Friday, April 10, 2015

Walking Through the Work Week

After some rain early (very early) Tuesday morning, and a gentle misting the following night, the sky has dried out. Out my window, I see a uniform bone-dry blue. Birds are flitting through the underbrush and taking a worrying interest in the garden. Yesterday, we witnessed a bird snacking on the snap peas. Birds don't understand the concept of ownership, which means our harvest, such as it is, won't be as bountiful as it might otherwise have been.

My work week breezed by. Jeanine recently got a pair of Fitbits from an online trading group (Listia, to be precise), and I've been using mine to log my activity (mainly walking, but also sleeping - it's kind of addictive). It's linked to an app. on my phone, so I can watch the step counter in action as I walk. This means that I've been moving more. My current walking goal is to complete my Walk To Mordor challenge by the end of June, which means I have to walk around 90 miles a month each month until then. So far, it hasn't been hard. I currently have 232 more miles to go, which is pretty good, considering that I started with 1779 of them. I started the challenge around 3 years ago though, and there have been some months in the interim during which I walked very little. At work, I walk loops around some of the camp buildings while the kids are sleeping. Last night, in the middle of a nearly 5 mile walk, a cabin leader came out and asked me what I was doing, and then wondered why anybody would want to do such a thing. Kids these days...

The homesick kid from the beginning of the week ended up going home on Tuesday morning. He came back for a whole hour on Thursday morning before falling apart again. Apparently he had a "spectacular" meltdown. I'm glad that I wasn't around for that. Despite counseling kids with these types of issues for a decade now, I really can't relate very well. I never felt that way as a child. Despite this, most of the time I can help them feel better quickly, but this particular kid wasn't having any of that. He seemed determined to be as miserable as possible. It is said that happiness is a skill. If so, this kid isn't very skilled. One of the teachers indicated that he is profoundly spoiled too, so I guess he is used to getting his way, and his way proved to be the highway.

I took Wednesday night off so Jeanine and I could go see Magma at Slim's in San Francisco. It was a profoundly excellent performance. A somewhat longer review will surface shortly on my music blog.

Shifting gears here, my old high school teacher, Bill the Fox Guy, is the subject of an article here. It's an interesting read. It has been a pleasure reconnecting with him.

Finally, I got a nice surprise this week in the form of a children's book. It was written and illustrated by Loretta Halter, who is a fifth grade teacher for one of the schools that brings students to camp every year. Last year, she gave each staff member a copy of this book, and this year, once again, I found a book in my inbox at work. This one. Inside, she wrote an appreciative message about me, something I'm sure that she did for all of the other staff members who worked the week she was at camp with her students. There was also a big thank you note from the kids, although I'm not sure if these were her students or not. A lot of schools have their kids write thank you cards to the staff, and sometimes kids take it upon themselves to thank us without being asked. Either way, we sometimes joke that these are our real paychecks. This is why we do what we do, and it's always nice to be thanked. Otherwise, I guess it would be a thankless task, wouldn't it? I'm really touched that Loretta took the time to do this. It made my week.

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