Wayne Manor

If you looked around the Lindquist/Catenhauser house this week, you could quickly find famous characters from Batman, and that's excluding the bat incident that I spoke about in the last entry. Therefore, I've decided to name our new place Wayne Manor, for the Batman references and since it's near the main street in town, Wayne. I've attached a photo for reference.

First, it is apparent that Cat Woman lived here recently, since there are approximately five cats that roam the neighborhood, circling our house throughout the day. Melo, who is traditionally an outdoor cat is going crazy being inside. Apparently, cats need some time to adjust before being allowed to roam because they will look for their old house instead of the new house. So, Melo is inside for 1-3 months. The height of her craziness (to date) came at 11pm on a Wednesday evening, when a large black cat sat perched outside our bedroom window (to the left of the front porch). If you have never heard two cats "growl" at each other, then you are in for a treat. It sounds like evil crying children. I have never actually heard "evil crying children," but if you've ever heard it then you know what I mean.


Second, no doubt Poison Ivy touched the yard, because Will found some in the Northwest corner of our lot and weed wacked it accidently. The bush is the one in the bottom right corner of the picture. He has poison ivy on his hands, his arm, his neck, and almost half of his face.


That brings me to my next Batman character: Two Face. Yes, that's what Will looked like for the first week of class. According to his students, "Dr. L.", which I heard a student shout at him this evening, is the professor with poison ivy over half of his face. I still giggle thinking about it even though it really isn't that funny, but I've never had poison ivy, so I laugh.


Those are the characters that come to mind when I think of our most recent stories at Wayne Manor, but I have a feeling that others will come to mind. If not, Will has proclaimed himself a "walking blog," so I'm sure I'll have other stories from Indiana.

Fearless Cat

"Cats are fearless." That's what my friend Missy told me after I told her this next story. I agree with her, and up until recently, if she would have spoken those same words, then I would have said, "Well, that's because they're Satan's minions." Now I'm not sure if that's entirely true. Here's the story.

Will and I were enjoying our first home-cooked meal in our new place when I saw a black flash out of the corner of my right eye. Will says, "Oh my gosh," and I knew something was flying around in the dining room and it wasn't a fly. A locust? No. A bird? No. A bat? YES! A big, hairy, fangy, icky, bat! Now, I have seen bats before and this one was the largest I have ever seen. I have seen mouse-sized bats that are actually not scary. Not this one! It flew into our bedroom...of course. Quickly behind the bat was Melodee, up on the bed, waiting for the creature to circle close. Jump! She actually made contact with the bat! It didn't stop it, but Will and I (who had bolted into the spare bedroom/office, decided we'd let Melodee have a go at the bat before we tried anything.

After a few minutes, we came out of the room, hoping to discover a dead bat and a proud cat. Wrong. The bat at taken refuge in my closet! Melodee had cornered it, but really, in my clothes?! We poked around in the closet but couldn't find anything. Maybe it wasn't in the closet after all? NO! Here it comes again! This is the part of the story where Carolyn screams for an entire 5-7 minutes. It was like giving a Toastmasters speech, just acting like a crazed screaming school girl. I'm sure the neighbors were happy. I screamed from my bedroom, through the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the bathroom.

After a few seconds, I decided to come out and help Will, who was now armed with an older white bed sheet. The bat soon flew followed a similar path I had just taken and made it's way into the kitchen. With the door open, we were going to force it out, Will with the bed sheet, me with a large towel. As it flew around the kitchen, I screamed louder every time it flew in my general direction. This thing better make its way out the door or I am going to have a heart attack!

Finally, our winged friend exited the house. Will could not believe that just happened. My heart was racing and I was still scared to enter the kitchen, where the bat came from in the first place. Melodee was still on guard in our bedroom, waiting for the creature to return, ready for more. The bottom line is that I am the scardy cat and Melodee is fearless, and to be honest, that is just fine by me.

Starting a New

There are physical and psychological effects of moving and I am going to focus on how we moved our material possessions from Kansas City to Angola, Indiana. I’ll save the emotional stuff for later.

We begin our journey the night before we leave. It was common for articles to placed, replaced, moved, and replaced again within the twenty-six foot U-Haul truck. Space was a bit tight and everything needed careful placement, which meant we worked until well after the sunset. Finally, it was all ready for the move, every item snug in their own spots, our material possessions were ready to move.

Now, all we had to do is transport our stuff to Angola; however, there were some unexpected twists along the way. My car, bicycles in tow, full to the brim, was a smooth ride, which is why it was the favorite vehicle for Melodee, the cat. I was not prepared to spend the entire road trip with the cat. Wait! I was going to be weaned into a relationship, not forced into one! On the other hand, it was the best thing to do. If you can imagine, normally her meow is like a smooth audio wave with few peaks and valleys. In the truck, it was like her meow was riding all of the rides at Cedar Point over and over again and Will’s nerves only lasted about thirty minutes.

If you thought the first thirty minutes was enough, a few short minutes later, I witness smoke billowing from the back right side of the car trailer being towed behind the truck. I quickly grab one of our new walkie talkies and alert Will to the smoke. The blown tire meant an hour and a half delay in our venture, but we survived. I’d like to make one side note: why must those who drive an RV or camper or whatever you may call it be complete assholes? Not a single one of them moved over to the left lane while we were pulled over on the highway. Plenty of trucks, cars, motorcycles, etc. pulled over or slowed down, but RV drivers and oh, the Missouri state highway patrol, were not courteous!!! Learn how to drive!

Poor drivers made me mad and I wished I could have snuggled in my brand new bed instead of drive another twelve hours, but Will and I were determined. Our determination took us until 12:30am (Eastern Time) when we had to stop or become one of those poor drivers ourselves. At 12:30am, we found a Super 8, pulled the cars along the back and snuck the cat into the room. We would have done a pretty good job sneaking her in until Will spilled most of the litter box all over the carpet in the hotel room. Good news – she did not use the box. Bad news – the carpet was just a click short than shag carpet and cleaning up tiny little litter pellets was virtuously impossible. But, we had time right? Who needs sleep?

After a few short hours of sleep, we made the rest of the journey and arrived in Angola. Every item made it. We had new walkie talkies, a new trailer tire, new cat litter, and a new place to live. What other surprises would await us in our new home? Would there be other cat stories? Read and find out.