Here's the scoop on the naked ice skating:
I made my annual fall trek to Los Angeles to see Darling Daughter and her Prince Charming a couple of weeks early to celebrate my birthday and to see DD's school's production of A Chorus Line.
After the Sunday matinee, several of the school staff treated the Guest Director and his Best Friend to dinner at a restaurant that I happen to like to visit when I'm in LA, and PC and I were invited along.
PC and I somehow wound up at the table with DD, the GD and his BF, and the two folks who work closest with DD on these things, the school's Set Designer and the Theater Arts Coordinator. I don't know how PC and I wound up separating SD and TAC from DD, GD and BF, but we did, and that left DD having a lively theater chat with those two and PC and me sort of on our own to figure out whether to listen to that or to drop in on SD and TAC, whose conversation would potentially be must less interesting because they've been friends for so long.
Not long enough, it turns out, for SD to feel as if he knew all he could about TAC's background, so SD asked the question of how TAC got from his European beginnings to a private school in Pasadena, California.
One worthwhile stop along the way was a set designer job at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. Among other things, TAC had designed sets for an ice show there. PC and I chuckled at the idea of ice at a place called "the Tropicana," but that was only the beginning.
One of the stars of the show was a young man TAC and I remembered from our younger years as the voice of NASA who had counted down to blast-off in the early days of manned space exploration. I had always assumed the voice we heard was that of a NASA engineer or astronaut or someone with "official" ties to the space program; the notion that an actor—in fact, an ice skater—counting us down to man's first steps on the moon just somehow seemed illogical.
But then it got worse: TAC told us that one of the shows was supposed to feature a rain shower, so he had had to design a way to get rain on the rink without melting the ice. So now we have the voice of NASA. Ice skating. At the Tropicana. In the rain.
Naked.
DD seemed to be having a lively and interesting conversation with the GD and his BF. PC and I were trying to keep from rolling under the table.
A day or two later the three of us were rolling around the kids' apartment in preparation for taking off on our next adventure. When PC finished his shower, he hollered out the bathroom door at DD about something, and I reminded him that if he was about to come out of the bathroom, he might want to grab a towel first. A couple of minutes later, he slipped from the bathroom into the bedroom with the towel wrapped around his midsection.
"No nudie show for me this afternoon?" I called through the bedroom door.
"Let me grab my skates!" he hollered back.
Priceless.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Hmph. Okay. My sister thought it was funny, anyway...
Late-last-night volley in an email exchange with my sister (edited for spelling and to protect the names of the innocent):
oh, yeah, i've enjoyed the world of living alone for a long time—part of why i was sure when nobody else seemed to be that i'd be fine when my marriage crashed. i don't think of myself as being that terribly selfish (although i know i am); i just pretty much think of myself as a mole, which turns out to be a pretty accurate description.
i pretty much let the boys live upstairs and i live downstairs, but the dogs do their shedding and dirt-tracking-in downstairs (and the dust bunnies seem to party down here), so with jobs keeping me nuts, i don't have time to dust and clean as i'd like. I could probably pay a housekeeper, but i'm too stubborn to do that with live-ins who could do the job if they'd get off their duffs. I know Second Son will come through on his debts to me shortly after he starts getting army pay, and Number One Son has come to the plate for meal preparation (and is wonderful with the dogs—one of those things that really makes me see daddy in him). But neither one of them seems to be any better than the dogs at herding dust bunnies. or yard work, for that matter. i must have trained them wrong.
fortunately, neither of them comes even close to [our older brother] Bo; NOS and i were surprised by upstairs-crashing-around last week one day when SS had decided he couldn't go to houston to visit a buddy unless he cleaned (and vacuumed) his room first. never ceases to amaze me. NOS is living literally in the middle of my office—virtually all his goods stacked between the desk on one side and the sewing machine on the other—and frankly doesn't own enough stuff to make much of a mess of anything. hangs out up there more than i thought he would, but i'm more surprised by the amount of time he spends down here with me and the dogs. don't like the amount of drinking he's doing; grandmother is praying for him to get off booze and butts, but i figure out next best friend on butts will be x-ray school, if he gets in.
california is probably in my future if for no reason than that i'm prepaying my alzheimer's care by helping darling daughter w/student loans. i've got other business to tend to here for a while yet; for one thing, i sort of need to hold this fort down while NOS needs a place to bunk, and for another, i think i'll be able to snag a much better price if i wait for the market stabilize somewhat and for the university to get the new medical center on this side of town up and running—probably still four or five years down the road. unless someone comes up with a really sweet deal on the left coast or makes me an offer on the casa, i'm snug if not always comfortable here. and my next move will be to a place half this size—lord knows i don't need this much space to rattle around in alone.
