Gidget goes Hawaiian
Tuesday, July 8th, 2025Oops! Wrong movie. This is more like The Twinz of Terror go to Mackinac Island. Well, they did go to an island, roight?
They went there to meet up with one of the UU’s boys and his wife and children. Bikes were ridden and I dunno what else. Me? I made an early run to the Up North Laundry and then came back to the moominbeach and my loverly little job. I don’t want to blahg too much about this but I was so impressed with the work my new colleague did today I told him he could take the rest of the day off. Of course, I had to qualify that I do not have the power to give him an afternoon off, which he well knows. But he got the point. My team hires good people.
I had NPR rolling quietly in the background as usual today. The Guadalupe flooding? OMG. Fact. A facebook/childhood friend of mine lived on the Guadalupe River for 40 years and is familiar with its flooding issues. She lives in a nearby city now. I don’t think she moved because of the flooding, just relocated.
Scary? That camp. 28 kids, counselors, and the camp director? At this moment I am listening (on NPR) to a woman who went to Mystic Camp for many years as a child. She LOVED it and is (of course) devastated about the flood. I went to Camp Wikweia (a Campfire Girl camp) a few times as a kid. I didn’t really like it all that well but there were some good times.
Once when I was at Camp Wikweia, my cabin and some others were scheduled to actually camp in sleeping bags maybe a quarter mile down the shore for the night. This was one thing I was excited about. We got there and I’m gonna guess we roasted hot dogs and s’mores over a faaaar. And we went to bed. In the middle of the night, we were roused from sleep by camp staff in cars. There was a severe thunderstorm. “Get in the car”, a camp admin said to me. “Oh no, get some of the younger kids first, I’m not scared.” “Get in the car!” Brave [stupid] tomboy was one of my many childhood personas although as an adult, I don’t go outside in lightning. I got in the car and everyone made it back to camp safely that night but I have always wondered whether they made me get in the car because of who my parents were or just because I was THERE. I hope it was the second. It was just a thunderstorm and Clear Lake was a little lake that couldn’t begin to overflow if it tried.
The folks who died at Mystic apparently didn’t have a chance in hell and I am still processing that. Another news story that freaked me out almost more was about two sisters (11 and 13 years old) who drowned on their family’s vacation property. They were staying with their grandparents in a rental house/cabin adjacent to their property. At some point during the night the dad tried unsuccessfully to kayak to them. Later he discovered a text, “We love you.”
All of the flooding is awful but that broke me. My daughters are 2-1/2 years apart, which means they were 11 and 13 once long ago.