But it's STILL SUMMER

 I feel like I'm SO CLOSE to being able to settle into my fall routine, after the bonkers four days of twelve visitors. But first I go to work for a couple of days this week (we start the week before school, which is fine but also annoying) and then we go to see Angus in Charlotte for the long weekend. And THEN I start normal work, and finally weed my out-of-control flower gardens, and get to all the areas of the house I haven't gotten to all summer ("I'm going to clean and organize this summer while I'm off work" I said. "I'm going to say YES when my friends want to do fun stuff and not stay in my house like a whiny depressive malcontent" I also said. My stupid friends had so many fun plans my house remains a disaster and I don't see how I can be held responsible for that), and go back to physio for my piercing neck pain and spasming lower back.

The burgeoning roster of visitors was fantastic, exactly what we needed to distract us all from the fact that Angus was leaving Monday and I was taking Eve back Tuesday. Zarah and Sophie got here Friday the same time as my brother-in-law with his family. I didn't even realize until they got here that Angus had never met Mitchell, my nephew, who was born in fall 2019 when Angus was at Elmira and then, you know, Covid. Mitchie and Lydia are so hilarious and energetic and social - they loved playing with Lucy, and Mitchie was highly into the play possibilities of a new cousin that is quadruple your size. 

Saturday Eve wanted to go to the Nature Museum, which we used to do every year with all the kids when Zarah used to come with her son Alex too (working now, stupid adulthood). At some point we sort of maxed out on it and stopped going, and it seemed like a good time for a return engagement.

I asked Sophie and Eve to recreate this photo from 2014. We didn't manage it exactly, but it was close enough to be satisfying.

It's a cool museum. I will never be too old to be amazed by the mammoth skull and the dinosaur skeletons. The wolf exhibit was also really neat, although at one point I whispered to Eve that I suspected they might have found one particularly photogenic wolf and just photoshopped it into a bunch of different locations. Eve said she could never be trusted with actual wolves, because she would absolutely pet them and they would be her best friend and there would be no respecting of their inherent wildness and it would almost certainly result in her death. 

We expected these to be plastic, but they're actual ice!

Eve doing a Horse Girl photo with a dinosaur

We also wandered around the market downtown and went for ice cream at the Merry Dairy, our new favourite place because they have delicious and plentiful vegan flavours for Eve and Sophie who can't have dairy. 

AND I parallel parked like a boss and Zarah and Sophie were gratifyingly complimentary (full disclosure,  the spot was pretty generous).

Sunday Zarah and Sophie went out for a bit to see family and Eve went to see her friend Davis who was back in town for the weekend (like everyone). My sister and her husband got to my parents' place in the early evening and Matt and Angus went over to have a drink and hang out because they hadn't seen Angus for -- I'm not actually sure, maybe a couple of years? Zarah and Sophie and I watched Theatre Camp, a really funny movie for anyone who has ever been involved with or known theatre kids. We finished packing Angus's car.

Monday morning Angus left for Charlotte, with an overnight in Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Zarah and Sophie left. Eve and I went over to my mom and dad's to see my sister and brother-in-law. We finished packing Eve. We watched theatre camp again because Eve hadn't seen it. It was just as good the second time. 

Tuesday Eve and I drove to Hamilton - fun drive, music and talking, brief periods of intense rain. We got to her student house at almost the exact minute that Angus drove into the parking lot of his new apartment. We unloaded, hung out with her housemates for a bit, went for dinner and then I went to my hotel for the night. Eve remembered how much she loves her cozy, cute room in her student house. Wednesday I took her grocery shopping, then drove back home.

Oh! Remember (probably not) how I always say I want to start listening to podcasts? Then I never ever listen to podcasts? On my drive home I LISTENED TO PODCASTS. I am a podcast girl now. Probably in the way that I am a running girl now, in that I ran sometimes for a brief period and then jacked my knee for life and never run anymore, but I'm counting it. 

I guest-posted in Engie's carnival of guest-posting to celebrate her 20th year of blogging. It was challenging and fun, which is a good thing for something to be. 

