The Myth & The Majesty

I am constantly meeting crazy people. Okay, so I'm definitely using the loose definition of "crazy." What I actually mean is, "I am constantly meeting new, intensely interesting people from all sorts of backgrounds that may or may not have a reason for appearing at my home/place of work." Oh -- did I not mention that this is a camp post? Sorry. This is a camp post. We are a year-round camp and retreat center. The summer is largely devoted to kids' summer camps; during the school year, it's all about adult groups and weekend youth retreats. While a lot of these groups are associated with the United Methodist Church (as we are) and other churches, we have a large number of other groups as well -- scrapbookers and quilters, AA chapters, family reunions, tribal organizations, schools, here and there a government agency in need of a space. There are plenty of groups that do their summer retreats elsewhere but come winter turn up here, since we're o

I have resisted the e-reader "thing" for ... well, as long as it's been around. So ... a few years now? Anyway. I've established in the past that I might have a small problem when it comes to books . Heck, I planned an entire vacation around a bookstore . I collect them kind of indiscriminately -- money gets spent that probably doesn't need to get spent, I have a large stack that I haven't read yet but have had for months or years, and for the most part when I need to clean my living room I really need to collect my books into one place and find their proper homes again. (That pile is what happened today in one such endeavor.) And to be perfectly honest, I don't see that changing a lot. I like my paper books. I like the smell and the feel and the ability to take notes in them and point things out to people easily and have them get dropped in the snow without being destroyed. In recent history,  however, things have shifted in my collecti

1. This was a week ago. 2. This was today. 3. In another "my job is awesome" moment, I got to take a walk for no apparent reason this morning and enjoy the gorgeous weather. The creek is thawing and it's only a matter of time before it looks downright spring-ish down there. 4. We have a camp full of people this weekend, with guests in every single building in the main camp. It feels so ... normal. And it's awesome. 5. I gave up my much-beloved Pepsi for Lent and that vacancy has made me much more aware of the other things that take on temporary vice status in my life. This week? Lucky Charms and "After Hours." (General adult content warning on that last one. Especially if you binge-watch like I do. Just so you know.) 6. I'm done with winter. If we could just get a solid week of decent-to-nice weather, and ideally no real precip, we could have a pretty clean camp. Less mud. Oh, what's that? .... ....

Some time ago, I wrote a brief piece on the watering-down of nerdery . And while I still roll my eyes at the loose use of a real descriptor, there are certain things that this strange fad has made easier. Short version: I am shopping for new glasses. Let me bring these guys back for another nerd post... Long version: As a brace-faced four-eyes, I was the expensive kid (at least, in certain respects). For one, my parents had to shell out some serious cash for my braces. I say "had to" because I was one of those cases where they were not for cosmetic reasons and had my teeth gone un-fixed, I would have a very hard time speaking now. All of this was not aided by my own pervading klutziness at the time, which somehow extended to my teeth and meant I needed to get brackets replaced on a regular basis. Drove my orthodontist crazy. But the glasses ... egads. When I was 11, I was sitting in the bleachers with my parents at Mia Sorella's basketball game. At some

Hush, please. That is enough, Margaret. If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather. - Mrs. Dashwood, "Sense and Sensibility" (the 1995 film version) In addition to being terribly unfocused, I haven't had much of anything to say. Clearly, because I've put you guys through plenty of useless posts before when I hit such a spell. Not this time. Alas, I cannot stay silent forever. I admit, a good chunk of that has been weather-induced. It has been ... just plain cold and annoying here. We've had snow for five solid months. While I am usually quite excited about the first snowfall and I don't generally lose much enthusiasm for it over the winter, I am ... exhausted. This probably has something to do with how it all started . Seriously, I'm just ... done with winter. So you can imagine my delight when today brought 60+ degrees. It even looked like it was going to rain for a lar