Sunday, June 21

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The mosquitoes feast upon me as if it is their last meal. And if I have anything to do with it, it will be. It’s about 8:15am and I’m going through my luggage and waiting on my laundry. On my way to laundry I got 4 mosquito bites – this is ridiculous! I have one on each of my wrists, one on my left ankle on the top, and one on my right foot right above the arch. So itchy. So pissed. So itchy.

Remember to write about:

• Cal’s singing camp songs (“Good night, Fluffy head” and “Camp Friendship, Camp Friendship”)
• David singing camp songs (“Tarzan”)
• I brought way too many shoes. Of course. But so far it appears I brought the right amount of clothing

After I did my morning walk on which I called Mom/Nala/Gramma, Billy, Dad, Michael, and a failed attempt at calling Brenda (at work, but I got Matty who was on his way to church), I got my laundry, and finished packing, I moved my things to Brown Thrasher where I ran into Kara. I waited on her to do her hair and make up, and then we went to brunch. There were these interesting breakfast burritos with just egg inside and cheese on the top, along with some salsa. To be honest it wasn’t heinous, but then again it wasn’t the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. Certainly nothing compared to the food at home or Brenda/Matty’s “bacos.” I sat with Emily, Annie, and Veronica, and Kara sat with us, but left with a bagel so that she could go do her hair back at the cabin. We sat around talking, sharing stories, and just hanging out for a little while, and then we left.

I went back to the cabin to find Kara, and she was still getting ready. We decided to go and find the cabin folder (we weren’t able to locate them earlier). We went to the PC (Program Center) to the Meeting Room to look for them, but they were not there. So we just got on the staff computers for a little while. It was fun. I relinquished my computer after not too long to Barbara, and went in search of the Respite campers to see Chris and David.

I found them in Arts and Crafts and hung out with them until it was time to go to the all staff meeting at noon. While hanging out with Chris and David, I met Matt, another respite camper, who was super sweet and very friendly. I made him a smoking pipe from black construction paper, tape, and later some orange and yellow pieces of scrap paper so that it looked like flames (yes, I know that the pipe does not actually flame up, but he thought it was cool). He had a construction paper cell phone that someone had made for him, and he called and texted me. We also all called our fathers to wish them “Happy Father’s Day.” It was a lot of fun. David and Chris were having an awesome time!

At the all staff meeting Elle, the camp nurse, showed us proper transferring techniques, etc. No one really cared, but I guess she had gotten a real chewing out for not teaching us personal cares, so she was just trying to cover her exposed ass. No one was really paying attention, and those who were just, as I said before, didn’t really care because we had already been taught by the more experienced counselors or we already knew how.

I’m working in Brown Thrasher this week, and we have 5 campers, ranging in age from 16 to 25 (I think the breakdown goes 16, 17, 19, 25 and one other). In order of favorites, their names are Paul, James, Nick, Caleb, and Randy. Paul is my favorite so far because of his curiosity, the way he asks questions and occasionally talks to himself, his love for music and “dancing,” and the fact that he is autistic. He is so sweet and so eager to just walk. But more of them all later. My fellow counselors are Meagan, Peter (came up from Eden Wood), Kara, Adam, and Sam. All of the campers are one-to-one’s and so we are all absolutely exhausted. I have my eyes closed and am drifting in and out as I type. But I have to get this down, because I will not be able to remember this later on!

After the meeting, we all sat in a circle, going over the information forms given to us. In what seemed like no time whatsoever, it was time to run around and get everything ready and be present for the arrival of the campers and their families/friends.

We ran around and got the cabin backpack, the box, and everything else that we needed, constantly on the lookout for the rain that looked (and ended up being) imminent. It was 1:20pm and most of us were gathered at the front gate, a mass of blue shirts, chattering excitedly and nervously about the incoming campers, last weeks’ favorite campers (Sean!), and the potential for more favorites this week.

Campers started coming in and most of the cabins filled up pretty quickly, but there were many of us still standing around waiting for more campers by the 3 and 3:30pm mark. It sucked having to stand there in the sprinkles/rain (yes, it had started raining as soon as we were all gathered outside waiting for campers). Many cabins ran back to their lock closets and looked for raincoats to bring out to the gate for the campers. I hung out with the current Kingfisher cabin, and with a girl from South Korea going to school in MN (wtf?!) who is in orientation to be a counselor. She speaks good English for the most part, but sometimes gets confused when you talk quickly. We were both starving by this point, and so I ran down to the gym where check-in was taking place and nabbed us some absolutely delicious chocolate chip cookies.

At around 3:30pm or so I went out and met Nick who had just arrived and escorted him to the cabin. At the car his mother kept apologizing for his sticky state, explaining that he had spilled an entire iced coffee on himself (what the hell was he doing drinking iced coffee anyway?!), and that though she had changed his clothes, she had not been able to change his clothes. “I’m not a bad mother!” she kept assuring us, which I thought was interesting and disturbing. He has a wheel chair for long distances, but she wanted him to walk as much as possible while here at camp. He’s nonverbal, and though he does know a little bit of sign language and has a new communication board, he does not have the best attention span/focus (unless it comes to James, which we found out later at night, around the time when we were ridiculously loopy from exhaustion and boredom, though granted we were quite glad for the quiet time. Of course, after check-in was completed for the most part, it stopped raining. Yay. Haha.

