The Daily Grit

Have I mentioned the cats yet?  I'm too lazy to check, but this place is crawling and shrieking with them.  They're thin and skittish, creepy and kinda gross.  I feel like petting one would automatically make you have to get vaccinated for tetanus, rabies, and bugs.  The nights are full of the sounds of crickets and the entertainment from the concerts held a little further down the mountain.  We're about a ten/fifteen minute walk from a pretty great mall and grocery store and yesterday I ran to the beach and back in 30 minutes or so...I can't be sure of the time, since I don't carry a cell phone or a watch here.  It's extremely hot during the day with unobstructed sun, but the nights are usually pretty breezy and cooler.  Tonight, some of us went to do laundry with our professor, Will, and the area was filled with little cafes, bars, and a few odd shops.  It was very cozy, and I went to a very cool cafe/bar and got dinner and skyped my parents while eating dinner and drinking lemonade with mint leaves.  I played guitar for a minute or two in a coffee shop before we got home and I was very tired.  At our dig site, we are working closely but the space was divided up into a few sections.  My section has remains of a wall and some cool pottery pieces, and others have had some interesting discoveries as well.  There is an ant infestation right where I was digging today, however, and it made me think of the time that an ant was crawling under my sister's skin when I was little and I kinda was freaking out.  I think I figured out how to deal with them, though: bug spray on the shoes and dig first, wait for them to settle, then remove the dirt... If there's no time I use a hoe with a long handle to pick the dirt up... no more scorpions have dared to make their presence known to us of late, but we are still ready to deal with them...