DID YOU KNOW THAT LEGOLAND SUCKS WHEN IT'S RAINING OUTSIDE

My goal this morning was simply to wake up and make my way to camp with everything I needed for the overnight tonight. Unfortunately nothing goes smoothly for me, and today was no exception. For some reason, no laundry seemed to have been done recently so I began to worry about having enough clothes, or more specifically the right clothes. In particular I was concerned about the mysteriously disappearing Shabbat shirt. I somehow managed to get myself and all of my gear to camp on time, and made it on the bus to Legoland. On the way there I worked on my laptop to fix the scavenger hunt that Gera and I had failed at last time, but all the kids thought I was blogging, which I did on the way back. The group of kids I had at Legoland was the most attention-deficient children I have ever met, and they insisted on stopping at every single thing made of Legos. SPOILER: EVERYTHING THERE IS MADE OF LEGOS. We made our way past roller coaster with long wait times in favor of those little Lego models that squirt water, water that my kids tried to drink, despite there being water fountain in close proximity. I didn’t really care what we did for the first hour because we had lunch and then three more hours at the park. For lunch I could not have been more excited to eat my leftovers from the previous night’s Cheesecake Factory extravaganza, but when I opened the box of cheesecake, the entire thing had melted into a puddle of liquid sadness. We left the lunch pavilion with plenty of time to spare to go on every roller coaster we wanted. We first made our way to the closest roller coaster around, which was fun for a fifteen minute wait time. We decided that the next roller coaster we’d hit up was one all the way across the park, but as we prepared to be exhilarated, the operator came out and told us that it was all of a sudden closed due to lightning in the area. We waited another ten minutes in line, hoping that it would reopen. but it didn’t so we made our way to the bathrooms for a quick pit stop. While we were there, it happened to be just our luck that it started to rain and then pour. One of my kids started to cry and I asked what was wrong and he informed me, “It’s raining.” “Oh well, nothing we can do about it,” I replied. We found an indoor ride with a 45 minute wait time and stood under cover as my kids and I slowly inched forward in line. We got in line at 2:45 and had to be back to the front of the park by 3:45. This seemed manageable but as the time approached 3:00 and then 3:15 and then 3:30, I became concerned. My counselor-in-training was also noticeably annoyed by the weather and commented, "Welcome to Lakeland, Florida." That's when it dawned on me where Legoland was and why it sucked so much, Lakeland is my least favorite city in Florida. After fuming for a while about being there, we got to the front of the line and went on the five-minute ride. We regrouped and checked the time. Only 8 minutes to get to the front of the park. We knew we could make it! Then we took a wrong turn and had to turn around and got there late. The bus ride home was a lot sleepier than the one to the park, and I learned that 5 o'clock traffic is 100% a real thing. Dinner and swim capped off the busy day hiding from the rain, but somehow campers managed to lose their clothes constantly. First it's shirts, then bathing suits, one kid couple weeks ago even lost his underwear. Back inside we finally got the campers down and were able to take our breaks, but I ended up playing dodge ball with the theater group in the gym, and then eating ice cream with Jess and Gera in our boss's office, before we tried going to sleep. Everything amplifies in funniness at 12:30 so falling asleep was no easy task.

My dog has one eye

In an act that disgusts even myself, I began my summer reading this morning and I couldn't be more ashamed. It actually almost made me late to work where one little girl was celebrating her eighth birthday and telling every single person about it. Birthdays at camp are great because it's like back in elementary school when there'd be birthdays and kids bring in cookies, except you're the teacher and get to eat leftovers too. Many a cupcake was eaten this summer. On the opposite end of that spectrum, the regular sports specialist has been out for OCPS teacher training this week, so we ended up having a basketball coach do our sports period. These kids are used to the indoors, so when the new coach made them actually run outside where it was hot, somehow shockingly, they all complained for forty-five minutes. During the water break, the literal talk around the water cooler was that they didn't like running in the outdoors. The kids decided that the best way to get a longer water break was to throw their water at me, which just made me look sweatier, cause that's something I needed in my life. As I walked one little girl back, I saw that a game of soccer had started. I told her, "if they play soccer I guarantee someone is going to get injured." Sure enough, right as we got there, one little girl fell in the grass and started crying. As soon as we went over to her she hopped back up and started playing again, but she had to make sure that we all knew she was bravely overcoming the injury first. At lunch time, the same girl who I was talking with earlier told me that she didn't have a lunch today because she was moving and they had no food at home. I related well because when we moved a year ago, my mom stopped buying groceries two weeks before we left so it was basically a scavenger hunt to find food. I went inside and made her a jelly sandwich. After she ate it, someone walkie talkied that this girls lunch just got there from the deli at the end of lunch time. A lot of good that did me. In drama, the specialist had each of us say what we wanted to do when we grew up, and while all of the kids said gymnasts and fashion designers, I said that I'd like to be a writer. "You already are a writer," one girl said, "you have a blog!" The number of stuff kids actually retain astounds me, and I was cracking up after hearing that. The weekly staff outing was to The Cheesecake Factory where the camp surprised us by paying for four appetizers. The 16 staff members in attendance had to split into groups of four and I convinced my group to order the most expensive item, Thai lettuce wraps. I sat next to my boss who told me that I was too jokey and that she didn't "know the real me." I decided to open up to her and talk some feelings; afterward she said, "aw Jacob! You do have a heart!" I feel it necessary to mention that the drink I ordered was a strawberry lemonade mixed with Dr. Pepper, here on out known as a 'J Free-Z'. Gera had to go to my house to work on making a new scavenger hunt for tomorrow so I introduced him to my dog who only has one eye after a fight with Glaucoma. When he left, Caroline and Grace rolled up and I hopped in the car, only to run back to the house for my laptop so that my siblings wouldn't read this blog. Since Caroline won't log out of my Spotify Premium, we listened to some of my favorite jams on the drive. I got home at 11:30 and realized I should sleep because there's an overnight at camp tomorrow, but somehow I managed to waste two hours staying awake.