Instead of doing snack, etc, we all scattered with our respective campers. Nick will have to be with male staff just because he is so darn strong. James does better with males than with females, but he’s pretty sweet for the most part. Caleb has attached himself to Kara, while Randy prefers Meagan’s company. I absolutely love hanging out with Paul, and I’m being super unfair and hanging out with Paul as much as possible. Yes, I’m a selfish bitch. He’s just such a sweet guy! And he’ll hold your wrist and walk super fast because he is so excited to explore and look around. He’s a wanderer and just loves to walk around and look in rooms, open doors, and especially rummage through old newspapers looking for “Fleet Farm” ads and the occasional catalogue, especially those advertising guns. ::shudder:: I hate guns. Adam was responsible for hanging out with James.

Peter follows Nick as he runs down to the fence by the water front in order to play in the mud and just sit. Nick is ridiculously strong and scares me not a little bit because of his unpredictability, heavy weight, and penchant for escaping.

After I get back with Nick, Adam, James, Paul and I decided to go fill up our water jug at the dining hall. Adam apparently is not allowed to be left alone with campers, which is ridiculous because he is one of the most competent, helpful, and incredible counselors here, but he’s just 16. Such bummer! But anyway, back to what turned out to be an epic voyage to the dining hall. James is nonverbal and doesn’t walk all that fast. He takes advantage of the sweeter, more pleading tones and movements, and he does not like to be crowded (he grabs and pulls at shirts when this happens). Adam and I do our best to keep James moving, but Paul is walking fast, pacing, and talking eagerly about everything (especially expressing his fear of horse flies, deer flies, and mosquitoes). It takes forever to get everyone to the dining hall. Luckily Mickey happens by and she is able to help us out. Kara and Caleb also show up while we are at the dining hall and so there’s a good ratio for Paul and myself to be able to separate from the crowd a little bit and wander out on our own. We got back to the cabin, dropped off the water, and set out in search of magazines, catalogues, and everything else.

I’ve walked more with Paul today than I did all last week during orientation/training. It was absolutely insane. And he walks so quickly that I have to trot and almost jog to keep up with him. He takes hold of your wrist once he has warmed up to you and really wants to get somewhere and just pulls you on your “walk.” Adam hung out with us a lot yesterday, going around with us to look for these “Fleet Farm” ads (which at first I thought was something else that I can’t remember right now but that I can’t remember right now). We walked all over looking for old newspapers: PC, Arts and Crafts, Lodge, various cabins, and finally we ran into Chet who had a great idea to look out at the camping shed for old newspapers used for starting fires, etc. Jackpot! We sat in there and looked through a lot of things. We wandered through the larger building attached, and walked around the buildings some more, even trying Hickory’s door (locked, of course) to see if there were any games or books that we could find. Towards the end of the day he kept asking for a dictionary or an encyclopedia. During our wanderings throughout the afternoon, we met Randy, one of our campers, who was waking with Meagan.

Randy is a black individual with horrible, brown, front teeth that are extremely widely spaced apart. He is not able to close his lips over his gums and teeth, and I wonder how he deals with the dryness of his mouth since it is difficult to get him to drink anything if it’s not during a meal. He is also non-verbal and only points, grunts occasionally, and snores. He loves to smell hair, throw things and other things, and it can take a while for him to get it into his mind that he wants to eat something. He loves kicking and hitting, banging and destroying things.

For some reason, I can’t remember why right now (sad, beleaguered brain!), it ended up just being Adam, James, and I leaving late for dinner. Sam had gone for a walk with Paul earlier, and because it was raining, I had put my rain jacket on Paul. By the time Adam, James, and I were ready to leave for dinner, it was pouring, and so Adam ran over to laundry to try to find ponchos, rain jackets, or something else. When he got back, he just had one poncho, and he was absolutely soaked. Dripping, drenched, sad little Adam. We tried to get the poncho on James, but he refused to put his head through, and when he finally did put on the poncho, he simply pulled it down his body to get it off, completely splitting it down the front. We looked for a rain jacket in his luggage, but we could only find a blue zip-up jacket. We helped him put that on, and then Adam in the poncho ran over to the dining hall to borrow some ponchos. Fabulous. He came back saying that Meagan had an umbrella somewhere in her luggage. We were able to find that, but of course by that time it had stopped raining for the most part. It was quite amusing. We made it to dinner, finally, with James laughing and looking at the umbrella the whole way, moving at a surprisingly normal walking pace (completely took us by surprise). Dinner was this horrible sliced turkey, yellowish murky gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and red and white swirled cake with frosting for dessert. Paul loved it, James ate a bite or two, Randy finally settled down to eat, Caleb refused to eat when I tried to help him eat while Kara was eating her dinner, and Nick gave Peter all sorts of trouble in the eating department. We’re definitely going to remember shirt savers for James, Nick, and probably Randy from now on.

After dinner, Paul helped me clear the table and we decided to go for another walk. We walked everywhere, once again, but then settled on going to the gym to listen to his CDs (he had left them there earlier in the day when he was out walking with Sam). We pulled out the electronic speaker equipment and started playing music in the back of the gym, dancing and having a great time! We started doing this about 6:30pm, and I had so much fun!!!!!! At around 7pm the Program Staff started filtering to set up for the Fire Extravaganza (usually held outside at the fire pit but because it was raining, it was moved indoors to the gym). While some tapes colored streamers to a fan to simulate a fire, the rest went over their skits and costumery. Randy and Meagan wandered in, as did some other cabins.

