Well now what?

Well the summer of 2011 has rounded the bend.  Over in Middlebury they are post-Field Days to be followed quickly by back-to-school shopping.  The Tweed River Music Festival has come and gone (without me) and the last camper left yesterday around 1:00 PM (without me).

It has been a summer that turned out much differently than I had envisioned.  Plans of learning to play the guitar (2 new chords-that’s it), running every day (once around the lake) and making a gazillion grilled cheese sandwiches (accomplished that one) were squashed by work.

My romantic life was on hold.  Basically a summer of celibacy.  My laundry getting mixed up and delivered to one of the female counselors’ cabins by mistake was as close as I got to love.

Showering after work tonight and I’m down to one bar of Ivory the size of a dime.  Enough for one armpit which means I have to stand sideways when ever I converse with anyone so’s not to offend.  So I figure I can put a little adventure in my life, a little change, a little shake-me-up and take care of Mr. B.O. at the same time.  I’m going soap shopping!

I’m going soap shopping and after 30 plus years of loyalty I’m planning on coming home with something different than Ivory.  

First stop is aisle 9 at Kinney’s Drug Store.  Aisle 9.  Hosiery, Cosmetics, Implements (huh?), Facial Essentials, Shower and Bath and Skin Care.  This is not going to be as easy as I had hoped but I remain determined. Mantra: change is good, change is good.  No it’s not.  Change is scary, can’t I just get my Ivory and go home?

Apparently there have been several changes in the soap world in the past 30 years.  Who knew cucumber, lemon verbena, shea butter, exfoliation and micro beads were an essential part of being clean.  There may be a panic attack in my future.  And nothing against the Irish but I’ve known a few and they haven’t got a lock on freshness.

Oh this is interesting.  Down on the bottom shelf all in a row.  Boraxo, Lava and Kirk’s Castile.  This is the section for people who don’t mind scrubbing off an arm in the name of cleanliness.  I think I might have gone too far and work my way back up.  

My final answer Regis?  Zest.  I’ve heard of it.  Serious questions about the Ocean Energy and the Scent Caps System that promises to release long lasting clean scents.  But it’s right next to the Ivory so I don’t feel as though I’ve strayed too far.   Take a deep breath and head quickly to the cash register.  And we’re done.    

That was actually liberating.  Almost exhilarating.  But exhausting.  I’ll say goodnight.  I’ve got to get to bed so I can wake up and take a shower.  

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

Today I got out of the kitchen

and got to go for a hike with Don MacIntosh and a group of eight year olds.  The tripping department is wonderful about putting these hikes, canoe trips and overnights together and once and awhile you can tag along.  After about a 20 minute ride, oh wait a minute...Everett put on your seatbelt...we made it to the trailhead for the Wright Mountain Trail.  The hike includes a sidetrail to the Devil's Den caves where we won't get to go in but we can look in because four people have gone in and not come out and they never found their bodies.  Ooh, like I'm really scared.

We learned that before heading out on any hike it's important to get rid of any excess weight and check the trail map one last time.

Trip Leader

Hiking with 8 and 9 year old boys at first seems like a nightmare.  And it is.  But you can learn a lot by being patient and just lending an ear.  Did you know that the typical human swallows 12 spiders during their lifetime?  While they are sleeping.  And you probably know this too but if you hold a match to your  butt and fart it will explode.  Jason's brother did it.

We stopped for gorp, water and a quick rest after about 10 minutes.  No Wilem we are not almost there.  

The boys.

I'm sorry you spilled your water, I bet you'll be more careful next time.  

Cows fart with their eyes closed.

About half an hour later we stopped for lunch.  (This is not going to be a long hike.)  We had lunch at this great cabin with a wonderful view.

Wonderful view

Cabin and the boys

After lunch we had a wonderful time doing what is called rest period.  I don't know at what age we stop this ritual but I for one would vote in favor of a mandatory 1 hour nap after lunch.  It was actually a very nice time.  The boys settled down, the clouds over head floated peacefully by and the breeze gently worked its way through the beech tree canopy.  Until James farted.  Which he did not do on purpose.  Did so.  Did not.  Did so.  Ten minutes of suppressed giggling and we're on our way.

Anyway.  If Gandalf and Frodo and the smallest transformer fought against the spells of Voldemort it would be a tie.  Would not.  Would so.  I think I sprained my ankle can someone carry me?

Heading down the trail towards the caves things started getting real quiet even though everyone knew there is no such thing as the devil and he wouldn't be hanging out in a bunch of not really scary caves in Vermont and what was that noise and maybe I should wait here to guard the water bottles.  Did you know that if you fart in a cave it will echo for eternity?  True.

