An Old Time-y Village, Drinking from a Jar, Hearses, and My Crack

Life at school totally sux right now. We are getting ready for DARE graduation and as piffly as the production has become (we used to do an actual play with scripts written by my co workers and myself) it's still stressful. And grading tests (a pile, no kidding, a foot high), and end of year junk, and Swine Flu is sinking its delicious, bacon-y hands into the district slowly. Then we walk in on Friday and Mrs. A found this in her room.


Yes, that is the ceiling missing up there, pic taken on the cell phone. The building is literally falling apart. The ceiling fell in in another area last year when Mrs. A was pregnant with Emma (the baby from such well known FOs as Emma Baby Surprise and Emma Baby Bolero). Thank the Gods both times there were no children in the room. The debris fell with such force that the closet was thrown open and the crap cascaded out.



My room hasn't caved in yet, but yet is the key word there. This is my crack...get your mind out of the gutter...not that kind of crack...this kind.



That's in my fucking classroom, ladies and gents, like, where my young students and I do math all day. I think that the pic does it no justice. It looks as if there's some kind of weird coloring inside the crack. Mold?? Who knows?

First you saw my crack, now I'll show you my nipple. I call this one the nipple b/c it has an areola made of water stain and mold-looking-browniness and it leaks water whenever it rains.

Last year the nipple that is located on the ceiling just outside my room against a wall adjacent to my crack was patched and I thought it was gone for good...but the tit came back the very next year. It is grosser looking in person, but you get the idea. If someone from my district somehow sees this, which they won't, and gets pissed...I am one of the district's most loyal employees. I could get a job and teach elsewhere but won't not b/c I can't, but b/c even though times are tough now I fucking love my job. I love the town, I adore my students, I love my co workers, and some how my freakin' rockin' supervisor, Also Mrs. G, has made me a math obsessive. All I want is for more effort to be put into giving the kids what they deserve...the least restrictive learning environment. My little guys have to look at this stuff every day, climb over the mountains of other obstacles such as language issues, community dysfunction, and poverty, and still compete with the suburban kids' test scores. But they keep their spirits up. They are awesome little minions.:)

Anyway, after a week like that I was drooling for the weekend this time around. First, these are the people in my neighborhood.

Mr. G hooked us up with a bird feeder and we are the popular food joint in the 'burbs. I know they're not unusual birds, but I could watch them for hours. They are beautiful. The shot below was my favorite. She or he looked like she or he was posing.

So, Mrs. L, Griffin's mom, called me up and asked if Mr. G and I would join her, her hubbie, and the Griffster on Saturday to visit Museum Village in Monroe, NY for a gem show and then an antique show @ Ramapo College. Mrs. L and I love gem shows, and I needed a break, so I agreed.

The five of us (Mrs. L, Mr. L, Griffin, Mr. G, and GrimmWitch myself) drove there and I got to sit next to Grif, which was a complete pleasure. He is by far the most easy going and delightful baby of all time and I thoroughly enjoyed his company. The gem show set up all around the small lost in time village was a 4 out of 10 as far as gem shows go, but the fact that it was inside the historic-y setting was a huge plus. The number of vendors would be massively dwarfed by the number at any other show we go to in NJ or NY.

The village is a conglomeration of genuine and reproduction buildings brought from all different places and reconfigured by the land owner similarly to poor Waterloo Village in NJ (Corzine, get off your fat ass and help Waterloo!). Although people dress in period clothing and do demos, there were none there on Saturday. Mr. G was very disappointed that he didn't get to chat with any "old time-y people." He did take some great pics of the place. Here's the schoolhouse.

Notice the lack of crack in this room when compared to my own classroom. It is equipped with a dunce chair in the left hand corner (I would have lived on that!:)

The Village also has a Natural History building. NJ has had some great dino finds throughout the state's history, so I was not surprised about fossils being on display, but this was great!

And they also have the biggest giant sloth skeleton I've ever seen. That includes the one from NYC.

There were some really beautiful Victorian carrage hearses in another building. Morbid, but I am the GRIMMWitch after all.

I love the finials on this one. The fabric is still there.

After the Village we ate at the Mason Jar. I had lovely Eggs Florentine and we drank our beverages from mason jars, hence the name.

The antique fair @ Ramapo was also really wonderful. There were so many beautiful things, but most were a little too expensive for a young couple with a new mortgage. Mr. G ate a deep fried Twinky that I didn't get a chance to shoot a pic of...but before he bit into it it looked like a corn dog. I did get one non-antique thing.

So scrumptiously Anne Taintor-esque, and so true. Do I have to go back to work on Monday?

Finally, I finished the Ribbed Lace Bolero from 10 feet high. I really love it.

See, I am the designers neck twin...(see previous post).