Dispatches from the Western Front

Monday was Tyler's birthday and he pulled some strings at work and got us a party boat. Ten of us piled on and doused ourselves in sunscreen and blasted "Blurred Lines" on repeat and set to work on the mimosas and Torpedoes in the cooler. When it got really hot we jumped in and climbed up to the Tea House, the quaintly named rock edifice in the middle of Emerald Bay. Paul drove donuts at the mouth of the marina before we headed back in with the setting sun. It was the most fun I've had in a long, long time. Clearly the best place to enjoy Tahoe is from the middle of it.

The Tea House

Too. Damn. Good.
(Pic from Katie)

After a surprisingly successful return to "competitive" running (a firecracker 5k barely merits the title), the bug has bitten. Again. Sigh. In September I will have the great pleasure of running up the mountain I skied down all winter, and with my padre nonetheless! Riding in the Graeagle area last week got me thinking about the Lost Sierra Endurance Run and I've actually managed to get my ducks in a row for that as well. I even did a long run yesterday, a long, hot, flattish run that ended as usual with a plunge in Fallen Leaf, and that made me feel pretty good about a 30k* in two months.

*Not 50k because I'm not insane

Office run
(Pic from Merril)

And I got a new pair of fatty fat skis for my powder-centric future plans.

So sexy

Every Friday night at camp the musically endowed counselors set up on the deck and perform for an hour, and every Friday night I stand at the huge window overlooking the lake, in my palatial office, and watch the show, and every Friday night the musicians finish with a rousing rendition of "American Pie", and every Friday night everyone dances and sings along, staff and toddlers and grandfathers and surly teenagers and tipsy soccer moms, and every Friday night, despite the disturbing sense of deja vu, the communal happiness and wistfulness at the week's end is palpable, even from the second floor. And then the sun sets and every Friday night, it's the most beautiful thing ever.

The view from work
(Pic from Nichole)

So This Is Summer

Going into the fourth week of camp, I feel I can adequately express what it's like. Every week's schedule and menu are exactly the same and so all of us staffers have settled into the sometimes deadening monotony of Groundhog Week. For diplomacy's sake, let's pretend I've never mentioned the actual name of my place of employment...so I can now safely discuss the alum of a place called...Treeland University. They are scary wealthy; they are deeply entitled; a lot of them represent a caste I'd never encountered before, "west coast preppy"; they are incredibly wasteful (in my shift alone we go through hundreds of paper cups, napkins, lids, and cocoa packets each night--imagine how I love that); and as a whole they are overwhelmingly generous and kind, although it sometimes feels like they are leaning down to pat your head from the top of their pedestal.

Meanwhile the undergrads who represent the bulk of the staff (or "staph", their preferred nomenclature), are enthusiastic, starry-eyed, exhaustively creative, and often very inexperienced when it comes to actual work. We "permies" (permanent staff) have to forgive them that because while they play hard, they work hard too.

The biggest difference between camp and conference is the sheer number of people constantly milling around. Instead of the maximum 150 or so guests we accommodate during conference, during summer we play host to about 270 people on our little plot of paradise. Children are loud, adults are loud, staph are loud. Fortunately my little cabin is one of the most isolated ones, tucked back in the trees next to the volleyball court. It stays quiet and super cool, even in the "heat waves" Tahoe keeps experiencing (90 degrees is laughable when the humidity hovers at a comfortable 15%). And then on my weekends I scurry back to blessed real life in town, to ride bikes and hang out with friends who don't want to talk about camp.