I didn't get any pictures of the caves.  None of them came out for some reason.  Ooooh.

We made it down and back to camp for dinner which was.  No.  Yes, Mexican night.  Well that will be good for my heart.

Next week I'm signed up to go to Eagle's Bluff with a group of 11-12 year olds.  I'm looking forward to being with a more mature group.  I heard these guys can make armpit farts and one of them saw the nurse's boobies when she bent over to tie her shoe.  Did not.  Did so.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

TODAY I FOUND...

East Bumfuck, VT.  It is just north of Victory before you get to Granby.  I went for a motorcycle ride out of camp in search of the point where Vermont, New Hampshire and Canada all come together.  Thought I would take the back way so as to see a part of Vermont I had never seen before.  Which is now that part of Vermont I hope to never see again.  The road from Rt 2 in North Concord that winds up and through Victory, East Bumfuck, Granby, Guildhall finally connecting with Rt. 102 turns out is gravel.  Which turns out to not be the best road surface for motorcycle tires that should have been changed about 2000 miles ago.  An interesting side note: Guildhall gets its name from the Abenaki word for “place you can’t nor would you want to get to from here”.

Guildhall Doublewide Trailer

I finally made it to the right neck of the woods but narrowing down what I thought would be a pretty big tourist draw (I mean we’re talking not just about the Northeast Kingdom, this is the actual Northeast Corner of Vermont) was a little more of a challenge than I had foreseen.  Almost crossed into Canada at Beecher Falls.  Headed up the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut looking for a place called Happy Corner, NH.  Sounded promising but nothing.  I finally tracked down a stone marker that indicated that an institution of no less importance than the United States Supreme Court Boundary Commission had determined that the spot I was looking for was 314 feet to the east at the low water point of the edge of the Connecticut River.

You thought I was kidding?

That’s it!  Get your toes wet and you’re in New Hampshire.

On the way home I had lunch in this quaint little restaurant named after the farmer who had a farm, EIEIO.  And on that farm he had some animal parts, EIEIO.  With a quarter pounder here...

Actually it was a great ride.  It’s always good to get out of camp for a little break.  I did see some signs of wildlife.

Unfortunately also signs that man is starting to encroach on this quaint corner of Vermont.

I did have a close call on the way home when I came around a corner and there were these slow children ahead playing teeter-totter in the road.

Luckily I had retained my muscle memory from playing the windmill hole at miniature golf so many times and sped under the port side just as she went up.  Another interesting side note:  Teetor-totter comes from the Greek.  Teetor meaning fat boy and totter meaning move closer to the fulcrum.  There you have it.

Next week I think will explore the path of 5 or 6 of Vermont’s fine micro-brewed beers as they make their way from fine hops and grains to my refrigerator and beyond.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

too many bratz...

wrote this post about 2 weeks ago, but it didn't post for some reason. anyway, here it is, a brief update.

"Bratz" of course being the name of the awful, over-sexualized, plastic dolls that little Megan owns about 30 of, and not little Megan herself (most of the time). I spend every day with Megan and Sam and sometimes their cousins Anna and Charlie. While Sam and Charlie play legos, Megan, Anna, and I play Bratz. For hours. Of course, I have to do all the voices and make up all the characters and stories, so esentially I play Bratz while the girls watch. The other day I found myself lying on the carpet surrounded by doll-sized mini-skirts and tank-tops and stilettos making Denise tell Michelle about her horrible breakup with her boyfriend Gil (they've been dating since high school) while Sierra drove them to the mall to meet Jazmine and Jules where they were all going to pick out prom dresses ("Pretend Jazmine was the prettiest and they were all jealous of her prom gown, ok?"). I had a moment of panic for my future. What skills can I offer to potential employers? "I may not know how to make a spreadsheet or write a grant, but if you need someone to create and remember the lifestory of 30 characters, I'm your gal!" ohhh dear.
I've taken to bringing them swimming whenever I can (the kids, not the dolls). Branbury, Button Bay, the College Pool--if there's water, we'll be there. Unfortunately 2 of the 4 kids hate swimming. Yes, I have the only 2 kids on the face of the earth who would rather sit inside on a 95degree day complaining about how bored they are than go to the pool. So instead of happy, excited kids, I'm dragging cring, disgruntled kids around town with me. And it takes about 45min to get out the door, with all the begging and pleading and demanding and manipulating I have to do to get them into the car. what fun!