[WiFi] at last! [WiFi] at last!

I have been so tired every single morning when I've woken up recently it's getting a bit insane. I told my kids at camp that the first thing I did when I got up this morning was take a nap, and they said, "So you just went back to sleep?" As my mom pulled in to camp to drop me off, she told me that she's going to sign us up for swing dancing classes, to which I begged her not to. Status is currently unknown about whether or not she's signed us up, I'll keep you posted. In the drama elective, the kids made a video about the story of Jonah and the Whale, except for one girl who told me she was too tired, to which I related to well. She and I worked on planning a scavenger hunt, and she's one of the smartest kids I know so it went swimmingly. During gym games, on of the counselors in training accidentally hit one of my campers and she started crying, so I had to walk her to get ice in the camp kitchen. On the way over I commented, "Jeez, why do you keep getting hurt? I think you just like hanging out with me." "No," she said. No further questions. After work, the tables turned when I accidentally hit a child in the face with a basketball. She started crying and I tried to comfort her, but she went right to the lady who runs the basketball programs and told her that I am "banded from the gym." The lady agreed with her and said, "I don't even care that it's not grammatically correct, you're banded from the gym." My friend took me home and bought me some Chic-Fil-A, but when I got home no cars were there, and nobody answered their phone, naturally. I found a spare key and relaxed inside until my mom finally called and told me that they had gone to pick up my sister from the airport. I hugged her when she got home even though she said she didn't get me anything. "That okay," I replied, "I didn't get you anything either." The absolute best part of today was the discovery of working WiFi when I got home, which made me physically scream with joy. Tonight I still have to figure out a scene to do for the district thespian festival because this girl Georgia won't stop bugging me about it.

This is a cataclysm

I barely got any sleep last night since I stayed up so long, but waking up has never come easy to me. Camp came pretty easy coming off the weekend and expecting to fall back into the regular groove of things. Mondays are pizza day so that is always a beautiful experience, not to mention I always forget to pack lunch anyway. During Israeli culture the children made what appeared to be Mr. Potato Heads, except with balloons. They turned out to look very deformed and underwhelming in terms of Israeli influence. The kids seemed to love them, however, and instead of hitting each other they hit their balloon friends. In after care, we played dodge ball in the gym, which is awesome because air conditioning and children always idolize their counselors during dodge ball. Near the end of the game I walked over to a girl who was sitting out and started talking to her. I asked her if she'd ever stop being allergic to boys and she said no. Then I asked if she'd ever get married and she said no. Then I asked who she'd dance with at her Quinceñera, and she said, "Hmm... Janet." "Who?" I asked her. "Janet, she's this girl... I think I'm just going to be gay." I sort of lost it for a moment and just started laughing in the middle of the gym and this little girl started telling everyone she was going to be gay, including her mother when she came to pick her up. After work my friend Lauren picked me up and drove me to her house to build a desk for her brother's room. On the way there we stopped at Racetrack and I bought a 52 oz. drink with 11 different sodas mixed in, or what Chris Christie calls breakfast. When I got to her house, I saw that Lauren had completed most of the desk and the only remaining step was to put the top of the desk on to the frame. This required that each dowel be inserted into a pre-drilled hole, except two holes were missing so I had to drill them. Evidently I didn't do it well enough because when I put the top on, I pushed it down and the wooden dowels burst through the top of the desk. We had to un-build the entire thing and bring it back to Target where we told them it was missing parts. Then we got another desk of the same variety, went back to Lauren's house, and tried building that. Lauren kept repeating "This is awful," and then afterwards I'd say, "No Lauren, Benghazi was awful, this is a cataclysm." We got through steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 11; then we ate Calzones and went home.

Why oh WiFi Part II

I feel bad for not having posted yesterday, but it was because the WiFi was down and it'd not technically 'our WiFi'. When we moved a year ago my parents decided to just keep putting off getting WiFi and Cable TV until it seems like an unattainable reality. When I got up late in the day I checked my laptop 87,000 times expecting to have internet but it didn't happen. My phone, which is destroyed (See the story), kept dying and refused to charge over night, so I was out of touch and felt like an Amish farmer. My mom drove me out to Barnes and Noble to buy some plays and whatnot. Last night I read this awful play "based on the diary of a real girl." She accidentally tripped acid at a party, and then three months later was addicted to heroin. At the end she went to rehab, got better, but then she shouted "Throwback!" and killed herself with sleeping pills. It was whack. Later that night we went over to my grandma's for dinner, and the contrast to my mom's cooking was pretty blatant. While I was there I used my laptop on their functioning WiFi which was a god send. After dinner I asked my brother if he wanted to play basketball with me, and since he sees himself as the 11-year old LeBron James (complete with whining and complaining), he patronizingly went outside and started to play. Then he looked down at his phone and told me I had one more minute to play with him because he had to go inside to watch the Special Olympics opening ceremony. I left having not finished my blog post for Sunday which was aggrivating because it's being posted now at 12:45 am on a Tuesday. Instead of posting, I stayed up til 3 in the morning writing a play, which will either turn out genius, or 3 in the morning mediocre.

