Friday, June 19

Friday, June 19, 2009

It’s 7:25am, and I have just returned from a very satisfying morning walk. The usual, of course. It’s a beautiful morning and day (so far), with the potential for it to get horribly, horribly hot and humid. I kind of miss the rain … but this will be more like the weather expected for camp. Yesterday I was talking to Melissa about the weather, and she said that in late July the temperatures can get up to 100+ degrees F … with the added bonus of fabulous 2-bajillion % humidity. Whoo. It sounds miserable; it’ll be like being back in the Atl. Eesh.

Talked to Hammy briefly on the phone this morning. She and Gramma were getting ready to leave for their big trek across the state to go see Nalas (in Memphis). They’re going to come back on Sunday – short and sweet and lots of driving!!!! I hope they drive safely in order to get to those cocktails at the end of the road down by the river with Auntie Carol! (If you’re reading this, love you Nalas!) I haven’t seen Auntie Carol in I guess going on 4+ years. That’s horrifying! Sorry, Auntie Carol!!!!

The farm that I walk by on my walks is a horse training and sales facility, with beautiful big barns, large tracts of fenced in areas, horses, dogs (including one of the plumpest Korgies I have ever seen – it’s so cute when it waddles!), a cat (that, of course, hates the dogs), and a rooster that crows regularly every 15 seconds or so as soon as it sees the sun. It’s such a beautiful property, but it’s interesting that though the barns are immaculate, beautifully painted, enormous, and perfect, the house is just a normal, typical Oak Ridge bomb-era type house. It’s almost mobile-home-ish, but one of the nicer ones that they have now. It’s so interesting to see that they put everything into their horses and their animals.

I forgot to include in the blog a couple of days ago that Cecil Matheney died on Saturday, the day of the traveling up to and settling into MN. I feel absolutely terribly (actually, words cannot express what I feel) that I didn’t go and see her when I was home for spring break or after finals. Mother went to her memorial service night before last and said that it was really good. I wish I could have been there. She said that everyone wanted to know the story of how Red (my dog) came to us. I don’t have any time to tell the story of Reddy, but I’ll certainly tell it later if I can remember to. It’s so great.

Thank you for all of the love, support, interest, and encouragement that you have given me over the years, Cecil, and I am eternally grateful to you for loving everyone equally and being so generous with your heart. Thank you, also, for Reddy, and before Reddy, for your dogs that were always so sweet to me, filling the dearth of puppy in my life (before you introduced us to Reddy) with lots of furry affection. I love you and miss you and hope that you are having a blast wherever you have decided to go.

I’m off to finish getting ready for the day. More to come later.

It’s 8:30pm and I just got back to the cabin. It was a really great day, and I am both excited and disappointed that it is already the weekend. Hung out with the campers, finished training, got “branded” (blue camp shirt and get to sign name in the tunnel), hung out with the campers, cleaned Basswood, cleaned Blue Heron, had village meeting where we got our cabin assignments (Brown Thrasher, 1-on-1s, teenage boys I think, lots of people assigned to this cabin), and went to dinner in Buffalo, MN with Annie, Emily, and Rachel. Wow – so much stuff to talk about! Rather daunting, but certainly doable if I just do a bit at a time.

After the morning walk, I went to the dining hall to set up, per the usual, and noticed that we were to have blueberry muffins, cereal, and watermelon. After setting up I went to back to Basswood to help them finish getting ready, and helped keep them occupied while Melissa got them corralled and Sam did his thing (probably sleeping in haha). While Melissa was finishing getting ready, I went in to talk to the guys and found Calvin moving his dirty clothes from his dirty laundry bag to his duffel bag. So disgusting. I told him that we would worry about that after breakfast, and he agreed. David nicely tied Calvin’s shoes for him, and we were finally ready to go.

