Special note: None of this is true, of course: the stealing, the avoidance of taxes, etc. Please understand...the names have been changed to protect the *easily incarcerated*. So much here is "full of it."  Kafka included.  Nevertheless, I 'd like this dance.

"Probably all education is but two things: first, the parrying of the ignorant children's impetuous assault on the truth, and second, the gentle, imperceptible, step-by-step initiation of the humiliated children into the Lie." -- Franz Kafka

We got free drinking water the other night by taking a couple of bottles from one of the pallets on the perimeter of the playground across the street from us.  It was the eve of "graduation day" for the prestigious middle school which faces our driveway, and, I guess, the temptation to *take something* from it was just too great.  Jungle bars, classrooms, fences, etc. are all state-of-the-art in this ostentatiously over-the-top town.  If we paid any taxes in these here parts we would have taken more.

The scorecard's in:  "Educational institutions" are having a Ball blowing it all.

In California, the weakness of Schwarzenegger's complaints about teachers' unions notwithstanding, there should be some accountability for what *educators* are doing and not doing; elsewhere too, undoubtedly. (1)

On a stroll through a smelly grammar school campus on Blossom Hill Road (not far from the middle school), Sylvie and and I let Marcel loose to romp on the slides and swings.  We had to move laterally to another part of the schoolyard shortly after our arrival, as the wild construction weaving its way along the street side of the fence was whipping up a foul stench.

Enter *the dumpster*.

One of Sylvie's fortes is going through such containers, bobbing up in no time at all with treasures we can sell or recycle into something useful.  Or, more often, give away.  Her expertise in this regard is rivaled only by her ability to sashay through a thrift center, and come up with a ten dollar value for ten cents.  In a flash, she can immerse herself in a sea of second-hand clothing, and fish out the few gems of value...whilst making note of furniture which begs for a little research.  At a flea market, we're talking about Ms. Gleaner grabbing the greatest goodies this side of the Seine. (2)  Bargains bypassed by the benumbed.

But to get to the point, we found a gorgeous baseball catcher's mask, tons of bio-color paint (hardly opened), pristine office equipment, etc. in a dumpster adjacent to several portable classrooms.  Those temp buildings are waiting, I guess, to be replaced by expensive structures, firmly ensconsed on the local landscape.

Not from money garnered by the sale of items no longer needed, however. That's for sure.

It didn't take long for Sylvie to turn on the Mexican workers, laboring amidst the asphalt (with unprotective gear)...to the throwaways we weren't going to abscond with that day. They were smiling ear-to-ear in disbelief.  Let's hope the local *nothing-better-to-do* cops didn't bust them for violating some ordinance during their double-latte break, once we left.

And it didn't take me long to see the parallel between the volleyball at the bottom of the *burial ground* with the food we had come across last week at Trader Joe's. 

We were strolling into the local food store when we, inadvertently, took in a bin full of bread and (much) more...destined for the trash.