DD's flame is a sweetheart, but i don't want the two of them even to think marriage until they have cohabited a while. from what i can tell, he's probably up to the challenge, and i know she's really working to remember that the advantages of having a man around the house also mean letting him be the man around the house. i don't know how hard he is to live with, but i suspect my daughter can be a megabitch, so he needs to be sure he's willing to put up with her. she is definitely smitten by him, and from what i can tell, it's mutual. and he's funny—did i tell you about the naked ice skating? She's been trying to get him to family gigs for a while, but life so far has gotten in the way.
i suspect kids will follow wedding vows; i'm not sure whether DD needs kidlets in her life much more than arge does, but i'm pretty sure she wants them, and if she has them, she'll be as super a mom as she has been at just about everything else.
haven't heard anything about dubai weather except to know that they built a mall with a ski slope in it several years ago because, well, they could, and we drive gas guzzlers to pay for it. i know qatar keeps the air conditioning low enough to hang icicles everywhere indoors, which drives the ecoperson in me nuts, but again, we drive gas guzzlers to pay for it. (our university's building in qatar has lights on motion sensors so you can get stuck in the dark in the restrooms, but your butt could freeze off if you don't flail around enough to get the lights back on because the thermostats must be on the outsides of the buildings there—only possible explanation for that much indoor cold.)
oh, yeah, i've enjoyed the world of living alone for a long time—part of why i was sure when nobody else seemed to be that i'd be fine when my marriage crashed. i don't think of myself as being that terribly selfish (although i know i am); i just pretty much think of myself as a mole, which turns out to be a pretty accurate description.
i pretty much let the boys live upstairs and i live downstairs, but the dogs do their shedding and dirt-tracking-in downstairs (and the dust bunnies seem to party down here), so with jobs keeping me nuts, i don't have time to dust and clean as i'd like. I could probably pay a housekeeper, but i'm too stubborn to do that with live-ins who could do the job if they'd get off their duffs. I know Second Son will come through on his debts to me shortly after he starts getting army pay, and Number One Son has come to the plate for meal preparation (and is wonderful with the dogs—one of those things that really makes me see daddy in him). But neither one of them seems to be any better than the dogs at herding dust bunnies. or yard work, for that matter. i must have trained them wrong.
fortunately, neither of them comes even close to [our older brother] Bo; NOS and i were surprised by upstairs-crashing-around last week one day when SS had decided he couldn't go to houston to visit a buddy unless he cleaned (and vacuumed) his room first. never ceases to amaze me. NOS is living literally in the middle of my office—virtually all his goods stacked between the desk on one side and the sewing machine on the other—and frankly doesn't own enough stuff to make much of a mess of anything. hangs out up there more than i thought he would, but i'm more surprised by the amount of time he spends down here with me and the dogs. don't like the amount of drinking he's doing; grandmother is praying for him to get off booze and butts, but i figure out next best friend on butts will be x-ray school, if he gets in.
california is probably in my future if for no reason than that i'm prepaying my alzheimer's care by helping darling daughter w/student loans. i've got other business to tend to here for a while yet; for one thing, i sort of need to hold this fort down while NOS needs a place to bunk, and for another, i think i'll be able to snag a much better price if i wait for the market stabilize somewhat and for the university to get the new medical center on this side of town up and running—probably still four or five years down the road. unless someone comes up with a really sweet deal on the left coast or makes me an offer on the casa, i'm snug if not always comfortable here. and my next move will be to a place half this size—lord knows i don't need this much space to rattle around in alone.
DD's flame is a sweetheart, but i don't want the two of them even to think marriage until they have cohabited a while. from what i can tell, he's probably up to the challenge, and i know she's really working to remember that the advantages of having a man around the house also mean letting him be the man around the house. i don't know how hard he is to live with, but i suspect my daughter can be a megabitch, so he needs to be sure he's willing to put up with her. she is definitely smitten by him, and from what i can tell, it's mutual. and he's funny—did i tell you about the naked ice skating? She's been trying to get him to family gigs for a while, but life so far has gotten in the way.
i suspect kids will follow wedding vows; i'm not sure whether DD needs kidlets in her life much more than arge does, but i'm pretty sure she wants them, and if she has them, she'll be as super a mom as she has been at just about everything else.
haven't heard anything about dubai weather except to know that they built a mall with a ski slope in it several years ago because, well, they could, and we drive gas guzzlers to pay for it. i know qatar keeps the air conditioning low enough to hang icicles everywhere indoors, which drives the ecoperson in me nuts, but again, we drive gas guzzlers to pay for it. (our university's building in qatar has lights on motion sensors so you can get stuck in the dark in the restrooms, but your butt could freeze off if you don't flail around enough to get the lights back on because the thermostats must be on the outsides of the buildings there—only possible explanation for that much indoor cold.)
this message brought to you by don marquis and e.e. cummings.