Breakfast was fun, with lots of cereal (frosted flakes and cheerios), watermelon, and blueberry muffins. Instead of cereal I ate half of a bagel (oat and whole grain) with some grape jelly. It was good though. After breakfast we went back to the cabin and hung out for a little while, tidying up a little bit (not much), and since we didn’t have to be in training until 9:45am, I went to “fitness” with Basswood. David was being grumpy and wanted to just sleep, but we made him get up because all he wants to do is sleep. Unfortunately, Ernest (fitness leader) didn’t show up, so we just did puzzles together. Cal and I started out on a great one of Scooby Doo, Chris worked on one of the Coke Polar Bear, Sam did one of various Looney Tunes, and David slept and snored in the back on some really fabulously soft yoga-esque pads. Cal works so quickly on his puzzles – it was so cool to watch him work! He studied the pieces, thought about them, and they fit together perfectly almost every time. I wonder if it would be possible to focus some of his brain focus-power used for puzzles towards not going to the bathroom in his pants or walking fast enough to keep up with the rest of the group. Chris was having trouble with the Polar Bear, so he asked me to help, and Cal quickly finished his puzzle. Chris decided that the Polar Bear one was too difficult and so re-did the Scooby Doo puzzle. Cal came over to help me with the Polar Bear puzzle. Melissa soon moved on to a 500 piece puzzle. Chris, Cal, Sam, and I were sitting/lying on the nasty floor, but it was a great time.

Unfortunately, when I looked down at my watch, it was horrifyingly 10:15am. So I quickly walked to the Lower Lodge and discovered that the session actually started at 9:15am, not 9:45am, and so I was one hour late. It was awful. But I got the information and took the little test.

We next were “taught” the emergency procedures, and practiced a line search (performed when looking for a missing camper), looking for Matt, the Village Leader. It was really interesting. We walk in a line and stop, as a line, for each building while two or three of the closest people quickly and yet efficiently sweep through the building. We found him in Poplar hiding behind a mattress that was positioned upright, leaning against the wall. Once that was complete, we were free to go and clean various buildings. Hickory was first, which was a little bit of a mess after the costumery of the all-camp dance, but it wasn’t too bad. We next walked over to the staff lounge to fix things up, clean, and put things in order. Following the cleaning session we followed Cindy to laundry and delivered the campers’ laundry to their respective cabins. And …

FINALLY IT WAS TIME TO GET “BRANDED!!!!!!”

Cindy led us to the main office in the PC to get our staff t-shirts (that we’re required to wear every Friday and Sunday for check-in/out). We walked out on such a high to the green, stuffing ourselves into our staff shirts because most of us were already wearing 2 or 3 layers. As we stood in a circle, Chet told us the story of Paul, a nonverbal camper, who in 2003 wandered off from a campout (looking for the bathroom presumably) and was gone for around 18 hours. They had everyone out looking from the counselors to the police men to the volunteer fire department to the neighbors to flyers to social worker friends of Chet to anyone and everyone that could help. They had a helicopter search going at the end of it, and he was finally found in a tree in the far, far reaches of a neighbor’s backyard, mostly because of a profile that was made by the family, the counselors, and a detective. The counselors remembered that he had imitation-Vans shoes on, and they were able to look for shoe prints. Chet got really emotional when she told this story, and we were all quickly brought down from our high. I still get chills and worrying feelings in the back of my mind (actually, middle of my head, sort of above my ears), when I think about that story.

To complete the training, confirm us as counselors, and to cheer us up a bit, Cindy led us to the tunnel between main camp and the woods that goes beneath the road so that campers don’t have to cross the road, and we signed our names to the 2009 panels. It was great! We were then free to roam around and be with our cabins.

Rachel, Emily, Annie, and I went back to the cabin to remove some layers, and we made secret dinner plans. Emily listed her favorite foods, and so Annie and Rachel decided that the best place to go would be the Perkins Restaurant in Buffalo, MN. We were so excited. We then went our separate ways to find our cabins before lunch. It was about 12:10pm.

I found my campers out on the field and on the basketball court, Melissa watching while Chris hit tennis balls (“baseball”) with a bunch of other campers, David shooting hoops with some other campers, and Sam hitting things around with Cal. I stood, talked to Melissa, and watched Chris for a while, but then went to hang out with Cal and David. Cal was over by the fence by the road, looking longingly at the Bobcat construction equipment across the street where they were hacking away and removing brush. He just stared and stared at them. I looked over, and David was sitting down by Ernest and Sam, “helping Ernest with the music.” Ernest had his iPod speakers blaring fun pop, hip hop, rap, and other non-CA songs (CA = Camp Appropriate) while we all hung out on the basketball courts. It was so much fun!!!! David and I eventually started throwing the Frisbee, and Sam and Cal bounced a basketball back and forth. I was on such a high having received the staff t-shirt, and I was so happy that I was finally an official counselor! I had an amazing time, and thoroughly loved it!!!!