The Gang's (About to Be) All Here

 I'm not done the camping posts, but I sat down earlier to dash off a quick post about how Zarah and Sophie (close friend from university and her daughter) are arriving tomorrow and I just started trying to tidy a little and then really looked around my house and had that moment of oh, awesome, precisely how long HAVE we been living in squalor. And then started rushing around like a headless chicken, moving stuff, shoving stuff into drawers, putting stuff in bags - all this despite the fact that Zarah and Sophie could not remotely care less about the state of our house and I KNOW THAT. But I was thinking that I was going to do so much cleaning and reorganizing this summer, and then my stupid friends planned all this fun stuff and what was I going to do? Be rude? 

Eve and Sophie

Anyway, I cleaned off a couple of key surfaces, made sure the spare room was habitable, and basically wrote off the living room where numerous tote bags and grocery bags and boxes are stacked, mostly for Angus to take when he leaves for NC on Monday and some that we'll take when I drive Eve back to Hamilton on Tuesday. If there are a few things in there that don't belong to either kid and instead need to be packaged up for donation, well, nobody needs to know that. 

So Zarah and Sophie were coming tomorrow until Sunday, Eve's friend Davis is also coming home from Montreal for the weekend, and my sister and brother-in-law are coming Sunday to Wednesday. We thought we could squeeze in a quick visit with them at my parents' place before Angus leaves Monday morning. 

Then Zarah texted that Sophie's plane from Victoria was delayed and she wasn't getting in until very late tonight, so could they come Friday to Monday instead. All good, Sunday would be a little nuttier now, but we would roll with it.

Then my phone chimed and my sister-in-law Laura texted that she and her husband (Matt's brother) and their kids were coming to town for a bar mitzvah, and they were wondering if they could stop by Friday or Sunday. I burst out laughing and said yes, of course they could. That's nine people in town this week-end - only two staying with us, so it's chaos in a good way. I might have to write down a schedule on my arm in Sharpie to make sure I don't miss anyone, but it's a nice, nice problem to have. Plus now I have one extra day to figure out where to put all these books and clothes and humidifiers. 

Camping: The Entertainment (Taskmaster Sandbanks)

 Nicole's latest post reminded me that our site this year was only one road over from the comfort station, and there was a cut-through so you didn't even have to walk all the way to the end of the forest-median thing, you could just walk across the cut-through. The good part of this was that I didn't have to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night, which I generally do because the comfort station is just a little too far at 3 a.m. The bad part was that it was a gentle slope up and a flat path, but then a fairly steep step down on the other end with some roots. I was perpetually terrified that I was going to take a header in the middle of the night and be found unconscious in the morning. Fortunately it didn't happen.

Aside from the reading, we sometimes have an activity at the campfire before and/or after dinner. There's a running charades game, where anyone can get up and do something and whoever guesses then goes next. One year we played giant hangman where the puzzle was scratched into the sand instead of on a paper, which was bad because it was hard to keep track of the letters and words and also good because it was really funny that no one could keep track of the letters and words. Also Collette meant to do "A Lannister Always Pays His Debts" and accidentally did "A Lannister Never Forgets" (confusing Lannisters with elephants, I guess?) instead, so everyone was really confused and then both outraged and amused.

The most involved and impressive activity was after our dinner, when we did Collette's Taskmaster activities. I know a few blog friends are big Taskmaster fans. For me it's the best show I can never remember to watch, but the stuff Collette set up was highly entertaining. It was mostly the kids (young adults) who ended up participating - I was documenting and some people were judging and I guess the rest of the old people were content to sit and observe.

The first task was to - I can't remember the exact wording, but it was to 'represent' Michael somehow. Michael was appointed the judge of this, which some might call poor judgment on Collette's part but whatever, I had no skin in the game.

Jacob drew a picture of Michael with a thought balloon saying "this music is uninspiring" (more on this later). Melanie sculpted his face out of tinfoil. There were a couple of impersonations, but Meghan - his daughter- blew it out of the water effortlessly. Was there nepotism involved? Probably, but no one said there couldn't be.

The next task was to be wearing the most articles of clothing out of everyone, without taking any clothing from your own family. This resulted in all the participants begging for clothing for everyone who wasn't a direct blood relative

except Matthew, who very intelligently raided our clothesline.

