Camp Girl

My daughter is spending her first full day today at a camp in Pennsylvania which is located on a farm and dedicated to the development of confidence and leadership skills in teens.

Jinny looked pretty terrified (in her very subdued, shy way) as we pulled away from the place where she will live outdoors for 21 days.  My husband reassured me (as tears dribbled down my cheeks) that within an hour or two of our leaving she’d have bonded with at least 2 kids just like her.

I have to say, the next few weeks are certainly going to be an adventure for our somewhat (nah, really) pampered gal.  She is sleeping on an Army style cot in an Army-style, elevated tent with rough wooden floors and spiders in evidence. 

She will learn to live without her iPad or iPhone for the first week – which is like putting my kid on a starvation diet. She will learn things she’s never done before, like picking vegetables and fruit from the garden, forking hay in stables, or gathering eggs from a gaggle of pecking chickens which the “Mentor Kids” – returning veterans selected to be “peer mentors” to the camp “newbies” – swear are “monsters.”  She’ll also scrub out bathrooms occasionally, wash her own clothes, and learn how to prepare meals for about 80 camp kids and counselors as part of her "crew's" work assignments during her session.

I hope these skills are fully transferable to the home environment.

But it’s not all work.  There’s lots of play too – from art and music and games and sports and horseback riding to science and water sports and excursions and lots more that I can’t even remember.  If I could magically eliminate all bad bugs from the planet and move my memory foam adjustable magic bed into a cabin, I too would spend 3 weeks as this camp.

Most important, however, will be my daughter's discovery of how best to use her “downtime” without portable electronics at the ready.  I’m hoping she’ll write her father and me a letter or two, or learn how to play some hard card games with her tent buddies.  Or just relax and maybe even take a nap or two without feeling like she’s wasting time she could otherwise be spending on her phone, texting.

We miss her already.  We hope she has fun.  We suspect she'll develop a crush or two.  And we know she’ll be a different girl in subtle and important ways when she comes home.

 

The Carcass and the Caucus

It’s been fascinating to hear and read all about the utterly surprising fall from grace of Eric Cantor, Republican of the great city of Richmond, VA.  I’m guessing House Speaker John Boehner hit the Chianti pretty hard last night as he contemplated a Tea Party takeover of his caucus.  Now it begins – the hard right v. the harder right as Cantor “wannabes” swarm the carcass and jockey for position to be the next Majority Leader of the House.

While it’s true that I did, for a moment, dance a little jig in my family room upon learning of Eric Cantor’s defeat, I also appreciate that it can’t be good for the Grand Ol’ Party…or, in the near-term, for the country.  Good luck getting anything done for the remainder of this congress, and most likely, until 2016.   So much for the Dreamers and any chance at immigration reform.  So much for any compromises on a jobs bill.  Cantor was possibly one of the few willing to play “let’s make a deal,” if only to make Boehner look less effective.  (Honestly, I don't think they ever liked each other, but learned to live together, as it were, for the sake of the children...er, caucus.)

Who's going to want to stick his or her neck out now to pass legislation that's important for securing the nation's recovery from the Great Recession and two wars -- especially when that person could become the next Speaker of the House? 

So what do we have to look forward to?  Ever more toxic politics and stagnant growth as the radicalization of the Republican Party proceeds apace. With no agenda but “no” while decrying the evils of “big government,” we’re once again about to see Tea Party governance at its best. 

I’m sorry, but radicalism is never good for a country.  Ever.

Let’s say a little prayer while Mr. Cantor brushes up his resume for that open teaching positioning at Randolph Macon College (“Randy Mac” for those of us who went to school in our great Commonwealth – and that was not necessarily a term of endearment) and plots his return to power.

God help America. 

10 Things I'd like to do This Summer

The lazy, hazy days of summer are nearly upon us…a good time, it strikes me, to allow my goal-oriented self the luxury of compiling a “to do” list.  So, herewith, my objectives this summer:

1.       Lose 20 pounds (LOL)

2.       Read the 6 books in my iBook library that are sitting, unread

3.       Enjoy quality time with my daughter that doesn’t involve shopping at Aeropostale, Abercrombie or American Eagle

4.       Enjoy quality time with my husband that doesn’t involve watching “Top Gear” or Formula One racing on ESPN or NBC’s cable sports station

5.       Get at least 1 massage (enough said)

6.       Successfully make French Onion soup from a complicated recipe in my large coffee-table book, The Art of French Country Cooking

7.       Begin – and finish -- a bathroom remodel (Ummm, this won’t happen.  But I can wish.)

8.       Learn how to play the guitar (I’m already on page 14 of “How to Teach Yourself to Play the Guitar” – and I haven’t even watched the DVD!)

9.       Relax at our cabin (not so easy when you have to clean it thoroughly whenever you leave because it’s “for sale”)

10.   Relax at the beach  (not so easy when your daughter brings 2 friends and the beach we’re staying at doesn’t have a life guard)

Even though this list seems a wee bit whiny, I’ll enjoy trying to tick off every one of the items, succeed or no.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

8th Grade

 

It’s official:  My daughter is an 8^th grader beginning in September.  Only 5 more years of learning and growing academically, socially and emotionally ahead of her in order to cross the Rubicon of college for the brave new world of young adulthood!

