Today is the first day in quite some time that I don't have "stuff I gotta get done". So of course, that means that there is very little fodder for this blog. I see a juicy subject on the horizon, however...
My son leaves for sleepaway camp on Sunday. He'll be gone for an entire week. (Of course, my daughter is giddy over this.) Neal and I are wondering how this will play out since my son has never been away from home for more than one night without being with us or his grandparents. I'm expecting a woeful phone call no later than Tuesday. Neal, the eternal optimist, thinks he'll hold out until Wednesday. Regardless, he's going to need to employ his rapid maturation abilities (which we know lie right beneath his nine-year-old psychological surface just waiting to be summoned) because there's not many opportunities for diabetic kids to experience traditional summer camp.
Our daughter, on the other hand, just returned from a three-week stint at academic camp in College Station. It took her two-and-a-half weeks before she remembered she even still had a family that she wanted to return to. (I'm totally kidding, but the phone calls we got from her were first of all, sporadic, and secondly, lacking substantial content. It was mostly stuff like "Did you do your laundry?"...pause and some shuffling in the background, then "Huh?", then me re-asking the question. Then, her response, "Yeah".) It was like listening to an undercover police sting tape.
It wasn't until she returned home that the floodgates of information opened as she shared her camp experiences. I felt as if we should have gone outside, built a campfire, and stuck a wire hangar through a hot dog as we listened to the recounting of innumerable short-lived camp romances (none involving her although her girlfriends made it known that she had an admirer), silly activities such as approaching strangers with wild requests in the course of a scavenger hunt, and counselors who would frequently blur the lines between serious graduate student and exhuberant participant in shaving cream fights (or some such).
Her experience resulted in exposure to various areas of pop culture previously unknown to her. For instance, she discussed the fact that at all the dances, they would conclude the events by playing the same set of songs including "Time Warp". She was curious of the origin of the song, so that led to the disclosure of my "Rocky Horror Picture Show" experience in college. She is fascinated by many facets of Americana with this being no exception so perhaps I will have to divert her attention until I feel she is ready to truly understand RHPS. She's just too innocent to delve deeper at this point.
Not only did she gain pop culture wisdom, she shared it as well. At "80s Night", she was the only student there who knew all the songs. She proudly proclaimed to her newfound buds that this was the result of hours of VH1 viewership.
We're so proud....
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