Summer Camp, Week 3

Every Thursday at summer camp we invite the parents to dinner and then entertain them with songs and silliness. Staff members participate in skits, kids perform Amazing Camper Tricks, and various counselors add their two cents as well. It all ends in a raffle during which our camp director gives away humorous things he has found at flea markets and garage sales (and occasionally the side of the road somewhere). There's nothing quite like watching elementary school kids winning bad velvet paintings, cans of beans, and singing fish wall ornaments from the seventies. It's all in good fun, of course. Lots of the kids look positively nonplussed, but despite the relative lack of usability of the prizes, everybody wants to win.

Since July 4th fell on a Thursday this year, we didn't do that this week. Instead, we all went home at 4:00, although after gathering up Jeanine and Eva, I went back because there was a BBQ for staff and families. We stuffed our faces with lots of homemade goodness and enjoyed the relative cool of the evening.

The days this week were HOT, with the temperature readout on my dashboard reading 107 degrees at one point (it wasn't quite that hot out, but somewhere in my car, it was). Getting into the pond felt better than ever. It's always cold in there because the all-encompassing layer of duckweed blocks out the sunlight.

I finally caught and relocated the other rattlesnake I'd seen lurking by the edge of our lower field, but not until Friday, when the temperature finally dropped around 15 degrees. It was too warm for the snakes to be out until then.

I had a younger group of kids this week too, including a kid with a severely stunted arm. He wowed everybody at the archery range though, getting a bull's eye with his first shot. It's so inspiring to see people overcome physical limitations like that. He wasn't there the day I took my group to the climbing wall though. I would have loved to see him succeed at that too. I know he would have.

The cicadas are popping up everywhere. We saw a couple that had recently finished emerging from the restrictive confines of their larval-stage exoskeletons. The kids in my group gathered as many of the empty exoskeletons as they could. One boy decorated his hat with them.

Friday, I went up to catch the inaugural Free Salamander Exhibit gig in Oakland while Jeanine took the girls to see Weird Al at the county fair in Pleasanton. On Saturday, I took the girls to Great America while Jeanine worked. It was so crowded that we spent most of our time waiting in line. Not surprising at all. Today, we're hanging out at home, occasionally venturing into the yard to rake and mow. Tomorrow, I'm back to working with older kids again.

Ah, Summer.