—1—
I saw a meme that said "It's been a wild year this week," and that about sums it up.
Since last week's Quick Takes, I went on a 3-day trip with Phillip, was home for 1 day, and then left to supervise a church youth camp for another 4 days.
I know that adds up to 8 days. I told you it was a long week.
—2—
Phillip and I actually left on our trip last Thursday, and we definitely needed to get away. He's my best friend and my favorite person to spend time with, and being able to do that without having a thousand other responsibilities swirling around in my head was the best.
We went for walks, window shopped, ate good food, and explored the city. We woke up without an alarm, worked out together at the hotel gym, and binge-watched the first season of The Good Place. It was perfectly uneventful in the most wonderful way.
—3—
We ate at a lot of different places while we were out, but my favorite restaurant was space-themed. The food wasn't great (they burned both our entree and our dessert,) but the fun atmosphere made up for it.
The purple and blue mocktails we ordered were cool-looking, and that was before we realized they also had glitter in them and swirled like crystal balls when stirred:
The bathrooms also had a lot of character:
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| To be honest, this sign gave me an irresistible urge to flush the toilet with my foot. |
—4—
Was it hard to come back home? I'm not going to lie, yes it was. I was immediately stressed trying to pack for youth camp, orchestrate last-minute changes to the carpool, and make sure that plans were in place for some of our special needs campers before leaving.
Every summer, our local congregation joins with several others for a four-day camp for the teenage girls in the woods. This year there were 71 girls, and the schedule was packed with swimming, hiking, archery, a ropes course, games, crafts, classes, devotionals, meals, chores, and silly camp songs. It was great but incredibly draining.
Seriously, I got home yesterday and after unpacking and throwing in a load of laundry, I spent the rest of the day lying in bed eating cheese and watching Pride and Prejudice.
—5—
Working with the teens at camp was fulfilling but I clearly am not getting paid enough for this (my current salary is zero dollars a year.) Temperatures hovered at 85° and there was no A/C in camp. I also got my period while I was there, adding constant long walks to the bathroom to my responsibilities of sorting out teenage girl feelings and not sleeping very much.
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| According to my fitness watch, it was possible to clock 10 miles by just walking around camp for a day. |
It was terribly exhausting, but I was so happy and pleased with how it went. Many of the girls shared how impactful camp had been for them, and our special needs kids did awesome and were able to stay for the whole time. I guess that just like in life, most worthwhile things require hard work.
—6—
In the middle of cleaning the camp bathrooms with my campers one day, my phone buzzed with a text from my 17-year-old. It said "I'm going bridge jumping with [friend's name] right now".
And that was it. No additional information, no answers to my follow-up questions, and no answer when I called him on the phone.
On one hand, that wasn't like him. We raised him to be the kind of kid to say, "Hey, my friend and I want to do ________. This is the location, let me tell you about what the conditions are like there. Here's why I believe it's safe, and this is my plan in case there's an emergency. Can I go?" Surely he wouldn't just send that text and go jump off a bridge.
On the other hand, teenagers still have lizard brains and lizards are stupid, so maybe he was about to go hit his head on a rock and die while I'm an hour away at camp. Should I panic? I panicked a little.
I couldn't get a hold of anyone on the phone, so ultimately I just had to pray my son was safe until he called an hour later and said, "Oh sorry, I forgot you weren't here. I already asked Dad, and he took us there yesterday to check it out. It's safe."
That would've been helpful context to know before I had a heart attack.
—7—
So I did what any lady over 40 who no longer feels embarrassment would do, and shamelessly hawked lettuce to everyone I saw for the next eighteen hours.
I offered it to all the parents picking up their campers after we carpooled home, and when my college daughters had friends over that night I offered it to them, too.
It's oddly freeing to be able to approach a group of 19-year-old girls and ask without feeling a single reservation, "Hey, can I do a weird mom thing? I have a ton of lettuce, do you want to take some home with you?"
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