Now you understand my fear of walking around the backyard after dark, doncha?

Uh, YEAH.

Seriously. People need to warn you of these things. All our NYC rats are in places like piles of garbage and subway tracks. They might run out and scare you, but there is no death from above.

OMG, I'm never going to California AGAIN without a giant hat. With a big brim. Made of something sturdy... like tinfoil.

I've lived in SoCal for 21 years (good Lord I'm old) and I've never seen a rat in a tree. Thank God.

You'll do great, JZ. Remember that no job interview can be as bad as a rat leaping on you from a tree.

The rats I fought for so long in this house were roof rats. Good old i Rattus rattus, the rats that brought us the Plague. They end up in attics so often because they jump onto roofs looking for food and then spot a gap they can crawl through. My exterminator, The Happy Trapper, contends that most of the time people think they have squirrels in their attics, they really have roof rats.

I hate them.

wait. we have rats in trees? Been here 10 years, never heard of that before. I've seen some bushy tail squirrels. But never a rat.

My exterminator, The Happy Trapper, contends that most of the time people think they have squirrels in their attics, they really have roof rats.

OK, my Mom DEFFINATELY had squirrles because we saw their fuzzy-ass tails.

I am, lets say phobic about rats. Like, Winston Smith nuts. Like, I will shriek and leap if I see one and my heart will pound and my breathing will be hyper for a while. This is a source of endless amusement to my friend John who has ridden home from the theater with me in the wee hours and seen this reaction many a time. He immitates my shriek. He will tell me there is a rat when there is not (doesn't work, fyi -- though I might jump a li'l bit). Once we were with other friends there was an incident and when the other guys heard me scream they were running over all "Oh My God! What's wrong? Are you OK?" and John just sighed... "She's FINE. It was just a rat. That's her rat noise."

Certain among you may recall an incident with an Opossum which, at a glance, is just a giant fucking rat that has broken into Kristin's basement and is coming to kill me. (Interestingly enough, if I KNOW its an oppossom I'm all "oooooh" and staring at it. They're adorable. And clearly not evil.) Of course, at that point I'd had rabies shots from a bat encounter so I had the right to be tense.

Good luck, JZ!

I am ignoring all talk of rats in trees. I have these in my new house and it's making me crazy: [link]

That's her rat noise.

This is making me snicker and snicker everytime I think of it. I wonder if Mr. Jane tells people about my "roach noise"

Better rats in trees than Australia where the have (Jilli!WF) oversize spiders in trees. IJS.

I know the conversation's kind of over by now, but I just wanted to say -- I'm totally in favor of differentiating and accommodating and designing extra challenges for students who need them and everything, but oh my god I can barely keep up with making ONE lesson for each day! (Not that that's all I'm doing! Really! I'm accommodating and differentiating and... well, actually, I'm not in these classes. Different challenges.)

Which is to say, your teachers may have been not so much trying to crush your spirit and make you conform as not have worked out how to deal with extra needs. Or, you know, they may have been all "It works for everybody else, kiddo, so shut up and deal!" Quite possible, really.

I wonder if Mr. Jane tells people about my "roach noise"

If he does its in a supercillious bored tone, I assure you. Everyone is freaking out and he is just sooooooooo over it.

Sparky, my Grandparents had a dirt basement with cave crickets. One year they got particularly bad and nothing could kill them. Grampa tore up New Jersey tracking down the last black market bottle of DDT in the state. It wiped them out.

And then the next year they were back... in fewer numbers but enormous and unkillable. It was a little lesson in ecology for us all. After that they were safe unless they ventured upstairs where they really DO look weird on a rug like the article says.

They never bothered me, but my little cousins used to dare each other to open the basement door. They're all college aged now, but to this day they'll freak themselves out talking about the "hoppers".