Droid Love
A few weeks ago, my faithful 3G HTC Incredible began to do weird things. For example, when I tried to open my text messages, it would tell me its memory was full. But three text messages a full memory doth not make. Ever resourceful, I hit *228 and, against a background of really strange electronic music, Verizon updated my operating system. Problem solved. Or so I thought.
Faithful 3G Droid
But no, my otherwise highly reliable companion since 2009, kept refusing to go about business as usual. And while the *228 trick worked every time, who wants to hear weird music several times a day just to open an app? Not me. (Now if the background music had been my favorite jazz/ska band, Western Standard Time, I might have taken a different view of the proceedings. But what if’s don’t count.)
Favorite Jazz/Ska Band: Western Standard Time
So I went to a Higher Authority – namely my sons, who Understand Technology and speak Geek Speak to perfection. The answer turned out to be simple, but deadly.
“Your operating system is a piece of shit,” my oldest son Chris said with true Geek Speak elegance. “Verizon has stopped updating it. You will have to get a new phone!”
“But I don’t want a new phone. This is the best phone I’ve ever had!” (Read between the lines: I actually know how to use this phone and It Understands Me.)
“Sorry, Mom.”
I was in heavy denial over the impending death of my little Droid buddy. So I sought a Second Opinion.
Not long after my youngest son Michael, computer software major extraordinaire, stepped off the plane for his Thanksgiving visit, I asked him if my 3G baby could be saved. Answer: “Not a chance, Mom.”
So with a heavy heart, after turkey feasting on Thursday, I set out with Michael for the Verizon store on Friday. While we waited eons for our number to come up on the Next Customer List, we browsed around, trying out the 4G phones. Chris had just upgraded to the gigantic Samsung Galaxy. Ever competitive, I announced I wanted one, too, only to be laughed down by the Geek Speakers who said it was Way More Phone Than I Would Ever Need. Ten minutes of swiping its touch screen not only convinced me they were right (to my great humiliation), it also convinced me the phone was way too big to fit into any evening purse ever invented. Clearly a male designed it. Possibly a male who had never seen an evening purse.
Next, I worked my way through the smaller Samsungs and then, at last, found the 4G version of my beloved Droid. Happily I tried to figure out where in the world they had hidden my favorite icons on this new incarnation of my baby. But they were not in the same places!
Michael found me trying to get the hang of the new version.
“It’s not the same phone, Mom.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not. If you get it, you’ll still have to get used to a new phone.”
“No, I won’t.” I was too proud to admit he was right. And I was wondering why they had changed things. At least it wasn’t any bigger than my own little Droid. It would fit into an evening bag!
But, then, for some reason, both Michael and I turned to the left and saw IT: The Windows Phone. It drew us like the Sirens singing to Ulysses or like the Monolith dropping out of the sky in 2001, A Space Odyssey. We picked up its ultra sleek thinness and began to explore its touch screen. I expected to hear the opening fanfare from Thus Spake Zarathustra. (That would make a killer ring tone, by the way.)
The Monolith
Guilt settled over me. How could I even consider another phone? It was like picking out a new husband while the old one watched. But after I discovered the Windows Phone understood my southern accent and would let me dictate a text message, I let Michael talk me into trying one out. After all, I had fourteen days to Bring It Back. And my tiny little thumbs are not user friendly on touch screen key pads. (What do people with big thumbs do? Buy the Samsung Galaxy I guess and forego evening wear.)
Anyway, in deep emotional conflict, I left with the smart, sleek Windows phone in my purse, and its various charming accessories packed into a suitably Christmasy Verizon logoed shopping bag. How could buying a new phone leave me feeling as if I were setting out alone on uncharted waters? Because, truth to tell, the next not quite fourteen days would show me I had done exactly that.
Siren’s song: Windows Phone
Next time: Trying to Survive Without Google Nav or Droid Love II
The Ceremony of Parting or Why I Can Never Say GoodBye
I stink at goodbye. I freely admit I have avoided the ceremony of parting as much as possible throughout my life. As I was driving away from dropping my youngest child at the airport curb this morning because he is headed back to college in the east, I wondered if my aversion to “saying goodbye” is a virtue or a vice.
It was labeled a vice once by the kids’ dad when he was trying to win custody of the children years ago. Like a prosecutor accusing a defendant of first degree murder, his attorney shouted in open court, “And Your Honor, do you know that she DOESN’T EVEN SAY GOODBYE?” (His attorney always made “she” sound like some really nasty, dirty word that no nice person should ever be called.)