First line of Sis's response: "You are so funny!"
Don't think I've ever gotten that from her before.
Don't think I've ever gotten that from her before.
Moving on down the road.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
A short entry
Since I started this blog, I have linked myself to RSS feeds from other bloggers who have lots more experience than I do.
What I've observed is that most of the entries these folks write are short and focused.
Mine tend to ramble on for paragraphs, muddling through random thoughts and details and then ending on something that may or may not be a point.
This one doesn't.
Or does.
Depending.
What I've observed is that most of the entries these folks write are short and focused.
Mine tend to ramble on for paragraphs, muddling through random thoughts and details and then ending on something that may or may not be a point.
This one doesn't.
Or does.
Depending.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Pimping for the software
I have been absolutely swamped for the past couple of weeks by far more work than I've had time to do, both on my "day" job and in my consulting, so I've fallen badly behind in a number of things. Not surprisingly, then, I really didn't have time to do much in the way of preparation for this afternoon's scheduled presentation on how to use a bibliographic software I've been using religiously for the past couple of years to manage my reading notes.
I actually used the software for another purpose a decade or more ago, but when the university made it available to staff and students free, I realized that it might have good potential for storing reading notes in a handy, electronic format that I could access more easily than the clumsy hard copies I've tried to use for years. Turns out, it does a fine job.
More important, I teach technical writing, and one of my big challenges is getting students to read and cite papers as part of their research efforts. For many of the undergraduate projects, citing a half-dozen papers is often plenty; others need to cite many more than that, but they need a way to keep track of what they're doing so they can synthesize information and write responsibly. The graduate students need to build libraries of articles they can cite as they continue in their careers, and they need to be able to manage notes on those articles in a place where they can find them easily.
Enter dj. I happened to have written a paper recently that included a large number of cited references, but I had written the whole paper and formatted all of the citations at a rate of about 10 minutes for each paper cited, without even allowing any time to format the references. I was pretty impressed with how quickly that had gone, and I was eager to help my students be able to write (and cite) quickly.
Meantime, I have become really disenchanted with the references format of my students' professional organization. Giving the organization credit, they have made a more-than-valiant effort to develop a style guide that offers a great deal of useful information for the members about how to write clearly, but their references format is nothing short of a confused jumble. That doesn't work with either a bibliographic manager or with the alternative that seems more logical to me for engineers: a spreadsheet.
In the past few months, the organization has negotiated an agreement to make its literature available through an online library that, like many libraries today, downloads automatically into the bibliographic manager or to a spreadsheet, but neither of those works with the references style because of its inconsistencies. So I have waded through the style, figured out a way to make it substantially more consistent, and developed a knock-off format for our students to use. In an effort to help manage their notes, I also formatted a way for them to take notes in the software and print out formatted copies of the entries and their notes, all on a single file.
So I walked into my presentation today armed with an electronic library I borrowed from a student from last semester, the files to make my professional format work, a blank word processing document, and an internet connection to reach our university library. I sort of had some idea of what I wanted to say, but I didn't have a lot of fancy presentation slides.
The official moderator for the afternoon seminar was out sick today and I didn't have a microphone in a room designed for about 150 students, so I spent a moment getting their attention and introduced myself. I explained the topic, showed them how the electric library works, and then showed them how to use the software to format citations and references effortlessly. I had their attention; faces lit up and air sucked in as they realized that I really had spent all my time on my own paper writing rather than formatting references, and they saw that the tools could really work for them.
I had had some basic ideas in mind when I went into the meeting, but I ran out of those after about half the allotted hour, so I called for questions. Even though current and former students of mine were scattered throughout the room, only one of them said anything, and that was to help a faculty member with a problem the student had the experience to know how to solve. The rest of the questions were thoughtful and valuable, and I was really pleased to have what seemed to me like a meaningful, well-received seminar, in spite of my lack of planning and preparation.
