It's raining, it's pouring... okay it's not, but it might!

Mmm, that’s better. Things are down to a manageable level of chaos around here, and I think I’m doing pretty well. Not perfect, of course, because I am far from perfect, but I’m getting things done when I say I will. I’m not leaving anyone twisting in the wind, and I’m getting people trained to do what they need to do this summer.

Today was the perfect day to train them all on weather procedures. I’ve mentioned to them in the past that I’m the person who will make the weather call. But today we had a pretty good chance of some bad thunderstorms in the afternoon as a cold front blew in. So when we were all gathered in the theater this morning, I was center stage with the microphone, going over some weather procedures.

They’re pretty much common sense, but there’s nothing common about camp. I was telling them that if they hear thunder or spot lightning, that they should call it in to me immediately. At my extension. Which is forwarded to my cell phone. Which lead to the perfect opportunity for a trio of counselors to sing the song they’d made up about my phone number.

Keira’s desk phonnnnnnnnnne,

Keira’s desk phonnnnnnnnnne,

2-0-3-4, Keira’s desk phonnnnne.

Apparently you’re in, you know “innnn” when they make up a song about you. Granted it’s just my phone number, but still, I’ve been told that it means I’m not only liked, I’m well liked.

Which is a good thing because tonight when I had to go out in the rain to three different areas and send all the counselors up the hill, I was pretty stern. I wasn’t mean, I was just authoritative, so that they’d know to truck their butts up the hill immediately, since I didn’t want them off the hill to begin with, but I gave in when they started whining.

But yeah. A song. Heh. And the entire camp sang it, twice.

90 Miles an Hour

Holy Batman, have I been running at 90 miles an hour. I got back from Texas on the same day that a group of camp counselors arrived here, and it’s been nonstop ever since. It was pretty nonstop before I left, actually, too, but this is verging on ridiculous.

I can’t remember when exactly it happened, but I’d say around the third day of camp, one of the staff got sick. Hell, it was my roommate who got sick, and the camp nurse called me while I was up in Greensboro at Wal-Mart to ask me to be a good roommate and bring her some ginger ale. Seems the roommate was throwing up big time.

Seems the roommate was also patient X. And while she probably wasn’t the one who actually contaminated everyone, in the end over 25 people got sick over the next three days. We had a serious case of the Norovirus in camp, and it had everyone blowing chunks, tossing their cookies and spewing violently for hours on end.

I had the good fortune to avoid the illness, but I was one of 5 healthy people who kept the camp running throughout it all. It’s a fact that I did 3 people’s jobs, including my own, and kept us on track. It seems like it was a month ago now, though, because when we finally got everyone healthy, it was time for my 30 program counselors to arrive, and I had to immediately see to their training.

Two days after that, the rest of the counselors arrived, and it was time to start their training. And now I’m rapidly rewriting the activity schedule to try and satisfy the departments who need a specific schedule, while keeping the rest of the camp on track. That’s 19 program areas for each kid to visit throughout 3 days, and that ain’t easy.

Since it’s not challenging enough, I’ve got a cranky lifeguard who is way too big for her britches trying to railroad me into making the schedule changes on her agenda. So I had to derail her little train a bit and take away the boating counselors, because I think running the pool will be more than enough for her this summer. Actually, right now I’m not even sure she’s competent to do that, but a trial by fire will answer that soon enough.

Once camp gets started in June, things should normalize a bit. When they do, I’ll try to write more because it is a really spectacular place. There’s just no time at all, as I’m pulling 17 hour days regularly. But I live in hope that it will settle down soon.

And they let her be a lifeguard?

So I’m back in Houston this week to teach a water safety instructor class. I have to teach that course every 2 years, minimum, in order to stay certified as an instructor trainer. Since getting that IT rating was such a pain in the butt that I make certain I teach, and having spent a year and a half in Iraq, it’s time right now, this instant, to teach.

I packed up my office and brought a ton of work with me, because the start of camp is next Saturday. Well, staff training starts next Saturday, but still, I have to have everything ironed out and on the schedule by then, even though the first campers won’t arrive until the 1^st of June. Anyway, I caught a plane back to Houston, my dad picked me up at the airport, and then we met my mom a couple blocks away, where I all but threw him out of the car and headed across town to teach less than an hour later. Awesome parents, to say the least.

Friday night’s course went well and my friend Tweetie Bird came to teach with me. The WSI course is pretty involved and has a ton of lecture to do, so we like tag teaming it, for our own sake. It’s also great to see her again, since she’s here and I’m there, most of the time.

Saturday morning we’re back at the pool and had just put our class in the water for the first time. It’s an indoor pool and they were jumping up and down complaining the water was cold while I pretty much gave them a chance to settle down. We started swimming a few practice lengths of strokes they needed help on, and while I was down toward the deep end on deck, mind you, I noticed the lifeguard instructor who was teaching another class out of the corner of my eye.

Becky was giving the pool the hairy eyeball, which meant something was up with her student who was in the water. Then, about a half second later, I’m giving Becky the hairy eyeball as she enters the water. I make the split second decision to head over to her, stripping off the jacket I was wearing and entering the pool, too, as the back up lifeguard. It seems that she had a little lost Dory in her class, who managed to surface under the bulkhead, swim through the tiniest of crevices, and become caught inside. She could breath, don’t fret, but she wasn’t getting out of there on her own.

Long story short is that it took three lifeguards, a whole lot of steady, smooth talking to calm Dory down, and about ten minutes to get her out of the bulkhead and then out of the pool. Little lost Dory didn’t have a scratch on her, but she was quite hysterical for a bit, which I can relate to. I left it to Becky to calm her down, and I swam back to my class once the chaos was over.

Did I mention I was in cargo shorts, with big pockets, a t-shirt and my tennis shoes? That sucked big time, but otherwise everything went well. And heck, in today’s session, I stayed dry all day.

Oh, and Dory told me, “I almost died again this morning! I was coming off the freeway and I knew the light would be green so I didn’t stop… And it was red!”

Ugh.