1. The way my various school admins WILL persist in sending emails to the school conference about sports equipment with the subject line "Balls". Am I the ONLY juvenile? Are they testing me? Come ON.
2. It was the Hunger Games day for trying to reserve sites at Sandbanks on Sunday. I was convinced it was going to be a shit show (even more than usual) because an entire campground is closed this summer to upgrade facilities. Everyone else seemed adamant that it would work out, and in fairness to them, I am quite often certain and also wrong. However, in this case I was correct. Collette admitted afterwards that it was perhaps overly optimistic thinking we could reserve a third of one of the remaining campgrounds (many of the children come and book their own sites now because, you know, they big).
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| They kept freaking growing |
So we were all a little unsure about whether we should try to camp somewhere else, or do something else for the August long weekend, or just let it all go. Sandbanks definitely has the nicest beach, and a lot of the other stuff we do at camp we could do in our backyards, but there's still something nice about the enforced togetherness for a few days, and I think it's not a bad thing for me to have to survive without my perfectly adapted bed and bathroom at least once a year.
Last night I was on Facetime with Eve upstairs, folding laundry and getting ready to go to bed. Eve was on my iPad and I was seeing activity on the WhatsApp, so I picked up my phone and saw that Margot was proposing Voyageur Provincial Park as an alternative. Matt was in the air and not contactable, but I figured we were probably good to book - it's not hugely expensive and usually possible to adjust the reservation later. I was feeling a little panicky about trying to do it by myself, though, because my ADHD brain just does not deal well with that kind of thing - reservation websites, campsite maps, clicking all the right buttons (yes, I was a disaster during pretty much all of my online courses for my library tech diploma - I felt like I needed to get someone to stipulate to the program coordinator that I actually am quite intelligent in a lot of ways, because that did NOT come across).
Happily, I am advanced enough in years and life experience that I have less of a problem admitting this, so I asked Margot if she could tell me precisely which site to try for like I was a literal child. I came downstairs to the computer and had Eve on my iPad to the right and Margot and her husband on my left on my phone, which was nice because then they could talk to each other. With my emotional support technological circle I managed to book a site - we were able to all be much closer together than usual, and didn't even have to do it at seven a.m., so clearly it will be inferior in some ways to Sandbanks, but it still feels right that we have a camping option.
3. While I was at the computer I bought tickets for Eve and her friends to go see Wuthering Heights because I have a Cineclub Membership and I had so many free tickets banked. Naturally the website kept doing that thing where it asked for my location and I kept saying Shut UP Website, they're not FOR me, and then this note popped up and absolutely took me out for some reason (perhaps the fact that I had my cervix scraped and a painful physio session earlier in the day and I was just out of an Epsom salts bath and feeling a little loopy)
4. Eve had a Baby in the Lab day yesterday - these happen on a fairly regular basis. There is a toddler that loves her and it's always fun when he comes in, but there is also a six-month-old now who is Peak Chubby-and-Adorable baby.
A post-doc in the Lab was supposed to have a zoom call with the supervisor who is technically on paternity leave, but she texted him and said obviously she couldn't because there was a baby in the lab. So he Facetimed and put his own baby up to the screen so the babies could Facetime. Can you even stand it? Goddamn, if this lab was closer I would be there all the time, I would bring cookies, it would be terrible, they would hate me.
5. Camille, the colleague of my husband's who drove me around San Francisco, sent me a picture of him on the last day of his trip - it's his birthday tomorrow. I'm not sure I should share it. Let me ponder for a moment.
Okay, pondering done.
Camille is the best thing to happen to my marriage in a long time.
16 comments:
Wait, if you’re a Cinemark member, you have to pay an additional fee for movies? Is that a Canadian thing? I am a member (for the 20% discount on popcorn, honestly) and it is NO DEAL because we always end up going to stupid matinees which are cheaper than my monthly fee, but I have to live my life so I just let it go.
I love that hat. Is your husband in SF again?
"The theatre you've selected is far, far away" - I actually would appreciate that warning because I can see myself accidentally choosing a theatre in, like Calgary. Wuthering Heights is such a weird story. I haven't read it since I was a teen but it's telling that I actually HAVE a copy and I never read it more than once. You know what, maybe I SHOULD read it again. It is SO fucked-up. Those Bronte sisters were unhinged.
@Nicole Can confirm that W.H. is a weird story. (I read it as a teen, and re-read it a few years ago.) It is NOT a romance. And half the characters have the same name as half the other characters. Add unreliable narrator for true literary fuck-upedness. But it is in the top 10 of book I have strong feelings about.
At first I was imagining that you were booking a camping trip for an entire high school, filled with feral teenagers, which was only because of the first paragraph, referencing school sports equipment. I just figured that the entire school was going to experience the sports equipment at camp. I cannot imagine anything worse to chaperone than a camping trip of feral teens.
Now that I have realized it is an extended family camping trip I have recovered enough to say that planning travel is FRAUGHT, I tell you, with errors waiting to be made. My husband is always saying, "Why can't WE go to ______ (insert exotic or unexotic location) like your brother?" And I say, "YOU plan it, and I will go." He finally has taken me up on that, and did at least the initial research. But yeah, we had to sit together at the big-screen computer and say to each other, "Is that right? Should I click there?" before fatefully clicking.
It's Cineclub with Cineplex, which is Canadian. For ten dollars a month you get one movie ticket (usually more like fifteen dollars), additional lower-priced tickets and the twenty percent off popcorn (which is definitely the biggest savings). And they accrue if you don't use them, so I had nine in my account.
SO weird. Eve has been reading the book and complaining about it on our Facetimes regularly.
@Common Household Mom - fair, I added numbers for clarity. It is our friend group, which is essentially family at this point. Four couples, one dude (married but wife doesn't camp) and thirteen kids, many of whom still want to camp with us.
I adore the idea of the babies facetiming! How cute must that have been. I remember back in my days of working in offices that any day a baby came in was immediately better.
My friends live in Michigan and frequently do grocery pickup at a store in Rockford. But the store also has a location in Rockford, Illinois and she has accidentally picked the Illinois location MULTIPLE TIMES and been disappointed when there were no groceries to be picked up. That is my entire contribution.
Hee hee... love the birthday hat. I want one!
Glad you managed the campsite reservation, and the face timing babies- yes, I would love to just dash over there with cookies as well. But the best thing from this post is.... BALLS!
Balls. Snort.
So many good things in this post. <3
<3
RIGHT? I cannot possibly be the only person in the school with the comic sensibilities of a twelve-year-old boy, can I?
That is an entirely suitable contribution. This is why ordering anything online over twenty dollars gives me palpitations. So. Many. Little. Boxes.
I'm always amazed at big families that continue to get together and enjoy it... I cannot imagine organizing something like that with my 4 siblings and their offspring - or wanting to organize it, to be honest. My family was all together after Christmas for the first time in 6 years and after that gathering I was thinking that I don't see another gathering like that for another 6 years... There are some BIG personalities in my family (read: bullies).
Oh man, that makes me really sad, even though I know it's not unusual. I feel really, really lucky with my family. There are only two siblings, for one thing, and we like each other, and we married really great people and had really great kids, and being all together is pretty much pure happiness.
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