Ben M July 23, 2007
Posted by Anya in : smiling is good for you , trackbackBen, the younger brother of my friends Abby and David, showed up at camp. I say “showed up” because neither of them had bothered to mention to me that he was coming! (If they had, I would have gone prepared with my cloak!) Anyway, he wasn’t too sure what to make of me most of the week, but on Saturday morning he apparently decided that we could have fun together. And we did.Â
Actually, on Wednesday, we had the square-dancing, and Ben was one of my partners. He was good, too! Especially for his first time! David taught me how to dance, I taught Ben… now he’ll have to teach my sister!
He put his long-sleeved shirt which was functioning as a jacket over his head and tied it up in such a way that it made him look like a babushka. I told this to him. He found it hilarious.Â
We discussed important milestones coming up in his life.  One milestone was a huge dance. Ben said, “It’s not that long. It’s only 3 years.” (You have to be 12 to attend.) Then we talked about Ragnarok — the huge Dagorhir battle. To participate in that, you have to be 16. Ben: “That’s like half my LIFE [until I’ll be old enough].” I knew what he meant. That’s a long time.Â
The craft hut had to be cleaned up. First we made an “ant line” to carry all the boxes and boxes of supplies to the car. As we walked into the building, Ben turned to me and said, “You can be the Queen.” I was exceedingly perplexed and asked him, “Queen of what?” “Queen of the Ants!” he said, with a tone that suggested it had been quite obvious. I suppose that it had been, but I was low on sleep. ^_^
 After the boxes were out, we worked on sweeping out the building (along with Abbie, Zach, and Beth). Ben asked me if he could steal my pile of dust and add it to his own. I said yes, then thought the better of it and said (jokingly) NO! Of course at that point, he was already taking it, so I turned my broom around so that it would be a more useful weapon. He, being well trained in fighting, did the same and we started a lovely broom war which came to a sudden end when I quite unintentionally whacked him in the hand. *looks sheepish*
Ben told me that he was afraid that next year, the juniors wouldn’t be allowed to play Assassin. (They sort of overused/abused the waterguns this year.) I told him that they were far better than last year, but if the juniors weren’t allowed to play next year, I’d tell the Spymaster that Ben was an honorary senior. ^_^ He liked that. (Sidenote: I was into making people honorary whatevers. I made Lloyd an honorary King — he was actually a Priest — because he was being so helpful to us on soccer.)
I asked if he knew about the GopherBrane thing. Ben: “Yes, but I never did quite figure out who it was.” Since that had been the point of my question, I said, “Oh, well, it was me.” His jaw hit the floor, and that is barely hyperbole. That seemed to be a thought which had not crossed his mind, and he found it amusing. HIGHLY amusing. ^_^ It was fun to get to see a reaction to that news in person, since I had only gotten to read Abby’s reaction and David never mentioned a word about it. *evil laughter*
As a matter of fact, the one girl asked Ben on Saturday morning, “Is she your sister?” We cracked up and Ben told her that I wasn’t. (Sidenote again: David was also taken to be my brother.) Then she asked if we went to the same church and we were forced to confess that we had never even met before this week.Â
Oh, yes. Last story of the night. We managed to drive everyone who happened to walk past crazy by standing in the middle of the path for about half an hour, rambling on and on about Kiltboi. We were having a grand time of it. Everyone else was like, “WHAT are you talking about??” We tried telling them “Nothing.” (I think we were actually trying to figure out my rather under-developed character.) They didn’t believe that, but I don’t think they would have believed it if we had tried explaining it, either. We did (sort of) try once, but it was the sort of explanation which was designed to dissuade other questions. Anyway, Ben got to explain his character to me, including his superpower (cloning). Then we went to get my stuff out of the cabin and into our car. Then, as I said before, we carried craft stuff up the hill. It became tiring. I turned to Ben and said, “Ben, now would be a pretty good time to start cloning yourself.” He laughed.
Comments»
Haha, sounds like you had fun. I’ve noticed that several people who weren’t nice enough to come to camp themselves sent younger siblings as ambassadors.
i had noticed on his mother’s blog that she said that she had sent him to a camp. but she didn’t specify *which* camp. so i was going to write a letter to him too, but then i thought that it would just look plain silly if he didn’t actually go to your camp after all! (wow. that “your” looks so menacing. *sniff*)
Very fun–glad you enjoyed him this week! We’re glad to have him home.
like the new look btw
AHH! this is crazy! i just figured out you can switch the background on this thing!! *switches*
(oh yeah, and this is kinda crazy too: emma was in here when i looked at your blog and left my first comment. then she left the room and i found out i could switch the background. so i did. and then i started posting this comment. and she came back in and looked at your blog and was like, “wait…did the background just switch?”