I have some sad news.

Tobby, my cat has run away.

He was aidded in his escape by the stupid vet, who not only was not the correct person to actually look at my cat, did not close the door.

I have no love for this vet.

None.

Thank you for letting me rant.

have an odor problem.

For months, I have tried everything that I could think of. Opening the windows, burning candles, even resorting to cleaning my apartment. I tried deluding myself that it wasn't coming from my apartment, but rather from an evil wall.

It didn't work.

Finally, I thought to have people from the school come in and have a look at my radiator, whose function, like most radiators, was to give me heat. (Okay, maybe not me exactly, but someone. And I would like to think that if I were to ask, no radiator would deny me. But, I might just be cocky.)

Sure enough, after unscrewing the one screw that held the control panel together, and then connecting the wires that somehow, in the twenty-five odd years of its exsistance, had become unconnected. What a stunner!

After they reattached the wire, and then spent double the time trying to get the panel screwed in place, and the electricity came back on, not only did I have heat for the first time this winter, but I had no odor.

I was a very happy girl.

Until this Saturday. The windows were open, all day (I like this great, wonderful weather that wakes up all of the floaty water spiders and butterflies.), the heater most definately *wasn't* on, and yet, somehow, the smell was back. I had even taken a shower that morning, so I knew that it wasn't me.

Strange, but it seemed to be coming from a wall. The wall. The evil, strange wall that juts out into my living/bedroom. I sniffed it. A couple of times. Then I was grateful that I live with a cat, because, to Tobby, this is acceptable behavior.

My results? The wall definately did not smell good. Tobby agrees with me. And no, it did not smell bad in just one place, about Tobby-height. It smelled bad even from Megan-height.

My conclusion: It really is not a good thing to have a wall that houses a chimney in your house, especially if you do not have a fireplace yourself, and have to rely on sketchy power and loose connections in your ancient radiator. A really not so good thing.

But, on the bright side, I now have three TV programs in English, and I think that I have all of my bases covered. For the enrichment of my shouting skills at the TV, I have the Discovery Channel. For the cleansing of my emotions, it's the Hallmark Channel. And, for that all important, what's happening with Britney Spears, you've got it, MTV.

It almost makes up for my smelly wall.

This story is dedicated to Adam. I hope that you enjoy it.

Once upon a time, in a fishier world than ours, there lived an Orca. His name was Sal. Sal was rather strange looking. He didn't have the smooth lines of the other orcas, and this caused him some pain. Horrible, terrible pain. So much that he felt that the other orcas were constantly talking about him behind his fish-like fins.

And they were. Not out of meanness or spite, but rather out of amazement. They found it astonishing that Sal could swim and be hydro-dynamic with the odd protrusions all over his body, and that he could see with his blood red eyes, or even eat with his rather large teeth. They were also rather afraid of him. (It was those red eyes. It was rather frightening to wake up on a dark ocean night and see a red, glowing shape moving slowly towards you. ((Sal also had a problem closing his eyes, so he tended to sleep with both wide open))). Also he was rather puny. To prevent from being startled by said glowing eye, they keep a constant two, four, or sometimes even fifty eyes on him.

So everything that Sal did was reported around the pod. And actually this was true for everyone. It was a rather small pod, and as they were well fed and didn't have to worry about sharks due to the really good medical insurance, they tended to gossip horribly about other members of the pod, after catching up on the latest happenings of Real World Paris. Including Sal with his freaky two-eyed red glow.

Sal also had a penchenant for getting his whaley-self into all sorts of trouble, which is the real reason for this little tail. Most of the trouble he got himself into was in part due to his connection to the Underwater Surf Association's Pacific Caravans, and therefore top secret. Well, I can't type about it, at least. The whole pod knew what was going on. But, I can tell you about the story about how our orca hero swam against the flow and had his mural painted.

It all started out innocently enough. Sal was swimming one day next to his ole pal Sid the lantern fish. (He liked fish folk who had short names. Much easier to remember.) Suddenly, he had a crazy thought. What if he started swimming against the flow of the water? In those days of fishy-antiquity, this just simply wasn't done. So, Sal slowly swept his oh so-stateless scaly self directly into the opposing current. Sid gasped in astonishment, but as Sid was much smaller than Sal, he simply went with the flow.

As it turned out, it was a good thing that Sal decided to pick that day to buck the water way traditions of his people, er, whales. Although several Radar blips picked him up, the tickets were delayed after the pod learned of the awesome feat he did, or will have done, shortly. Swimming just a few meters (yes, the pod was in the metric system) behind Sid, was the Evil, talked only about in whispered whistles, hasn't-been-seen in two migrations, Invisible Eel fish, primed to add poor little Sid, and maybe even not so poor but still not large Sal to the collection of fish in his stomach. (Note: while Eel-Monsters are usually invisible, as per the earlier description, the hapless fish that it had consumed in the course of it's going with the flowness were clearly visible (duh!) in his stomach.)