Why oh WiFi

Let me start out by saying the WiFi on my laptop wasn't working for about 80% of the day, which meant the internet stopped working right when I started another White Collar marathon on Netflix. It has been aggravating and I've actually had to do some reading, of the non-internet variety. When I got out of bed this morning I remembered that I was supposed to have read this play that I'm doing a scene from for the district thespian festival. Of course, when I got up and looked for it I couldn't find it in my room, so I traipsed around my house in some boxers, looking for this script. I called my mom who didn't answer 'Hello?' but instead, "Yes?" Rude. I asked her if she'd seen it and she said no, but that I should check my desk and dresser and what have you. I told her that I already had, but then when I double and triple checked, I found it on my dresser under some other books, not that she'll ever know that. I spent my morning reading the play and flippin' some burgers for lunch. Not too much went on today, due in large part to the spontaneous thunderstorm, along with my insurmountable laziness. I did walk to the library to buy some new plays, and was welcomed to the used book store by an elderly woman in her eighties or nineties. She showed my where the plays were and then rang me up, which took a while because I had my debit card on me and no cash. My dad first got me a debit card a year ago because I started earning money from work, but the banker made a mistake and charged me an extra ten dollars for an 'Ol Miss card, and now I feel like a racist every time I pull out my card of the Rebels. When I got back home my mom offered me a cheeseburger, in which she provided the cheese and bread, and used the burgers I made, but that didn't stop her from trying to pass them off as her own. I couldn't fall asleep until 1:30 in the morning because I usually fall asleep to Netflix so I watched a rerun of the Forensic Files and went to sleep being afraid of getting murdered.

It takes two to Challah

I didn't have time to shower this morning because, let's face it, I'll never in my life be ahead of schedule. In the car this morning my mom pointed out, "you need to wash your hair." I rolled my eyes, but then she started laughing and I asked her what was funny. "I'm afraid that anything I say to you, you'll post on your blog," she said. You're right mom. Camp started off with a huge thunderstorm that forced us to be inside all day long. Gera and I decided to take an hour and plan a scavenger hunt around camp for the kids with clues that rhymed, and challenges and what not. What we forgot to come up with was an ending, so when each group ran screaming into the auditorium to look for more clues, we had to tell them that it was over. They were more confused than entertained. In the words of one child, "that wasn't a scavenger hunt, that was a wild goose chase!" As the day progressed, the kids got crazier and crazier as their pent up energy tripled with their pent up state. In order to calm the kids down we took a variety of approaches, one being yoga which didn't work, because second and third graders aren't great at not talking. We ended up having them run in place until they were too tired to run and they could sit down and relax, quietly. Song Session was at the end of the day, and we did our usual Shabbat songs and what not, except they got stuck in my head so the next two hours were full of Hebrew lyrics running around my head. During after care I had all of the kids sit quietly and meditate to a soundtrack, mostly because I wanted to sneak in a nap. In the game room I turned my attention to a growing trend among the campers: ranking their favorite counselors. In general I hovered from third to fifth, which I was happy with, except for one little girl, who put me at seven thousandth. I spend every single day with this camper in my group singing and joking and whatnot, but I still couldn't seem to even crack the top one hundred. There are only thirty counselors at camp anyway, but that's on her. Later at home, I walked in the front door and greeted my family, then I asked my mom what was for dinner, bracing myself for the answer. "Chicken Parmesan," she said. "Leftovers?" I asked dismally, her nonsensical reply was, "but you didn't eat it when we had it for dinner." Yeah mom, because if I didn't eat it originally, three days later it's still fresh cooked; same way that a used car can be sold at full price because it's new to someone else. After I dejectedly left the kitchen, my brother told me that my mom had bought me new shampoo, "is it Valentines day already?" I asked. The last time I got new shampoo was when I took it out of a gift bag my mom got me on Valentines day, along with my silk boxers.

Cray Crayola

I almost missed work today, because on Thursdays we have to get there early at 8:15 to discuss field trips and picture day, so I set my alarm to 7:15. I woke up long enough to shut my alarm off but I jumped back in my bed and passed out immediately. I woke up 30 minutes later when my dad shouted, "bye Jacob, have a great day!" I woke with a start and ran to get all of my things, then I yelled up to my mom, "hey mom, are you ready to go?" as if I had been ready for half an hour. In the car I turned on The Jacob Freid Experience,and jammed during the 20-minute drive to work. Once there, we began the process of discussing our field trip for the day, the Crayola Experience. On the way to the field trip, my friend Gera and I sang Blank Space, and a few other ditties. At the mall where the Crayola Experience was located, we had to make sure everyone had a ticket and two coins to use inside. Most importantly, I had to make sure I had my two coins because I wanted to have just as much fun as the kids... if not more. There was so much stuff do inside, as it turned out being bigger than I had expected. Of course the kids only wanted to go on the playground, it wasn't like we had one back at camp or anything. We were able to melt crayons into molds, turn selfies into coloring pages, and best of all, we could name our own crayons. Mine were named 'Jacobs Blog Blue' and 'Googly Eye Green 100'. A man in a purple crayon suit came out and one 7 year old looked me dead in the eyes and said, "We need to go see the crayon." We went, and they all hugged the sweaty teenager wearing a crayon costume. After lunch all of my kids wanted to go to a place called 'Toddler Town'but since they were 7 and 8, I made them compromise, and we went to the regular playground, again. Leaving wasn't easy, as none of the kids wanted to go home and they seemed to still have tons of energy. I thought the bus ride home would be a nice time for me to sleep, but the little girl across the aisle made sure that didn't happen. She would repeat my name over and over, and when I replied, she'd say, "no, I was talking to INVISIBLE Jacob!" I ended up giving her an award for 'making sure her counselor stayed awake on the bus'. She thought it was pretty funny. After the camp day was over, my grandpa Stan picked me up and drove me back to my grandparents where I was provided what my mother never could, a great dinner. My grandma Sue made sure to point out that my mom used the same meat loaf recipe, but that just made me wonder why it was so much better when my grandma made it. Happy almost Shabbat, until tomorrow.