My days off aren't much more thrilling. Meghan and I (big Meghan, the one who is living with us over the summer) spend most of our time watching movies or TV and eating ice cream at night, and hiking/beaching on weekends. Last weekend we drove to NYC. She was visiting her boyfriend and I was visiting Grady. We had beautiful weather, and a great time! We walked around Prospect Park, had lunch, had our nails done, met Tiffany in Manhattan for shopping, then went to our friend Sylvana's birthday party. At 4:00 Sunday morning the party was over and Grady and I made our way back to Brooklyn (after stopping at Dwayne Reade to purchase the two ugliest pairs of sandals ever sold for $2.99...we just couldn't stand the heels anymore). Sunday was brunch with Tabby and Sarah in Manhattan, cupcakes at Crumbs bakery, a visit with the kiddies, and then back to VT for me. Back to the grindstone. The Bratz missed me.
probably not as much as I miss all of you though! hoping we can get together sooner than later! Daddy, I love reading your stories about camp. The more I hear the more I wish I was at summer camp, too! But we all wish you would hurry up and come back home.
love you!
Cailin

The summer of 2011

is quickly passing.  Although everyday at camp seems like 4 or 5 days I am realizing that the end of camp is about as close as the beginning.  So far it has been a great combination of long hours of work that is much harder than I imagined and an environment of wonderful people, love and caring and sharing and almost enough alone time.

The camp is truly a magical place that reminds me everyday of what Hogwarts must be like.  Kids are allowed to escape and be themselves no matter if that means wearing your shorts pulled up almost to your boobies or breaking your arm because you jumped out of a swing that was going just a touch too high.  Counselors are encouraged to make fools of themselves which makes fitting in for me quite easy.  The other night I got to go on an after-dinner treasure hunt with the Brookside Unit which is the set of tents and cabins filled with 9 and 10 year olds.  The boys were explained to that the point of the hunt was to get the unit to work as a unit and that we were going to walk as a team not run as a bunch of individuals after each clue was read and figured out.  It took about 3 clues for the counselors to figure out that while the ears of 9 and 10 year old boys hear walk, and their brains understand walk, and they know they are supposed to walk it is just impossible for the legs to not run as fast as possible (team? what team?) to the next clue.  Because, well there is no because, that's just the way it is.  Has been since 1922 when the camp started and will be in 2022 when the camp will be 100 but the boys of Brookside will still be 9 and 10.

We served 750 grilled cheese sandwiches yesterday with 25 gallons of homemade tomato soup.

Wednesday night is the final game of the summer baseball tournament and the kitchen is responsible for a hot dog and hamburger bbq.  It should be great fun and very tiring and we'll get up the next day and do it all over again.

4 Things I won't miss hearing.
1. What's for lunch today?  (What do you care kid you're not going anywhere.)
2. Do you have any apples?  Not the green ones, I like red.  (No kid, today's fruit are bananas.)
3. The upper dining room milk machine is empty.  (Try the one in the lower dining room kid.)
4. What's for lunch today? (You're the 217th person to ask me that today.  You win a set of hands around your wind pipe.  Just kidding, now get out of here kid.)

The music at camp is great and at times borders on divine.  The piano in the upper dining room is often used by campers who just feel like playing and makes great accompaniment for kitchen prep work. You can walk around a corner and run into a bunch of counselors playing guitars and singing.  One of our counselors is the top recorder player in the country.

On Sunday the choir was heading out to sing at the Bradford Congregational Church. (Parishioners 20 / Boys Choir 60) Before they left they were in the barn just off the kitchen warming up so I went and sat on the steps just outside the door and listened while I drank a cup of coffee.  As beautiful as their music was the sound that their 8 counselors who were working on an a cappella hymn produced, was about as close to heaven on earth as I've been.

Well I best go.  I've got to figure out what to serve for lunch tomorrow.  And suggest that Jackson wear his shorts just a little lower.  A 10 year old boy's boobies need to breathe.

Love you all.  Peace.  Peter

Where in the world is everybody?

Family that I love! Another apology for not keeping in touch very well. I miss everyone. It's been about four months since I've been back to VT and some of you I haven't seen in longer, BOOOO. I am hoping to get home for like two weeks in august, but we'll see what my schedule is like. I have to find a new job in august because freyja and katla are going back to playschool and I'll need to have a job at school, so I've been applying for waitressing jobs, so far to no avail. I actually bought a wig, hahaha, and am going to wear it on my next job search, to see if perhaps people are taking one look at my majorly awkward hair length (I knew growing it out would be tedious, but i had no idea it would be this bad) and deciding against me. Haha, just a little social experiment, I'll keep you updated on how it goes. If nothing else, it is SO FUN to be able to flip my hair over my shoulder again.

