The end is near

I have 4 days of summer vacation left.

I'm so NOT ready to go back yet. I LOVE my job but I LOVE summer vacay.

I'm selfish, I know. I think it's because I know it will be the last time I have a break this long. I'm going to start hitting the resume/ job hunting thing again, hard. I need to make $30k or more, and get some benefits. And anything job-wise in the real world does not let a person have a month of vacation.

Ugh, back to school Aug. 1.

Yea.

Pouting,
Maggie

What I'm doing on my summer vacation

My vacation is going along nicely.... I've loved having all this time off. I think I could enjoy being retired, other than the fact you need money and place to live and stuff like that. I want to enjoy being retired, not be homeless. Well, whatever, I DO LOVE my vacation.

I've been quite the slug.

Well, sort of. I do like sleeping in. But I've read lots of books on my list and I like being able to just sit and sip ice tea and read to my heart's content. I've hung out with Curley, Daddy-O, Mac and Booknut. I've scrapbooked. I've cooked dinner. I went to a concert and done some shopping. I've gone out to eat. I've rummage saled. I've just basically done whatever I've wanted, which is awesome.

Today the plan is to run some errands, bake some banana bread this afternoon, and go to the county fair later this morning. Time permitting I want to see about getting Mac his own cell phone; this sharing thing is NOT working.

Next week, I'm teaching a photography workshop 2 hours a day, and next weekend is mine to weekend receptionist. I also still want to finish Fab Finn's baby quilt and see the new (and LAST) Harry Potter movie in IMAX-3 D (Mac and I have plans to do that, as well as have a decadent dessert at a chocolatier shoppe). I want to hang with Lilith, and also scrap book some more. This might also be "movie week" because I want to see Larry Crown and Monte Carlo, and I promised Mac I'd watch Cars 2 with him. I also am going to get some of Mac's college stuff together, shop for sheets and towels and dorm stuff.

I do love me some vacay!

Maggie

Vacay- day 1... at least officially

Today starts my first official day of summer vacation. I count today as day 1 because I had to work on Saturday doing my weekend receptionist thing. Then I'm always off on Sundays (at least from school I am) and yesterday was a holiday so today starts the official Summer Vacation from school.

Wow. Daddy-O and I were talking and trying to figure out when I was actually on vacation- not working any of my jobs- since I moved back here in 2008. Other than being sick, we came up with not. I haven't been on vacation in about 3 years.

I'm excited to be off work but I also feel guilty. I feel like I should work all the time, that I don't deserve time off because I make such a piddly little salary and feel like I should be doing all I can to make money.

Also, I'm not going on a vacation at all. I'm just "vacating" myself from where I work. I wish I had money to go away for the next 17 days but I don't. I'll be chilling here at home and hoping that Mac doesn't drive me nuts (he's going through a clingy phase) and that I don't drive Daddy-O insane.

I'm really on vacation from school until August 1st. I have one weekend where I have to work my weekend receptionist gig. My principal also said I could work a day in July so I could have a day off in August to take Mac to college- then I don't have to take it as a personal day (or use comp. time/ sick day/ day without pay/ etc) so I will be working 1 day at the library in the entire month, and 2 days as receptionist and that's it. I have it all off. Wow.

My big plans are to read a huge pile of books, hang with friends & family (Curley, Lilith, Photographer, Daddy-O, Bookut, Mac), work on a couple of quilt projects (and hopefully finish them!), see a bunch of movies, drink a lot of wine (which could lead to some drunk blogging...), and just hang out.

Today's big project will be to get my hair cut, and go to the library. And then drink a lot of wine. I have goals.

So here's to you, here's to me, here's to vacay- may it be blessedly wonderful, peaceful, blissful.

Maggie

A bright, bright, sunshiny day

I haven't been taking pictures for awhile. I don't know why; I guess I haven't been in the mood. But I was sitting on a picnic table earlier this week, after work and I was reading and waiting for a ride home, and this is what was right above me. I couldn't resist a couple of snaps...

A Wild West summer of long ago

Thinking about a Wild West summer...

I would feel like I was going to melt into summer warmth. Magically, the sun is shining and the snow dissolves, leaving brown hues in its wake. The wind turns warm and humid, and is sparse. I question whether I really feel a breeze or it's so hot, I imagine a cooling presence. The cold air that had so frozen my lungs just that previous winter not so long ago, becomes hot and sticky, leaving me parched. Sweat immediately forms on my brow and I look over the brown fields, feeling the heat of the sun on my shoulders and the heat radiating up from the cooked cracked earth. Summer was having an intensity matched by nothing other than the fires of Hell.

The plains are still rolling and the shades of brown are many. The fields are dirty dark brown, and as the hills raise and lower, the hues become darker and lighter. The round bales of hay dot the landscape, giving it a polka dotted look. And the pattern of bales at first appears random, but upon closer examination the rows of bales are symmetrical and aligned, making a quilt like pattern across the otherwise unadorned fields, in a covering of summer.