Classic mom

This morning I went to Walgreens because I ran out of deodorant so my dad pulls into a parking spot and we sit there for a minute before he asks if I need to go. I told him that I needed him to pay for it. Sometimes parents just like to feel needed. Every morning during camp, my friend Gabe and I like to sing the national anthem as loud as we can, to give a demonstration of our superior vocal quality to the kids, of course. During Israeli culture, one of the specialist areas, we played a game where the kids had to cover their teeth with their lips and say "ship" over and over. To the counselors it sounded like a different word, but we couldn't exactly explain that to the kids. During after care, one child hit another kid in the face after the  kid accidentally hit his thumb. I had to talk to the child's grandma about it and the whole time the child was just tearing up and trying to get his grandma to hug him, that almost made me cry. Naturally it made me think of my grandma, Sue, who says I'm the best hugger in the world. I was told I could go home when enough kids were picked up so I called my mom and asked her if she would bring me clothes to change into because a friend was driving me to our staff outing at SAK comedy club. "No," she said, with no explanation. When I asked why she said I "should have thought to bring clothes in the first place." Instead, she offered to give me a ride home where my friend could pick me up from. Apparently that was easier than just bringing me my clothes; I will never understand her. SAK was such a fun and great experience, it was amazing to watch them feed off of the energy from the audience. During the intermission I went to get a popcorn and game back and my boss asked for some, but I told her no, so she said "you're fired," and then I told her, "No, you're fired." She was really into the show and tried to make a few jokes of her own, they turned out... alright?? As we got to the parking garage in downtown Orlando, we took an elevator up as high as we could, and then had to take the stairs. Apparently the stairs didn't let off at the right place because we went up about 8 flights and just never found a door. What we did find was the overwhelming scent of weed which got strong as we went up. Eventually we decided to book it, as we got scared of whomever may have been up there. On the way back to the JCC, we played some Jewish music to really get us pumped up for the next day, and then we sang along to the Cat Song until my friend dropped me off. I got home and took off my too small jeans; girls I don't know how you all do it. Nothing feels better than boxers and democracy.

Everything is chrome

I had to wake up early this morning to find an outfit to wear for decades day at camp, and since I own practically no tie-dye, I ended up dressing like I'm from the future. I wore some pants that I found at a Salvation Army once, along with a neon yellow shirt on which I wrote in Sharpie "Happy 2050" and on the back, "#TheFuture "Robots r cool" - Abraham Lincoln." This was complimented well by my two pairs of sunglasses and pet rock, Rocky. On the way to camp I played some camp songs in the car so my mom would have a better understanding of what I do, because I'm pretty sure she thinks I just sit around and play on my phone, when in actuality, we aren't allowed to use chairs at camp. My feet are killing me. I played The Cat Song which is a song made of cat puns. My mom dropped me off and all of my coworkers had something to say about my outfit. The most interesting part of my day came at the end when a camper walked up to me and licked my arm. After work I went to Shake Shack with my friend and came home, stuffed, to find my mom had made dinner. She decided to punish me by making me eat it tomorrow for leftovers. Classic mom. My dad and I talked about Bernie Sanders (<3) and while my dad thinks he has no chance for the nomination and I do, we could both agree that Donald Trump is a total jackass. Rocky agrees.