But, due to Sal's choosing that moment to buck the current, he was able to look the Evil Monster that was the Eel straight in its (his? hers?) eyes. (The eyes are the window to the soul. An Eel’s soul is always visible, especially evil ones. Therefore, they can be seen.). As was noted earlier, Sal was wee but scary. In fact, due to the random movement of the waves, a stray moonbeam caught the red eye and reflected, causing the Monstrous Eel that was Invisible (except for the eyes) to promptly lose his lunch. Then his breakfast. Finally, out came his midnight snack and even his dinner from the day before. Then, as the final stage in his fright, he became visible and much less scary. In fact, he ran away and was never not seen again. (As a side note, one fish decided that he liked being inside the Evil Eel Monster who was no longer Evil or a Monster, but still very much an eel, that he stayed there. If you come across this once threatening Eel, look closely and you will see a fish inside that has health written all over him.)

It was gross, but would have been grosser, but all of the fish food was still alive. They were all rather shocked by the whole being eaten while still flapping around, then blinded by a strange light coming from a little wee orca. So they swam away, without even thanking ole Sal.

Understandably, Sal got a little huffy. After all, he found out he was being stalked by an Eel with a desire for a little Sal and Sid snack, then was blinded by the moon, and finally, got thrown up on, no matter that it was live vomit. Up chuck is still up chuck, and Evil Eel Fiend spit up is not pretty.

Then he realized that not everyone had swum away. Indeed, the most fairest of all oceany life, something that wasn't even echolocated about, something that was just hinted at in the USA-PC manual, something that not even his cable TV had informed him of: a real, live mermaid.

“Dearest Sal,” she breathed (No, I am not saying that female mermaids have breathy voices, getting thrown up is rather hard work on the lungs, or gills rather. Whatever. It was a short term thing.) “You saved me. I will have a wall commissioned to commemorate your kind service to me forever.” Then, having regained her breath, she swam away. Thankful she was, but Sal was scary.

However, Sal wasn’t stupid. “You better get a bad artist to draw me exactly as I am!” He whistled after her.

(Yet another note: Indeed, that was exactly what she did. She got a self admitted crappy artist to draw Sal, and got a variety of other artists to do the other portraitry for the other important fish, such as Sid, and the other onlookers to the fateful duel. Since the other fish were vainer, they got better artists. )

From the day that Sal got the Evil Eel from Monster to regurgitate, he had the respect of all of the other orcas. They still talked about him, (those eyes still freaked them out), but it was with awe and an outlook for the seal dinners they had just eaten.

And thus ends one tale of Sal the Orca, Defender of Oceanic Life and Rear Pacific Caravaner (or at least he will be in 5 more months.) More than this lone tale have yet to be released.

We had quite the drama here yesterday. The first couple of hours were fine, although there was a rather strange warning about a fire going to happen by one of my twelfth grade boys. As he regularly hangs out with a boy who greets me every class with "Miss, there is something I want to say you right away," and another who asks me the meanings of such words as "am" and "Alps" after more than seven years of English, I didn't take it as seriously as I should.

The fire happened right after fourth period, which is also Homeroom on Mondays. Since I don't have one, I hang out with the other teachers who don't have it either in a very smoky, rather chilly cafe that is close to school. As it came time to go back for fifth period, we saw that the office staff and some of the janitors were gathered out front, and that the bell was ringing. So, we walked to the courtyard with all of the students, just as we had done on Saturday for the fire drill then.

Standing in the cold was not fun, especially as the director and the Bulgarian version of the guidance councilors were trying to tell us something, which we could not hear. Eventually we started moving back up to the front of the building, which is what we had done on Saturday. But, instead of going back inside, we were led up a flight of stairs that went no where except to a field. I had always wondered why those steps had been built, and I'm still wondering.

So now we were waiting up on the grassy field, for what, I don't know. Then, I looked up and saw smoke. I thought that was unusual, because, like most other buildings built during the 1970s, it was pure concrete. Also, the smoke was yellow. Third, there was a blue-coated man up on the roof where the smoke was coming from, and I recognized him as a janitor. Okay, I thought, obviously we are going for realistic here. In order to have a fire drill seem real, we need a controlled fire on the roof. Seems logical.

And we waited some more.

