You are. And that is enough.
Today is my parents’ 46th anniversary. That’s a lot of time to stick together. To put it in another perspective, Britney Spears’ first marriage lasted 55 hours from ceremony to annulment. Mom and Dad’s marriage?
Over 7331 times longer.
Happy anniversary, guys.
Admittedly, I could do without the sunburn, but once I learn to put on suntan lotion (and not assume that I’ll be fine without it), I’ll be golden. Which is better than bright red.
Things got started yesterday when I told Matthew Feeney that I could join him and three others for a boat ride in Prior Lake the next morning. He said that was cool, gave me the address to meet everyone and said to be there around 9:15. Matthew showed up closer to 9:30, but he had stopped to get ice for the cooler so we’d have cold Coke to drink out on the lake.
We got some good news when he got there. We needed to bring the boat back around noon so it could get cleaned up and prepped for the next group of people who had it reserved for the afternoon (thus, the boat needed to be ready by 1:00). Turns out they called in and said they’d get to the docks around 4:00, so we had a couple extra hours to use the boat.
When we headed out onto the water, it was awesome. The temperature was warm, but not hot, the sun was shining, there were no clouds in the sky, a slight breeze… gorgeous conditions to spend hours on a pontoon boat in the middle of a lake. We spent the first part of it cruising around for a bit, then decided to drop anchor and fish for a while.
Technically, I guess the others fished while I was hanging out in the boat, but it was all good. They tried using lures, bobbers with… well, I’m not sure what they had on the hooks initially, but they got the most nibbles with the bait that Matthew brought along: raw bacon. Unfortunately, no one caught any fish, but they enjoyed fishing nonetheless.
Of course, we did more than fishing in the lake. Matthew and one of the kids had been on the lake earlier and knew about a couple of abandoned houses and a trail that led to another small lake, so we ended up on the shore to do a little exploring. The houses were pretty busted up with glass all over the place, one had shit in the attic (and when I say “shit”, I’m talking about human poop), and there was an easy chair up in a tree. Why it got put up there, I haven’t the slightest idea, but it was wedged between some branches at an awkward angle, so the lightest kid in the group (about 115 pounds) climbed up and got his picture taken while sitting in the chair.
The “small lake” was pretty much just a pond covered with algae, but Matthew wanted to try fishing in it anyway. He got off to a rough start when his first cast went up and over a power line, but after that… no fish. However, there were geese there. They were afraid of us.
We could tell because when we first got there, they all swam to the far side of the pond. Later on, one of the guys snuck around to the other side and scared them all away. Well, all but one. I’m not sure if it was injured or what, but instead of flying away, this goose ducked its head down to almost water (algae) level and started swimming away from him. And then we steered it in the other direction by throwing rocks into the water towards it. Bizarre.
Eventually, we decided to head back to the boat and went cruising around for a while. But we needed to do more than just cruise and fish. We were on a boat in the middle of a lake on a beautiful day: we needed to go swimming. One person didn’t want to and was resisting all efforts at peer pressure, so what did I do? A cannonball. Right next to the boat. And the water splashed up, over the seat of the pontoon boat and got him wet. Word.
Another was willing to go swimming, but didn’t have a suit. The best alternative to jumping in fully clothed? Jumping in au natural, of course. I don’t think there were any other boats around to see him, but even if there had been, I don’t think he would have cared. There was just one problem: he got on top of the seats to do a backflip into the water. He landed feet first, which was good, but it also meant there was nothing to protect his nuts from slapping directly onto the water. Ow.
But that last kid finally caved, so we were all in the water and some more of them were doing flips off the boat. One kid had never tried a backflip off the top of the seats before, so we explained that you didn’t need to worry about tucking too much, just jump and throw your arms back to help you rotate. Well, he didn’t throw his arms back. His arms made it about halfway up, then he grabbed his nose to plug it when he jumped. Consequently, he smacked his face onto the surface of the water. Ow again.
Later on, we were moving along at a decent pace and saw another pontoon boat coming toward us. It turned out to be a group of girls (vs. our boat of all guys). As we passed, one of them said, “Hi, boys.” On cue, one of the guys who was sitting on top of his seat turned to wave and turned himself right over the edge of the boat and into the lake. It was really funny (except for the bong on the side of the metal pontoon—thankfully, it was his elbow instead of his head). Then to top it off, as we stopped, one of the guys yelled, “HE CAN’T SWIM!” and dove off the back of the boat toward him. (They both swam up to the boat, but I can only imagine what the girls were thinking after all that happened.)
But even with all the minor mishaps and injuries, it was still an awesome day. But not golden. Nope, it’ll take a bunch of cold showers and a few days with my body covered in aloe before all the redness goes away.
I’m heading up to the Boundary Waters with some friends tomorrow and I was being very diligent while packing my gear. I grabbed a couple pairs of underwear and socks, rain jacket, water bottle and made sure to always know where my towel is. I think I did a good job with my pack, but there’s a problem: I neglected to do the same thing with my travel bag.
Consequently, for the five hour drive to the cabin where we’re staying tomorrow night, I have nothing to keep myself entertained. No book so I have something to read, no mp3 player so I can listen to music, no laptop so I can look at porn… nada.
Still, it’s going to be a fun trip and it’s going to keep me away from the blog for a few more days. I’m sure you’ll all find a way to manage and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of stories to share when I get back. However, if I have a repeat performance of what happened during the Beauty and the Geek outdoor challenge, you’ll probably read a lot more about how bored I was on the drive up.