Monday, Monday

I'm pretty proud to announce this morning that I actually woke up a few minutes before my alarm, and proceeded to use that time to get ready for my day. I know. Shocker. On the way to work my mother introduced me to her new invention, the language Yeddo: a mixture of Yiddish and Ghetto. An example would be "vi fil cheddar?" meaning how much does this cost. It's ridiculous but she finds herself to be so funny there's little to no chance of stopping this from occurring so it's better to let it just run its course. Mondays at camp include group time at the beginning of the day, but since we didn't have any new kids, we just talked about what we did this weekend. I told my 7 and 8 year olds about my canoe trip and my growing blog. Apparently blogs are a little outdated because they were pretty confused about what a blog is, so I just didn't mention it again. A day filled with playground time and dodge ball ensued and during swim time, two girls moved up from red wristbands to green ones! It was exciting for me at least... After swim, whilst changing, two of my slowest boys tried to race and narrated their race in third person, then when one boy finally finished the other declared that, "Winning or losing doesn't matter!" despite stomping his feet angrily today when he lost silent speed ball. During after care I walked from the gym to the game room and saw one of my favorite campers getting tutored in the lobby, but on the way back to the gym I saw him leaving because, "The teenagers are too loud, probably all scrolling through Instagram," he informed me. 7 year olds are funnier than most of my high school friends. When work ended I went to the gym to play basketball with a friend and pretended to be winning when any girls walked in. In reality I was losing 6 to 0. I did win one game because I scored first, right before the gym closed; I was quick to tell everyone about this victory. I got a ride home with my amazing co-counselor and what awaited me at home? Dinner. And no, I don't mean cereal. Actual dinner. It was a miracle. A hamburger with baked potato and asparagus; needless to say, my mom was very proud of herself and smiled as she crocheted her latest project. She had spent a week in New Jersey at a camp for presumably middle aged women, it taught crocheting and how to relive your childhood. After dinner she reminded me that it was a friend's birthday and asked if I was buying her a present, which I didn't understand because my mom barely knows when my birthday is, and she also hates buying gifts for anyone. Tomorrow I need to dress like I'm from a different decade for camp, pictures to come.

I canoe, can you?

Last night I set an alarm for 8 AM and it went off which kinda surprised me for some reason, mainly because all of the times during the school year when I set an alarm it seemed to never go off. Evidently I didn't need to wake up that early because my friends didn't come for another 3 hours, but either way, I had three hours to myself. In that time I actually finished writing my story about the Hannukah scarf, and I mentally prepared myself for hanging out with three crazy girls for about 6 hours. When they came to pick me up there was a giant canoe attached to the roof of the minivan and they asked me to supply them with something bright to tie on the back of it, as per mandated by Florida state law. I gave them a crew shirt that said 'Join. Row. Win.' and was fluorescent yellow, it symbolized the journey we were about to take, and it wasn't mine so I didn't care what happened to it. When we eventually arrived at Wekiva around mid-day we got in a long line of cars trying to enter, but our spirit of adventure had to be put on hold because the park was closed due to overcrowding. According to the bald park ranger at the gate, we'd have to wait two hours to get in. None of us were too worried, we felt like we could handle each other for that long, but things got weird quick. When we parked in a parking lot about a tenth of a mile from the park, we were bored to the point where we actually started to clean the car, meanwhile my mom still can't get me to clean my room. Again we checked to see if we could finally enter the park, but they were again turning people away. Upset and anxious to get in, we trespassed into a school parking lot and sat there with the air conditioning on high until we got back in line for the third time, and were rejected like a wrinkly dollar in a vending machine. We made the difficult decision to abandon hope and got to Lake Osceola, but I decided to try a Hail Mary and actually call Wekiva to see when they'd be open. The lady told me that they were letting a few cars in but, unfortunately, it was a beautiful day and nobody wanted to leave. "That is unfortunate," I replied and hung up. When I told my friends that they were letting in some cars they all screamed and Lauren made a U-turn with the canoe somehow remaining on the car. After parking, a kind stranger helped us to take the canoe off the car and we put it on a roller, which was really just a pair of wheels that kept slipping out from under the canoe. It ended up with all of us carrying the canoe down to the river, which actually means that I carried one end, and the three girls carried the other end together. When we finally got down to the river, it was discovered that the canoe could fit no more than three people, contrary to what we thought was a 1,000 pound weight limit. One of the employees of the park came over to us after we got done struggling to walk with the canoe and told us, "I've seen some slow customers, but you guys are up there." Then he informed us that we were using the roller wrong because it needed to be tied around the top of the canoe to prevent slipping, which in retrospect made a lot of sense. My friend Zoey and I rode in the canoe we brought, and Lauren and Ashley went in the rented canoe. Zoey and I pushed off and started quickly down the river before we turned around to see the duo of Ashley and Lauren crashing into their first tree. Every time Zoey and I slowed down for the other two, they would crash again due in part to Lauren's inability to steer and Ashley's need for speed; their bickering was golden, only snipets could be heard, like Ashley saying, "I can do this! I was a girl scout!". All of the summers I had spent taking sailing and canoeing at Rollins College had paid off today as the canoe I was in kept out of the way of trees and bushes. Gators dotted the shoreline and at one point we passed by a huge gathering of people getting drunk to a cover of 'Ain't No Sunshine' on the grass along the river, but the most interesting thing about the river was all the strange people we saw on it. One canoe had two adult men and about 6 small children, while another kayak had an old woman smoking a cigarette. One odd group was two canoes with three paddles between them, they held onto each other and tried (to no avail) to paddle together. The entire experience was exhausting and can be surmised in Lauren saying "next time we're going to the beach." On our way back upstream, Ashley tried to race us but quickly propelled their boat into a tree. I recommended that she start her own crew team who's motto is 'Join. Row. Crash into nature.' Lord knows how, but we managed to load the canoe back on to the car and make it safely back to Lauren's house where we ordered pizza that was delivered by Lauren's brother, Ben. Zoey gathered a dollar in change and gave it to Ben as a tip, and I was given $5 and told Ben, "here's the real tip" and shoved it down the from of his pants. "I've never been tipped so aggressively," he responded. Lauren drove me home after watching a couple episodes of Bob's Burgers and letting our pizza digest. Tired and weary, I arrived home and barely said two words to my parents before crashing onto my bed and confining myself to my cave for the night.

Dance break!

