(no subject)
So, I got distracted during my last update. I reckon I’ll continue with what I remember from the past week or so. I spent most of my past week either with Debbie or with camp stuff. The Debbie stuff included three straight Dodgers-Mariners games for an interleague baseball matchup. Sadly, Debbie’s Mariners beat my Dodgers the first two nights, with the Dodgers winning the last game on Thursday. We had good seats for the first game, but we were next to a couple Mariners fans, although they were very friendly. Then we took the nosebleed seats for Wednesday’s game, accompanied by Ben, Nick, and Matt. And we sat in between the two for Thursday’s game. Debbie and I have been to 7 baseball games together so far this season - 5 Dodger games, an Angels game, and a Mariners game. She kept the tickets…cute. It took up a lot of the middle of my week to drive out to Oxy each day during crazy traffic hours, meet her at the apartment, and then head off to the game. The mornings were filled with other activities. On Wednesday, I had a two-hour orientation for camp, in which I worked on my bus route, performed some skits about possible camp scenarios and how they should be dealt with, and listened to some boring but necessary information. On Thursday, I woke up early to watch the US get eliminated from the World Cup by Ghana after losing 2-1, followed by a trip to the dentist for some teeth cleaning. So that was the bulk of my week. I spent Friday at camp, staying there from 10 AM Friday to 5 PM Saturday for our big staff orientation. A lot of it was down time - they easily could have done it in less time. But there was some good staff bonding. We had food, went on a practice run with our buses, had barbequed dinner, did the new staff initiation where they have to take the fake test, get led blindfolded up to nature center, answer the ridiculous “Would you rather?” question, and of course kiss the fish. I’d write more, but I covered the orientation in depth last year, and this year’s was pretty similar. We had the campfire with the skits afterward, except they asked us to make the skits camp-appropriate this time which ruined some of the fun. And we slept outside again on the tarp, but I slept much better this time because it wasn’t as cold and my sleeping bag was more effective. We got up around 8, grabbed some breakfast, listened to some lectures about child abuse, sexual harassment, stuff like that, then we had lunch and headed down to South and took care of any last minute issues. After getting out of camp on Saturday, I ate some dinner at home and went out to Debbie’s again, where we had a party with Matt, Ben, Nick, and Daniel. We played some beer pong - Debbie and I made a good team, and we won every game until losing the last one by 1 cup (we start w/ 10). Since I hadn’t drank in about 2 months, it didn’t take a whole lot before I was really feeling it. The rest of the night is kind of a blur. I remember going to the bowling alley, which was the original plan, but they put us on a wait list so we stayed in the arcade for a little bit and eventually decided we didn’t really feel like bowling so we walked over to Jack in the Box. I knocked over Ben’s drink and fries because I was so tipsy, and eventually we left. Somehow the rest of the guys split up at some point, and Debbie and I eventually went to bed around 3:30. We slept in til 11:45 surprisingly, then went to lunch at a nice restaurant called Camilo’s. I got a steak, fries, a drink, and we split a delicious brownie swimming in hot fudge and topped with ice cream. I was thoroughly satisfied. Then we went back to her place, I made my requisite phone calls for my bus route (brought my route folder to her house), and then we watched Chocolat. I think I liked it better the first time I saw it. Next, we made ourselves chicken quesadillas for dinner and headed over to Oxy for a poker game. Eventually I made it home and went to sleep so I could wake myself up at 6:30 AM to get ready for the first day of camp. That seems like a good stopping point since I should be getting to bed again now, so my next update will cover the beginning of camp.