The humidity and summer sun has done its job and cooked the earth until it cracked, leaving gouges running through the hardened, dried mud. Tractors and long ago rains worked together to leave the huge ruts, like craters, making the terrain uneven and broken, almost scarred. Not even the brilliant blue sky, like a tall drink of water, can ease the hotness, the lines of heat reverberating from the ground. The scrub brushes wilt in the mid day sun and not a tumbleweed blows across my path. The sage brush is limp, tired from the beating it received from the summer's intensity. Land as far as the eye can see, miles of brown with golden dots of hay, lasting forever, until it joins hands with the blue sky at the horizon.

Maggie

Random tids and bits on a Monday afternoon

I had three dates this weekend. Yup, I know they're dates since you all said so. And so did he. He called to see if I wanted to get a Starbucks coffee last night. Uh, YEAH! And the reason for the "mini dates"? He has an 11 year old son and this is one of the weeks of the summer when he comes to to stay so he doesn't want to take off for an evening and leave his boy with a sitter or with g'rents. So we've had short, dates. But he's asked me to dinner next Monday. Okay, so... dates. Me. Dates. Okay, weird.

And speaking of weird. Next weekend I'm assisting a photographer to shoot a wedding. At a rock quarry. In the middle of no where. But that's not the whole strange part. In talking to the aforementioned Sam with whom I've had three mini dates, I come to find out it's his niece who's getting married whose pictures I'm taking. Irony...

I want this jacket. It's awesome. Wonder if Curley and I could make it?

The third summer session at Alcatraz started today. I was in the home ec. room the last two sessions because they had tables and I didn't want desks, but I got moved because this session someone is teaching a cooking class. I'm in the science room. Why do science rooms always smell gross????

I really want to have a Mad Hatter tea party but I have no one to tea party with. When the Divine Ms K is old enough, we are totally going to do it. I can't convince my friends and Mac that this would be fun. They think I'm nuts. And I am. Maybe I'm slightly mad.

Did you know you're supposed to buy a new scrubbie (loofah thingy) about every 3 months? It's a good place for bacteria to grow. And for misquotes to lay eggs. I was thinking I needed to get one over the weekend, and I forget to pick it up. I had a reminder this morning to do it- I had a big, black beetle in mine this morning. I freaked out! And when I killed the beetle, he "crunched" inside the pink loofah and had guts everywhere. Guess I'm getting a new one. Today.

On Saturday I shopped at Wal-Mart and discovered today that I was missing a bunch of stuff. Looking at the receipt it was the last 4 things on the list. I called Wally World and they had a RECORD of what I forgot and when I was there. I couldn't believe it. They said all I have to do is come out and get my stuff, come to the service desk and it will be taken care of. How cool of them! How stupid of me!

Over the weekend someone broke into my car. Well, I should say, got in my car unbeknownst to me and without my permission. It wasn't locked, so I guess it wasn't technically a break-in. AND, other than throw stuff all over the car, they took nothing but a half a bottle of generic Tylenol. Mac said we're too poor to even be robbed. He said my CDs apparently suck so much they didn't want to take 'em. XRayGirl said she couldn't believe they didn't break my Michael Buble CD on principle. (Um, she's not a fan........)

And finally.............. I heard this song on the movie From Paris with Love (crappy movie, good music). Anyway, what's the genre? French jazz? It sounds like the sort of music in WWII movies as Paris is being liberated. I want more music like this, but I have no idea how to find music with this style. Got any ideas? [and please please PLEASE pardon the video. I didn't want to have video at all, but I wanted this rendition of the song and it's all I could find, for gods sake........ feh!]

Well, that's all for today!

Mags

This one time, at a festival

In Northern Civilization, the parks department is busy. Well, of course it is since it's a city of more than a quarter of a million people, the parks' departments hold one festival after another all summer long. And for some reason I just haven't gotten my act together to get to any of them. There's always three I LOVE to go to: a German Festival (all things German, including polka bands, food and a BEER tent), a Greek Festival (including all things Greek like food, entertainment, Greek men in droves, and a BEER tent selling Greek booze) and a Rib festival that sells about a 100 different sorts of ribs and side dishes, as well as having entertainment and a BEER tent. Hmmmm, one commonality here....

When I lived in Northern Civ I went to all these festivals, never missing a one. Sometimes I went with GFs, Sams, family, students, or alone. It was just part of my summer time ritual. One night during Greek Festival week, I went with a bunch of teachers. Then the next night I went with 'the girls' and another time I went with my landlord; we rode down on his motorcycle and he and I went and just sat and listened to music and drank beer and then biked back. It was a super nice evening and that was an awesome night. All the nights and times were awesome. I had a large group of acquaintances and some friends. There was always someone around and up to doing something like this. I loved that time in my life.