When it started getting pretty crowded, Paul wanted to leave. We went over to Arts and Crafts where he looked through all of their magazines, finding a catalogue from 2004. We walked over to the bicycle shed to look in, but the darkness and bugs made him extremely nervous. It started to sprinkle again, and we went back into the camping shed and looked through more papers, making a huge mess and relaxing away from the mosquitoes. At around 8:30pm we left, noticing that all the other campers were returning to their cabins after the evening program. It was lightly sprinkling, but neither one of us wanted to wear the rain jacket that I was carrying. Paul was very hungry, and we made our way over to the dining room for a snack of a jelly sandwich (I couldn’t find the peanut butter) and granola. Paul was worried that the granola would hurt his teeth while he ate it, but I assured him that it was soft. He really enjoyed it!

When we got back to the cabin the rest of the campers were there, along with Jess (VVL) who was hanging out with us. She worked extensively last year with Nick, and so she was an incredible help. She and Meagan changed Nick, which was hilarious because one would inevitably be left with him in the back while the other ran for supplies, and you would hear the one in the back pleading for the other to hurry because he was “escaping.” Peter went back to help out. Adam, Kara, and I hung out in the front with the rest of everyone. Jess reluctantly left around 9:15pm, and boy – were we sad that she had to go.

When I was in the camping shed I had also picked up some extra paper because I knew that James liked to shred paper according to his paperwork. People were everywhere hanging out, taking care of each other, assisting each other, etc, and I was in the back unpacking James. When I came out front for another of his bags, I saw James standing by the sofa going back to the beds in a pool of shredded paper. He had also had an accident, which I had suspected because he had been reaching back and pulling at the seat of his pants for a while, but I hadn’t really thought much about it. His jean shorts were showing urine, and he had a strong odor about him. That’s one thing about James: he never sits down unless he is eating or making his way to lie down in bed. Meagan and Peter took him back to be changed, and he preferred to stand. Unfortunately, none of us were aware that he had also defecated in his briefs (briefs = diapers), and so those unceremoniously plopped onto the floor. He had enjoyed a really, really good bowel movement, and so there was much to clean up. Luckily it wasn’t loose. I handed out supplies, Adam held his hands, Meagan wiped him up, and Peter was an incredible person and threw away the dirty brief, picked up the feces, and helped Meagan get a new brief on him. He was such a happy camper after he had been changed it was amazing!

Since he was already undressed, we decided to go ahead and put him into his PJ onesies, the pair with the sports theme. They were fleece and so I turned on a fan in the back to both circulate air for the smell but also to cool things down. I handed James his night time squishy ball, and he happily roamed around the cabin for the next hours and hours until Matt kindly informed us what all the sheets did not: he would not go to bed unless he had a bed rail and it was completely dark and quiet. We didn’t learn this crucial bit of news until around 11:15pm, by which time we were all completely beat. Matt turned out the lights, turned off the fan, and put in the bed rail. James was out within 15 minutes. Sam hadn’t even shown up until 11pm, while we were in the process of negotiating for who would take Sam’s place. But luckily he showed up.

Over the next 3 hours (9pm until almost midnight), here is how the sleeping and non-sleeping went down. Caleb was the first one to go to sleep, thanks to Kara. Paul went to bed on his own, after having brushed his teeth and crawled into his sleeping bag with a stack of Fleet Farm. It was such a cute sight – Paul asleep with all of his Fleet Farm ads spread over him! Nick disappeared at some point and I found him curled up in his bed, if not asleep then at least in bed. His PJs are hand-sewn onesies that look just like a long sleeved shirt, flannel pants, and socks over his hands, but it is in fact a onesie! I’m not exactly sure how to explain it, but it was pretty cool with a zipper in the back. But after about 30 minutes of quiet time, he got back up and roamed, following James around. Once James went to bed, though, he wasn’t too long behind him.

After Matt left Meagan had a fine time trying to get Randy into his PJs. She eventually just gave up and lay on Sam’s bed by the door. I happened to be in the storage closet at the time, and so to prevent him from going in, I just locked myself in there. He rattled the handle a couple of times, but all was suspiciously quiet. After about 10 minutes I asked Meagan where he was. Yep, sure enough, he was still by the door of the storage closet. Peter was able to distract him briefly while I slipped out and locked it behind me. Because he likes throwing things, Meagan, Peter, and Adam first said that they were lucky he wasn’t throwing them. Jinxed. He began throwing them at objects on the floor, which in the end included Meagan as she had surrendered on the floor. We all got distracted by something, probably Nick, but we suddenly realized that Randy was no longer in the living room with us. Huh! I went to look and it turns out he was curled up in his bed with his shoes off, almost asleep. Sure, he was still in his clothes, but he was down!

During all this fun stuff with Randy, we heard this loud crash. I went back to look and Nick had pulled off his bedrail and it was lying on the floor. He had one leg off the bed, and when I flicked the light on he squinted at me as if he had been awakened in the night by something not dangerous but certainly quite puzzling just the same. He tried to put it back, but he kept trying to get it out again. I eventually just put the rail up and waited for him to go back to sleep at which point I put the rail back in.

Once everyone was in bed, the counselors oozed our way to bed. We were all so tired. I had to go out to laundry to grab a sleeping bag, a blanket, and a pillow, but was not able to locate a pillow. Sad. Oh well, I don’t really need one. Hanging out with the guys all day has made me absolutely exhausted, something that I knew was going to happen but for which I was unprepared all the same. All the walking/jogging, dancing, things to remember, etc. are so difficult, but I find myself always laughing and enjoying myself to some extent. There’s always something that they do or say that makes you chuckle on the inside (and laugh on the outside sometimes).

