ow ow ow ow ow finger ow

things were going tickety-boo with the double seed stitch sash. i was beginning to like and admire the stitch pattern. yea! then yesterday afternoon, the wee monkey and i were out doing a bit of shopping and as i heaved the stroller into the back of the car i bent my nail. it just flipped right back.

baby j is still rear-facing in his car seat so he sat there staring at me as i squeezed my finger really tight and kept repeating ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. (i'd like to point out that nary a curse word escaped my lips. incredible.)

i sucked on my finger on as i drove out of the lot and discovered at the next stop light that not only had it bent, but it bent so far back that the nail ripped on both sides a few millimetres down and into the nail bed. ow ow ow ow ow ow. it was bleeding.

the nail in question is the first (index? i can never figure out which is which) finger on my left hand. essentially the finger that does all the work when knitting. eep. project kyoto is derailed for a couple days while i heal. sigh.

in unkitting news, last night the boy was doing the dishes when i heard him say, oh my god! as he dashed, ducking, into the dinning room. the next word came out of his mouth and struck terror into my heart: bat!

there was a bat in our kitchen. we'd dealt with a bat before in our last place so we knew what to do. still, bats freak me out. why? because they are rodent with wings? really, it'd be like finding a bird in your house but it is not. it is way, way worse.

we sprung into action. i grabbed the dog's blanket off the chair and waved it in front of the door to the living room. i yelled for the boy to close to door to the dinning room while he was yelling at me to open the front door. we both tried to dash around in the hall but the bat was flapping around and scaring the crap out of us. i lept at the light switch (we are both running around in a crouch of course) and tried to turn on the upstairs hall light to prevent the bat from flying upstairs. 'cause god, if that thing flew upstairs things would just get so much worse what with four dark rooms and a sleeping baby. instead of turning on the upstairs light, i managed to turn on the front hall light. the bat headed back into the kitchen. the boy is yelling at me to turn off the damn light and i'm yelling that i'm trying.

i finally got the front door and screen door open and ran back into the living room. the boy was crouch-crawling around in the kitchen trying to figure out where the bat went. i got the hall light situation corrected and am panicking that the damn bat has gone upstairs.

jazzie chooses this moment to bolt from the kitchen and make her bid for freedom. i have not seen that dog move that fast in years. out the door, across the porch, down the steps, and across the driveway before you can say bat!

i streaked out after her in my socks and catch up with her half way down the neighbour's driveway. her tail was tucked so you know she saw the bat and did her very best to protect the family by showing the bat which way to go.

i hustled jazz back in the house and the boy can't still see the bat in the kitchen and thinks it might have gotten into the basement. he heads down with the blanket to see if he can flush it out.

just as he goes down the stairs i see it flutter around the kitchen and head straight for me. i frantically waved baby j's snowsuit at him, having grabbed it after pulling off my snowy socks, and the bat found the front door and was gone. phew!

but wait! where the hell did it come from? don't bats hibernate? it is below zero out there. to the computer to find out more about bats. yeah, bats hibernate in caves and abandoned mines or they migrate. great. so, where was this lovely bat coming from? the boy had been taking out the garbage earlier. did it get into the garage and then into the house? or was it hanging out in the basement for the last few months? are there more of them? oh my god. i shudder to think. i may never do laundry again.