This flaw was supposed to be some evidence of my bad character – I think. I’m not quite sure because the attorney never got any farther than that. She didn’t accuse me of neglecting my children, or of being a drunk or a drug addict, attributes that I’m pretty sure would have won him custody of the kids. No, the worst she could come up with was I don’t say goodbye, which (fortunately for me) did not turn out to be grounds for declaring me an unfit mother.
But at least once in my life, in a public place, someone labeled my aversion to goodbye as a vice. Is that right?
The word “goodbye” is a short for “God be with ye.” Now, I have no trouble with “God be with ye.” I could toss that off in a heartbeat. It sounds so much friendlier than “good bye.” And, as a good Episcopalian I have heard the priest intone a thousand times, “The Lord be with you” and responded, “And also with you.” I actually think I would rather use this ritual in parting because to me “goodbye” sounds so dead end – so final, so “Get out of my life and stay out” or “Yes! You are leaving and never coming back!” On the other hand, wishing blessings to someone and wishing blessings back seems to express so much more love and caring than just an abrupt “Goodbye!” (Which also makes me think of “Begone!”)
Of course that brings the religious problem into play. For those who don’t believe in traditional religion or even God, using the Anglican liturgy at parting would definitely not be an option. But what if we said, “Blessings to you” and the answer was “And also to you”? As a committee of one, I like that better.
Still, I think my aversion to saying “goodbye” is not really based entirely on the word we intone during the “ceremony of parting,” as one dictionary defined it. Where the people I love are concerned, the separation never feels real. In my mind and heart, we are still together even if we aren’t physically in the same place. “Having to Say Goodbye” feels so drastic to me. And even when I do say “goodbye” I inevitably add, “See you soon.”
As I drove away from the curb this morning, the post-holiday sadness began to settle on my shoulders because Thanksgiving 2012 was now officially a wrap. For a brief second I longed for the old way of airport parting, where we parked the car and headed inside and even sat at the gate with our traveler until the call for boarding. Of course we can’t do it that way anymore. So all airport partings are now a quick hug curbside like mine was this morning.
But then, as I swung my beloved red Mini Cooper into the “Exit to Downtown” lane, I realized that the brief hug at the curb is better for me because we aren’t really apart, no matter the miles in between. And, as with every parting from a loved one, I remind myself not to think about the separation, but to look forward to the next visit. Which, in this case, will be in just three short weeks!!!!!
Ok, I admit it. I stink at goodbyes. But I’m not sure that matters much.
Good Bye
The Beginning of the Magical Season – Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is almost here. The turkey is defrosting in the refrigerator. The sweet potatoes are looking at the bags of marshmallows across the kitchen. Tomorrow I will bake pumpkin pie and chop veggies to put into the stuffing on Thursday. I will bake cornbread and tear up white bread, also for the stuffing. I will chill sparkling cider and champagne. I will count the sliver place settings, dust off the Waterford, and decide which dishes to use this year. (I’m a dish lover. Only cabinet space limits my yen to bring more home like lost puppies and kittens.)
On Thursday morning, I will be up with the sun to get my hands messy mixing stuffing, putting it in into the bird, and getting into the oven. I will baste the bird and check its internal temperature at intervals, mindful that the difference between a perfectly roasted turkey and an overcooked one can be just minutes. When I was a child, I watched the women in the family do these things. Now it is my responsibility.
This cooking ritual, year afer year, is as satisfying to me as the liturgy of the Anglican mass (back in the days when I shepherded the kids to church, Sunday after Sunday). On the rare holidays when we have chosen a restaurant for our feast, I have missed my personal culinary rites of thankfulness.
The basics of the meal haven’t changed much from the first Thanksgiving I cooked in November of 1985. In that year, I had been in California for all of two weeks. I went to the now defunct K-Mart to buy a hand mixer to cream the sweet potatoes. I had no children then, but I wished for them. That November afternoon, I saw a car with a Fulton County Georgia plate in the K-Mart parking lot. I cried because I was homesick. I started to leave a note on the windshield asking the driver if he or she felt as marooned in a foreign land as I did. But I lost my nerve, and so I will never know the answer to my question. Now all these years later, the foreign land has become home. The K-Mart is shuttered and empty.
We rarely traveled at Thanksgiving, but our few trips were memorable. In 1999, we flew to Tennessee to be with my family for the holiday. It was the only year my children ever experienced more than the four of us for the feast. They raked leaves for the first time in their lives and jumped into the piles with their cousin. They discovered southerners put giblets in their turkey gravy. Ugh! They learned that pecan pie with chocolate chips in the bottom is so rich, a tiny bite will do, even for the most avid sweet-lover.
