How to survive...

...a week when your entire family goes on vacation without you.

This blog will be my first attempt at a hilarious list-based post, oh-so-popular with the interwebs. But before I get to the list on how to execute the survival alluded to in the title, I need to explain that it isn't quite as maudlin a situation as presented. (I'm about halfway through the explanation, and it's boring. So skip to the list part if you want to be entertained.)

This week, my parents, both brothers and sister-in-law are all at Camp Brosius, what I firmly believe is the happiest place on Earth. I spent many a happy summer week there as a child, and there really are almost no fonder memories I have than of my time at Brosius. 

I often describe it to friends as half resort/half camp, because it is a family camp, but that isn't really accurate. It does have some resort-like elements: food prepared by an excellent chef, some fairly classy accommodations, boats at your disposal, daily childcare etc. But it's still very much a "camp," though not the sleeping in tents kind of camp. The classiest housing options are the cottages, but those are the only option with showers directly in your residence. And, to my knowledge, only one of them is air conditioned (it's the reconditioned nursery and was also at one point the camp directors' residence.)

There are still campfires and endless mosquitos and bug juice drinking and jumping off rickety swim t's, all the stuff you associate with a traditional camping experience - you're just with your parents and they kind of like to have real beds to sleep in and to be able to bring babies. 

Anywho, although I used to dream about attending Brosius every summer for my entire life (as a little kid I'd brag that I went even before I was born, my mom was pregnant with me the summer of 1989), my last few summers there and only summer as a counselor served to sort of bring Brosius back to reality and the people there as still, you know, people with flaws. The camp is ideally designed for kids between the ages of four and 14, and becomes a little less exciting when you're a teenager who's not that excited to play Spud for the 50th time. 

When you're on staff, the summer can seem endless - even though it's a pretty sweet job - especially if you don't really click with the other staffers. (This is fodder for an entry some day on the weird hybrid personality I had that summer, half under the influence of my Indiana upbringing and half slowly being transformed by a year spent in Virginia. For a while I didn't really fit in either place, and that summer was the big illustrator of that.) And although I haven't been there as a young, childless adult, those who have indicate that although it's nice to be able to sit around and boat and drink and play cards, you don't have the added satisfaction that made my parents - and many others - so fall in love with it, that it's a vacation where you don't have to worry about keeping your kids entertained.

So as a young, childless adult, I'm not too bummed out about not being able to swing a week in Wisconsin, either in vacay time or moneys. That being said, I might have given doing such a thing more consideration if I'd know BOTH brothers would be attending with my parents - I'm not used to Andy having much flexibility in his time off and thought at most he'd go up for a couple days.

Still, I'm happy with my decision to prioritize holidays, including my eldest brother's Labor Day party next month - I'll be able to see more of my family and devote slightly less time and money to travel and other expenses.

But I'm still bummed out about the situation, if for no other reason than it's a reminder that I live halfway across the country at a time when my brothers have finally decided to stop living far away (something they had no problem with when they were my age and I was the only child at home) and have the ability to visit home fairly regularly. Granted, if I were living back in that area now I'd have a much harder time seeing many of my school friends, and wouldn't have awesome experiences like last week's boating adventure, but it's still not the best.

In this moderately maudlin mindset, here's a somewhat jocular list about how to survive a week like this one. Enjoy.

1) Start the week out with a major catastrophe - I recommend colliding with a deer - to put everything in perspective. 

2) Stress out about how to deal with said catastrophe, but eventually decide to do nothing. That way you'll feel like you're on vacation and free from societal pressures.

3) Give yourself a lot to do at work so you don't find yourself scrolling through your siblings' pictures or thinking about how you aren't even contributing at your job so wouldn't it be better if you were just out sailing with your dad.

4) Abandon impulse control, again to recreate the feeling of vacation. Your roommate wants to go get ice cream at 10 o'clock at night? Do it! You really want Cheetos (also at 10 o'clock at night) and for some reason your boyfriend will not go buy them for you? Buy them yourself - you're the boss of you!

5) Engage in mid-week drinking, in the form of a blistering hot happy hour with delicious sangria (that is allegedly a "special" but still kind of expensive) that is a lot stronger than you expected.

6) Plan a fun weekend activity to celebrate making it through the week, in the form of a camping trip with the Cheeto nazi boyfriend that will hopefully take your mind off the camping option you are missing out on while also giving you a quality taste of the great outdoors.

7) Begin plotting how next year you will plan better so you can use some of your vacation time to go to Wisconsin for part of the week. Intimidate siblings into telling you sooner if they plan to go again.