I have an app that silents my phone, unless you are a privileged caller and then you can ring through. Of course The Frustrated Son has these privileges, as do his mother, my mother, and a couple other important people.
Friday my son went on a weekend retreat with his Temple group, called Midrasha. It is for Jewish Bay Area high schoolers, so there were about 150 teens up there, along with a bunch of staff. These are all good kids, the cream of the crop, I like to think. It is the reason I am okay with my son getting all Jewy.
So, late Friday night the kids were in their cabins being idiots. They were playing a game called condom. The idea is to wrap yourself in your sleeping bag as if you were a penis in a condom and you try to beat the crap out of your condomized friends. WTF?! So, some kid smashed his head into my kid's mouth, knocking one of his front teeth a bit, making it bleed and causing the medic there to call me. The calls came at about 1:30am, while I was snoring on the couch, my cell phone on silent, and the medic calling me from the phone at the camp--he couldn't get through.
So, at 4 in the morning, once I wake up enough to listen to the voice mail, I find out all the above. The voice mail is from The Frustrated Son, who is laughing because his friends didn't think he has the 'guts' (I should probably say 'balls' here) to tell me the name of the game, but he did. It was apparently hilarious because all I could hear for the next few seconds was laughing. I knew then my son was fine(ish).
I was a camp director, so this kind of thing does not freak me out, especially since the kids were laughing. I know medical staff at camp always play it safe, wisely.
Finally, at 9:30 in the morning Saturday, about 9 hours after the injury, they got in touch with me. They said the medical types who were there think the kid needs to be seen by a dentist. They called one who agreed. The camp is about 50 miles away from my house.
At 9:30 I got in the car and headed up. I was there by about 11am. I got the kid, and all his stuff and we headed home because our appointment wasn't until 3pm, about 30 miles away--in the opposite direction--from the house. I figured he was done for the weekend.
We went to the dentist appointment and the kid basically needed a root canal. In an hour his tooth was reamed, filled, and anchored to his other teeth with a strip of mesh glued across his top few teeth. It was 4:45 by the time we left. The dentist and his assistant were absolutely awesome. In every way. If you need a dentist in Orinda, get in touch with me.
At 4:45pm we headed back to the retreat. He was back by 6:30, before dinner had ended. I was looked upon by the staff as possibly the best father that ever lived. They would be correct.
I then got back in my fucking car to make the hour and a half trip back home.
I put about 360 miles in yesterday--mostly through Napa's wine country. It's lovely out there. I got home at about 8pm and collapsed on the couch. I woke up at about 3 in the morning this morning.
What a day.
And that's why I didn't blog yesterday.