Last night I had this insane dream where I woke up one morning and was five months pregnant. I had gone to my parents and doctors and no one knew what the hell had happened, except it was like a weird vampire baby from Twilight that wouldn't stop growing and then my dream ended inconclusively. I woke suddenly due to the presence of my brother in my room and immediately looked at my clock. 9:30. "Oh my god I'm late!" I shouted and began to panic. then I laid back down because I remembered it was Saturday and I had turned my alarm off before I went to sleep last night. The next three hours of my day were in bed scrolling through Facebook occasionally pushing air a little harder out my nose when I thought something was funny. When I finally ventured outside of my warm ocean of blankets I immediately went to the kitchen to do a little bit of reconnaissance scouting for lunch and/or breakfast foods. Cereal for dinner and then breakfast? Do I want to be that guy? I decided to screw cooking and instead eat some popcorn and wait for my parents to return, or wait until my hunger surpassed my laziness. My parents arrived bearing gifts in the form of a sandwich from Panera, and then again departed to watch my brother play basketball, all the while I played the GameCube and ate a ham and cheese sandwich on non-moldy rye bread. I got bored to the point where I gave out the url of this blog to strangers on the internet (S/O to Felix from the UK). My day of lounging around ended when my mother got home and immediately demanded I clean my room, because obviously all of the people coming over at 7:30 on a Saturday night (none) would be so concerned with how my room looks. After ignoring her yelling and instead promising to do it 'later,' I was beckoned to the kitchen by the ever promising sound of "Jacob I made you dinner." As I actually got up from the TV side seat, I walked to

my mom to find her presenting me with a cup of frozen yogurt. "I made frozen yogurt." Again I was faced with the prospect of eating a sub-par, or mom-par, dinner. "What would Gram think about this?" I asked as she was walking away. She stopped in her tracks. "Do not tell Gram about this." I sarcastically responded, "Why not? Cereal last night and then frozen yogurt tonight." My mother actually looked concerned that I might tell her mother about her indecent dinners so she threatened, "If you do I'll tell your friends something about you!" Which is ridiculous because when I asked her to name any of my friends she could name about 3. Let it be known that I have over 700 (Facebook) friends. Finally after she suggested that me not cleaning my room is why she wouldn't make me dinner, I returned to my room again and pondered what I could eat. I didn't have to ponder long because right then, my friends Zoey and Lauren called me and invited me back to Lauren's house to hang out and prepare for our canoe trip tomorrow morning. And so, at 7 o'clock PM, I finally changed out of my pajamas and get out of the house for the first time all day and drove off into the night. When we got to Lauren's house we realized quickly that we couldn't actually do all that much to prepare because we didn't have much to bring, so Lauren drove Zoey home and then I made Lauren take me to Perkin's so I could eat some real dinner. The best part of the entire night was that on the way out I put a dollar into the claw machine and 20 seconds later I was the proud owner of a Spider Man plush doll. Ahem, action figure. Idiots frustrate me daily, especially being that some of them live in my house. Speaking of my sister, she recently got a Facebook because she needed a place to share her pictures to while she's in California, but the only people who ever like or comment are my family; I've made a point to point this out to her. More updates to come, can't wait to be in a canoe tomorrow with three girls for three hours, wish me luck.

QOTD

This morning I woke up early at 7:15 to my ridiculously loud alarm clock that my mom gave to me as a Hanukkah "gift." In reality she was treating herself to the gift of not trying to get my sleepy tuchus out of bed every single morning, but in either scenario the real loser here is me. As soon as I got up I decided that instead of going back to bed I'd stay awake and get ready for my day, but things never seem to go exactly as you think they will. Working at a Jewish camp requires that the staff wear 'Shabbat shirts' every Friday, and today was especially important being that it was our camp-wide Israel day. What is Israel day you didn't ask? Well I'll tell you anyway! It's a day where the entire camp gets to learn about different cultural aspects of Israel, as well as where 7 and 8 year old's pretend like they can actually find the Middle East on a map. As I went through my drawers looking for my Shabbat shirt I started to grow worried, realizing quickly that the entire camp would have on white and blue and in 45 minutes I would have to leave, with or without the shirt. Now if you're thinking I found the shirt at the last minute and made it just in time to work, then you'd be wrong, because I had to ask my boss for an extra. They day was comprised of different stations, the first of which was an outdoor pita bread making activity. One of the children in my group who was allergic to gluten decided to participate anyway and offered me her pita; in fact, she asked if she could help and then made my pita for me, because when it comes to baking, even a 7 year old is better than me. That's probably why mom won't let me use the stove. When the pitas were done we covered them in chocolate and ate them except I ended up getting a huge brown stain on my borrow white shirt. Dancing followed pita making as I made a fool of myself while trying to keep up with the confusing dance steps that went along with the  Israeli music, unfortunately while dancing I accidentally bonked a child on the head with my elbow and had to get her ice in a plastic glove because there seemed to be no more ziploc bags. I gave her the ice and said, "I heard you needed a helping hand," to which she ignored because she claims to be allergic to boys. The day continued on uninterruptedly until the end of the day during song session, when we all had to do an Israeli dance. The middle of the song calls for a free dance where I did a combination of the moon walk and wu-tang that resembled a fish trying to dig through sand. Song session went on to include a song about trees where one of the verses was just naming 30 different kinds of trees. In after care one child disputed the song saying, "let's stand up for bushes, give bushes the respect they deserve." Another child wouldn't stop saying 'butt cheek.' After a long day of sweat and dance, I came home and asked my mom what was there for dinner. She asked if we had any cheese, or if I wanted her to nuke a hot dog. All of a sudden she asked excitedly, "Do you want cereal?? I have fresh Honey Bunches of Oats, it's right here," she took out a bag of cereal and then put it back for a different bag of cereal, "or maybe this is the fresh one," she said. "Oh well, they're probably both fresh," she said semi-confidently. I poured myself a bowl as my mom asked for me not to tell my Gram about cereal for dinner because Gram thinks mom doesn't try hard enough when it comes to dinner. I wonder why. Anyway, when I finished my cereal I went to the YMCA with my brother and dad. I was insistent that we played basketball but all of the hoops were lowered for the youth league. My dad saw this as an opportunity and decided to dunk on a backboard that said no dunking and, surprise surprise, it almost fell. While my family shot around, a chubby Hispanic kid joined us and we played a game of two on two. Getting home, I had to shower and get dressed before going out with a friend for some Chic-fil-a and to talk some trash. Overall an A+ day that ended with me staying up until 2 am because it's the freakin weekend baby!

