How many more hours?

I just had a pretty fun 3 day weekend.

Hung out all day Friday & Saturday at a 30 hour famine with a dozen or so pretty fun youth. They raised, get this, $2,500 for World Vision!! Doubled what they raised last year! Amazing.

We got a tour of the Waterloo Regional Food Bank food distribution centre. Its MASSIVE! Freaking intense. They have somewhere between 1500-2000 volunteers who move something like 3 gabillion pounds of food every year. It made the one I saw out in Nova Scotia last summer look like a train wreck (I mean that in a nice way - the one in NS obviously just doesn't have the resources that the one in KW has).

I will confess - I cheated. During the 30 hours I ate: 3 granola bars, a cheese string, a handful of almonds, and a couple bites of an energy bar. I didn't raise any money, so I didn't actually have any obligation to fast. I was there to hang out with the kids, drive them around, and make sure they didn't kill each other - not to starve. And yes, I made sure to never eat in front of the children - that's just rude. (It was bad enough that we made them go to the grocery store on free sample day!)

This is my 3rd year chaperoning (and cheating) at the famine. I cheat because the last time I fully participate in a famine (6 or 7 years ago) I thought I was going to die! Something about sending my blood sugar level on a roller coaster ride all day long from only consuming sugary juice, combined with only a couple hours sleep, left me curled up in a fetal position shivering and sweating and feeling like I was going to puke and/or pass out. Left me a little leery to ever try the famine again. But this year seemed really easy (much easier than the year I ate the Big Mac at 2am - don't ever do that. Just trust me on that one). I'd like to think that its because maybe I'm healthier than I've been in about 4 years and my body can actually handle the odd swing in blood sugar levels; that's a good thing.

Anyhue, good times had by all.

One observation from this weekend: Kids don't wear watches anymore. Like, NONE of them! They all have these stupid bloody cell phones and iPods and crap that they rely on for everything - even telling time. But in general, they're too lazy to pull them out of a pocket to see what time it is, so they ask the nearest person wearing a watch. All day long on Saturday: "What time is it? How many more hours?" ack.