On another holiday away from home, my daughter and I walked through a cold Chicago rain to a delightful restaurant, formal enough to have a coat check room and bottles of Pellegrino sparkling water on the table. The chef accompanied his perfect roasted turkey with butternut squash ravioli in brown butter sauce. We missed the boys, who were with their father that year. But it was a special time for the two of us, alone is a wold class city.
Now the years of being divided at holidays are over. The ritual food preparation has expanded to included a ritual housecleaning before my adult children come to stay for the holiday. Although I miss the days when we all lived under one roof, it is exceptionally exciting to have my grown ones coming back to share their adventures in far places. Like many things in life, when one thing goes away, another even more wonderful something comes along to take its place.
Although the holidays for those of us who create them for our families are a lot of work, I personally love the run-up to Christmas. From now until January 2, I will be planning food and gifts and decorations to create a festive world for me and the ones I love. I thank the Universe every year for giving me so much love and joy and for giving me wonderful souls to share it with. We are entering the Magic Season! Let the Magic Begin. Happy Thanksgiving!
The Four of Us
A Tale of Two Christmas Trees or Letting the Magic Out
Yesterday I encountered two Christmas trees at the mall. Now, I realize Christmas trees before T-day is fraught with controversy. There have been a number of posts on Facebook this week denouncing the presence of Christmas trees before turkeys. I certainly respect those sentiments. I used to feel that way – until I realized I was in love with Christmas trees because they are works of magic in my small, solid earthbound world. For me, if someone wants to turn on the lights and hang the tiny glass balls and stars early, I’m the girl who’s ready to sign on for the fantasy! I want as much magic as I can get for as long as I can get it. And Christmas trees are magic!
My fascination covers the ornaments too. I like to walk through the displays and admire the miniature sleighs and Santas, the adorable Rudolphs, the fairy princesses, and the baby pandas and polar bears. I particularly love the glass ornaments: the silver and gold stars, the moons, and the icy snowflakes. One of my favorite haunts is Anthropologie where I scope out the tiny dolls and woodland creatures I intend to scoop up at the after-Christmas sales. (Since everything at Anthro goes ON SALE eventually, it is against my sacred pocket book principles to pay full price. Especially Anthro’s full
price.) Over the years, I have acquired some gems this way. For example, I have the knitting-doll ornament. (I knit.) I have the “shop local” doll ornament. (I shop, locally and otherwise.) I have the wooly lion. (Ok, I’m a person not a lion, but I’m a Leo person.)
So yesterday, as I bopped along on a mundane errand, on an otherwise mundane Monday, I came , unexpectedly, to this:
The Christmas Tree!
This gigantic tree soared into the California deep blue November sky, shining with copper, gold, and silver ornaments. The sheer size of it took my breath away. Dwarfed by its grandeur, I stopped to bask in its Christmasy magic – silently apologizing to the turkeys and pilgrims who are waiting to assume the spotlight next Thursday. But I just couldn’t resist flying into the blue sky on that trail of glorious Christmas.
Inspired, I went in search of more fantasy and found these ornaments waiting at Anthro. I will definitely be back when they are ON SALE.
The Ornaments at Antrho
Antrho Cool Bunny
The Other Antrho Cool Bunny
But then, as I hurried along, I came to this little tiny little frosted tree, trapped in a glass jar at Sears. Oh, it wants OUT, I realized at once. It wants out, so its magic can let it grow to be as big as the magic of the tree outside.
Help, let me out!
As I stood looking at the little tree, I imagined screwing off the jar’s lid and setting it down in the center of the Sears’s store. What if freeing it and all its Christmas magic would let it grow and grow until it broke through the roof and became as big as its counterpart outside? It reminded me of those tiny little sponge capsules you can drop into the bath. In the warm water, they slowly break through their plastic prisons to become sponge dinosaurs and circus animals and racing cars. What if my little tree had magic inside that would let it reach its full potential as soon as someone freed it from its glass? What if it could emerge, fantastic, shiny, and free, to soar above the mundane? In short, what if I let it’s magic out?
My errand done, and work waiting, I headed off to my beloved chili-red Mini Cooper with black bonnet stripes and the world’s greatest vanity plate. (Another blog to be). But as I went, I realized, we are that little tree. We are all trying to break free of the glass jar and to grow into our magical selves so we can shine our unique magic into the world.
Merry Early Christmas! And Here’s to the Escape of Everyone’s Magical Self!
The Magic!
Finalist, Beverly Hills International Book Awards, 2014
Finalist, Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, 2013
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