Burgundy spent last week at Spurs camp with the Girl Scouts. In the end, she felt really good about going, but she faced two challenges.

First, she went to Spurs late in the game. All the other girls in camp were 11-13 and entering 8th grade. One young lady was 14 and entering 9th grade, and Burgundy is 14 and entering 10th grade. One of her good friends from school was a camp assistant! She said it felt awkward and disappointing at first, but when she realized that all the other girls looked up to her and thought she was cool, the experience improved. When we picked her up, the camp nurse told me that Burgundy, "is just the coolest kid. She really loves the other girls, and that is so wonderful. The other girls all called her Mama." I really appreciate that Burgundy took a potentially negative experience and used it as an opportunity to lead other young people by example without the "carrot" of recognition in front of her.

Second, she had a bad time with one of the camp counselors. I found Burgundy's way of telling the story had a fascinating subtext; I'm pretty sure she was unaware of it. Throughout her descriptions of the counselors' behavior (there were several episodes she told us about), she referred to the counselors as women, ladies, or counselors. Each time she mentioned the one she had trouble with, Burgundy took great pains to be clear that she was a counselor, in charge, and in authority. But she talked about her as she does her peers, referring to her as a girl more often than not.

Apparently, the "girl" acted as though Burgundy was a threat. She went out of her way to compete with Burgundy about music, and she tried several times to exclude Burgundy from social interactions with anyone else Burgundy's age.

Asked how she decided to handle it, Burgundy said, "Well, after the first conversation I could tell that she didn't like me, and I had no reason to like her, so I just worked hard to stay out of her way. And whenever she got really out of line, one of the other counselors would step in and redirect her. She was just really immature."

Aw, shucks. My kid . . .

Procraftination

A few years ago, I took up quilting.  My first two quilt tops were nine-patches arranged into a neat little optical trick. The design is called an Irish-something-or-other; I've forgotten now. It took three years to lay them out, sandwich them with their battings and backings, and pin them together for true quilting. In that time, I did most of the piecework for another quilt in beautiful peach colors, and I made a snail's trail quilt for my daughter our of all blue fabrics with a bright yellow mariner's compass in the middle.

Burgundy's quilt should have been a masterpiece. And to be fair, Burgundy thinks it is. But my piecing was so poor that my inexperienced self was afraid to lay it all out and machine quilt it. And I was WAY too lazy to hand quilt it. So I tied it with pieces of blue yarn (God bless knitting; it saves me yet again), and she put it on her bed and loved it.

I should add here that I gave Burgundy the nearly-complete quilt top for Christmas in 2007. I gave her the "finished" quilt the following August. Procrastination, I am thine. Love me for my devotion.

Meanwhile, I made about 76 stupid snail trail squares, didn't need most of them, and they've been sitting around in the craft room, taking up space ever since. So earlier this week, I decided that my craft project du jour would be to make and quilt a matching pillow sham for Burgundy's quilt. I finished piecing it yesterday, and I zoomed through that ugliest quilting job ever attempted on a machine yesterday for about 45 minutes before deciding to stop for the day. It's about 1/3 quilted.

Today I plan to finish quilting it, cut out, hem, and sew on the back of the sham (in that overlapping envelope style), and have it on her bed before she gets home from school. Wish me luck!

Freedom: Day 1

Even though I don't have to work today or tomorrow, I didn't sleep in. Some still-14 part of me threw a little tantrum when I made her crawl out of bed at 6AM. I silenced her with coffee and a slice of homemade bread.

Normally I wake at 5:30 to get ready for work and to drool at the kitchen table until the caffeine kicks in. I gave myself the extra half-hour to snooze this morning because I didn't have to make pretty for the office, but then I rose and dressed as usual. Concession 1 to propriety: I am wearing jeans and a sweater with clean underwear and matching socks and shoes. The still-14 part really blew a fuse when I made her change out of the monkey pajamas to drive the girls to school and Mark to work. Oh well. Hopefully she will [not] survive these traumas.

Yesterday I received a phone call from the first manager I had at the job I just left. She wanted to know when my group planned to have my farewell luncheon. As far as I know, they aren't planning one, so she offered to take me out to breakfast this morning. I thought that was very sweet of her, and it made me feel just a little less sad that we weren't planning a luncheon. I didn't really expect one given all the upcoming holiday parties and all the work to be accomplished this month, but I still felt a little sad.

I'm meeting J, the manager, at 9:00 AM at Denny's. I wanted to take her a little gift, so I'm setting out a bar of the soap (the cabinet it's stored in smells so. darn. good). Last thing before I left at 6:50 AM to take everyone to school and work, I started a half-batch of bread dough and left it to foam while I was gone. A half-batch will make one loaf or four mini-loaves; I made four minis. I've just put them in the oven to rise for 20 minutes, and they should be perfectly done by 8:50 when I need to leave for Denny's.

For now, though, I have 35 minutes to relax. I just burned the snot out of my fingers (I steamed them), but I'm going to get out my knitting and chill. Just after I do the dishes.