Twofer

Aw shoot! What the hell have I done the past two days because I totally forgot this blog existed! Okay, well Wednesdays are boring anyways so who even cares. One thing that has happened as of late is that two different playlists on my Spotify have disappeared! One was a 30-song playlist dedicated to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a random hodgepodge of music I happened to find, while the other playlist contained the 8 rap songs I like. My suspicions have led me to a few prime suspects, yet none have confessed to the crime. The Classic Crime: A band featured on my new playlist, The Jacob Freid Experience. One time I went out with a couple of my friends and they were playing music in the car and I'm like "Wow! This music is great, I know every artist!" Not until 30 minutes later did I realize they were actually playing my Spotify playlist on shuffle. Yesterday after camp was over I walked into the gym and challenged my co-worker to a game of basketball because he had a big mouth and tried to give me tips on shooting. Our game ended in a 4-4 time when the gym closed, and in retrospect I should have warmed up first since this kid had been shooting for 45 minutes before I got there. I came out of the gym drenched in sweat so of course my co-workers all laughed at me. I went home and changed and went out to the weekly staff outing where I sat across from the kid I had played basketball with earlier that day. He kept throwing salt at me so I may have said a couple things to him that probably aren't exactly appropriate for this blog. Karma got me back for saying those things because I happened to leave half of my calzone at the restaurant and didn't have lunch for the next day. That next day turns out to be today, when I'm actually writing this blog post. I woke up early today because on Thursdays (AKA field trip days), we have a meeting at 8:15 so I got up at 7:15 and got ready to go to CoCo Key Water Park. CoCo Key is a water park that no one has heard of because it's full of so many interesting characters it's be impossible to describe in it's all deserving glory. Located directly next to the interstate, this water park is crawling with small children, smokers, and wrinkly people. One Hispanic man lounged in the pool while three of his family members rubbed his chest hair. At one point I saw a cute little girl who I said hi to and her father started speaking Russian to her and I realized she probably hadn't understood me. Finally when it was time to leave, half of the campers had somehow forgotten to pack pants so they wore a wet bathing suit the rest of the day. It was a day I'll hopefully forget pretty soon. The rest of my day slipped by but when my mom picked me up I was reminded that I had to go out to Vietnamese food with my family and my grandma's cousin. Tomorrow my sister will be flying to California for a week which means I finally won't have to deal with her stealing my laptop charger. Little victories. Anyway, until tomorrow (Which is today because it's 12:01).

I think I'm going to bed now

Lately I've really gotten into a habit of waking up at 7:30, convincing myself I don't need any time to get ready and falling back asleep for another half hour. Most people would reflect upon why this is, but I don't need to because I know why it is (Netflix marathons) and yet I just can't muster up enough energy to actually care. It works out really well for me because I end up falling asleep during the ride to work and not having to deal with my mom, being that neither of us are morning people it's definitely for the best. It does take me back to one time when my mom was driving me to school while I was reading a book and since I wasn't talking she forgot about me, missed the turn, and starting going all the way home. It wasn't until I asked her what she was doing that she told me she "forgot I was in the car." When I got to work we found out that one of the specialists wouldn't be there so I had to lead the hour and a half drama block for the 2/3 graders. The seven kids somehow managed to be very exhaustive yet never lose any energy themselves, so after about an hour of drama games we ran out of ideas, so my co-worker decided to tell them to go come up with a play. They said banana for three minutes straight as they pretended to be Minions which finally led into lunch time. Once lunch was over we all played a game of pin the candle on the menorah and went out to the playground where a game of vampire hunter versus vampire ensued. The day ended with neither of my parents picking up the phone when I called them and my grandpa having to come get me and take me home, where a tuna sub from Subway awaited me.