Notes that didn’t write about yet:

• James’ mother with her endless list of details that were not written in the paperwork and that one could not remember even if one really truly tried (in other words, as hard as we tried, we cannot remember everything)
  
• Chris and his batman mask that one of the Respite staff made for him

Favorite campers from last week:

• Camp favorites:
• Sean
• Spitting/sneezing
• “Come oooooonnnnnnnnn!!!!”
• “Later!” (sounded like “nadir”)
• “Meeee?!” (starts out low pitch and goes higher)
• Exclamations of “Oh!!!!” while others are shooting hoops
• Timmy
• Football game ‘o Timmy (his rules, always switching sides)
• If you need to get him to go somewhere, just chase him as if you were a zombie (he spent a lot of time “chopping” people’s heads off)
• Particularly attached to Ernest who could get himself and the campers worked up in no time whatsoever
• Janis
• Menatanka, MN (where her family is) vs. Minneapolis, MN (where her group home is)
• “I love eeeeeverybodyyyy!!!!”
• “I don’t wanna go home,” repeated over and over and over again
• The romance of Scott and Sarah
• The romances of the small girl campers and the male counselors
• The Kingfisher Clan: Charlie, Scott, August, Chris, Chad
  

Saturday, June 20

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Good morning! What a fabulous Saturday morning! It’s about 9:15am, and I am sitting in my favorite spot in the “Fishbowl” (the small courtyard outside of the Lower Lodge facing the lake), enjoying the morning coolness, watching the water’s constant motion towards the shore to my left, and wondering about the six+ boats that I see drifting on the lake at various rates of morning leisure. I’m still really aware of the different bird calls here, but I’m settling in and really am enjoying the trees’ rustlings, twittering of the birds, and faint sounds of cars, boats, etc. that create a background hum very similar to paradise. Today promises to be a hot day, and I am very much looking forward to it. The sky is ridiculously clear and brilliant; it almost hurts to look at it and I have to constantly shift my gaze because of the intensity. There are a couple of white smudges over the trees on the other side of the lake, but hopefully we will maintain our good weather for today. It’s supposed to be around 85 degrees F today, so pretty darn hot. There is a day trip to the rodeo in Buffalo, MN planned, and I’m really excited to go. Hopefully it will be worth t he horrendous $15 fee to get in!

I’m finally going to get to go online today, and I will most certainly look up some news! The internet so far is moving pretty slowly, so it’s just a matter of patience. I don’t mind at all – it’s gorgeous out here.

This morning I slept in an hour, and I must admit it was pretty difficult – I kept waking up to check my watch. Even though I wanted the extra hour of sleep, I was also very eager to get up and get going for the day! I finally got up around 7:20am for my morning walk, but didn’t really get on the road until around 7:30am. I knew that this was not enough time by any stretch of the imagination to do walk and be back by 8am to go to breakfast with Emily and Annie, but I wanted to get some exercise anyway. I called mother in Memphis and was afraid I had woken her up, but luckily she had gotten up about 30 minutes ago. We chatted for a good while, I told her about yesterday and some of the quirks of the campers, and I talked about plans for today. She, Gramma, and Nala have very loose plans which must include at some (possibly multiple) point(s) steak for Gramma and more cocktails. It was a great, refreshing walk with a breeze on the way back! I didn’t make it all the way to the main road because I had to turn around to get back in time, but I did make it a fair distance. So refreshing! On the way back I passed one of the few male counselors in another village, I didn’t remember/know his name, who was out for a morning jog.

When I got back Annie and Emily were still getting ready, so I scarfed down half a bag of granola and waited for them. I did a part of a crossword puzzle out on the deck, and by that time they were, of course, ready to go down to breakfast. Veronica was in the shower so we left without her.

Breakfast was carbolicious to the max. There were incredibly huge and decadent muffins that actually looked like cupcakes, cereal, and the usual assortment of bagels/etc. The food service woman (I have got to find out her name!) also heated up some leftover breakfast sandwiches from a couple of mornings ago. I had half of a multigrain bagel, half a breakfast sandwich, an almost miniscule amount of cornflakes, and though I got half of a poppy seed muffin, I ended up not eating it and put it back. Instead of the water I wanted, I got lemonade, which was a bummer, but I have a lot of water so I’m not too discouraged. We sad around at breakfast, eating and talking, and Veronica showed up and sat with us. The respite campers came in, David and Chris among them, and I got to say hi and talk to them for a little while. The guy I saw running this morning came in and joined us and we all introduced ourselves. His name is Derek, and I’m not sure if that’s how you spell his name or not. He’s really nice and is reading A Long Way Home, the memoir of a Somali child soldier. Annie loves memoirs and so she asked him about it. He’s from Nebraska.

After breakfast we all came back to the cabin, I grabbed my laptop, and came down here to the Fishbowl. Josh walked past to go sit at the dock but didn’t come say hi, and Barbara was also out on the dock. Emily came down and we looked through her facebook together, looking at pictures of where she wants us to go when we visit her in England (Rachel, Annie, and I). It looks absolutely incredible, and I cannot wait!!!!!! I really hope it works out!!!!

Off to the store! More later!

