Getting under way

Camp starts this morning. I am not ready for it, but I'm ready for it to get under way. I'm just tired of the waiting and pretend training.

Day camp began last week, but, since the Y doesn't have a big budget, I didn't report until Thursday. When I asked "morning, noon or night?" the answer was whenever I wanted, so I arrived at 5:30, after working an almost-full day for Florida Law Weekly and in time for dinner.

And I learned almost immediately that during day camp, they don't provide dinner for staff, which sucks. I mean, you're dealing with below-poverty wage and then you have to fork out money for one meal a day. Brutal.

I had a kids' meal at Sonic, which was gross. You know, as much as I ate fried food before Morocco, it doesn't have the same appeal. I like it, but not that deep, deep fried stuff that's about 2/3 breading.

Anyway, I worked Thursday camp. As soon as I arrived, the day camp staff alerted me to three names of trouble kids, X, Y and Z. Well, Z wasn't there, but X and Y were and boy oh boy. If they were dogs, they both would be alpha bitches. They were in the same group, so we had fights.

They are both really sweet girls, but attention-seeking in their own way. X has ADHD or something like that and had learned she can use it for a crutch. She does something wrong, she says, oh, but I have ADHD. It's like um, kiddo, you're on meds and it's under control.

Y makes me sad. There's no mom around and the dad works all day. She's an only child, so basically she's starved for attention and used to be the center of it. She really, really made enemies fast and would complain about this or that. When there was a line at the water fountain, for example, and she got accidentally pushed, she would shove back -- hard.

We had a lot of talks about how you can only control what you do, not what others do. If they push you, shove you, yell at your or whatever, that's their choice. You don't have to choose to push, shove or yell back.

It didn't stick the first day I was here. We'll see how we fare through camp. I'm sure these three won't be the worst ones and the group will vary from week to week.

Oh, there is a little 4-year-old who slipped by the age limit. B is everyone's favorite. He's well-behaved and just a little helpful angel. Apparently his age was discovered on the first day and the camp was hesitant to take him, but they agreed to give it a try. On the second morning, he was upset when his mom dropped him off and she pulled him to the side and said he needed to be a good boy or he couldn't stay. He shaped up.

On the third day, he had some other altercation when his mom dropped him off. She again pulled him aside and said, "Now, remember what we talked about. Be good and don't ruin this for Mommy." And he was fine.

I laughed and laughed. That's just so funny to have a mom telling that to a toddler, really, and boy, he understood it no problem.

The kids do say funny things. The last day of camp last week, two brothers were still to be picked up. Upon realizing M and N were there alone, M said, "Hey! We're the last two campers here. Well, this is awkward." He's 10.

The training has been one miscommunication after another. I just want to get the show on the road and let the kinks work themselves out.

We had been told, I swear, to be here at 11 on Saturday. Everyone but one person heard this, and we all trickled in. (Not everyone had to be here for day camp.) Friday after day camp, we went our ways to dinner and I lollygagged, choosing to shower and get clean while it was still light out. I checked my email and then set about for foraging for food. I ran into MacGuyver, the maintenance guy, and said something about being here at 11 tomorrow for training. He said he thought it was 4.

Great. And later, Indy went out to work with the camp director (the big boss), who confirmed it was 4. Now, during the training, the big boss and the little boss often had clearly miscommunicated, so I wasn't willing to believe this, but the big boss made it clear to Indy that we weren't getting paid for Saturday, although we were expected to finish our CPR training at 4.

So, even though I mentioned several times I thought there was a miscommunication, the girls went ahead and did laundry Saturday morning. I headed up to the training room and indeed, there was a group there with the little boss, who had, indeed, not only said 11 but miscommunicated that to the big boss.

So, since not everyone was there and we weren't getting paid, she couldn't make us work. We ended up being off until 4, which irritated me because Zippy had Mackenzie and I could have hung out with them.

I really, really hope that this falls into place. Even if the worst thing happens, though, I still have less than two months left.