It was finally lunch time, and we had delicious pizza. Mmm … bleh. Jess, the VVL joined us for lunch, much to David’s delight. I wanted veggie and requested a piece be added to our tray. I took the food back and then went to get napkins. When I got back to the table, Cal had the veggie slice shoved into his mouth and was slobbering all over it, happy as a bug in a rug. Admittedly I was a little peeved, but didn’t really care enough to get up and get another slice. I just ate the cheese slices and ribbed Cal about taking “my slice of pizza” for the rest of the meal. He kept offering me pieces that were freshly bitten from, saying that I could have it because he only wanted the pizza for “everything but the bwack owl-wivs,” which he picked off with gusto. It was really entertaining! For dessert there were still-warm chocolate chip cookies, of which we each had two.

After lunch was down time, and we all went back to the cabin. In the very last minutes of lunch, Cal defecated in his underwear in his seat at the table, and we all, well, choked. I did my best not to gag, but it was certainly difficult. Chris, David, Melissa, and I stayed outside when we got back to the cabin while Sam went in to help Calvin change. It was awful. Poor Sam. Poor Cal. While we waited outside, Joelle came over and started talking to me as I sat in the grass. Chris sat down, too, and she started inching her way over closer to Chris. It was fabulous. Chris was so proud of the flyer that he got from the Twins game, and Joelle said she really liked his knight helmet last night. Eventually the Cal problem was taken care of (only after Sam had inadvertently pawed through Cal’s duffel bag which contained a large number of his dirty clothes, looking for clean underwear), and Cal and Sam joined us outside and Melissa went inside, finding Cal’s underwear and dirty shorts just lying in the center of the bathroom floor. She gagged, and brought it outside, throwing it under the tree while I went to get a plastic bag to put his clothes in. Horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. When I returned, David was sitting on the couch reading Cal while Chris was sitting in the rocking chair looking out. Once the “biohazards” were removed from the scene, Chris and I sat back outside for a while longer to hang out with Joelle, but then went inside.

Sam climbed up to the bed above Cal’s, and Chris mirrored him about 5 minutes later on the other bunk bed. Cal and I sat below Chris and I made Cal read a page in a firefighter book. He had a really, really hard time focusing (words cannot express how unfocused he was), focusing for only about 10 seconds at a time if that, and forgetting everything before and after each word or letter. It was really frustrating. After the first page, he was rewarded with getting to flip through all of the pages while I pointed to different things for him to identify or asked him where different images where within the picture. He was really great at this game, and it puzzled me that he could do that and puzzles with such rapidity, ease, and focus, but that reading was just not what he wanted to do, ever, unless it was an extremely inconvenient time (like about to leave for breakfast or lunch or some such). Sam read a little bit to Chris (who kept leaning down and reading the words on the page, answering my questions, etc. and saying that he was simply helping Cal, which I sure was true), tired of the game, and left to go “meditate” in his room (listen to his iPod).

I climbed up to take Sam’s place and Chris read to me various pages from an Arthur (the aardvark) book. He’s 17, but he reads probably at around a 3^rd grade level, interestingly, but he can spell like nobody’s business (well, read each letter aloud) and is so eager and willing to sound out each word. He can do some words contextually, and some of the only really difficult words he with which he needed assistance were “responsibility,” proper names, and those nasty tricky English words like “weigh.” He did wonderfully, and so when he asked me to read a Bernstein Bears book about substitute teacher pranks, I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t get very far, though, because I got tired of reading and Chris got distracted continually by Cal who kept getting up and down, switching beds, and standing up and moving around, all while sucking his thumb and dragging his blanket behind him. (OH – something that really disgusts me, is the fact that after Cal transferred a bunch of his dirty clothes to his duffle bag, he sucked his thumb. It is absolutely disgusting, because most of his belongings are soaked in urine or coated in a layer of his feces. He knows that he does these things, and he knows that he shouldn’t, but he continues. He goes to the bathroom fairly often, and so Melissa and I don’t know why he still goes in his underwear. Camp stress? I don’t think so. I think his mother definitely babies him.)