Notes:

• Emily gets paid less than us, supposedly, and will make hardly any money because she will have spent it all getting here, getting back home, and visiting New York with her boyfriend (flying in from the UK to meet her)

It’s 1:30am and I am so tired. I’m going to briefly bullet point the rest of the day so that I hopefully don’t forget things, but also so that I can do my shower thing and do the sleeping thing so that I can get up early, do the morning walk thing, and finally do the laundry thing. Oh man. So super excited for shower (I smell absolutely rank) and sleep. It’s hard to believe everything that we’ve done today – we really packed it all in!

• Emily came down while I was in the Fishbowl reading news online and doing facebook (of course), and we sat and looked at facebook photos of everywhere that she is going to take us when we go to visit her in England
• Walmart run with Veronica, Annie, and Emily
• I was only one to offer to pay Annie for gas: $5
• Spent a shit ton of money
• Got back by 12:45pm in time for lunch
• Leftover chili, toasty dogs, watermelon, green beans
• I had chili and cheese and crackers and green beans
• After lunch came back to cabin to get thank you note supplies and went with Emily down to the waterfront
• Annie came down eventually and we went out on the water
• Water time!
• Myself in the back of the two-person kayak
• Emily in the back of the canoe, Annie in the front of the canoe
• Had a great time paddling, drifting, and talking
• Went pretty far, stayed out for about an hour, came back in, I switched boats with Emily so that I was sitting in the front of the canoe and Annie was in the back
• We paddled around for a little longer but we were all getting tired (and sunburned probably)
• Saw two great blue herons, a turtle, and lots of doggies that belong to our neighbors
• Went to get ready for rodeo because didn’t know if the meeting time was at 4pm or 5:30pm
• Went to the gate at 4pm-ish with Annie and Elizabeth, but trip didn’t leave until 5:30pm
• Sat at the picnic table at Arts and Crafts for a while with Rachel (different Rachel from previously), but then decided we should go fill up on food so that we don’t spend any money on food at the rodeo; Elizabeth went to do laundry
• I ate an orange, half a baggie of granola, half of a multigrain bagel
• I made and saved the other half of the multigrain bagel for the rodeo, and we all grabbed sinful amounts of baggies of granola
• Sat there talking and Veronica found us; she joined us
• On around 4:45pm, George the music person came over and started talking to us; he has a disability, mostly Asperger’s I’m thinking
• He told us all about the Cleveland and someone’s baseball game today
• We also heard in detail the entire actions and dialogue of the Batman and Robin trio series
• 5:15pm left the Dining Hall and sat at the Arts and Crafts table for a while
• The main group left at around 5:30pm, but we were waiting, according to Rachel, for Grace, Kate, and Josh to arrive (they were coming from Kate’s house)
• They didn’t arrive until 6:15pm, and said they were going to put food in the refrigerator, but then still weren’t around by 6:45pm
• I was super pissed
• We finally decided to go find them, and we found them at the lake (later found out they had found a turtle outside the staff lounge and had taken it down to the lake)
• We left without them
• Rachel was really bad at remembering/giving directions, so she had poor Annie driving all over Buffalo, MN
• Stopped at an ATM for Elizabeth and Rachel
• Rachel finally called the mom of one of her friends for directions
• Made it to the rodeo; there was a $14 entrance fee
• We made walked around for a bit and then made our way towards the seating area (I think we were in section E or something to that effect)
• A rodeo is the perfect place to go if you hate animals. This is what I have decided. Especially if you hate calves and steers. During the roping and three-legged tying of the calves most of the calves would get up and fall over on their necks, twisting at weird angles. I started breathing really rapidly and deeply and in a way panicking while trying not to cry too much – I’m tearing up and getting that tight feeling in my chest and head just thinking about it. It upset me so much. I always forget how much I hate rodeos, but only after I’m already there. I was so freaking upset. Also, their branded numbers were still fresh, with either very beginning scabbing or scabbing having just fallen off. The wounds were still pink and extremely clear and wide, and it pained me so much. I have just a hard time even typing this. Poor things! I know it’s the cowboys’ livelihoods on the line and that I should be rooting for the cowboy and not the animal he’s chasing or riding, but I couldn’t help myself.
• Basically I hate rodeos.
• Rodeo things to expound upon when not so tired:
• Probably one of the most uncomfortable experiences I’ve ever had.
• To begin with, I was probably pretty darn pissed off because of the hypocritical rhetoric they had going on via the announcer.
• Making fun of the kid
• Cheering for the animals (sheep, calves, steers) to get away and probably offending several people in the process
• Who we all sat with (Annie, Rachel, Elizabeth, me, Grace, Kate, Josh, one other person who I can’t remember right now); we did not sit with the rest of the group
• Really enjoyed the barrel racing
• Hated he bucking broncos and bull riding because I know what they do to make them buck!
• Had this “Wild Thing” show where white capuchin monkeys rode border collies as they rounded up sheep into a pin, then a pick up truck bed, then the top of the cab of the pick up truck.
• Dance – huge group from Camp Friendship – we shut down the house!
• Band sang happy birthday to Lorna
• We all danced together and had a great time
• Mechanical bull riding
• Annie
• One of the Polish girls
• Grace
• Huge bruises on inside of thighs – badges of honor!
• Annie was so sweet
• Perkins afterwards, 10 of us (I think): Elizabeth, Grace, Josh, Polish girls (2), Annie, Me, Kate, Rachel, Derek
• I had a grilled cheese sandwich and fries; wish I had requested some tomato on the sandwich as well
• Was delish
• Most people just had dessert stuff
• So full and gassy from all the greasy food
• It seems like I’ve just been bleeding money this weekend

Alright. It’s 2am. Shower and bedtime. So ready for this!

