Green Gizmos & Pink Onesies

Exciting news! I have a new blog entry that doesn't have to do with my job! For the first time in a long time, I actually had a fairly social weekend planned. Saturday was my church camp reunion and Sunday was my friend's baby shower. That's right, I'm social, and wholesome too.

The church camp reunion on Saturday was planned months ago. I went to church camp for 4 years throughout high school, and a few months ago, one of my fellow campers started a group on myspace. Through some networking and some googling, we were able to grow the GPC (Geneva Point Center) group up to over 50 members! It just goes to show how strong an influence GPC was in all of our lives, and also how great myspace is for finding anyone.

The first person I saw when I arrived at the restaurant for the reunion was my old camp crush, Mike1 (there are a lot of Mike's in this story, so I'm numbering them for your convenience). And now that I've met his girlfriend and know that she may be reading this blog, I've decided to share some of my favorite stories about him. The best one is the time I invited him to my junior prom, and as we were taking pictures in my backyard, he either got stung in the eye by a bee, or maybe shoved his face into the azalea bush and got a severe allergic reaction. At any rate, his eye totally swelled up and he was miserable. I could sense things were going downhill, so I did what any normal 16 year old girl would do. I got totally defensive and whiny and sarcastic. What? Those 3 adjectives don't go together? Well, imagine this, "It's not MY fault your eye swelled up, can't you just ignore it and do the electric slide with me?.... Why don't you like me? Am I too fat? I just want to dance at my own prom! Wah!... Oh look, THEY'RE having fun. Oh look, SHE'S not sitting by herself crying." I have to interrupt this story to make fun of ANOTHER ex-boyfriend. At one point at my junior prom, I really was sitting by myself crying, and my ex-boyfriend, Mike2, who I dated oh-so-very-briefly came over to the table and said, "Is everything ok? Are you crying because I'm here with Katie?" Ummm, don't flatter yourself buddy. I got over you like, 4 months ago. Whatever. Anyway, my charming one-eyed date then decided that since we weren't having fun, we might as well call it a night. We went back to my parents house where he then proceeded to dump me and I didn't hear from him again until camp that summer, where he pretty much ignored me the whole week. Haha? Isn't that funny?

We became friends again by the next year at camp, when he suddenly turned into a deadhead, and maybe decided that all that peace & love stuff was a good idea. We remained good friends in college, and had a lot of good times. I remember a few parties at his apartment in Southie that were a blast. I remember hooking up with his two best friends in the same night, and also cleaning up puke off of people that had passed out. I'm such a giver. (Some might say slut. PoTAYto, PoTAHto.)

Wait. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, church camp. I forgot I was pretending to be wholesome in this entry.

The entire night was awesome. The group of us, about 35 people, all met at Summershack in Cambridge and had dinner. Krissy, a former camper-turned-counselor made "warm fuzzies" and name tags for everyone to wear. In case you've never been to camp, a warm fuzzy is basically a big koosh ball made of yarn that you wear around your neck or tied onto your belt, or anywhere that people can see it so they know you're special. And trust me, you definitely felt special when you stepped away from the GPC party and made your way through the restaurant to use the restroom with a big ball of yarn dangling from your neck and your name prominently displayed. Other patrons probably thought we had a re-re van waiting outside for us. But you know what? That's their loss, because I've got the joy of the Lord my God, in my heart, my soul, by bod. I love my neighbor as myself, I've got the joy of the Lord! (See, not weird at all.)

My favorite part of the reunion was when Mike3, a former counselor, stood up in the middle of dinner and announced, "Does anyone know what time it is?" and 35 voices answered back, "It's green gizmo time!" This was a tradition that we did back at camp. It wasn't the tradition itself that was awesome, but it was seeing that none of us missed a beat. We weren't whispering to each other, "Oh gawd, remember this? How embarrassing." We were genuinely nervous that one of us might be picked for green gizmo. Of course, Mike3 picked Mike1, you remember him, the guy that dumped me at my own prom? And they also picked Hillary, and the green gizmo turned out to be a group hug by all the members of the opposite sex. Ahh, church camp, such innocent & wholesome fun!

Then Sunday was my friend FlyingJ's baby shower, which you can read about here. You can also read Red's version of it here which is less of a baby shower play-by-play and more of a self-deprecating but nonetheless funny entry by Red, in which she also links to my blog. I sorta feel like I gotta return the favor, not out of guilt, but out of respect. Speaking of peer pressure... my other friend was there with her newborn, and I also just found out on Friday morning that my boss is pregnant. I'm not gonna lie to you, sometimes I feel like hyperventilating into a paper bag, but then I remember my sister and my two cousins, and I take solace in the fact that they're not pregnant, or anywhere near getting pregnant, so then I relax and take another birth control pill and all seems right with the world.