Today is the last day for the Ribs, and I missed the Germans. And if I don't write it down, I'll miss the Greeks next weekend. As I was looking through the schedule of events, I found myself thinking of 2006, specifically, when I went to the German Festival.

My group had shifted and changed, as is want to happen with nomadic climbers in their late 20s and early 30s. This time, I had a guy friend, Sam, who was a friend with benefits... and that year, at German Festival, he went with me. At the time I had a friend Lisa and we met her and her boyfriend of the day, and some other people she knew well and that I knew peripherally. Then there were some folks that she and I both used to work with who were there. We were a group of about 15 and it was hot out that weekend. We all drank beer like it was water, and we danced. and laughed. Oh my goodness, did we laugh. And drink. And we tried to learn to polka when the "German" songs were playing. Some old guys in lederhosen came to the table and grabbed all us 'girls' (we were in our 30s and 40s; they were in theirs 70s. We were girls) and they tried to teach us the steps. One of the fellas in our group kept buying rounds of beer. Someone got hold of a St. Paulie Girl's wig, and he was wearing it around- we all did. Some older ladies (partners of the older men in l'hosen) got in the act and got the guys from our group to dance. People were circling around us and clapping and laughing while we tried to polka. Then a bunch of us got on stage and accompanied the band to "Danke Schoen" which turned into a Ferris Bueller style dance off. It was a great night.

Sam and I left and were driving back to the frat house where I was living that summer (Yes, I was living in a frat house- now there's a story for another day!). It was in a summer lake town and after all the dancing and laughing, we got back to town, parked and went for a walk on the beach and watched the stars. We lay there in the sand, watching the stars, holding hands, and our breathing even synced.

It was a good night. That was a good time. He was perfect, so was I, so were my friends, the weather, the timing... it was all just good. Makes me miss him just a little bit, for that moment that summer. Ah, happy memories.

remembering that once upon a time I was lovable,
Maggie

I know what I'm doing this summer

I have a summer job! A teaching job! And I know that seems ironic or even funny from a woman who is counting down the days of the regular school year, BUT... there is always a BUT, but this is really different.

I'll be teaching at a prison school. well, that's a little harsh. There is a residential facility for kids who are court ordered there, as a foster placement, or as a day school for some kids who can't function in a public school. It's a type of "jail" without bars for juvenile offenders.

Because it's a residential facility the kids are required to take classes all summer long- no unaccounted for or unstructured time so they offer academic classes for kids who need them (like if they failed history, for example, then they have to re-take the history. Same with English, science, etc...) and then for all the other kids, they have fun programs. I get to teach the FUN stuff because they let their regular faculty teach the academics.

I get to design my very own classes! I can teach anything I want! I get a supplies reimbursement for $7 per child. I can teach 2 classes each day.

I'll only have 10-14 kids per class. The classes are gender segregated, either all boys or all girls. They wear uniforms. There are not grades; the kids just earn points toward special privileges.

There are 4 summer sessions (called modules). During each module I'm going to teach 2 different classes, a morning one and an afternoon one. The morning class is from 9-11am. The afternoon class is from 1230-230pm. That's merely 4 hours a day. Each module runs for 10 days. I can teach just 1 or 2 or 3 or all 4. I also get paid $56 (hello, $14 per hour!) per day and the school provides me a free lunch! I'll have my own classroom each 10 days, the same one in the morning and afternoon so I can decorate bulletin boards and the like if I want! Also, because these are supposed to be fun, there is no homework to assign; homework is DISCOURAGED.

I'm kicking around the following ideas for my classes:

1) School of Rock (class title)
I would pick one genre of music a day to focus on. At the beginning of each day I would play a sample of the music and let the kids journal for about 10 minutes. Then I would do a very brief 20 minute lecture on the genre. Then the last 90 minutes I would have a variety of activities, group and individual, that revolves around the music of the day. I could not only play the music but videos as well. On days 8 and 9 would be the topic 'music in film' and the last day would be a presentation by each student with music of their choice. I also thought I could give them a list of what the genre was and encourage them to bring in a sample and play those as well.

2) Read it, See it!
Example: Monday: read a piece of literature and do activities with it, then on Tuesday, watch the companion film in its entirety (like Of Mice and Men or To Kill a Mockingbird). Do this with 5 books

3) Film 101
Teach basic skills on how to "watch" a movie like history of film, canted camera angles, use of light and shadows and music in film, etc. then show examples of each, and do activities.

I have a bunch of other ideas, too. I was thinking of a creative writing class but someone else is already doing that. But it all sounds like such fun!!! I think I want to do School of Rock and Film 101.

It is just nice to think of being back in the classroom where I get to be in charge! Again, not a bad gig for summer work at all!!

Finally, good news!
Maggie Mae, teacher