Ta-ta for now!

~ Mei

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.

Thursday, June 18

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Good morning! It’s about 7:30am, and I have just returned from a fabulous morning walk! I got up a bit late (around 6:30am), and so I wasn’t able to get away for the walk until around 6:45am,but it was a very satisfying walk! I called and talked to Nala, Billy, and Hammy (mother) – I am so glad that I have my morning time! I want to try and call Brenda at some point, but I never know when she’s working, meaning that I don’t want to wake her up super early on her day off or anything of the sort. I suppose I could try calling later at night, but I’m always writing this and also I forget. But I’ll do better!

The beauty of mists on fields being slowly peeled away by the ever-brightening sky is a beauty that should never get old. I know that I will sooner or later lose take the morning beauty for granted, but hopefully I’ll be able to hold on to the awe and wonder for maybe even a little bit longer. There were promising patches of blue sky that I saw while I was walking, and I’m really hoping that those patches turn into all-out sunshine! I’ll keep my hopes low, though, and wish for “even just an hour of sunshine.”

Those in training get this morning off (don’t have to do anything until lunch with the cabin at 12:30pm, but I’m going to eat breakfast and spend part of the day with my cabin if I can’t bum a ride to a store or something today. I hope I can get to a store today, because I don’t know if there will be an opportunity to go this weekend, and I really need detergent – have to wash socks so that I can keep going on the morning walks!

Glad I got a couple of blogs posted last night – it would have been pretty poor on my part to keep writing without posting. I hope I was able to edit out any offensive parts, but I’ll hopefully get a chance to look through them again tonight to make sure they got edited. It’s just so much to read! I know, I know, y’all have to read it, too, but I can’t just skim for errors/edits – I actually have to read the stuff! Wait – that didn’t come out right. Let’s try again: Thank you so much for reading my blog postings! I greatly value the readership and look forward to any feedback that y’all may have! Yes, that sounds a lot better. Haha.

Alright – off to get ready for the day, specifically breakfast, because I am starving!!!!!!

It’s almost 10:30pm, and I just completed a fabulous shower and am sitting in the living room of Blue Heron with Veronica, Annie, Carissa, and Emily witting around and wandering in and out. We’re watching this fabulous lightening storm that belongs to a tornado and severe storm warning (that they don’t know about). The warning will hopefully diffuse about 11:00pm, from what Melissa found on her cell phone.

I have two bug bites on my left foot, one in the instep and one between my big toe and second toe. They itch like hell, and it is absolutely the worst. I wish I could make it to the HC – but the storm is extremely intimidating. I may have to, though, because I am just so freaking itchy! Veronica and Carissa are headed to the dining hall to grab some food. Veronica is scared of lightening and is currently wearing her bicycle helmet as they walk towards the dining hall.

Today was one of the best days ever so far. Didn’t get to the dining hall until just before 8am, and I went to set up the table. But surprise, surprise – Sam had beat me to it all and had already set the table and was sitting waiting for his food. Unfortunately he had forgotten utensils, but he had gotten napkins. Oops. We had English muffin, leftover ham, fried egg, and cheese sandwiches (awful, but one of the most nutritious meals we’ve had here, and that’s sad), as well canned peaches. Yum. I had one sandwich, an orange, and a banana. It was an interesting breakfast.

Since those in training got the morning off, I spent the first part of the day with Basswood. When we got back to the cabin we sat around and drew, hung out, and just waited. We left about 9:30am for the fishing. While Chris went off to the Twins game and Sam went off to set up the high ropes course, Melissa, David, Cal, and I went fishing with the fishing guide Chris. We initially were to take the banana boat (the boat that was used for the completion of the boating training from a couple days ago), but there was gasoline leaking everywhere. So we took the Caddy, and it looked quite ridiculous with just five of us on it. But whatever. It worked. The sun from this morning was completely gone, hidden behind overcast nastiness. It was very windy with choppy waves and dark waters. We went out to a clump of marshy grasses, weighed anchor, and I had a great time. Cal and David were fairly peeved that they didn’t catch anything, Melissa was complaining per her usual (mostly about how much she’s not getting paid while working here), and Chris talked to her about their wages. I just had a great time sitting on the boat, answering David’s inquiries and inane comments, and trying to keep Melissa from lashing out verbally at the guys. She said a couple times that she was at the “end of her rope,” “really grumpy,” etc. I was kinda frustrated with her, but it’s not my place and she’s fine, I guess. We had a good long time out on the boat fishing, and it was really nice.

When we got back, we prepped for some farm time to be followed by archery. We walked through the tunnel, which is painted inside with different things on each panel, lots of hands with names written/painted in, years, themes, etc. It was really great! As soon as we stepped out of the tunnel into the woods, we were absolutely mobbed by mosquitoes, coming out of nowhere, and attacking us like kamikaze creatures in for their last meal. It was incredibly obnoxious. We made it up to the pump to fill up the water jug, but Melissa had forgotten cups, so I went back to main camp (a much shorter route because I was able to cross the road and didn’t have to go the through-the-woods-and-then-tunnel way. I got the cups and then went back to the cabin to change into some long sleeves so that I wouldn’t have to put on mosquito repellant on my arms (my legs were already coated).

