This is the middle of the semester, a time that kicks everyone’s ass. I haven’t slept much this week, between grading my students’ midterm exams and second essays as well as holding midterm conferences with them. In confirmation of this state of things, the owner/cashier at the convenience store I visit in the mornings on my way to campus for my Diet Pepsi fix said to me on Wednesday, “Oh, you’re late today.” You know it’s bad when they know you AND your schedule at 7-11.

I had to give my students a pop quiz today, and I feel bad about it, but they really need to be reading the assignments in order to be successful in writing their next essay. Still, I feel cheap and dirty. A pop quiz? It sounds so crabby.

In more exciting news, our quality of life at No. 6 improved ten-fold this week with the addition of a working HVAC unit (AC and heat!). When I moved in with Stevel two years ago, it was the chilly wintertime. I know it’s California, but we DO get some cool weather, and I was freezing. So I tried to turn on the heat, but only cold air blew noisily out of the vents. So I went on the roof, where I found the ancient, 20-something-year-old HVAC unit. On the side of it were scratched and markered dates, one a year until Steve bought the place. Then, no dates. Hm, I thought, dialing the number of a local repair shop. Long story short, without annual maintenance, an old HVAC on a roof in this coastal, smoggy climate seizes up irreparably. But Steve did not consider this a priority, not in the chill of winter OR in the blazing heat of summer. He doesn’t like fake air, you see, and thus the delay … until now! Ah, how I am enjoying the sweet smell of puron from our highly efficient, shiny, lovely (the other units on the roof pale beside it!) HVAC. I challenge any tree hugger to show as much love and affection when encircling a birch or pine as I showed that HVAC with my embrace on the roof Monday.