bats, rats, robbers

Finally a wish was granted this evening at twilight, we saw a bat swooping up and down Prospect Avenue between 10th and 11th, flying directly over our heads a few times so that we could see its pale body fuzz, saw it in the distance, too, backlit by the streetlight that no doubt drew the insects it was chasing, so that the yellow light lit the edges of its wings. Were there one or more, it's hard to say. For a month now the little one's been asking to be taken out to see bats at night, and it always seemed so difficult to work that out. Then tonight, when we had no intention of hunting bats, just out late buying food for the pets, there they were.

When we got home my son realized someone had left the door to the rats' cage open and they had escaped. They were less than a yard away from their cage, my son easily recovered them. What was strange is that they seemed to have used their free time to stash away in their cage 4 dollars they'd found around my daughter's room. Each of my children swears s/he didn't put the money in the cage, and I would doubt them except that I remember Joseph Mitchell mentioning in his essay on Rats that other rats' nests have been found to be lined with money and other odd bits that attract them. I guess that's where the term packrats comes from.