And it didn't end when I went back to my office. A couple of students were waiting for me there with questions about their senior projects. I really haven't had much to do with the senior class (my coteacher has handled most of it), but early in the semester I had put them, kicking and screaming, through an exercise to set up the bibliographic software and some tools our library makes available that I have found handy.
By the time I had finished handling their projects, a third student had walked in, and I said something about having just talked to the graduate students about the software, noting that I had been able to tell that, to my surprise, I had been able to tell by the format of the senior papers that some of them had used the software, even without my asking.
The one of the three who had made the best grade on his paper draft lighted up at the mention. Turned out he had set up the system as I had instructed, added some papers to his library, and used the notes format to develop the introduction to his paper—according to him, relatively painlessly.
I left the office smiling that the seminar had gone well and that my students were using the tools I had given them without even being told to. But I also wonder if the university is going to wonder if I'm pimping for the software company. I'm not, really, but I love being able to help make my students' lives easier—and I love it even more when I find out they appreciate it.
I actually used the software for another purpose a decade or more ago, but when the university made it available to staff and students free, I realized that it might have good potential for storing reading notes in a handy, electronic format that I could access more easily than the clumsy hard copies I've tried to use for years. Turns out, it does a fine job.
More important, I teach technical writing, and one of my big challenges is getting students to read and cite papers as part of their research efforts. For many of the undergraduate projects, citing a half-dozen papers is often plenty; others need to cite many more than that, but they need a way to keep track of what they're doing so they can synthesize information and write responsibly. The graduate students need to build libraries of articles they can cite as they continue in their careers, and they need to be able to manage notes on those articles in a place where they can find them easily.
Enter dj. I happened to have written a paper recently that included a large number of cited references, but I had written the whole paper and formatted all of the citations at a rate of about 10 minutes for each paper cited, without even allowing any time to format the references. I was pretty impressed with how quickly that had gone, and I was eager to help my students be able to write (and cite) quickly.
Meantime, I have become really disenchanted with the references format of my students' professional organization. Giving the organization credit, they have made a more-than-valiant effort to develop a style guide that offers a great deal of useful information for the members about how to write clearly, but their references format is nothing short of a confused jumble. That doesn't work with either a bibliographic manager or with the alternative that seems more logical to me for engineers: a spreadsheet.
In the past few months, the organization has negotiated an agreement to make its literature available through an online library that, like many libraries today, downloads automatically into the bibliographic manager or to a spreadsheet, but neither of those works with the references style because of its inconsistencies. So I have waded through the style, figured out a way to make it substantially more consistent, and developed a knock-off format for our students to use. In an effort to help manage their notes, I also formatted a way for them to take notes in the software and print out formatted copies of the entries and their notes, all on a single file.
So I walked into my presentation today armed with an electronic library I borrowed from a student from last semester, the files to make my professional format work, a blank word processing document, and an internet connection to reach our university library. I sort of had some idea of what I wanted to say, but I didn't have a lot of fancy presentation slides.
The official moderator for the afternoon seminar was out sick today and I didn't have a microphone in a room designed for about 150 students, so I spent a moment getting their attention and introduced myself. I explained the topic, showed them how the electric library works, and then showed them how to use the software to format citations and references effortlessly. I had their attention; faces lit up and air sucked in as they realized that I really had spent all my time on my own paper writing rather than formatting references, and they saw that the tools could really work for them.
I had had some basic ideas in mind when I went into the meeting, but I ran out of those after about half the allotted hour, so I called for questions. Even though current and former students of mine were scattered throughout the room, only one of them said anything, and that was to help a faculty member with a problem the student had the experience to know how to solve. The rest of the questions were thoughtful and valuable, and I was really pleased to have what seemed to me like a meaningful, well-received seminar, in spite of my lack of planning and preparation.
And it didn't end when I went back to my office. A couple of students were waiting for me there with questions about their senior projects. I really haven't had much to do with the senior class (my coteacher has handled most of it), but early in the semester I had put them, kicking and screaming, through an exercise to set up the bibliographic software and some tools our library makes available that I have found handy.
By the time I had finished handling their projects, a third student had walked in, and I said something about having just talked to the graduate students about the software, noting that I had been able to tell that, to my surprise, I had been able to tell by the format of the senior papers that some of them had used the software, even without my asking.
The one of the three who had made the best grade on his paper draft lighted up at the mention. Turned out he had set up the system as I had instructed, added some papers to his library, and used the notes format to develop the introduction to his paper—according to him, relatively painlessly.
