I can't even begin to explain the plot of the play. It was crazy, complicated, weird, funny. It all worked out beautifully... as you can tell, in addition to my own daughter I was quite taken by the orange and purple haired spirits. Everyone was. They were tremendously funny... very talented girls there. Not a single line between them, but they were in just about every scene. Kudos to all the kids. Bravo!
I don't like eggs.
I've never liked eggs. The texture, the smell. I can smell eggs boiling in the pot. At Easter time, I have to open all the windows while boiling eggs for the kids to dye, lest I puke.
So this Atkins diet thing requires me to eat high protein, low/no carb foods. Eggs are eggsactly that. Oh, how punny.
But I have had this lifetime aversion to them. I think it is a deep seated hatred from my before-Four years. I distinctly recall my Aunt force feeding me eggs for dinner one night. I wouldn't eat them, she held my face and shoveled them in. I think I was sick for days. I think I was violated (her intentions were good, make sure the kid eats dinner... so she made sure the kid ate dinner), hence the egg aversion.
My sister asked me "Why are you eating things that make you puke? What kind of diet are you on that requires you to do this to yourself?"
The kind of diet I'm on doesn't require me to eat foods I gag on, it requires me to not eat foods that I worship.
I could just eat 10 slices of bacon and a stick of butter. That would be Atkins friendly, but that's not good nor is it appetizing to me.
My breakfast food of choice is french toast. I love me some French toast. Five or six slices, cinnamon, brown sugar, tons of butter, tons of syrup. Insert Homer Simpson drooly noise here. I also love breakfast cereals. I could eat Corn Chex all day every day. I love Raisin Bran Crunch. Captain Crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
So running out of options and getting sick of Canadian Bacon fried with a slice of swiss cheese every day, I have turned to "the incredible edible egg." I've tried to figure out how I can eat these things without immediately reversing peristalsis.
The other day I made myself an omlette, and choked it down. If one who loves eggs had been here, one would have LOVED this omlette. It had sautéed yellow pepper, mushroom, scallions and ... spinach. A beautiful slice of muenster cheese and two pieces of crumbled bacon were in the middle. It was topped off with scallions and shredded cheddar. Perfectly seasoned, perfectly folded. It was picture-book perfect in an Omlette Lover's Paradise.
In my reality, it was barely tolerable.
A few days later, I had breakfast with C. On the menu were scrambled eggs with boursin cheese. Well. That sounded intriguing. I asked for sautéed mushrooms to be inserted, and got sausage and chopped it up and mixed it in. One would think the boursin cheese would be too gross inside scrambled eggs, but it was actually great. I was surprised.
Today, I revisited the eggs (again, very sick of Canadian bacon, and didn't want to eat turkey for breakfast).
Another omlette. This time with bacon, onion and mushroom, and because we lack boursin I used an ounce of cream cheese, cubed.
It was, again, perfect. And this time, I liked it.
What is becoming of me?
I went to the school yesterday morning to re-hang the black and white headshots and a "Congratulations Cast of the Play!" sign at the school. I printed out some candids from my digital camera, which mostly came out okay but could have been better if the lighting was better, but I won't bitch about that...
When I got there, I realized the Art Teacher had absconded the window panes where the black and white headshots were SUPPOSED to go that morning. Traditionally, the headshots are up for a week before the show, come down and get posted up at the theatre (middle school building), get taken down the last day of the performance and are re-hung in their spots the following morning and stay up for a week. I was surprised to see she'd put pictures up, but the music director (2nd in command) who had given me the task of doing this had taken the day off (deservedly so) and I had no one to turn to.
I couldn't quite take down the Art Teacher's pictures, so I went to the principal to ask her what to do.
She directed me to a board in the foyer for pictures or events and activities. She told me to go ahead and take down everything that was there, and hopefully everything I had would fit. I knew it would be tight, but I did as she directed.
The pictures that I took down were of the sixth grade camping week last October. They'd been up there for quite a while... It was about time they came down...
I was about 80% finished hanging the pictures when the school janitor came up to me. He stood there behind me and just stared at what I was doing.
"Is there a problem with these?" I asked.
"Well, they're going to have to come down, they are in violation of the fire code," he tells me.
Intermission
In F
ebruary of last year, a nightclub in Rhode Island burned down in about 4 minutes flat. 100 people perished in the blaze. The fire and its aftermath resulted in Fire Chiefs throughout the northeast making a rule for school buildings:Tell me how a concrete elementary school where there is a fire exit in between every two classrooms is the same as the nightclub.
No art/paper/flammable objects on the walls in the public school buildings. None. Period. End of conversation.
