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".

FACT: Fruit juice has as many calories and as much sugar as Coke.

QUESTION: Is it actually any better for you by virtue of being fruit-based?

Well, you're not supposed to drink it like it's water but fruit has more than just fructose to offer healthwise and I believe that so does fruitjuice.

Well, not all sugar is processed the same by the body. And presumably the juice has vitamins.

Well, my new basement is finished and I'm hoping to watch TV down there, and I don't want to share the space with the crickets. They're freaky!

And presumably the juice has vitamins.

According to this bottle of ruby grapefruit Juice Squeeze, it's not a significant source of Vitamin A or Vitamin C.

P-C, probably marginally better in that (a) it does contain trace amounts of vitamins and whatnot, which is more than Coke does, and (b) it has no HFCS, which is a suspected factor in increasing obesity and diabetes rates in the US.

But if you're looking for seriously healthier, you're probably better off having a piece of actual fruit and a bottle of fizzy water.

t /momvoice

According to this bottle of ruby grapefruit Juice Squeeze, it's not a significant source of Vitamin A or Vitamin C.

From the name it doesn't sound like a significant source of juice either.