If the cat spontaneously combusts, it's summer in NC.

Whooo. Running a blood vessel-expanding 102 degrees right now, that would be 111 with the heat index. And 89 degrees with the AC working its hardest if you're at my house. That crazy insulation thing I should really look into. So I came to work, but after getting the window unit going for an hour, it's still 92 here in my classroom.

Three new cockroaches have left their carcasses in the room for me to find. It's apparantly a game the collective is playing with me. Just when I think it's safe, I come around a desk and "AAAIIIEE!" another corpse makes me jump. The rest of them snicker behind the walls - "Ahhh, did you see the vertical she got on Fred? Tee hee!" Not that I'm a whus - played with tarantulas, had a scorpion in my bed once (okay - I screamed like a girl for that one...) but dang, these Carr Building roaches are HUGE. You could saddle up those suckers and ride 'em to town.

Oiii, there's a live one. 'Scuse me a moment. My apologies to PETA.

That guy was not skittering on the shadowed edges, he was walking towards me in bright light. While I appreciate an outgoing personality as much as the next person, I don't so much care for it in my cockroaches. My apologies also to Peter Ratcliff - I used your 8th grade graduation certificate you left to kill him. Along with a piece of gneiss. He was big.

("Gneiss"? Pronounced "nice," it's a stripey rock made of metamorphosed granite. In my class we don't take gneiss for granite, Hee. Get it?)

Honestly, my building looks pretty rough on paper. Well, rough period. But it has its plusses. Sometimes the glass falls out when you open the windows, but at least you can open them. Most modern school windows are screwed shut. I'm a big fan of fresh air. And that pesky lead paint? Only on the window ledges and outsides of the windows. Most of the asbestos was removed in the last few years, and they've stopped buffing the asbestos tiles on my floor. The asbestos tiles actually seem to last longer and are better looking than the vinyl ones, and they are supposed to be safe if they are waxed and uncracked. Which is -mostly- the case. We cultured 5 species of mold on the foreign language hall, and we watched the growth of a GIANORMOUS mushroom from the baseboards down there - you cannot beat this building for teaching environmental science.

I seriously will miss it when we move to the new building next year. My current room is huge, lots of natural light, great view of the Xtreme 4-square games at lunch, the smell of Chinese food wafting from further downtown...not quite as nice as the tangy sweet smell of freshly curing tobacco that used to come from the warehouses across the street, but I'm showing my age there.

The tobacco industry has gone belly up in Durham and the Liggett & Myers warehouses are now chic little condos for Duke students. We're getting all urban renewally down here. The Lucky Strikes complex is now an amazing multi-use zone with pubs and apartments and stores right across from the Durham Bulls ballpark. And best of all we now have TWO Locopops. Got a love a town with a store entirely devoted to creating the wackiest flavors of popsicle and providing them at reasonable prices to an adoring public. I highly recommend the White Chocolate Lemon Peppermint.

Still, the best part of Durham has to be 9th Street. On the same little strip, you can find a tattoo parlor (Dogstar Tattoo "Tipping makes it hurt less."), a toy store where you can get handmade anything and there's distinct lack of plastic marketing crap (Playhouse), a biker bar (Charlie's) , and independent bookshop (The Regulator), homemade gelato, (Francesca's) a place to buy wind up sushi (Vaguely Reminiscent), and a smoke-free locals bar with some of the best burgers you've ever let drip down your wrist, (Dain's). No cookie cutter house or people - Old West Durham is Hispanic, Black, White, grad students, wealthy empty nesters, young families, gay families, young professionals, possums, racoons,...run across a few snakes, too. My house is a candidate for Extreme Makeover, but there is no way I'm moving. Sorry, Mom.

I really should do this filing. Let me see, I have about, seven feet of stacks left to go. No, I mean, about 2.1 meters. Or maybe I should go home and check on the cats. Or their ashes.