When I got back to the farm area, Melissa, Cal, and David were sitting at the table, and when they saw me they jumped up and wanted to show me the sheep, Toby and Annie. Such huge, itchity, scratchity, devouring-everything, freshly-sheared sheep! I made sure that no fingers came even close to the sheep’s mouths, encouraging them to make a fist and put it up to (not through) the fence so that the sheep, mostly Annie, could give us kisses. They gave fabulous snotty kisses. They pet the sheep over the top of the fence, and we just had a great time while Melissa decorated the cups and just sat at the table. Kinda rude to the campers, but she was “grumpy,” and I guess didn’t’ really want to participate. Argh. So around 11:30pm we made our way over to the archery area where Ernest, the “Archery Leader” arrived about 15 minutes late(r). It was a lot of fun, with Cal, Melissa, and David doing fabulously! Cal and David don’t process directions very well, and they don’t retain them very well either, but we all had a great time. I think I lost/left my sunglasses out there, because I have not been able to find them. Maybe I left them on the Caddy while we were fishing. I’m super peeved that I’ve had them for less than a week and they are already gone. Grrr.

On the way back, Melissa and the guys headed to the bathrooms in the PC while I went ahead, washed my hands in the Lodge, and set up for lunch. Sam showed up later much to the delight of Cal and David. Lunch was soft tacos, Spanish rice, chips, and cake for dessert. I made more of a nacho thing, but it was relatively okay. I had a small piece of cake, scraping off as much of the icing as possible. The guys loved the food, and had a great time eating and talking. Chet came and ate lunch with us, and David was able to ask if he would be able to call his parents today. She said that he was more than welcome to come by about 1:15pm or so. He was thrilled.

I didn’t have to get back for training sessions until 2pm, so after lunch we all went back to the cabin. David went back to take a nap and then went to call his parents with Chet in her office, Sam and Cal sat at the picnic table outside the cabin and played cards, and I sat inside with Melissa and watched while she did a couple of activity/experience reports. Eventually I moved outside because I was very bored watching Melissa and sat with Sam and Cal, drawing and talking. Melissa came and joined us after her return from the bathroom a couple of minutes before David returned.

I left at 2pm for the Lower Lodge for some more fabulous sessions, but Sam didn’t show up until around 2:30pm. We had all mostly moved outside to hang out, relax, and just be in the sun (which had emerged by this time). Rachel and I sat up at the picnic table on the side of the hill, and had a nice chat, but then Veronica came up and the mood definitely changed. I did my best to keep the conversation moving, but it always somehow ended up back on Veronica. “We don’t know. We don’t care. We’re moving on. Go away. Now.” But you of course can’t say that to someone.

The Standards of Behavior session was taught by Sam (a female one, different from PR Sam – there are a lot of repeat names here), a volunteer manager, as was the Visual and Hearing Impairments/etc. session. It was pretty interesting information, but once again the info could have been presented in a better form. But whatever. It was information.

After that we had a short break and then a session with Jess, the Volunteer Village Leader (VVL) outside sitting in a circle, which was amazing. There was a cabin of females waging a water war/fight during the similarly-named activity, and it was so much fun watching them laugh so hard at each drop of water arching through the air on its final mission to soak the target. It was great! We then moved to the Volunteer House for the rest of the session (the only time we would ever be allowed to be in the V House). It was a long 20 minutes in the V House. The three things that LITs (Leaders in Training = Volunteers) can never ever do are: be alone with a camper, deal with behaviors, or deal with any bodily fluids (this includes not being able to help a person eat because of saliva, helping with personal care for the obvious reasons, etc.).

Next we made our way back to the Lower Lodge for Emergency Procedures training with Cindy, which was really good. The main rules are: count your campers, stay calm, and don’t tell your campers the specifics (or anything if you can help it) of what is going on. Yay. She then told us about line sweeps that they use throughout camp whenever someone is missing. As the last activity of that session we did a line sweep from the Lodge towards Eagle cabin looking for Matt who was hiding out. We found him, and we moved on to the tent and campfire stuff taught by Matt and Cindy. It was entertaining and informative, with a fabulous tent set-up demonstration. It involved fabulous amounts of communication failures and hilarity. Everyone was so excruciatingly hot, and so it was nice when they were done. The session ended about 10 minutes late.

Rachel, Emily, and I came back to the cabin, me mostly because I wanted to change out of the long sleeved shirt and into something a little more manageable. We were thus pretty late getting to dinner. Basswood was already seated and was eating, but they didn’t have napkins! They don’t know how to set up for dinner – what will they do without me?! Haha. Chris was back and was so excited because the Twins won over the Pittsburg Pirates 5 – 2. He gloated about it to Hot Andrew who refused to believe it, bantering back and forth with everyone about the score. It was great fun. According to Chris, because the Pirates lost, Andrew owed him 20 push-ups.

Dinner was this thing called “tater tots hash” or “smash” or some such. It was the leftover taco meat from lunch (tacos), tater tots of course, probably some cream of chicken or some other cream-of-something soup. It is certainly a Midwestern/super cold weather food – total and utter carb overload. If that wasn’t enough, there were also bread slices (which were actually whole grain with caraway and fennel seeds on the top – fabulous artisan-esque bread), and yellow and green green beans. I had a spoon full of the tater tots thingy, lots of the green beans, and lots of cucumbers and bread. In f act, I took a bunch of cucumbers and a slice of bread back to the Basswood cabin with me after dinner.

