Really everything was overshadowed by Leah Stamper snorting a fettucini noodle into her nose and pulling it out her mouth. She did this twice. the first time, it took forever and the noodle curled up in her sinus passages and just wouldn't come out. Leah matter-of-factly pulled up a five gallon bucket and put it between her knees. She said, " well, it's just in case I puke." She was so matter of fact, we all got very relaxed about it too. She didn't hurl, but the noodle broke when she decided to pull it out. She huffed out the broken piece in a trail of saliva. Amazingly, she said, "Ok, I'm going to do it again." The second time it happened quickly. Soon she was pulling the noodle in and out her mouth and nose, brain flossing. note: The noodle was covered with olive oil ahead of time. Maybe do this with string instead, to avoid noodle removal surgery if it somehow breaks?

The week got off to a nice start when my old friend Becky Ashenden pulled a fast one and tied my shoe lace to a heavy knapsack. we were in the middle of a meeting and I was was concentrating on the matters being discussed. I was oblivious to the sensation of having my shoes untied and then retied. Almost on cue, I leaped up to go get some paper, and when I tried to do this, fell flat in the dust, dragging the knapsack my sneaker was attached to. There was a good audience to witness this and I just looked like a charging galumpff.

Early in the week, Eric Black did a nice ice-breaking game: he handed everyone in camp a small piece of paper. On the paper everyone was instructed to write down three things about themselves that no one would know about. Then every day Eric took a few of the papers out, read the details and we tried to guess who the person was from the description. Mine read: 1. I've been electrocuted 2.I once slammed my finger in a car door, the car door locked and I lost the keys (temporarily) and 3 . I was once nearly crushed by a herd of elephants. All True!



Barbara Boylan did a funny routine with a bandana. She said she wanted to do a little public service announcement about how useful it is to have a bandana at camp. She instructed someone to follow along with her and so every one could see the demonstration, she had this person go back to back with her. The person following her, pulled out a BANANA instead of a bandana. Barbara said: First off,
you can open up the bandana and wave it around little bit. you can use it for a fan or to bat away mosquitoes. You can tie the corners and put it on your head. If you get hot and sweaty, you can always wipe your forehead with the bandana. Can anyone else think of good uses for the bananas? etc etc....

As the week progressed, more stunts came to the surface, notably:
Erika Rosenberg told me she could blow bubbles out her eyes!!!!!! ( She does this at the swimming pool normally.) She learned this from her grandfather, Earl Rosenberg, who used to inhale cigarette smoke and then blow it out of his eyes! The secret: Plug nose and ears and then blow out quite hard without letting any air out. (this is called Valsalva technique) I put my finger up to Erika's eye and felt the tiniest stream of air come out her left eye! Yikes!

Yoshi Murai reminded me of the very satisfying art of one ball manipulation. It's really like juggling, but you use only one ball. First step: practice catching a ball on the back of your hand. Then practice moving it from the back of your hand to the front by gently arcing your arm and having the ball go over the top of your fingers. This is a hard kind of thing to master, but I think it has one foot planted in the world of Stuntology. You do it as a very satisfying and absorbing foil to daily tedium. Yoshi did it expertly with an orange.