyes) trying to figure out what to do, the dogcatcher called back. His helpful advice was to prop the door open and try to shoo it out. Thanks.
Screechy was entirely unfazed by my waving magazines in his general direction. I didn’t want to get close enough to be in pecking range. Bill went to fetch his fishing net, while I went downstairs for the broom. Bill nudged Screechy with the broom while I held the net in one hand and a magazine in the other. Screechy took a lap around the living room before he decided the best place to perch next would be on Bill’s pant leg. Once the surprise wore off, Bill started moving slowly toward the door. Screechy hopped off about halfway there, at which point I was able to put the net over him and trap him in there with a newspaper. I took him outside, where he was quite content to sit in the net and stare at me some more.
After I closed the door so he wouldn’t be tempted to go back in, we nudged him enough to get him to hop out of the net. He hung out on the lawn long enough for me to worry that he had been hurt, then took off and settled on a branch in the dogwood tree. I thanked Bill profusely for his help.
Throughout all of this, Screechy made no noise at all, other than a little wing-flapping. He didn’t seem particularly upset about being in the house, or being in the net, or anything at all. I told him that he was a beautiful bird and a nice addition to the decor, but would probably be much happier outside.
Best I can figure, he came in through the chimney. There’s an open vent near the furnace in the basement that goes into the chimney, and there was a bunch of dirt and debris under it when I went looking Tuesday night. I’ve temporarily made it less open with some strips of duct tape, but I need to get someone up on the roof to rig some kind of wire mesh contraption up there so critters can’t get into the chimney in the first place.
Posted: January 15th, 2002 | Author: Lori | Filed under: critters, Hawaii | 1 Comment »
Let me tell you, unequivocally, that you do not ever, ever want to be bitten by a centipede, even if you are not quite so sensitive to the toxin as I apparently am. I’ve spent the last two days learning all kinds of things about centipedes, up close and personal. The story goes like this:
Sunday evening I went out back to get the last load of laundry out of the dryer. It’s dark back there, and I couldn’t see much. Just as I got to the dryer, I felt a sharp pain on the toes of my right foot, much like I imagine a small nail being pounded through your toe would feel like. I said a few choice words and kicked out my foot, losing my shoe in the process. Balanced on my left foot, I said a few more choice words and wondered what the hell had bitten me. My first thought was that it was likely a centipede, although I didn’t hear the rustling scurry away that I’ve heard from centipedes before. For some dumb reason I somehow managed to get all the laundry out of the dryer, find my shoe, and make it halfway back to the back door before I realized that I really couldn’t walk all that well anymore. I must have been out there too long, or made some kind of noise, because Kevin (who, miracle of all miracles, was home at the time) popped his head out the door and asked if I needed help. I must have really worried the poor boy, because I was in the house and writhing on the living room floor before I knew it.
Kevin attempted triage, but I was having no touching of the foot, with fingers or with cotton soaked in peroxide or anything. I made him get a bowl and pour the peroxide over my foot into the bowl and then call the Ask-a-Nurse hotline that frankly isn’t so hot. They were clueless. In the meantime, my foot and ankle were beginning to swell, and numbness was working its way up my leg. When it hit the back of my knee, Kevin made the executive decision to haul me off to the emergency room and run through a few stoplights on the way.
The last time I was in the emergency room I was five years old and had my head x-rayed (no kidding), so you can understand how my fear of my leg falling off was battling with my fear of all things critical that involve doctors. I writhed and swore and filled out paperwork, then was placed in a wheelchair and rolled back to the triage room. The nurse poked around my sensitive toes for signs of what might have happened — remember that at this point I still didn’t know *what* the hell had bit me — and didn’t see anything other than a ballooning foot.
After a mercifully short wait in back in the waiting room, I was wheeled back to Dr. Lee, who is certainly younger than I am but very, very nice. Kevin showed him where the punctures are (between my second and third toes on my right foot) and told him what all we had done. He concluded that it was most likely a centipede bite, based on the punctures and my reaction, and that I was apparently pretty sensitive to the toxin. Dr. Lee started telling me in gory detail about how he was going to inject painkillers into the top of my foot before I cut him off and told him that he should just say that he’s going to do something to make it feel better and spare me the details, lest I pass out. So Kevin watched (with a promise to never recount to me) the two injections into the top of my foot, which I mercifully barely felt at that point. I sat for a bit, and after the doctor checked in to make sure that I was still alive and my leg still attached, sent a nurse in to give me a tetanus shot, just for kicks. Then I got to go home with my icepack.
I called my boss when I got home to tell him that there was no way I was coming in that next morning. I slept surprisingly well, considering, and spent yesterday napping, reading, and going through by out-of-control magazine piles. I managed to hobble as far as the bathroom and the living room couch, but had to call Amy to fetch my mail from the mailbox for me and let Kevin take care of dinner and the dishes.
Today I’m still swollen and hobbling, but have a wider range. I managed to make it across the street to work, and my foot is becoming less painful as the day wears on, although it’s still pretty numb overall.
I read up a bit on centipedes today. Most sites admit that the bites are pretty painful, but say that the pain goes away in a few hours for most people. Well, I am quite obviously not most people.
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