July 11

Saturday, July 11, 2009

It’s almost 11am and I’m sitting in the Fishbowl (favorite writing spot outside) looking at the gorgeous lake and enjoying the windy breezes and the coolness of the shade. I’m checking emails (specifically from Mom who is in England – I miss her so much – and it sucks that I’ll be working when she gets back Stateside tomorrow (Sunday) and so I won’t be able to call her or receive her calls). Today is planned a staff trip over to Minneapolis for a Twins game. Definitely planning on only buying a $10 ticket and then trying not to spend any more money. Rachel says that the food is ridiculously expensive and she would rather spend her money on a t-shirt. I think I’ll pass on both counts, but my stomach can be quite persuasive. Haha.

Last night after an absolutely incredible shower in Whippoorwill (definitely going to miss those showers!), I walked down to Brown Thrashers, Rachel’s cabin, where Emily T. and Sarah B. met up with us. I wanted to dress up a little, and so I wore my purple dress and some make up and flip flops (flip flops – what a luxury! I miss wearing them so much!).

Rachel drove Emily, Sarah, and me to St. Cloud for some quality off-camp time. It was so much fun – really great being with them! We went to Old Navy and I bought way too much ($35), then we went and gorged on Chipotle which was quite tasty (certain degrees fresher than Willy’s, but I missed the Tubbiez so much!), raided Target (I didn’t guy anything – imagine that!!!!), and finally to the “Cheap Foods” (or some other hilarious name) for some ice cream/dessert treats. So tasty! At Chipotle I’m sure we were super obnoxious laughing so hard and talking, inevitably, about BMs and personal cares. We all told some fabulous stories, Emily’s about Tim (fat creepy guy who squealed and whined and was all around horrible and loved vacuums – used to have a job vaccuuming) and Warren (I think that was his name, the guy with OCD who took hours and hours in the morning to getready), Sarah and I about Amanda (Sarah’s story about naked Amanda running around on the deck and Sarah trying to shield her with a towel while dodging her slaps and being yelled and cursed at), and Rachel about her amazing campers Roger (loved him!) and horrible John (as in “Leah and John”) and Jordan (helping clean by mopping) as well as some others. We of course continued the conversations at Target and the grocery store.

Emily and Sarah had never been into a proper grocery store, and they were absolutely awed by the size, variety, and sheer numbers of the horrible things that we Americans eat. Rachel and I thought it was hilarious, especially when Sarah marveled at an entire aisle being devoted to cereal.

We got back about 10:45pm and then we all sat up and talked until about 11:45pm when Emily went back to Kingfisher. Rachel stayed and we talked about all of our campers, camp gossip, horrible counselors that we don’t want to work with, etc. until we fell into bed around 1am. Sarah and I talked Rachel into staying over at Whippoorwill instead of going back to her cabin (Brown Thrasher), and we fitted her with two sheets and several sweatshirts. It was pretty funny because it got really chilly last night and so when we woke up, it was considerably freezing. I even crawled into the sleeping bag that I’d been sleeping on! Imagine that! It was amazing. Poor Rachel, though! She was positively freezing!

I woke up at 6:30am and thought, “Oh hell no. I am not waking or getting up now!” and so I went back to sleep pretty quickly. Unfortunately, my watch had other plans and went off at 6:55am, 7:00am, and 7:15am. I was about to just smash my watch (still attached to wrist) into the wall or anything to keep it from going off again, but luckily I was too lazy to do anything other than grumble and snuggle back in. I woke up at about 9am and just stayed in bed playing with my phone until about 9:40am at which point I got up and started getting ready for breakfast. Sarah and Rachel also got up and we went down to the “continental” breakfast by about 9:50am where I had a luxurious bowl of frosted flakes, a blueberry bagel, and a fabulous orange. I need to start drinking more water, though.

We sat and talked with each other and other people for a while and then we split up, Sarah to go to laundry and Rachel and Emily to their respective cabins (I think). I wanted to go on a bike ride up around the supposed resort area that’s up to the left out of camp (instead of turning right to get back to the main road). But sadly when I went over to the bike shed there was not a working bike to be found. All had either busted gear shifts, the brakes were rubbing against the tires, or they looked like they were going to rust to dust as soon as you pressed down on a pedal or even looked at it with too much intent. It was quite frustrating. So I went up and got my computer and here I am! Beautiful day!

Here are some items that I need to talk about but that I probably will never get around to elaborating upon:

Amanda-isms:

• Purty in the paaaaaaah-tty (potty).
• Power in the puuuuuurthy.
• Red orange
• “Pop” generally
• Hold Daddy’s Pop.
• Good pop.
• The use of the word “Lady”
• “Bath tub” that was actually the tarp for the water slide
• “Bath” also referred to the lake
• Pizza in the microwave (on Friday as soon as woke up)
• Could go from dead asleep immediately to manic – it was so freaky
• Lady’s coming/Food’s coming.
• Good job, Amanda, good job. (accompanied by repetitive, painful high fives)
• So quick when she would go to hit or kick you.
• Wouldn’t read her magazines, would just page through them, point at things, look at you, and nod – imitation of her mother, I think
• Had huge stack of cards that would go through and look at (Pokémon, regular playing cards, and flash cards, all the same size)
• Had OCD – way arranged and stacked things
• Wipe your butt nice. Flush nice.
• Repetitive
• No reasoning with her.

