Time Capsule: 2006, Part Two
What happens at French Camp stays in this manila envelope.
I’m unpacking manila envelopes I stuffed with memorabilia in end-of-year rituals from 2003 through 2007. Read the other entries in my Time Capsule series: 2003 and 2004 and 2005 and 2006, Part One.
I had too much to say about 2006 to just write one post.
Without further ado, here’s the sequel.
“Time Capsule - 2006!” - Annotated 18.5 years later
TRAVEL AND EVENTS
French Camp memorabilia
My friend Kristina and I flew unaccompanied, changed our names to Monique and Emeline, and went to French camp in the woods of Minnesota. It was a language immersion program, but the French level in Cabin St. Malo was middling, so we all spoke a lot of Franglais.
Things I saved: a fake passport, folded notes from all my cabin-mates, two photos of the St. Malo crew, a map of the camp, a bunch of schedules and instructions, sweet notes my parents slipped into my suitcase…
Things I remember:
Reading out Minnesotan town names with Monique as we rode the bus to camp. We couldn’t stop laughing at Brainerd. We said it over and over: “BRAIN-NERD, BRAIN-NERD, BRAIN-NERD!” We hadn’t even seen Fargo, but we knew comedic gold when we drove past it.
Singing the camp song. I still sing it once a week at least; an honorary Tetris brain tune.
Falling sick and losing my voice. I croaked for days, which didn’t help with my French accent.
Getting ready for the camp dance. I borrowed a shirt from Monique (white crochet, which I wore over a blue shirt). I borrowed her makeup, too, because I wasn’t allowed to have my own makeup until 9th grade — still a month away. Monique handed over her mascara and then said, “Wait, you don’t have any eye diseases, do you?”
Admiring a cute camper from afar. Like my husband, he was Jewish with very curly hair. (I’ve always had a type and that type is Seth Cohen.) At the end of the camp dance, through some silly machinations of my camp friends, I ended up slow-dancing with him, which was very embarrassing but thrilling, too.
Overhearing a wild convo in the girls’ bathroom. A 16-year-old camper, a student at a fancy Connecticut boarding school, unveiled her plan to SEDUCE one of the counselors, a handsome French man who was dating one of the female counselors. This camper was telling her friend, not me, and when she noticed me by the sinks she glared at me and said, “WHAT?!”
Swimming in the lake!
Attending International Day at the nearby German camp.
Our French counselor trying to say “purple squirrel,” which is notoriously hard for French people to pronounce, and therefore very adorable.
Ballot from the 78th Academy Awards
Score: 11/24 correct predictions. I voted with my heart not my head, that’s all I’ll say here.
Funeral Program for nice man from church
He passed at 80. I always liked him a lot!
Tickets and programs from The Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival
On vacation in Toronto, my family and I happened upon The Fringe Festival. What luck! We went to four short plays in two days. And it was only the beginning. In the years since, we went to the SF Fringe and the LA Fringe. I love theater, obviously, but what I love even more is the gleam in my dad’s eyes when he has a brisk schedule of play-watching ahead. He thrives!
Party invitations to Isabel’s 14th Birthday Party and a Beginning of Summer Pool Party
The invites show their age: one is handwritten, the other is a home-printed flyer in a silly font on hot pink paper. The pool party was co-ed and involved chicken fighting — aka the peak of flirtation! In the pool, you sit on the shoulders of someone (hopefully your CRUSH) and your friend sits on the shoulders of someone else (hopefully their CRUSH), and then you and your friend grab at each other until one or both of you falls into the water…
A month before this party, the season three finale of The O.C. aired. And with it, the world changed. It was the ultimate, not-to-be-spoiled turning point of the show and perhaps 2006 overall. In the same episode, incidentally, the core four chicken fight in the empty pool of the storied model home. Coincidental, that we played the same game a month later? Probably not!
Watch below — but if you’ve never seen the show, promise me you won’t read the comments!
Various Plane Tickets
My dad and I visited his family in upstate New York in February. I helped my grandpa shovel snow for the first and only time in my life. My hair, wet from the shower, froze into icicles.
Bang Bang You’re Dead program
I was enduring a difficult period where I was typecast as “the mother.” A couple years earlier, I had played Clara’s mother in the local Nutcracker. Then I was Anne’s mother when we read the Diary of Anne Frank play aloud in English class. Finally, in 2006, I played a school shooter’s mother. My costume was one of my mom’s dresses that had been in my childhood dress-up box for years. I died on stage, alongside the student who played my husband, both of us offed by the student who played our son. My drama teacher/director asked me to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in a creepy voice for the play, but I refused. I’d been told I didn’t have a good voice enough times to know that was a recipe for embarrassment.
We performed the play just once, unfortunately for the student who played the police officer… The main actor completely skipped over those scenes, and there was no redo!
Bang Bang You’re Dead is a 1999 play by William Mastrosimone, predominately inspired by the 1998 school shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield Oregon. The play’s premiere was at Thurston High School less than a year later, and the actors were student survivors of that shooting. Obviously in the years since their production, and ours, school shootings have become deadlier and more common, definitely largely due to Bush and Republican congress allowing the Assault Weapons Ban to expire in 2004.
Davis Senior High 79th Commencement program
My sister graduated on June 16th, 2006. Their class song was “Forever Young” by Alphaville. The program doesn’t even credit Alphaville, just “the soundtrack from the movie Napoleon Dynamite.” On a personal note, this song is also huge for me, but not because of NP. On The O.C., Ryan and Marissa choose the “Forever Young” cover by Youth Group as their song when it plays on the radio in episode 304 (diagetic)1, and it plays again when they break up in episode 316 (non-diegetic). In Napoleon Dynamite, the song is played at the prom (diegetic).
Ballet Recital Program
I had three roles: “candle dancer,” “flag bearer,” and, most delightfully, “napkin.”
Ballet Audition Critiques and Participation Ribbon
No, I did not get what I wanted, and yes, it did decimate my self-esteem/day/month. Yes, I have talked through it in therapy as recently as the last five years. But now I’m over it! Well, 95% over it!
Diegetic sound is any sound in a show that the characters can hear; it’s music on the radio, sung by another character, etc. Non-diegetic sound is any sound that the audience can hear but the characters cannot; it’s music on the soundtrack, voiceover narration, etc.
The French Camp experiences are pure gold! Thanks for writing this and closing the loop of your 2006 time capsule.