Yikes!!

Do you remember 8^th grade?  I do.

In 8^th grade, I started to feel like I was on the path to something important…maybe, the presidency.  But I had a few little things I had to attend to first, like Earth Science and growing stinky lima beans in the dark and damp of our basement for some experimental reason, just don’t ask me what…and Algebra, because someone in school thought I actually had a brain for math; a notion they would be disabused of once I took Trig in 10^th grade.  My favorite class was American History, taught by the local tennis club champion and history scholar who was so smart and so dreamy.  (I also had his younger brother and fellow tennis champ for 7^th Grade Math, where I learned pre-Algebra using an abacus.  Funny, the things that stick with you.)

Finally, English:  I can’t for the life of me remember the name of my 8th Grade English teacher, only that she was a former nun and a stickler for grammar with a passion for diagramming sentences.  Despite that, I adored the class and the authors we read…Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne, chief among them.  My grammar remains better than average thanks to that teacher. 

The summer before the official commencement of my 8^th grade year was a big growth experience too:  My parents allowed me to take the Fire Island ferry with my friends, unchaperoned, for lazy beach days.  Tucked into our bikinis while noting the boys' growth spurts as they dragged surfboards into the water, we slathered our skin with Baby Oil, turned lobster red, and cooly ignored the threat of future melanomas.  I also remember Friday evenings of Beach Club dances in July and August with local bands playing badly – but we didn’t mind.  That’s where we learned to work out our frustrations and budding hormones on the dance floor, flirting with each swivel of our hips.  I especially remember a white cotton shift with halter-style shoulders that I whipped on my sewing machine for beach club dances.  I wore the dress with a colorful necklace or scarf – very short, very sixties, very homemade.  Boy, I loved that dress.

Many of the friends I knew then remain my fondest today, and everyone I knew then contributed to whoever I am today in their own very specific and significant ways.  For that, I thank you – even those of you who made life tough or miserable or just plain ick at the time.  (You know who you are, I’m guessing, even if I don't. Such are the joys of aging!).

I know what lies ahead for my daughter and worry about it too, but this summer my beautiful, remarkable, utterly charming, funny and smart child – and her friends --  will start making the memories they'll noodle on from time to time for the next 70 years.  I will watch them all with wonder, awe, sadness and a wee bit of envy.

Now it begins.

 

You Tube Philanthropy

In some neighborhood of San Francisco or LA, affixed to the underside of a park bench or taped to a telephone pole, there may be an envelope stuffed with a few $20 bills – a secret gift from a real estate entrepreneur with a little too much ego, cash and time on his hands.

This Mystery Millionaire and his Scavenger Hunt for 20-somethings (bills, mostly) has taken the internet and indeed the world by storm.  And I say:  Why?

For one thing, this is not “lotto” money:  No multi-mega-millions  to be won and taxed; only denominations of 20, enough to buy the finder and a friend a glass of wine or 2 at a bar in Santa Monica.

For another thing, this money isn’t targeted to the needy; rather, the reporting about it has focused on more than a few mid-career professionals scouring the city for cash in envelopes.  Please.

But what should this man do with his cash?  Does he want to be discovered taping it to a tree? 

Why not give the money to a food bank, a homeless shelter, a children’s hospice…or a charter school in an impoverished neighborhood?  Wouldn’t that be more rewarding if you had money to throw around or away?

But then:  What would I do if I found an envelope with some cash?

It depends.

When I was 29 years old, I treated my 24 year-old starving grad student sister to a late Sunday afternoon matinee.  (Spoiler alert: We saw “The Right Stuff,” based on Tom Wolff’s book, which remains one of my favorite films to this day).  We stayed to watch the credits and were the last people in the theatre.  Edging our way down the row of seats, I noticed something on the floor that looked like…money.  

About $300 in cash.

In those days, I was making about $30K (not much then, and even less now) and my sister was making nothing (she was starving, remember?).  We looked at each other and shook our heads.  We knew we needed to do the right thing.  Or at least we needed to try to do the right thing.

We went to the box office and asked the cashier if anyone had inquired about losing something in the theatre.  Nope.  We waited outside the box office for about 20 minutes.  No one came by asking for their $300. 

I asked my sister if we should give the money to the cashier, but I answered my own question:  No.  Finder’s keepers.  If we gave it to the cashier, she'd just keep it....

I said, “Let’s go out to dinner.”  My sister was hungry (of course).  I was always hungry (of course).  So off we went to a lovely little Italian restaurant on Connecticut Avenue near Woodley Park, with a lovely bottle of modestly-priced Chianti and some very good spaghetti and meatballs.  We spent about $70 (including tip) for the meal and my younger sister took possession of the rest.  I figured it would buy her nearly a month of groceries.

I’m no longer 29, of course, and today I’d probably manage my “find” differently – at least, I’d like to think so.   But if I had the cash to give away?  I hope that I'd try to be a little bit “intentional” about it.

So, for the elusive millionaire whose playful desire to give away money has become the sport de jour? Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame – but know, too, that you might have earned 30 minutes of well-deserved recognition if you’d been just a tiny bit nobler about your You Tube philanthropy.

Then again, we can always hope that some starving grad student finds a little bit of your cash and puts it to good use…say, dinner.