April, Janine, Nicole, Molly

• All extremely high functioning
• All except Molly love their stuffed animals
• All except one (can’t remember which) work at Options, a warehouse company from what I could gather
• April
• Downs Syndrome
• Knows all the dance moves to NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye”
• A joy to dance with and be around
• Stuffed animals: Cookies and Cream (raccoon from the canteen) and Wolfy (brought with her)
• Scolds Molly a lot and was told several times by Nicole to “just leave her alone” or “she’s okay” or something to that effect
• Janine
• Boyfriend named Dustin
• Extremely thin, gets cold easily, brags about how can eat anything, brags about how doesn’t need any exercise
• Stuffed animal: Grizzly (black bear from the canteen)
• Nicole
• Very touch, very affectionate, maybe bisexual?
• Loved the attention from Kristin
• Loves very much Nathan, the son of the people with whom they live
• Boyfriend, but I forget his name
• Stuffed animals: Snowball (white signature bear from the canteen) and another one that I can’t remember right now
• Something seemingly wrong with her every day (head ache, cold, allergies, tired, etc.)
• Molly
• Cochlear ear implant on left side – I was always too afraid of hurting her to take it off or put it back on so Melissa and Sarah did that for the most part
• Really, really thick glasses – thicker than Greg Lawson’s!
• Can say “Mama Mia” and can make singing sounds
• Signs extremely fast and needs to be asked to slow down
• Highly amused with my attempts at sign language
• Loves to dance and sing and be around people who are dancing and singing
• Prefers April to Janine and Nicole

Alright, I’m going to try to remember some of Thursday during and after my time off. And all of Friday. I don’t see this going well. Haha.

For time off Sarah D. and I took Melissa’s care to Target in Buffalo where we wated lots of time but had a great time. She bought a phone and I bought stuff that I didn’t need, namely Black Pepper and Sea Salt chips and I think candy and I think some other things that I can’t remember. Oh, yeah, some thongs. (To you, Z, thongs feel like a perpetual wedgie. Not sure if I’ll ever get used to the feeling.) Sarah bought a cheap phone for her to use to call her Aunt who lives in Minneapolis. We had a great time. Sarah really likes Christian music, so I pretty much just atrophied there and back while listening to the Christian music station that Melissa’s radio was set to and Sarah sang. I just didn’t say anything. We got back by about noon and I stayed in the cabin to put things up and enjoy the last fleeting moments of time off. I accidentally fell asleep and didn’t make it to the dining room until 12:40pm (lunch started at 12:30pm) and Melissa was pissed. Oh well. I got two plates (tacos – ugh) and went to eat with Amanda. I sat in the grass and just watched her eat and found several four leaf clovers as well as two five leaf clovers! I think I’ve saved them somewhere …

I think I’ve already written about her horrendous behaviors somewhere, on paper, so I’ll just briefly say that it was about the tarp (the “bath tub” = “water slide” from Wednesday) spread out to dry on the hills behind the lodge. We made it back to the cabin, put on her bathing suit, it was quite a struggle, Melissa yelled at me to put shoes on Amanda and I just *argh* couldn’t take it and so shouted back to her “Yeah, I got it!” as I was chasing Amanda back out the door after Sarah helped me put shoes on her, and we came back to the water front where we sat in the grass, she under the big tree by the waterfront gate and me a good ways off, well out of striking distance. I got an ant bite on my ass, which pissed me off to no end. It hurt, and then it was so itchy. Kind of funny in retrospect, but other than that, ugh. At about 2:35pm Melissa came down to replace me so that I could go with everyone else to the concert over at Camp Courage.

When I got back to the cabin everyone was moving slowly, and so Sarah and I tried to get them going, but then someone had to go to the bathroom, meaning that everyone now had to go to the bathroom, and so that took forever. We got down to the main gate by about 3pm, 10 minutes late, but that’s okay b/c Miranda (who was driving us) didn’t get there until 3:05pm and then when she brought the bus up the wheel chair lift wasn’t working (for Halie from Cardinal). Nikkita from Cardinal also came with us. Sarah D. accompanied them b/c Elizabeth was a CIT and there was only room enough for one of Cardinal’s counselors to come with and CITs are not allowed to be alone with a camper, much less two.

We finally left by about 3:15pm and made it safely, if late. The concert was a state sinfonia from Minneapolis. It definitely made me miss playing in the symphony and all my music buddies at school and at home. It was quite nostalgic. As soon as we got there Nikki started having a behavior (grabbing with a death hold onto Sarah’s hair). Sarah went behind a building away from all the campers and Camp Courage staff, leading Nikki by Nikki’s grasp upon Sarah’s hair), and I got Miranda. I hung out with Halie until Miranda had everything resolved (Nikki and Sarah got picked up and went back to Camp Friendship). Halie is so cute, but amazingly heavy for her size! I was astounded! But she was so cute – she loved playing with hair! After Miranda came back, I went and sat with the rest of the group and wrote a behavior report for Amanda while listening to the music.

At the conclusion of the whole thing, we went around trying to find someone to thank for inviting us (Maria, who we eventually found), and we also looked for a bathroom which we also found. Yay. I “danced” with Halie out in the parking lot (singing and rolling her around forwards and backwards and in circles in her wheelchair) until the bus came around. When we got back, Sarah went to go relieve Melissa and the rest of us made our way to the cabin. We didn’t get back until about 5:30pm exactly and so April and Janine came with me to pick up the picnic stuff and take it to the campout location (The Flats).

Lunch time. Later!

It’s about 2pm and I’m talking on the phone with Michael. Gossip, gossip, gossip! Sat with Emily and we listened to some of her music on youtube. I’m going to go sit down by the waterfront with her and Rachel and Sarah B., and hopefully I’ll have time tonight to remember more from Thursday, yesterday, and today. I really need to call Linda – I’ll probably do that today at the baseball game. I’m also taking pen and paper to the game in case I feel like writing while I’m there.

Later!