The guys received badges (like the Girl Scout badges that mother used to sew onto the Girl Scout vests) in each of their activities, Chris and Cal receiving a baking patch and David receiving a fishing patch. They were so proud of them! Chris and Cal had made cookies in baking class today, and they wanted to share. There were coconut and chocolate chip and coconut cookies, but since I’m not a big fan of coconut, I just ate the chocolate chips out of one of the cookies. It was pretty good! We sat around and just died in the oppressive humidity and heat, miserable because the fans weren’t strong enough and we were way too miserable/uncomfortable/hot for them to do any good. Sam went back into the counselor bedroom for some “meditation” time (just lies there with his iPod), and Melissa and I talked, died, and were pretty darn miserable, as were the guys. About 7:15pm we got up and made our way over to Hickory where the games, puzzles, and costumes are for the big camp dance.

Dance stories to tell:

• Sam’s date
• Didn’t actually materialize, but one of the campers was certainly interested in dancing with him!
• Chris’s date
• Christina, a counselor, who asked him at the Twins game
• Chris later ditched his date to dance with 9 other females, one of which was Jess who he said danced “really fast!” I’m not sure what that means, but I’m guessing it’s good. Haha.
• Matt’s date
• I’m not sure which story this is
• Gossip, specifically relationship-wise
• Matt and his girlfriend
• Josh and his actual girlfriend
• Scott and Sarah
• Jeremy and Joelle
• I met Joelle and her friend Jessica as I was swinging in the hammock swing outside of Basswood. They came over in their dresses that they were going to wear at the dance, and told me about the many compliments they had received all afternoon from passing admirers. They told me to get over to Hickory quickly before the costumes ran out!
• Joelle told me that Jeremy, a fellow camper over in probably Wassie, had asked her to the dance, and that she was going with him. She was really excited, and couldn’t wait to go to the dance with Jeremy and Jessica (a trio, because Jessica didn’t have a date). It was great getting to talk to them!
• At the dance, I saw Jeremy and Joelle slow dancing, and it was absolutely adorable. But gasp! Towards the end, while I’m dancing with August, Melissa sidles up and excitedly shows me that Joelle is actually dancing with Chris instead! I was so happy for Chris!
• Dancing with Charlie and August
• Music not camp-appropriate, but so much fun
• David’s date
• Wanted to know if he had to take Caitlin on a real date
• Josh’s date
• He was able to avoid dancing with her, with the closest contact being part of a conga line
• Costumery
• Costumes in Hickory
• David wore an absolutely fabulous fuchsia button up short sleeved blouse thingy with clocks on it (so strange), and he also wore a grey wig with short curly hair
• Chris wore his knight’s helmet that Sam made him and the jerkin part of a jester costume which actually looked like a knight’s outfit
• Cal wore a Batman half-face mask with an apron from a pizza shop
• Melissa wore … well, I can’t really remember, but she eventually ended up wearing David’s wig
• I wore antennae with aliens on the ends and a blonde ponytail weave clipped into my hair. It was fabulous.

After the dance we returned our items to Hickory (Sam had disappeared but we saw him in the hammock swing as we approached the cabin), picked out some books to read before their bedtime, and headed for “home.” Once home Sam took them to take showers while Melissa and I stayed behind to pick the guys up.

Points to make:

• Calvin clogged the toilet – don’t know what this has to do with using the showers à David came back to take a shower at the cabin
• Got the opportunity to pack and individual for home:
• Calvin’s clothing was soaked in urine/smelled strongly of urine
• Calvin’s mother certainly babies him
• Hot Andrew came by with the meds and did 34 push-ups – he’s so attractive – and a white boy to boot! It’s really quite annoying.
• Bernstein Bears story about Pollution read for bedtime
• Left, but as was walking past the cabin, Chris caught my attention through the window so I went in the back door
• Calvin had nightmares last night and was scared
• Calvin was scared of the dark
• Chris did a great job talking to him and reassuring him that it was okay to turn off the bathroom light
• I told Cal that the lights would be on for a while longer, and that he should try to fall asleep as quickly as possible before the lights are turned off and he won’t have nightmares
• Sam came in and took over, and I got to leave

It’s interesting, but I’m so much more tired tonight after having attended actual activities with the campers rather than the previous nights after a day of just sitting downstairs having information shoved down my throat. I know it’s a big duh, but I certainly did not expect to be this tired. ::Sigh::

I feel that I am missing something, but I am sure to come back to this posting, and I will certainly be hopefully fleshing this out and adding whatever is missing.

Everyone had a GREAT time at the dance, and I cannot wait to go back!

The dance was great! David danced with Caitlin, the female counselor that Sam prompted him to ask, Chris was super popular and danced with about 10 girls including Jessica (the Volunteer Village Leader) and Joelle (a camper in Mourning Dove, right next door), Sam wandered in and out (I think he’s pretty uncomfortable with himself … maybe he’s gay … that would be incredible!), Melissa danced her heart out, and I danced with a series of amazing campers and counselors and training counselors. It was so much fun – I absolutely loved it! They had brownies and lemonade as refreshments, but I much preferred the water fountain. Haha. Of course.

Two of my favorite dance partners were Charlie and August of Kingfisher. Charlie held my hand and we danced and sang in the group, and when I danced with August, he squeezed my hands really tightly and just smiled and looked around. I hope he really enjoyed himself! The last couple of songs he held both of my hands, my hands crossed, and we had a great dance. So much fun!

David did a somersault as part of his dance, which was strange, but he had a great time! So much fun! He’ll be here for another two weeks plus respite weekends. He’s in it for the long haul.

Ta-ta for now!

~ Mei