Jared thought he had to take off every article of clothing to count it, and there was a rush of panic when we were all afraid he might not stop in time.

There was some tussling over the last pink flip-flop, and I think whoever stole it last ended up winning, but I was laughing too hard to really pay attention.

Then there was the counting by increasingly large sequences with increasingly complicated instructions attached to every odd or even number - squat down, jump up, salute, spin around, mispronounce the number, etc. It was really hard. 

There was something about instructions on a sheet of paper that someone who shall not be named (Ben) read and then tried to eat and then burn, in the spirit of "do whatever it takes to win" - I can't even remember what the instructions were. Oh, something about naming birds without repeating any within five seconds. And eating licorice maybe? 

It was awesome. 

Aside from that there was washers.

Beach bocce

Chasing Margot with a super-soaker

Beach napping

Beach gymnastics

Sand castling

 Burying Rose in the sand (a classic)

And...whatever this is?

Reading At Camp

Anyone who said we eat really well camping - I KNOW, right? The thing is, if you only have to do one meal, it's pretty easy to go all out. But this year wasn't even the most involved - many years there are immense joints of meat spit-roasted over the fire, and by some sorcery they are not burned on the outside and raw on the inside. 

Honestly, though, firepit pad Thai is hardly less impressive to me. The people that go grocery shopping in Picton the day of their meal and then come back and cook it - whoo. Once I am through the camp gates, I am At Camp. The thought of going into town and acting like a regular person who has recently bathed is beyond my imagination. 

READING AT CAMP because we are so intellectual.

Angus: The Midnight Line by Jack Reacher. After Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the Warriors books, there was a long reading drought for Angus. Then a few years ago I gave him a mystery for Christmas that he finished before the end of his holidays. Now he says he forgets for months at a time that he likes reading, but whenever he has an extended break or vacation he always reads. When I found out he liked the Jack Reacher series I bought him a couple of books. He finished this one at camp and finished the next one at home.

Vivian: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune. I asked her if she'd read The House in the Cerulean Sea and she said yes and agreed it was charming and wholesome.

Janet: Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood. 

Dave: Three Axes to Fall by Sam Sykes. Third book in a series, and although I'm not hugely into epic fantasy, it looks kind of cool. 

Collette: Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper. I blogged about it here, and she asked if she could borrow it, and I said yes, but then she bought a copy because she wanted to support him, which was good because Eve had already stolen mine. 

Melanie: Dune. I have never. I will never. The original movie was tragic, the new movies are okay, thus is my assessment. 

Ben: The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Second in a series. I have read some Dan Simmons - let me check - three or four novels and a book of novellas, but not this one. 

Logan: Midnight Tides by Steven Erickson. FIFTH in a TEN-VOLUME series. Dude's Canadian. Never heard of him. 

Me: Diavola by Jennifer Thorne. Oddly, I don't often read a whole lot at camp. My hands are so bad that it's hard for me to hold a book and I keep putting off buying a Kindle. A couple years ago I bought small camping stools so I can put my feet up and rest the book on my lap. I started reading this on the beach and then Monday morning it rained hard for about three hours and I finished it in the kitchen tent. It's by the author of Lute, which was one of my favourite books of 2023. It's maybe not quite as good, but it's very close. 

Matt: The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex by Murray Gell-Mann. There's a giant book sale at my Thursday school every year - like, really giant, and all the books are one or two dollars. I always go in to look for good books for the library and swear I won't buy any others, ha ha ha ha yeah right. I grabbed this one for Matt to look at because he's a physicist and it had 'quark' in the title. Turns out it's by a physicist he really likes, so that was an easy cheap win. 



Jordan: Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. This was Jordan's first year camping with us and apparently that day on the beach I said "oh look, Jordan has a book!" in a way too excited register. I loved this book of short stories - Stories of Your Life was the story the movie Arrival was based on - linguistics, relationships with beings so utterly different from us, time and linearity and causality and different kinds of love. 

We call this one Last Man Reading - when they tear down your shelter around you and leave you and your book exposed to the elements.

Oh! I have one more. We are a well-read group from early on.