I thought of this post name when I was staring at our bathroom wall the other night after a not-so-encouraging week living in the city.  I woke up to the sound of construction one morning which is now going on across the street.  When they drill into the ground, my apartment shakes….as in, things started slowly falling off shelves.  If this isn’t enough, I spent the week having a showdown with ConEd (which we won!!!) about them charging us double because of a service we didn’t sign up for.  Long story short, they suck, we yelled, our bill was cut in half.  WHAT.

And though we have told my 105 year old landlord (sweet guy, on another planet), a million times about our disintegrating bathroom, he hangs up the phone before Ben manages to get him to talk about it.  Currently, it looks like something from Silent Hill when the sirens go off and all the scary people pop up.

(Okay…so I WAS going to put a picture from Silent Hill of the paint peeling off the walls.  But…do NOT google image search Silent Hill, especially if it is nighttime and you are home alone.  I scared myself so I google searched puppy pictures instead.  But you get the idea.)

So the moral of the story is, things could always be worse.  Our apartment has many wonderful things about it. The random guy who keeps breaking into our apartment building’s hallway is not one of them.  He likes to yell about Montezuma.  Well, to each his own.

(Montezuma.  Yikes.)

Moving on….this place is amazing!!

Provini Restaurant, 13th street and 8th avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

The day that started with the drilling and peeling paint led me to a cafe across the street from PS 107, where I teach on Wednesday afternoons.  By the time I got there, I had two large bags of chinese rice boxes for my class (which I had just begged a restaurant for) and enough clay to entertain 20 kindergartners for an hour.  My spirits were not high when I sat down.  BUT it turns out that this cafe is a magical portal to a small village in Italy.  A very comforting man, who spoke to me in half Italian (I almost passed out), welcomed me with the most delicious cup of coffee on the planet, and my day instantly slowed down.  It reminded me that there are cultures which actually encourage you to sit for an irresponsible amount of time to enjoy something like a cup a fantastic cup of coffee.

Before I left, all the owners were marveling at the color of a new wine they had bought and offered me a glass.  Yet, there were too many wonderful 5 year olds waiting for me to teach them about clay, so I declined.  But you must go if you can!  It’s…lovely.  And thanks to that relaxing moment and the massive coffee (which I’m now convinced was all espresso), I was in a MUCH better place to hang out with some awesome kindergartners.

Speaking of kids…best quote of the week:  So there was a fire drill at one of the schools I worked at yesterday and a lot of rumors  were spreading about whether there was a real fire.  When we went back into the building, my co-teacher and I were trying to calm our class down.  One girl, clearly not effected in the least said, “If I see a fire, I’m gonna sing the building HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”  ….So fire = birthday?

Last thing in case you live in the NYC area…tomorrow is the start of the NYC Chocolate Weekend.  You get a “passport” with a list of places to visit and then it is stamped at each chocolate shop.  So it is similar to when I walked the Camino in Spain, but with chocolate samples.

http://chocolateweekendnyc.com/

Thanks all for reading:)  Much love.