1. The girl is hot.
10. She understands the binary system.
Yesterday, I finally got home after a week and a half at camp. It’s always a little tough getting back into the swing of things at home, which is probably why I haven’t tried posting anything until tonight.
Incidentally, there were several times when I thought yesterday was Tuesday. I don’t know why, especially since I’ve had classes on Tuesday nights for the last three months. I ended up having to take an Accounting exam on the Tuesday of camp, too, which made the first half of camp more interesting.
For one thing, it was a lot easier to get the kids to be quiet the first night. Last year, they kept whispering to each other until about 2:00 in the morning. This year, I told them all that I needed to study for my exam and I wouldn’t be able to focus if they were making noise. I got some ridiculous protests like “But I talk in my sleep!” That’s when I busted out an angry (and truthful) “These are not a good few days to be testing my patience!” They got quiet a lot faster than last time.
As it turned out, all the nighttime studying and lack of naps paid off: I scored a 95% on the exam. Along with e-mailing me my score, the professor added a note of thanks for taking the class seriously. Mind you, he was the second instructor—he taught managerial accounting, whereas the first guy taught financial accounting—so he doesn’t know that the 95% should help compensate for the two exams I took earlier in the course.
I know that you (and the campers) may be wondering about the “lack of naps” comment. It’s true, I like to take naps during my free time there. Part of that is because I don’t sleep very well (me + cot + not-long-enough sleeping bag ? restful nights). Another part is because I’m the lifeguard and sitting on the dock in the hot sun for big chunks of time saps a lot of energy out of my body. When they start asking to go swimming half an hour early… HA HA HA! No.
Ironically, we always go to a waterslide on Thursday, which was the day it was cold and drizzly. That’s good for keeping lines short for the slides. Hell, it kept the lifeguard staff short—we outnumbered them 5-to-1 when we got there and they eventually abandoned the rapids ride completely (a bunch of short curving slides between splash pools). However, the cold and drizzle chased us inside for lunch and eventually led us to leave a couple hours early.
Lessee… there was one night I was glad I have some movies on my laptop. We had some nasty weather coming our way, so everyone headed for shelter to wait out the storm. I’m sure a lot of parents can confirm this: getting a bunch of kids together can get noisy. Trust me, they get noisier when they’re in a room where there’s very little space to move (and the enclosed walls probably didn’t help). Thankfully, I had brought my laptop to the shelter and we all started watching the movie “Up” until the weather let up a little. That’s when everyone left the building, started getting ready for bed and then the power went out.
I guess a couple branches fell down on a nearby power line, so we had electricity again early the next afternoon, but camp is a lot more interesting when you have to take measures like putting road cones on top of toilet lids as a reminder to not use them because there’s no power for the water pump. It turns out that pouring a whole bunch of water into a toilet bowl really quickly will make it flush itself, so we filled a large barrel with lake water and put it next to the outdoor bathrooms (vs. the ones in the cabins).
I’m sure there’s plenty more to write about, but I’m a little rusty after so much time away from writing. I suppose I could have written something while I was there, but seriously, that would have cut a big chunk out of my nap time.
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Okay, a couple more notes: thanks to aloe and occasionally wearing a t-shirt while sitting on the dock or teaching swimming lessons, I’m only peeling a little bit on the top of my left ear, my nose and the back of my neck/shoulders. Given that I didn’t put on any suntan lotion while setting up camp—putting out buoys and the swim area rope—that’s a lot of thanks.
And setting up the swim area was an adventure. We had about an hour to put out the buoys, which was a snap since Brent had made anchors for all four of them that stay in the water year-round. He attached a line to three of them, so after finding the first, we followed the line and then approximated the location of the fourth compared to the other three. Before Brent made his anchors and everything, putting out buoys could take an hour or two—this year, it was closer to twenty minutes.
When working that evening, the water was really smooth. Not so much when trying to put out the rope. It’s a small lake, but we had… three foot swells with white caps? When you’re trying to loop a rope over the top of a high-floating buoy to mark the swim area, that doesn’t help much. There were a few times when I wrapped my legs around the buoy and reached up to tilt it toward me—the waves were still going over my head. At some point, a wave rocked one of the buoys hard enough to give me a bruise on the inside of my right thigh. And at another point, a wave hit me smack in the side of the head and it took six hours to get the water out of my ear. Needless to say, that morning was an adventure.
It’s almost time for summer camp and I think I’ve got everything packed that I need. (Thankfully, I have a safety net—commonly known as my parents—so if I’ve left anything important behind, they can bring it when they come to visit in a couple days.)
Note that I may or may not have internet access there, which means there probably won’t be any new blog entries until next weekend. (It also means a shitload of e-mails to delete when I get home, grumble grumble grumble…)
There’s also a distinct likelihood that without much time in the sun this summer, I could hold a yellow pepper and a cabbage in my hands and look like a beet salad. Or if I stack them up under my chin, a stoplight. If I cover up most of my face, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! You get the idea.
But those are minor details. The truth is that I’m about to spend the next week and a half at camp as the waterfront director (note the discussion about turning red above) and it’s gonna be a lot of fun. With that said, I better go through my stuff again. Not that I’ll be able to find anything at this point since I just threw a lot of it into a couple bags, but I’d rather not call home tonight with a plea to bring clean underwear.