Eventually the fire department got there. They made a huge production of unrolling hoses, sending ladders up to the second floor window, and charging in with their gas masks. Obviously, someone had told them it was a fake, because their hoses were all flat and stayed that way.

And we waited some more.

This time, after a while, the fireman seemingly had found some "victims", as one student was led out with his face masked up in gauze, and another had his arm in a sling. I wondered briefly why they had taken the time to wrap these victims up in the "burning" school, instead of waiting to give them medical treatment outside. Then I realized that the smoke had stopped.

But don't worry, it was restarted. But, it had black smoke, so I don't know if restarted is the correct word. Maybe a new fire was started. Trick blue-coated man.

Guess what we did then? That's right. We waited.

Then an ambulance came. They ran in with strechers, and after five minutes, came out with another student, lying prone on it. It was a bad day for students. Especially male students. Obviously, only males can get hurt in fake fires set by blue-coated men on school roofs.

Then we waited some more.

The fire went out again, and the blue coated man didn't restart it. I think he was worried because of the police sirens. Apparently after a half hour has passed is the proper time for the police to arrive. I feel very secure.

The brand new cruiser made a huge production of speeding up over the speed bumps, and turning sharply into the school drive. Real safe. Especially with all of the kids who weren't quite contained on the grassy field.

But those kids were quickly herded back up, and after, that's right, waiting some more, the police led out some more students, handcuffed, and put them in the car. It then sped away, breaking through the crime tape that they had put up themselves just five minutes earlier.

But the drama wasn't over just yet. Apparently smoke, victims, and arsonists weren't enough for them. And we hadn't waited enough.

So we did some more, until the finale finally came. The last perp ran down the street, dressed, not in the blue coat of the janitor, but instead in a long quilted number. I bet he was glad, because moments later a German shepherd came charging after him, doing what dogs, police and others, do. He stopped him. I felt bad for the kid. After all, he wasn't even the guy up on the roof, and he was bought down by dogs, in front of the whole school.

And that, was how the fire drill yesterday went. It took an hour, involved lots of waiting, and some really strange stunts.

Don't believe me?

I'm trying to get a copy of the video tape to prove it.

That's right. It was taped.

I've been back in Bulgaria for a week now, and although it has been super duper cold (so cold, in fact, that my carrots have been freezing in my refrigorator. Eating icy carrots is not fun, and I don't recommend it.) there have still been some interesting developements.

For example, I can now purchase pineapples in my bazaar. This might not seem so strange, but when you take in consideration that I was told not to teach my preschoolers the word for pineapple because they wouldn't know what it was in Bulgarian, it makes more sense. I don't think that anyone here even knows what to do with a pineapple. A very interesting develpoment, if I do say so myself.

Next, the week that I came back, the whole town was out of two very intersting things. One was cat litter. Poor Tobby the cat had to make due in some soil that I found. He was not appriciative. Luckily there was a new shipment on Thursday, and he has been frolicing happily in it ever since. The other was working photocopiers in general and toner in particular. I tried four different places that I had at one time had copies made. Two of those places had misplaced their copiers sometime between December 15 and January 6, and another one had broken. The forth one, which is where I usually get my copies done, had no toner. I still don't know if toner or the machines have been found. Hopefully they have, as I need a whole slew of worksheets/tests/texts to be made.

The final oddity occured when I went to mail some letters. I went in as usual, and lo and behold, there were socks at the post office. I don't mean the kind that people wear in between their foot and shoe, I mean the kind that is for sale. Right there in the post office window. So, if I magically misplace my socks in the five minute walk from my apartment to the post office, I can simply get a new pair there.

It's good to know that such a thing is possible.

Um, hello.

This is my excuse for not writing in such a long time. I was in Spain. Please forgive me.

So, now that my apology is over, I WAS IN SPAIN! And it truely was wonderful enough to warrent capitol letters. Not only was the weather great, the food wonderful (especially the Burger King and Ben and Jer... um, I mean the torillas and tapas. Okay. So I really mean all of the above. I hadn't had either of those American treats for a year and a half. I think that I was due.) and the places we stayed at great, but the people were smiley, wore sensible shoes, and, most importantly, I could hear English as I walked down the streets! Oh, to walk past someone and realize that I could understand everyword they said, without having to translate! Wonderful!

I made the trip with some other volunteers I had met in Bulgaria; Alyse, Meghan, and Kevin. The three of us felt a little bit sorry for Kevin, as he was the lone guy, but he hung in there bravely. Good job Kevin! We managed to get to Madrid, Zaragoza, Barcelona, Sevilla, and Corobia for a day. Yet oddly enough, we didn't really see anything that Spain is known for. No monkeys, no Alhambra, no bullfights (that was delibrate), and no flaminco. We did get to see the Prado Art Musuem in Madrid, but that was mainly because we swung by on a Sunday and got in free. Yeah for free!