At the beginning of the rest time, David was whining about wanting to sleep, so I told him to take a nap in his bed. As soon as things started happening though, like reading time, he refused to settle down, and I told him that if he didn’t sleep now, he wouldn’t get another chance to today. I don’t know if he ever actually did get a nap, but he was at least quiet, which was a blessing. Melissa took a short nap on Chris’s cleaned-off bed.

After a little while, I got tired of being inside and so we all moved outside to sit in the grass in front of Basswood between Mourning Dove and Basswood. It was a lot of fun, David, Cal, Chris, and I sitting in the grass, and Joelle joined us once again. She has a crush on Chris, and it was so great watching them interact! Chris is so painfully shy, and Joelle confided in a stage whisper that she had asked him to dance last night. I commended her and we did a high five for “girl power.” Cheesy, yes, but also effective. Sam disappeared to the Lodge (presumably to set up for the talent show), and Melissa joined us in our circle, as did Jessica. It was great having the whole group sitting outside! At 2:00pm was the talent show, and we all went down to the fishbowl for a seat. While we were sitting outside earlier, David had told Ernest that he wanted to sing a song by the Spice Girls for the talent show, but once Melissa got there he changed his mind three times more: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and Miley Cyrus (I think I’m spelling that right). Not only does he not think his ideas through (such as knowing the lyrics), but he also gets horrible stage fright and so his brilliant ideas never come to fruition.

The talent show went great for everyone. Joelle finagled a seat beside Chris, and I freaked out inside about sitting on top of anthills. There were some absolutely fabulous acts, especially those that involved dancing (Isaiah got up and danced to thriller! It was one of my favorite talents in the entire talent show! I also really enjoyed Aaron dancing to Grease. They were just so happy about it all!) When it was our turn, David completely froze in the most annoying fashion (because it was his idea in the first place), and Melissa, Sam, and I danced around like fools, trying to get the guys to participate with us. Melissa and Sam were successful in getting some dance moves out of Cal and Chris, and so I grabbed David’s hands and made him dance with me. It was horrible for the guys! They get embarrassed so easily!

When we got back to the cabin, it was cleaning time, so the guys hauled all their things outside and sat outside while I swept so that when the guys came back in to “help” me, my slightly-OC (OC = obsessive compulsive) side wouldn’t claw my insides to shreds. Chris helped me with the bedroom, David helped me with the living room, and I think Cal helped with the bathroom.

At around 3:45pm, Calvin’s mother and sister (Beth) arrived at camp to pick him up. He was so happy to see them. Beth is younger than Cal and was very helpful with the luggage, etc. We walked out to the van (green astro with all the seats still in), and Cal started acting out, climbing into the front seat and throwing Beth’s throwing her things in the back. It was interesting to see how his behavior took a decidedly downward turn beginning about 2 hours before he was to be picked up from camp. He didn’t listen to his mother very well, and he didn’t speak very much at all. It was the same kid, but whereas earlier he had been having a good day, he was now having a not so good day. It was quite sad to witness, actually. After packing everything, Cal said goodbye to myself and Melissa, and I got a hug. I was so happy! Melissa got a wave and a “bye” after being reminded to say goodbye. It was so rewarding! And his mother was so glad to see him and have him back with her. Beth – I wonder what it’s like to have Calvin as an older (and yet mentally and physically younger) brother. Melissa and I returned to the cabin, and I went off to help clean Blue Heron so that we could do the Village Meeting sooner and thus be able to start our weekend sooner.

When I arrived at the cabin, Emily was already in action, cleaning the bathrooms, and so I started on the living room. Carissa came back and got the vacuum so that we could vacuum the entire cabin after sweeping, Rachel came in to pack her things and help wipe and sweep things down, and Annie helped out with the trash, etc. but then had to go to her village meeting. Elizabeth sat in her room and talked on the phone. We decided to leave the windows for her. Veronica was a no-show, but Emily, Carissa, and I certainly did more than our fare share, Emily doing the most work out of all of us by far. Matt signed off on our cabin, and so we cleaned up the supplies and made our way to the Upper Lodge for the village meeting. It was great, debriefing after the week, telling stories about campers, getting our new assignments, doing the Life Savers® awards (everyone gets a Life Saver®, and Matt honored each of us trainees with a broken Life Saver® because when he threw it no one was able to catch it, and I mean no one haha.), and having refreshments, etc. It was great to be recognized by the VL as doing well, and though I’m sure he did that for everyone, it was nice that he was willing to recognize us like that for our hard work and for congratulations. After the meeting were refreshments.