I left the office smiling that the seminar had gone well and that my students were using the tools I had given them without even being told to. But I also wonder if the university is going to wonder if I'm pimping for the software company. I'm not, really, but I love being able to help make my students' lives easier—and I love it even more when I find out they appreciate it.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
So you say it's your birthday?
My first conscious thought when I woke up this morning was, Today is my birthday.
Half a lifetime ago, I woke up with the same thought, knowing that I was pregnant with my first baby and eager to know what the life ahead of me would bring.
A quarter of a lifetime ago, I woke up with the same thought, knowing that I had survived almost half a year as a single mom and scared that I wouldn't be up to the challenge.
Ten years ago, I was determined to let that first baby make his own mistakes and face his own consequences; his little brother walked the halls as a senior in high school and his sister took off every morning driving her own car.
Five years ago, the little brother was an Army reservist driving a truck in the war zone in Iraq, the little sister was a senior theater arts major at USC, that first baby was trying to become an auto mechanic in Austin, and I was hopeful that all three of them were finally stepping into adulthood.
And now we're here. The little sister is having a ball as a theater lighting designer in Los Angeles and trying out an exciting relationship with her current flame; the little brother is delivering pizzas, biding his time until the call comes through telling him when and where to report for full-time duty with the US Army; and that first baby is back at home, working in an automotive repair shop to earn the money to pay for school at the local community college, where he hopes to be admitted to the radiation therapy program and start a career in the medical field.
And me? Well, I keep thinking that I'm the age my Nana was in that quintessential grandmotherly picture I have somewhere in this confusion I call a home, and I'm pretty sure that's not me. I still think of myself as a mom first, teacher second, but teaching seems to be consuming the huge majority of my time lately. I have become something of an addict of stupid computer card games, and I've managed to find time here and there to blog, but mornings every day find me grading stacks and stacks of papers, and afternoons find me teaching or consulting with students most of the time. Grandchildren don't even appear to be on my horizon.
When I'm not teaching, I'm often "grading for pin money"—working as a contract or consulting editor; in fact, I have a bid out to develop some short courses that could provide nice pin money I'd love to have. And if I can squeeze out the time Saturday, I'll be back at the local Girl Scout camp as a volunteer there.
My next-older sister came over today to deliver a delightful letter she had written for me to tell me how proud of me she is, and I have to admit that that was one of the nicest presents I've ever gotten. I also have to admit that she nailed some things right on the head, but she mostly gave me credit in cases where I'm pretty sure I've just been incredibly lucky—or blessed, if that's the way you want to look at it.
So today is my birthday. And I'm okay with that.
Half a lifetime ago, I woke up with the same thought, knowing that I was pregnant with my first baby and eager to know what the life ahead of me would bring.
A quarter of a lifetime ago, I woke up with the same thought, knowing that I had survived almost half a year as a single mom and scared that I wouldn't be up to the challenge.
Ten years ago, I was determined to let that first baby make his own mistakes and face his own consequences; his little brother walked the halls as a senior in high school and his sister took off every morning driving her own car.
Five years ago, the little brother was an Army reservist driving a truck in the war zone in Iraq, the little sister was a senior theater arts major at USC, that first baby was trying to become an auto mechanic in Austin, and I was hopeful that all three of them were finally stepping into adulthood.
And now we're here. The little sister is having a ball as a theater lighting designer in Los Angeles and trying out an exciting relationship with her current flame; the little brother is delivering pizzas, biding his time until the call comes through telling him when and where to report for full-time duty with the US Army; and that first baby is back at home, working in an automotive repair shop to earn the money to pay for school at the local community college, where he hopes to be admitted to the radiation therapy program and start a career in the medical field.
And me? Well, I keep thinking that I'm the age my Nana was in that quintessential grandmotherly picture I have somewhere in this confusion I call a home, and I'm pretty sure that's not me. I still think of myself as a mom first, teacher second, but teaching seems to be consuming the huge majority of my time lately. I have become something of an addict of stupid computer card games, and I've managed to find time here and there to blog, but mornings every day find me grading stacks and stacks of papers, and afternoons find me teaching or consulting with students most of the time. Grandchildren don't even appear to be on my horizon.
When I'm not teaching, I'm often "grading for pin money"—working as a contract or consulting editor; in fact, I have a bid out to develop some short courses that could provide nice pin money I'd love to have. And if I can squeeze out the time Saturday, I'll be back at the local Girl Scout camp as a volunteer there.
