Bananagram Virgins

Posted: July 25, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Games hold a dear place in my heart. Some people would call it an obsession. I would rather play a game than do almost anything else, even eat. Of course you would not like to be playing against me long if I have not eaten. My favorite game is Mah Jongg. At camp we do not have any Mah Jongg so I am playing a camp favorite, Bananagrams.

For those who have never played, it is a scramble-like game without a board and everyone is making their own words that attach together. It is a speed game and you want to use up all your letters first then you yell “peel” and everyone is forced to pick another tile which you have to add to your board. The first person to use all their letters when there are none left on the board wins.

There are a few tricks that really help you win. First is knowing all the two letter words. If you play with someone who has never heard of the words that are the spelling of the letters of the alphabet, like “em” for “m” or “en” for “n” they get very upset with you so having a dictionary or dictionary app is very helpful. Second trick — always use your worst letters like Z, V and Q in the first words you try and make. You can always find a place for an A or S, but when you pull K good luck. The most important strategy is not to be wed to the words you have already made. This is not scrabble, you are allowed to change things around.

At camp this week we have a lot of brilliant scientists so I am having fun teaching them this great game. I am not very popular because I am winning, but I am also creating a big challenge for them to try and beat me. I’m not sure how long it will take them to overthrow me, but I am enjoying these virgins while they are still learning. Sometimes not being a scientist is helpful because long words are not always useful in this game. It is not about making the longest words, just the fastest. There are no extra points for smart words, just some oohs and aahs.

The only unfortunate thing is that we are not playing for money. I would hate to take money from poor college students trying to earn money to go to school, which is the case for most of the counselors working here, but those scientist’s dough, that would be ok. Maybe it’s not that bad we are just playing for bragging rights because I might have been run out of camp by now and I still love being at camp, even more than winning at games.

Care Package Nightmares

Posted: June 25, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

 

What is it about kids and care packages?  When Carter starts to think about getting ready to go to camp the first words out of her mouth are, “You are going to send me a care package aren’t you?”  I think Care packages started during the war to help feed people who were truly starving.  I don’t know when they became the staple of kids going to camp.  I think Carter considers it is a badge of how much your parents love you.

 

One year when she was at camp she told me about a girl in her cabin who did not get a care package and how the child grew more and more despondent at each mail call without a package.  Think that the entire camp experience can be ruined by one thoughtless, selfish parent who after shelling out thousands of dollars for camp and hundreds more for a trunk, new sheets and towels, and a crazy creek chair wasted the whole thing by not sending one stinking package.

 

Camp basically provides a kid with everything they really need to live a fun and carefree existence.  But a package from home is icing on the cake.  So I succumb to the pressure and send off a package.  What I have discovered is there are good things to send and bad things and in the end it is all about getting some totally unhealthy food, which luckily at Carter’s camp girls are required to share with the whole cabin.

 

In Carter’s case some goldfish and sour gummies are the least bad for her acceptable foods.  I also know that a Tiger Beat magazine, especially one chocked full of One Direction photos is a great non-food item.  I throw in a new box of stationary just to take up room and a note and I’m done.

 

From previous years I have learned that the packages that come from “Care Package Providers” are easy to send, but never have food and Carter comes home with all the crap they sent her and throws it away.  Also books and clothes are the equivalent to sending coals to New Castle.  I get a letter home that says something like, “You sent me a book!”

 

If only there were some incredibly healthy and desirable things I could mail I would.  I think that the camp would frown upon my sending a commercial frozen yogurt machine and the yogurt in dry ice, unless I was sending it as a donation to the dining hall.  I think I might have to send an electrician along to rewire the cabin to handle the power load and that is a no-no for sure.

 

So hopefully my barebones package is the care Carter is looking for; just enough reassurance that her parents love her, but nothing too embarrassingly over the top.  If only she could appreciate what having to go to the post office in order to mail it really was like, then she would kiss my feet.