In other news, Baldur's oldest daughter Hekla, who is twelve, has just arrived on American soil, straight from Reykjavik, and she has been spending days with Katla and Freyja and me. She's great, she cracks me up. In her own words, "there aren't a lot of alive things in Iceland", so she LOVES going to the park, and I am getting more intimately familiar with squirrels than i ever thought I would... we have been examining them with such thoroughness I wonder if we might have some insight for biology's general benefit. She also plays guitar (or Gee-tar), as she pronounces it, and has been serenading us all week. She's quite good actually, I'm very impressed. She speaks English quite well, but her vocabulary is fraught with slang and swears, which makes me think that they don't carry the same weight as adopted in Iceland: she really is the sweetest, most gentle little girl, and I'm always a little taken aback when she says something like "I think there is an ice cream shop on 12th street or some f*cking thing."

Our cousin Samantha, who graduated from college this year, just moved to the house where her mom grew up, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and is living in the apartment on the top floor. I have been sleeping over there for several nights because she has air conditioning, haha, and of course because it's great to have a friend with whom to order chinese food and watch lifetime original movies. Tabby, Hannah, Samantha, Ellina's college roommate Lauren (who I have gotten to know through Ellina and has had a few job interviews in the city, and so has stayed with me several times) all went to the Bryant Park Summer Film Festival the other night and saw "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" with Marilyn Monroe, and it was as sexist and ridiculous and absolutely fantastic as I expected it to be. The park was packed, we got there at 6:00 and brought a big picnic, thinking that since the movie didn't start until 9 (when sun sets), three hours would be plenty of time. But even then we only got seats on the gravel, all the spots on the lawn had been taken. But our picnic was great anyway and it was so great to see the movie outside on this huge screen and look up occasionally and see the empire state building to the south and the New York Public Library to the East. Quite the experience.

I am going to Bikram Yoga tonight, and am so excited. It's supposed to be one of the most amazing workouts, because there is a furnace in the studio so it's always above one hundred degrees, and therefore your cardiovascular rate goes way up. I've just been getting so bored running on the treadmill at the gym, I'm excited to change it up. Also it is supposed to be like a complete cleanse for your body because you sweat all your toxins out, so I have this image in my mind of walking out a whole new person-- though realistically I'll be walking out with sweaty bangs plastered to my forehead, makeup dripping, smelling like I just went for a twenty mile run...

I went running with Aunt Lauren on Sunday in Central Park, and it was a really nice run. She always says she's needs to have an easy jog but I wind up huffing and puffing to keep up, hahaha... we'll see, maybe after a couple weeks of bikram yoga she will be struggling to keep up with me haha.

Hope everyone starts writing again, I need to be updated on people's lives!

Love you and miss you! See you soon I hope!

xox

Sooooo good to hear from you, Peter!

Dad and I were just saying at supper how much we miss you in Addison County, even though we weren't in your company all that much. How often will you be able to get to the Fairlee Free Library for Internet connection - or have you found another place to plug in? Your reports from the library were great fun.

Thanks for the photos. That's a spick and span kitchen 260 eaters! I'll be thinking of you.

Are you homesick? Do you remember the story about Patty's first time away at camp? a week at Tamarack Notch, a Girl Scout camp in Mendon. This is the one letter we had from her:

"Please send Kleenex.
The girl next to me gets a letter every day."

It was tortuous, I guess. She had a terrible cold, for one thing.

I know I said I was going to be better at tending to posting to this blog once the Rhubarb Festival was history, and I regret not having made good on that promise. The Festival was a huge success. When it was over I realized how much energy and time I had put into it. Now I've gone into resting mode, enjoying freer time.

We have been expecting to see or at least hear from Elena and haven't any clue as to what has detained her. She is supposed to be on the Aloha staff in some capacity and Marusa was to be a full-time camper at Hive. The last I heard from her she was off to be the keynote speaker at a conference in China - Shanghai, I think - but would be getting to this country 6/24, 25 for the summer at camp.

We are anxiously awaiting to hear that the sale of this house will go forward. We should have that word by the end of the week. We had supper on the deck tonight and couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic as we took in the views. Speaking of homesick! But change is all about opportunity, right?!

Also, missing the grands. Four of them are in Addison County, at least. They aren't posting here either, so I'm not going to suffer from too much guilt.

Love and hugs,
Mom