Here in San Diego it's as dry as a bone and hot -- really hot. I've no particular insight on the happenings Katrina has wrought in Louisiana, instead I will blog about another bad Katrina.

My freshman year of high school I took a science class. It wasn't a chemistry, biology or physics class -- it was more of an earth science/science survey course. It was a course which met one of the requirements for getting into the University of California system, so you had two types of people in the class: People who wanted to apply to a UC school and needed to take the minimum number of science courses, and people who were interested in going to college and majoring in science or engineering. (I was the latter.)

So, this was one of the few classes in high school which had a good mix of upper- and lower-classmen. There were probably a half-dozen freshmen, a few sophmores and quite a few juniors and seniors.

The teacher, Mrs. Hayes, shuffled seats every few six weeks. There were two people to each desk and at the start of each new six-week period, students would line up against the walls and wait for names to be picked out of a hat. When your name was called, you took the next seat.

I must confess that I had a reputation in that class. Heck, I had a reputation in most every class I took. When the class first started, I had a seat right up front. I didn't have to speak really loud for the teacher to hear my witty (if I do say so myself, and I do) quips. The next six week period I had a seat near the back and had to raise my voice to be heard by the teacher. Some of the students got my little jokes, some didn't and resented it.

Katrina, the varsity cheerleader co-captain, was one of the latter. I don't remember which part of the year it was, but the time came again to have new seats and new lab partners. My name was called and I took the next seat. The next name came out of the hat and it was...

"Katrina."

Katrina was a senior. I'm not sure if she was 17 or 18 years old -- it didn't matter, because she was clearly not an adult. Katrina didn't like the idea of having to sit next to me for one hour a day, five days a week for six weeks. So much so that she cried.

Yep, bawling her brains out in front of 30-some-odd kids during the middle of class. Huge tears streaking her makeup. I got over the rejection pretty quickly, but I still laugh about it until this day. I made Katrina cry. The really sad part is that she could've used my help -- it would've improved her grade (something plenty of other cute girls learned before and after her).

Three years later, Katrina came through the checkout line at the grocery store where I had an afterschool job. I was pleasant, said "hi" ... and I don't think she recognized me. If she did, well, she'd learned to hide her feelings a little bit better I guess.

So, that's my Katrina story. Not nearly as exciting as what's happening down south, but funny. Yes, here at Hoystory, we make women cry.