Why? Well, oh my GOD! The artwork could catch fire and burn the school down, and kill millions of children. Won't someone please think of the children!!!! Our Fire Chief jumped on the band wagon about 3 months into the school year. The town over from us took all their artwork off the wall a few days after the fire. As if the school were to suddenly combust and explode that day.
The thing that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever is the fact that the fire was at a nightclub. A nightclub building is VERY very different than an elementary school building.
The differences:
Nightclub: 50 plus year old wooden building with no sprinkler system because of a grandfather loophole in the law that exempted them from having one installed. A building that is wood and old should defiantly NOT be grandfathered out of anything fire safety wise, but, it is politics as usual in bullshit New England.
Most Public Schools: Concrete, Brick, Steel and Glass, with workable and inspected annually or or twice a year sprinkler systems in every room and hall, clearly marked fire exits, fire drills, kids familiar with the layout of the building, fire drills, teachers who are level headed and know the rules, fire drills, no intoxication resulting in slow action/confusion on the part of those evacuating the building.
The nightclub fire was a very horrible event, tragic, unbelievable. I feel horribly for each and every family impacted by what happened, from the guitar player in the band to the barmaid, and each fan of the band that was playing there who was lost.
But. It totally could have been prevented. Let's examine the causes.
The nightclub fire was caused by:
Illegal Soundproofing Material (egg crate foam) spraypainted with highly flammable paint
Indoor pyrotechnics which the nightclub stated they had no idea would be set off, and they were set off a few feet away from the foam
Overcrowding in the club
Poorly marked fire exit signs
Lousy fire code inspections and a lax system where no one knew what someone else was doing, no one was accountable and fingerpointing continues to this day
Show me a case of one elementary school in this entire country that burned to the ground and had casualties because of pictures of fish or Egyptian gods and goddesses on the walls.
Elementary schools don't burn to the ground in a heartbeat because of art on the walls, for God's sake. The nightclub burned to the ground because of irresponsibility on the part of the band and the club owners and the Fire Inspector. It was a little tinderbox waiting for a spark, and unfortunately that spark lit that little community up, and many souls were lost.
For schools, building by building district wide solution should have been put into place instead of an outright ban on any hanging paper. If there was a four story wooden schoolhouse with wood framing and wood this and wood that in this district I'd be all for having a paper on the walls ban.
Instead of THINKING our Fire Chief had knee-jerk reacted along with just about every other one in the region. It's just easier that way. Don't analyze, don't think, don't inspect, just outright flat out ban. Damn the results.
What are the results? Think of your elementary school classrooms and halls. If your school was anything like what my kids enjoyed up until about November of this year, it was vibrant, interesting, constantly changing. What's a school without the artwork and projects of the kids hanging on the walls in the classroom or in the hallways? It's a dank, boring, institutional building with no life and character.
The teachers don't like it, the students don't like it, and the parents are disappointed by it.
So that's the backstory. Our hallways suck. Our classrooms have no life or character. Teachers aren't even allowed to use the windowsill for storage because something could suddenly burst into flames because of the heater...
It's ridiculous. But I rant (therefore I am).
"But there were pictures here that have been hanging here since October. Were they in violation of the fire code?"
"They were supposed to be taken down, but nothing was supposed to be posted back up. A guy is coming to hang a glass display case here, sometime this week... not sure when. It could be today, it could be Friday."
Oh, how convenient. SOMEtime this week. Sure.
"Well, Mrs. K___ the principal (your boss!) TOLD me to hang these here. I'll take them down if you want, but you'd better go talk to her first. I think she's under the impression that they can stay here a few days." And I went back to hanging them up.
"I'd hate for you to have to go through all the work of hanging these," he was very sweet, and I understood he was just doing what he knew he was supposed to do... but if I had to take them all down again I would. I just wasn't doing it without Mrs. K knowing. I thanked him for his concern for my hard work, told him I had all the time in the world and I wanted to do the right thing by the cast of the play and get these pictures displayed for them.
I saw him enter her office, and then a few minutes later he left. He didn't come back and tell me to take them down, that "the guy would be arriving soon" to hang the glass display case. I'm thinking the guy isn't going to be on time, or that perhaps they've been waiting a while, and Mrs. K just wants them displayed this week. She commended my work and the arrangement, so she didn't seem concerned.
The collage is wonderful, and it's still up today because I got a phone call from a mom telling me that it looks FABULOUS and asking me for a copy of one of the candids that I took. I hope it can stay up until Friday.
Stupid friggin' fire code crap.
Well, the sun is shining for a change and it's about 40 degrees out. No better time than the present. There are errands to run, I have a geocache that I need to go hide. I need to pick up some swag for the box. I need to go to the bank and make a deposit. I have to finish graphics for the dart people. I have so much to do.
More later!
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