Cub Scout Camp

My most gianormous tactical error this summer is that I signed Geoff up for three weeks of Cub Scout camp in southern New Hampshire. The fact he is going to camp isn't the gianormous error -- the fact that this week they don't provide transportation IS the error. I have to drive him.

Which isn't bad, if I didn't need to drive to work and back daily. The camp is about 20 minutes north of our house. Which means I drive 20 minutes north, then drive right past my house, and continue to work in a trip that takes about an hour and ten minutes with no traffic. I get to the office. I leave pretty much ten minutes after I get there. Okay. Slight hyperbole. More like 45 minutes.

And it is one of those major "what the hell was I thinking" moments that finds me here at 7:30am instead of getting ready for work. Geoff is eating breakfast. We can't really leave until 8:30 because camp starts at 9. I guess my mistake affords me the minor convenience of taking it easy in the morning for a whole week, and I should look at that as a gift instead of grumble about how it makes me late for work. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around a 5 hour work day with nearly 2 and a half hours of driving on either end. It isn't so much the 5 hour workday, it's the drive that is bearing down on me. Meh!

Yesterday morning when I dropped Geoff off at camp the entire situation was a fustercluck. I had mailed in all of his health forms, but I still had to stand in the line for "drop your health forms off and get them checked over." They didn't have a "drop off your health forms and get them checked over" line and "check in because you were smart enough to plan ahead" line. The line was taking forever, filled with 9 billion boys and their parents patiently waiting (except for one woman who jumped the line in her business suit... another "I'm entitled" kind of bitch and I wanted to trip her into the poison ivy). The mom behind me and I couldn't figure out what the hell could possibly take this long. She said last year it was totally different. You went to find your den assignment, and if you needed to turn in your health forms you went and did that, and if you were all set you went to your den. Ba-da-bing.

We finally got to the table after nearly a half hour in line... and the person doing check in shook Geoff's hand, asked him what rank he was now (Bear) and asked what he was looking forward to doing at camp this year, and welcomed him because this is his first year there and...

Yeah. That was what took so long. I was rather angry when I was in line that it was taking a stinking dog's age to check in, but my ire dissipated as this woman very kindly asked my son (and every other son coming through this line) personal questions to make him all at ease.

It's hard to argue with kindness. For a change.

We got checked in, and got his den assigned. He made friends immediately with an 11 year old named Chris who has a mohawk. Nice. Chris wants to be in the Navy when he grows up. Geoff talked about how he wants to be in the air force like his grandpa was, but I didn't have the heart to let him know his vision would forever preclude his participation in the skies for the military, if that truly is his wish. He changes his mind weekly as to what he wants to be...

I left him at camp with all new boys and a huge \m/ from him to me. Which rocked my heart and made me smile the entire way to the office. He had a super day and can't wait to go back.

Next week and the third week he is at camp there is a bus that picks up and drops off. So that will make my life easier. I won't have to drive past my house on the way to work. Actually, this morning I'm going to take the GPS with me and figure out an alternate route to 95. Perhaps I can get over there quickly without driving through Haverhill to go south.

My sister is on vacation this week, and I never truly realized how occupied she kept me while I was at work. The constant flurry of emails back and forth each day with innanities and funnies and "meh, meh, mehs" is truly missed. Gah. I never realized how BORING my job was.

Anyway. That's my update. More later.