Whoops I forgot to post this yesterday so it's a day late

After taking a nap and missing dinner last night, I was wide awake as the clock displayed 11 o'clock on its digital face. I began to feel hungry and made my way to the kitchen where I found nothing, and I mean nothing. Earlier, when I had asked my mother what we had, her response was "cheese." Figuring I could make a delicious unhealthy grilled cheese sandwich, I searched for bread and found it in the microwave. A full loaf of rye was a pleasant surprise, because normally I has to deal with the remains of a loaf after it had been pillaged throughout the week by my family. I opened the bag of what I thought to be marbled rye and pulled out the biggest piece to find a large patch of green, fuzzy mold. I immediately freaked out and threw the bag away, choosing instead to use two hot dog buns and a few slices of cheese. While beginning a marathon of White Collar that would last until two in the morning, I discovered my new method to be actually an awful idea. Later today, after work, I played basketball because ball is life. When I finally went home exhaustively, I managed to hoist myself up from another attempted White Collar marathon to hang out with friends where we were the only teenagers in history to spend hours in a parked car and not use it to hot box. Instead we ordered doughnuts where several jokes about DEEZ NUTS were made (by me and no one else). After ordering a couple of medium waters from our local Taco Bell, and jamming out to retro throwback Hannah Montana, my evening concluded with being dropped off and falling asleep during a second run at watching White Collar.

180º to 360º: The second half of a round trip

My morning began with an elevator ride, unfortunately not ending in the classic 'child birth on a stopped elevator' trope. Instead I met a sweet old lady who sounded Canadian(?) who told me that her grandson was playing for the state championship today. All I said was "whooooooooooa," which reveals the flaw in elevator conversationalism: because you never know how long you'll be on the elevator you don't know if you can actually start the conversation. Maybe she was the Canadian speaker of the house, I'll never know. Afterwards we made our way to a lake where a lady made us take our picture while we faced right into the sun. A walk partway around the lake to get to a new site can be described by a single adjective: sweaty. The photo shoots didn't stop, with my mother insisting on "just one more" at least 86 times. The process was delayed by various family members inability to know when to shut up. Also my brother got scared of a moth and made us wait another minute. A silent car ride  preceded the arrival back to my grandparents home where I was disappointed to not find breakfast bagels AKA the traditional post Jewish photo shoot breakfast. After breakfast and an outdoor nap I sat on the couch with my family and watched with ambivalence as two grown men hit a ball back and forth for millions of dollars. Naturally this prompted my cousin to talk about his tennis expertise saying, "The fastest I've ever served, like ever, is probably like 87 miles an hour but that was like the fastest ever... probably." Without even turning around to face him I asked "ever?" He just walked away. Sometimes I don't even try to hide my sarcastic thoughts, like when my sister commented on 'a nice rally' and I asked her if she knew what sport was being played. Once the match ended we headed back to Winter Park, stopping in a 7/11 where the most backwoods characters trounced about as I tried to pick out a Gatorade flavor. One man walked disheveledly through the aisles with his mouth open to display an array of misaligned, graying teeth. His dead eyes moved me to make a hasty selection as I departed the convenience store. The way back to Winter Park was filled with NPR and heat as the 95 degrees of Florida atmosphere raped my pores. I lie here now in my bed ready to sleep knowing I have a long day of work tomorrow.

Journaling is for the weak

5:11 PM:
I am sitting at my hotel room window with my brother watching a little league team try to play bean bag toss as their parents get progressively more drunk to try and forget about their horrible decision to sign their 7 year old's up for a little league travel team.

5:22 PM:
My sister returned to the hotel room and is pretending to be Hispanic.

5:42 PM:
Despite thunderstorms we are about to head over to the pool party.

10:47 PM:
Back in the hotel room on my undersized cot I realize that the party wasn't actually that bad and I had a good time with family (rarity level: finding a liberal in Texas). We were supposed to write something on a cutout comic speech bubble and I wrote "Soup?" Then we wrote our favorite memories with grandma and mine was "becoming friends on Facebook." When I first got a Facebook, my grandma was the only one who would comment on my very limited and time sensitive statuses, it was pretty cool of her. Now I am going to sleep because I have to wake up early for a family picture [Laughing Emoji] [Gun Emoji]

Where I am now, and where I hope you'll never have to be

Today we went from Winter Park to Lakeland and I hate Lakeland. My morning began at 10 AM as I woke up to the harmonious sound of my sister struggling to buy a purse online. Despite having no job or income, my 15 year old sister feels entitled to a new Kate Spade purse for her week long vacation to California. My mother tries to rebuke her requests for astronomically priced accessories but to no avail. My sister is the girl who likes to break away from reality to address her fake YouTube viewership every so often (Not relevant but kinda necessary). As she whined to my mother I slowly began dragging myself out of bed to prepare for the drive with my family. My number one priority to pack was underwear, because I had forgotten to pack it for the overnight at the camp where I work. This resulted in a long day of chafing. It was bad. Anyway, I packed for my grandma's party tonight and the family picture that I'll be in tomorrow. Mentally I prepared myself for questions about what I'm doing with my life, questions that seem to thrive in environments of concentrated family population. "Where are you applying to? How far are you into the process? What do you want to major in? Are you gonna miss us?" I love my family but I also love independence. Thanks George Washington and the Continental Congress. When we finally got on our way to THE CITY we snagged some free Slurpees and I passed out in the car. I currently find myself residing on a roll-away cot while my mother surfs the web and my brother takes advantage of the free cable. I anticipate an evening of food and sleep: two of my favorite things.

Finding a narrative voice

I felt an urge to have a blog today so I decided that in spirit of the 7/11 holiday, I'd just go ahead and do it. Truth be told I feel like I have a lot of stories and this will be a place to keep them stored. I may never share this blog with people I know or maybe I will, that's a decision for future me, but for right now we'll see what happens with this.