Bummer Camp

The pros, and cons, of summer camp. Mostly the cons.

School has started for many of you already, but here in NYC, and in the northeast, we have another month of summer. Which is fine, except for the extreme heat and unbearable humidity and endless days on which my kids need to be entertained.

We went on vacation last week - full podcast recap coming soon! - and we have a lower key beach week planned for the very end of August, but that leaves another three weeks to kill. Thankfully, we’ve got my 12-year-old covered for one of them.

Detective Munch is at camp this week. Not sleepaway, just a day camp in the area. The Hammer attended the younger kids version of the camp in July and it went well, and so far the oldest is enjoying it. So are we, as it it keeps him off screens, outside, and out of our hair for a week.

Despite these obvious benefits, and despite the fact that The Hammer also went to day camp for a week in July, we’re just dipping our toes in. Again, these are local day camps, not sleepaway camps where the kids for for 2/4/6/8 (who do we appreciate?) weeks at a time, and any camp families reading this are surely scoffing. Are day camps really “camp”? Whatever, I don’t care.

Because we’re not a camp family. For a few reasons.

For one, we can’t afford it. Just a couple of weeks of day camp is well over $1k, and sleepover camp is exponentially more expensive. In May, Mom and Buried and I ran into some friends and they mentioned they’d spent $16,000 to send their two kids to a month of sleepaway camp. Sixteen thousand dollars!!! Do they also get a Tesla? What is going on?

For another, I’ve been to sleepaway camp. Once. It didn’t go well.

For all the amazing stories you hear from camp families, both from the parents (the kids are gone for months, it’s amazing!) and the kids (the friendships and activities and bonfires or whatever), I’ll never get over the experience I had…

Here are a few letters from my one time at sleepaway camp when I was 9. For context, I joined midstream - the last two weeks of the month, after the other kids had already had two weeks to get acclimate and bond - and my brother (12yo) was in another section of the camp, isolated from me. But not from my emotional trauma!

My first letter:

My brother’s attempt to help (and get an update on the Yankees):

My capitulation - and no wonder my parents kept these. This one has me admitting they were right!

Despite my apparent about-face, I never went back to sleepaway camp, and I’ve never attempted to push my kids to attend one either. But even if I’d loved it, my bank account pretty much makes it a non-starter. Apparently sleepaway camps are the new Ivy League - only the 1% get access. Cool!

Thankfully, the 1% sucks, so I get to save money and spare my kids the trauma that I experienced. But Mom and Buried and I do need some relief, so day camp it is!

Thankfully school starts up again soon-ish. Is it September yet?

Social Media Round-Up

Pop Culture Stuff

We saw Barbie! We were knee-deep in vaca prep, and then on actual vaca, when Barbenheimer hit, but over the weekend Mom and Buried and I managed to sneak out to see the biggest blockbuster in years. It’s a lot of fun. Clever (and man-hating), funny (and woke), heartwarming (and beta), insightful and smart (and everything that’s wrong with America)! We loved it, despite the fact that there was too much Ken (per M&B) and too much accuracy (those Godfather and Stephen Malkmus jokes hurt my feelings).

Haven’t seen Oppenheimer yet - who has three+ hours these days? - but I want to see it on the big screen. Of course I said that about Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One and I haven’t seen that either. I have been watching YouTube videos from Taylor Swifts Eras Tour though, so I have that going for me.

Catstagram

We got a cat.

I love cats and am pretty vocal about it - if you follow me on IG you’ve probably noticed - so it might come as no surprise that we finally got one. But it wasn’t my idea! But Mom and Buried wanted the kids to have a pet, so despite her allergies, and Detective Munch’s, when she saw that our local shelter had a kitten available, she pounced.

I don’t like extra hassle or responsibility, and while cats are relatively low-maintenance, especially when compared to dogs (I love dogs to but refuse to get one while living in a Brooklyn apartment, because I want a real dog, not a teacup accessory!), but they still require a lot, especially kittens. So I was reluctant.

Of course, now that Bubbles is here, I’m all-in. And so are the kids, obviously. And so is Mom and Buried, who has already spent approximately $18 million on cat toys and accessories. Meet Bubbles, and follow along in my stories.