Camp Day 3 - "Sieze the day... by the neck"

Dear Diary,

After posting my blog and sending my letter to Mommy, I couldn't sleep. She sent me back a email, and I read it about 7 times, just lying in bed.

She didn't scold me.. not at all. And while she said she did kinda wanna come down and kick the one counselor's butt for telling me wrong things and getting me in trouble, she was just saying she wanted to, not that she was gonna.

Her email letter made me cry again. And I looked over my letter to her too. Then I looked up an saw my Dr. Steel poster. I could hear him telling me I wasn't being a good soldier, if I was letting the bad things that happen, win. I looked over my letter sum more, and it started looking like a list of things I didn't do right.

All these things I complained about and worried about, were things I didn't take control of.

I got outside of the cabin, and even though it was dark, It wasn't lights out yet, so I walked over to the cabin assignments list, and found where Mari was. I went over to her cabin and asked to talk to her in private.

I told her I felt awkward, and then even though I started crying again I found the strength to ask her if she considered me her friend. And when she said, "of course silly" it was like someone took a truck off my chest. no, it was like Mari took a truck off my chest. She said she may be popular, but a lot of people feel uncomfortable playing with her cuz everyone knows her like she's a rock star. An' I just know her as my friend I talk to all the time on the instant messenger. So I told her I'd pester her then, and prolly follow her around a lot. We hugged a lot, and then of course.. it was lights out and I had to go back to my cabin.

I went back to my cabin, and I knew I needed to fix some things when I woke up, like Dr. Steel might say:

Sieze the day by the neck and bend it to your will.. with a very large hammer if necessary. You teach that day who's boss!

Dr. Steel, for the uninitiated, is, or perhaps more accurately, was a fictional, web-video and musical "Character", styled after the archetypical 'bumbling mad scientist bent on world domination'. His comedic phrasing is part of his appeal, and Anwenn keeps a poster of Dr. Steel, commanding her to DREAM, on the wall of her bunk at camp.

Today, I woke up, and I knew I had to change things. Today was going to be a great day if I had any say about it. I woke up early, got dressed, and charged out into the dark pre-sunrise morning. I greeted some of the other kids in camp, and probably confused them when I said I was going to make the day mine, and started shaking my fist at the sky.

Yoga was the first order of the day, but they moved it and I'd overslept it! AUGH Adversity! I unsheathed an imaginary ray gun.. No matter.. I shall still have this day. It's pathetic attempts to wriggle free of my grasp will be for not! You hear me, day?

Instead, the first activity coming up was horse riding. I've never ridden a horse, but I've seen a lot of movies. While we were waiting for the horses, I met Mari's friend Johnny. We chatted for a while about the dark the number of babies at camp, world domination, etc.

Then it was time to meet the horses. We went and petted the horse for a while, and there was this one horse that was dark brown with spots, and everyone seemed to want to pet the white horses. I looked at this dark horse, and decided I would pet this horse. And then when it was time to ride horses, I didn't even wait to find out if someone wanted to ride it, I just climbed up on before anyone even put a saddle on him. I was GOING to ride this dark horse, even if it was 4 times my size.

So they put a saddle on it, and let me right back on. They even let me 'DRIVE" or whatever you call it when you hold the reigns and make the horse go. They even put a little kid on with me.. like I had ANY IDEA what I was doing.

And I drove the horse. And someone even said I did it really well. I dunno tho, but we all lived, so that's good, I even was able to 'park' the horse back where he belonged. though he probably knew the way. He seemed a pretty smart horse.

After that.. breakfast. And still no eggs, still no seats for big kids. Fine, have it your way day, no eggs, I'll have GRILLED CHEESE.. and you can just deal with the fact that I ate lunch food for breakfast! Take that, day! I did however make a stand and kind of demand that there be one place to sit without a booster seat on it.

 Then I decided to go back to the cabin and take a shower. No one made me, I just did it. I went to the bathroom, took a shower, got dressed, and brushed my teeth. Then I looked over my letter from yesterday, and decided I needed to apoloogize for being cranky and irritable when I talked to the counselor who made me remove the tape. Then we had a snowman contest.

When I got there, I met Mari's brother, who I kinda feel like I have known for ages. We chatted for a while, then the contest started. This was a thing where each cabin had to find the parts for their snowman hidden in cabin colored boxes. I looked and I looked, but I couldn't find any, but I did get excited because I found a pink one and thought it was purple. Since Pygar was on a team all alone (no one else from the boys cabin wanted to do it) I whispered to him when I found one of his cabin's boxes while looking for ours. Thankfully, the other little girls in Cabin 1 figured out the clues and were able to find the items we needed, and we actually managed to win the contest. (no thanks to me).

After the snowman thing was lunch, even though I had to walk a long way there and back, I did get a really REALLY good sandwich with lotsa lettuce and tomatoes and turkey and salami on it, and some potato salad, the yellow kind. and some orange soda.. and even a twinkie.

After lunch.. lemme see. Oh yah.. an this is prolly the most important part of the day. Mari had her camera. Mari ALWAYS takes her camera wherever she goes, and she takes really great pictures, the kind you put in frames and stuff. She wanted to take a picture with me and the other big girls she knew at camp. I was SO excited to be in one of her pictures. I've seen her pictures all the time, cause she puts them on her webpage..  She always goes to fancy places, like islands and on airplanes and things, and her pictures always look so amazing. Anyways, like I said, she wanted ME to be in one of her pictures. I was so excited, that I was just happy to sit there for, an hour I guess, and she said "look that way" and I'd look that way, and smile, and stand still..

She's just like Aunt Raewi. A million years for one picture.

But to be in onna Mari's pics.. I woulda stood there for a million years if she wanted. The other girls started getting a lil bored, and eventually the lady who runs the camp, Miss Jill again, came over to see why we were all standing in a row in the forest. But Mari's picture came out fantastic, as they always do.

"The Toddleedon'ts"

Left to right, Juniper Charlotte Baily (arwyn), Joy Durga Bennett-Republic (durga.dryke), Naraelina Faye Kovacs-Darling (naraelina.ordinary), Marianne McCann (marianne.mccanne), Me: Anwenn Lee (anwenn), and camp owner, Miss Jill Caldera (jill.caldera)

Then she surprised me with one more picture.

"Mari an' Me"

Marianne McCann and Anwenn Lee. A picture that took far FAR too many years to develop.

I've known her for years, and this is the first time we've ever really gotten to play or hang out, or even be in a picture together aside from "just happening to be in the same place" in the background or something.

Whatever happened after that, honestly.. didn't matter.

There was dinner with some lunchable things brought by a lady who runs a food business. They were pretty neat, but we spent SO MUCH TIME getting all the babies to sit down, that by the time I got my food, it was pretty much time to go to our cabins and get ready for "cabin wars". I took my leftovers with me. =P

Cabin wars is this nightly thing where all the cabins are teams playing against each other. Last night, we played some weird sort of football game with giant footballs, tonight we played a weird puzzle guessing game, our cabin lost pretty badly, guessing only one store logo correctly. Still, we did better than we did at that weird crazy football kinda game last night where we didn't manage to even get one ball into the goal. Of course, there's a lot of little kids in my cabin.

I don't really care about the silly cabin wars.. cuz after Mari's pictures.. we could have gotten no points, and I wouldn't have cared. I wouldn't have cared if I even got to play.

Because the day was already mine.