The Muse: Playing Around

 After an action packed birthday weekend, Monday was a relatively quiet day, with little more exciting than grocery shopping going on. It wasn't the hottest day so far, however I couldn't seem to cool down, hence the largely atypical shirt. I did take some time to have fun on the playground at the old camp Shady Pines. I've wanted to do a photo shoot at a jungle gym for a while now but I'm always afraid people will think I'm creepy taking pictures of myself on a playground without having a kid with me. A bunch of guys showed up to play a game of touch football on the field beside the playground and I dutifully (and gratefully) fled back to my air conditioned car. The plastic playgrounds are fun, but nothing will ever compare to the Community School playground in Cumberland when I was growing up. It was huge and made entirely out of wood and old tires held together by chains, the whole thing looked like a castle. The slides were real metal that got burning hot on warm, sunny days and they were really steep. When the teachers weren't looking you would try to run up them from bottom to top. The towers on the playground had bars in them that you could climb up, some of the really high. The coolest thing was that it was entirely built by parents and community members, by hand. A few years after I left the school, they deemed it unsafe and replaced it with a mundane little plastic number like this. I can't help but wish it were still there, because it would make for some fantastic pictures.

Shirt: 007 Fashion, swapped via Garden Party Swap
Skirt: no label, vintage, thrifted via Savers
Shoes: Naughty Monkey via Nordstrom
Brooch:vintage,yard sale
Necklace and Medallion bracelet: J.C. Penny
Knot Bracelet: my grandmother
Purse: vintage, Whiting and Davis thrifted via Pastimes Consignments

This gives you a glimpse at the main playground structure. Pictured is the 5th grade graduating class of 1998 at Community School, we were the last class before the addition where the gym is was built. I would say new addition but its  been there for 15 years now. Wow does that make me feel old. Last year when I was teaching elementary ELL the kids asked me if any of my old teachers were still teaching and I looked them up. The only one who was left was my kindergarten teacher Miss Smith (later Mrs. Aurelio), who started the year I was in kindergarten. She still teaches kindergarten, but now she has been doing so for 21 years. Yikes.

A closeup with me labelled, two down to the left of me right on the crack is my friend Alyssa.  She was also in Miss Smith's class, twenty-one years later, we're still friends. Double yikes.

Me, circa 1998. I look exactly the same but without bangs.
I remember this dress vividly (as does my friend Alyssa and pretty much
anyone else who went to elementary school with me)
it was by a company called Chicken Noodle Soup.
 The whole thing was flannel, the vest was black and white check,
and the dress itself was a yellow and black plaid with turquoise
and purple worked into the plaid. I had a pair of bright yellow tights that went with it.
As for my ambition...I have a degree in Anthropology which is sort of like a historian, and I write a blog....

I was clearly an impressive poet at age 10, however the typesetters
on the yearbook less so, you can see I had to edit the misspelling of 'astrolabe' with my own pen