Falling Liquid, Falling Solids

My second week of work this school year has come and gone. The kids were great, but some of them leaked. I had to clean up vomit three times. None of these were as bad as the poop incident. A boy came back from the night hike and managed to make it within five feet of the toilet before disaster struck. I see this a lot: Kids tend to hold things in past the point of no return, and then make a mad dash for the nearest toilet. What often happens is the minute the stall door closes, a small, localized explosion occurs. In this particular case, absolutely none of it actually made it into the toilet. The boy, along with his poopy clothes and poopy self, didn't want to come out, but eventually he was coaxed into the shower by a helpful teacher, leaving behind more poop than I would have thought a small child could contain. Needless to say, lots of cleaning and washing needed to happen. Another kid had a similar problem, but his cabin leader handled it by bagging up his clothes and making him shower. At least this second disaster was contained by pants.

You'd think that fifth graders would be able to make it to the bathroom in time. Thankfully, most of them do. It's the exceptions we remember though. This is the downside of my job. It sometimes seems that the fifth graders of today are like the toddlers of yesteryear. The increasing infantilization of America is an interesting yet worrying phenomenon. A lot of the skills of yesteryear seem to be being acquired later in life, if at all. You'd think that being able to get to the toilet in time would be one of the skills considered mandatory after the age of 3 or 4, but you'd be wrong.

Later that night, it rained, and it was beautiful. The sound and smell of rain more than made up for all of the frantic cleaning earlier in the evening.

Happy Autumn Equinox

Each year, the temporal distance between the solstices and the equinoxes seems shorter, although I guess we're all halfway to somewhere. As I type these words, we're halfway to the Winter Solstice. I'm afraid to blink. If I do that, my eyes will open on the Winter Solstice and the final ashes of the year will whirl away on the winter wind. That is assuming that there will be wind. While I'm assuming things, I guess I'll go the distance and assume some actual rain into being as well.

Happy Autumn Equinox. The day started off a bit foggy, but it didn't last. Outside, doves and chickens mingle in the dirt under a blue sky. The squirrels have been decimating our avocados too. Here's some photos from yesterday.

At work last night, a couple of kids did some regurgitating in the darkness, meaning I earned my pay. Before this, a skunk wandered past the Hub, making a circuit of the cabins. Fearing that some sleepy kid would wander out and trip on him, I herded him away from the buildings. He let me get within about five feet before turning and waddling off.

Here are a pair of bad phone photos.

My work week began with vomit. This is actually not that uncommon. If you're in charge of nearly 200 kids, there's always going to be at least 1 or 2 of them vomiting, or peeing, or doing something else equally objectionable. The first kid vomited out of sheer homesickness. The second, a cabin leader, emptied the contents of his dinner into the camp office's recycling basket at about 2 AM. At least he made it into some sort of container. I'm thankful for that.

Other than that, it looks like it's shaping up to be pretty good week.

Of course, this morning I drove nearly all the way to the school where I student teach before being tipped off by the lack of rush-hour traffic that something was amiss. That's when it hit me. It's Veteran's Day. Shit. No school. I turned around and went home. There's a lesson in this somewhere. I think the lesson is, "get more sleep." Wish I could.