Also in Madrid, we decided to do a little walking tour our guide book suggested. However, because we were lazy, or got distracted by something else, we didn't really start until about 7 pm. Now Madrid doesn't sleep. There were thongs of people everywhere in the center. I mean everywhere. The four of us had to resort to a human chain to break through the crowds without getting lost. Eventually, we bought day-glo wigs (at least the girls did. Kevin didn't want to spend the money to be wacky.) and it was much easier to keep track of each other. However, it was also easier for other people to take notice of use, espcially when we walked away from the center. As we were passing on corner bar, we stopped because we saw a wise man walk out. He was followed shortly by a camel. This seemed to be interesting, so we sat down on the conventiant steps and waited. Sure enough, the camel and her wise man were followed by a river, a sheep, and the rest of the nativity. Seems that they took a little break from their scence to grab some sangria. We were enjoying the craziness, when all of a sudden, they started heading right towards us. A shepard boy lagged behind, and when we were surrounded, they took our portrait with them. How many people can say that they were surrounded by a nativity mob, overtaken, and forced to submit to a through nuzzling by a sheep? Not many, I wager, who live to tell about it.

After that excitement, and having our picture taken by afro-headed elvises, we abandoned the tour mid-way through and went back to the hostel. Feeling that Madrid offered us too much excitement, we packed up and traveled to Zaragoza, which is about halfway between Madrid and Barcelona. Yet again, there was a Nativity scence, but this was stationary, and it was the largest non-live one that I've ever seen. We walked through it several times, although the later times were just to startle the pigeons. The main attractions there were a bacilica with a pillar, and a Moorish Castle. We walked around the castle in the moat, just for fun. We're crazy like that. But inside was beautiful. Especially the ceilings. I like ceilings. They keep the snow out. But these had all sorts of decorations in them. Fancy ceilings if you will. Very nice.

After Zaragoza, we got on yet another bus, this time to Barcelona. Barcelona was fun. Meghan and I walked up and down the main street and got honked at and whistled at like crazy. We ended up being there for Christmas, and went to a weird service that wasn't any of our religions, but had a lot of incence. A lot. We also saw a lot of Gaudi's work, which was rather amazing, in a weird, strange, fantastical kind of way. I liked it. We also saw (and paid for) a Picasso museum. It wasn't the best art museum I've been to, but Meghan tried to explain how to look at art. I don't think that I really got it, but it was still good.

Then the maddness truely began. Our plan had been to take a bus directly from Barcelona to Sevilla, which is on the other side of Spain. However, that would have taken 16 hours and cost 60 euros. Not within our price range. But, being the crafty planners Alyse and Meghan are, we found that if we were to take a bus to Madrid, and then to Sevilla, it would still take 16 hours, but it would only cost about 30 euros. You can guess what option we took.

We got to Sevilla, and I was definately crabby. But, after gorging myself on churros con chocolate, I felt a little bit better. That night, Kevin, Alyse and I went exploring, and found a nice little Mexican place that served awesome guacamole, tacos, and sangria. Then, we explored some more and found an Irish pub with the best nachos ever. I'm talking layers of chips and cheese. Yum, yum, yum.
Oh, and that is also where Christopher Colubus's supposed remains are. I didn't get to see them. The monstrous lunicy that is the cathedral in Sevilla wasn't open a lot, especially arround New Year's. Or, I was just to lazy to get myself up to go to mass so I could see it without paying the 6 euro fee.

We did go see the castle that was there, which was built first by the Moors then by the Christians. That was amazing. Every square inch of the Moorish part had some sort of plaster work done on it. I think that the Christians rebeled against this, as they had no plaster work, but everything was in bright peace and red. A very intersting contrast. Again, I liked it.

On New Year's Eve, the three girls decided to abandon Kevin to go see Cordoba, which has the oldest remaining synogoge in Spain. It was closed. We did get to walk around a lot, and found a great place to people watch. But when the loud firecrackers started going off, we decided to leave. We rejoined Kevin just in time to find a Hindu place that was still open, which had the strangest service ever. It was fun. Then we wandered to the city plaza, where a huge clock counted down to midnight. Lots of champange, graffitti, and for some reason, grapes. Odd.

So that was basically our trip. We took another overnight to Madrid, completed the rest of our tour in the dark (this time it was 6 am), got on the plane and returned to Bulgaria.

So here I am.

Sigh.