Emily, Rachel, and I made our way back to the cabin to get ready for the sneaking out for dinner, and Annie returned shortly thereafter. We all felt like shmucks, but Emily did put on a bit of make-up and looked the nicest of all of us. The clouds were really freaky looking, low, distinctly swirly, dark dark grey, and very scary with thunder. We grabbed Rachel’s and Carissa’s things (Carissa was going home, too, but she was being picked up by someone), and started walking towards the staff parking lot across the street from the bicycle shed. The sky was super intimidating and there were strong gusts with light sprinkles turning into rain for the last 15-foot sprint to the cars.

I’m super tired, so I’m just going to quickly bullet point the rest of it and hopefully I will be able to flesh it out tomorrow:

• Scary, scary drive
• Emily never been in a storm like that before
• Street/construction signs blown into the middle of the road
• Slicing rain and wind
• Small bits of hail, but didn’t last very long
• Rachel driving really fast, we wanted to go home and so we tried to honk and flash lights, etc. but she didn’t hear or see us
• Were able to drive out of it for the most part
• Dinner at Perkins
• Ordered Chicken and biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, and scrambled eggs
• Brought me chicken fried steak
• Were nice about their mix-up and brought me the real food (which I suspect was up in the window the whole time, the wait staff woman just grabbed the wrong thing)
• Great conversations and a lot of fun with Rachel, Annie, and Emily
• Talked about fanny packs, money/coins, the storm, etc.
• Talked about lots of things I can’t remember
• Rachel drove on home, Emily and I rode back with Annie
• On way back saw a flock of white pelicans huddled up in one of the little marshy “lakes,” packed tightly with one another against the shore, probably from the storm that had just passed; at first thought they were flamingos but they weren’t standing on tall stilty-legs, had longer bills/beaks, were white with a slight pinkish hue, and though were large, were not as large as flamingos.
• On way back also saw a wild turkey.
• Returned to cabin, Veronica Velcro-ed herself to us, Emily, Veronica, and I going to the dining hall to sign up for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, and Annie going to the cabin to talk to her Mom
• Emily and Veronica went on to the PC to do email Came back to the cabin, started typing a little bit, when Emily got back from checking her email was really excited because had heard from her Dad and her boyfriend (Mitch) via email, got her honors points for graduating with honors, did well in her exams, and was just on Cloud-9.
• Went bike riding, got devoured by mosquitoes wherever we went
• Rode from bike shed to cabin to get Emily’s camera
• Rode from dining hall to spot to take pictures while Annie got her camera from the cabin
• Rode down the road on my usual morning route, saw a big deer in the field on the right, told Annie and Emily (unfortunately had to yell so probably frightened the poor thing), and they tried to take pictures of it after we hastily turned around
• Made it back to camp
• Went to dining hall with Emily while Annie went to do computer stuff, got a lemon poppy seed muffin with lemon stuff on top – deeelish!!!! Emily got another bagel.
• Got back and came in here and started writing
• I am off to bed. Because it is almost midnight. Ick.

It’s hard to believe that a whole week has gone by. It’s just absolutely incredible!

Cal smells like sour milk, and I do believe that it is a result of the combination of body odor, improper washing, lack of deodorant, and wetting/defecating in his underwear.

British points of note:

• Words
• Fanny = Vagina
• Pavement = Sidewalk
• Pudding = General Dessert (e.g. What’s for pudding?)
• Angels’ Delight = “baby” or “child” food that resembles the stuff we Americans actually call “pudding”
• Tea = is not real if it is American, especially none of that herbal stuff
• Money
• Pounds = quid
• 1 pence, 2 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence coins
• 2 pound coin, rarer 5 pound coins just for special commemorative events (e.g. the death of Diana)
• Emily doesn’t get why our money looks almost exactly the same and is thus difficult to use, also why we use nickels and quarters.
• Wildlife Britain doesn’t have:
• Raccoons
• Possums
• Deer (well, they have them, just not in abundance)
• Chipmunks
• It makes sense, really, but it is still mind boggling in a way.