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.