If it's not the best job ever, it might come close

One week into French Camp, and here are some of the things I've been paid to do:

• Get lots of practice speaking French

• Go to the opera Béatrice et Bénédict

• Spend a Saturday at 7 Peaks water park going down water slides, synchronized swimming, and listening to girls say how cool it was that all of a sudden they were the exotic foreign language speakers that you run into from time to time. I haven't had that much fun swimming since I was 9.

• Eat camembert, brie, and gruyère

• Spend lots of time with the two friends who happened to be the other counselors

• Live in an apartment where professionals come and clean our bathroom, people drop clean towels off at our door, and where I have a key that opens every door in the building

• Eat ice cream cones

• Pretend to be a snobby art critic at the Museum of Art and then end up discussing the deep meanings of this (which was actually really neat).

• Watch À la folie...pas de tout, Sabrina, TinTin

• Dance along with Claude Francois and les Claudettes (yes, this video is that amazing)

Late-night posting

I feel like it's the last day of summer.

After a month of doing nothing, I'm going off to Provo tomorrow for three weeks to be a counselor for a French camp that the university's putting on for high school students. I'll be teaching a cooking class, as well. When I get back, I'll start working for a day camp at our local rec center.

I've been trying to get things together and going to meetings the last couple of days, and while I'm excited for both jobs, I am also realizing that my retirement vacation is definitely coming to an end. Oh well.

It's probably a good thing, though. Despite ambitious plans and my best intentions, I really didn't get much done when I had all the time in the world. Maybe a little more structure will be good for that.

Also, my Korean melons are doing miserably. Even with my mom's magic green thumb touch, they have hardly grown an inch in the last six weeks or so. They're living, at least. We transplanted them this weekend--hopefully they will grow.

Grow, plants. Grow.