My next-older sister came over today to deliver a delightful letter she had written for me to tell me how proud of me she is, and I have to admit that that was one of the nicest presents I've ever gotten. I also have to admit that she nailed some things right on the head, but she mostly gave me credit in cases where I'm pretty sure I've just been incredibly lucky—or blessed, if that's the way you want to look at it.
So today is my birthday. And I'm okay with that.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Is Emily Post in the house?
A few years ago, Daughter and Second Son put their heads together and figured out that I had something they didn't have but wanted badly enough to remedy the situation: leashes. Actually, what I had was landline phones at my home and office that connected to cell phones in their pockets.
I had set D up with hers by signing the paperwork for it when she was 16 and too young to sign it herself. She had already had a couple of pagers by then, but she insisted that she'd be more careful with cell phones if only I would let her have one. I agreed with one condition: Since the phone would be in my name, I'd clobber her if she missed a payment and affected my credit rating. I don't really know what's gone on with it since then, but my credit rating has been good enough to borrow money when I've wanted to, so I suppose she's doing okay.
SS had acquired his phone on his own; he was old enough to sign his own contract by the time I got D hers. He had set up his phone with a number that he could break down into numbers that were important for him and easy to remember, so he was glad to have it.
I was glad for both of them to have cell phones because I could find them regardless how far from home they strayed; one of the first times I got really excited about this was when I called JaNelle on hers on the Fourth of July. She was in New York that summer, and for some reason the celebration was being telecast so I could watch the same fireworks at home—even better when I could call her in New York and see how cool it all looked from her perch on one of the bridges over the river.
But things didn't work the other way around: I could call them and find out what they were up to anytime I wanted to, but for some reason both of them had bumped into reasons to want to contact me but couldn't: if I was away from home or office, I was unreachable.
To resolve that, they conspired to get my own cell phone for me. D had all the information on "my" account (I still haven't done anything to manage it), and Sprint offered a "family plan" that would allow her to add me. Even though she was living in Los Angeles by then, she still had the same area code as me on the phone, so Sprint was fine with adding me to her family or circle or whatever for just a few dollars a month, and if there was a way to get my phone free, she did that, too.
The phone was my Mothers Day gift that year, and i have to give them credit for being clever about the gifting. SS invited me to a movie, and as we left the theater, the cell phone in his pocket rang. After he answered it, he handed it to me, saying, "It's for you, Mom."
I assumed it was Daughter checking on on Mothers Day, but I was a little perplexed at firts when she said, "It really is for you," but then she explained, "This is your phone." By that time, SS had quietly fished his own phone out of his pocket and was dialing a number, probably more to show me that we really did have two phones that day.
In my usual mom-too-long way of thinking, I mocked, "Oh, yeah, and it's the gift that keeps on giving! I get a phone now, and next month I start getting the bills!"
"We resemble that remark," D popped back. "We've taken care of that. We'll pay your bills for the first year, and next Mothers Day, we'll talk."
Long story short, I hadn't paid a dime for cell phone service until my recent trip to Los Angeles. In the interim, she had upgraded me from my first, very basic phone to one with a camera (and presumed capabilities to download data to my computer, but I never figured out how to make that function work), but not a QWERTY keyboard. I never needed the keyboard until she got a super deal on text messaging and I discovered that I could get much better responses from SS if I sent texts than if I called. Clearly, I was going to need a keyboard if I was going to stay in the loop. The replacement phone is still a little limited because I haven't decided if I want to pay the difference to get all the bells and whistles activated, but even at that, my cell service is a steal.
But what I'm still having trouble with is protocol. I've been around the block more than once with SS, who has a goofy habit of cutting off a call while I'm in the middle of a sentence. He assures me that he only does it when I'm starting to repeat myself, and I assure him that I only repeat myself because I'm not sure he's got the message or when I want to modify it somehow. Then he shrugs and tells me I'm getting all upset over nothing, and I get upset over being brushed off, and there we go again.
Sunday was a little different, though. I had decided that early November was a fine time to buy the gas grill Number One Son has been bemoaning not having, especially since the local Wally World had them on sale for about 1/3 off. The only problem was that the grill in a box was too big to fit into my little Camry, so I needed SS's Matrix to get it home. I had the good sense to text him on it.
He allowed as how he could make the run to pick it up, so I worked out an arrangement with the stocker to let him have it. I described the car and told the stocker he could match the credit card number on my ticket (which the stocker kept so the ticket and the grill could leave the store together; makes sense at some levels more than at others) to the one in my son's wallet to be sure he had the right guy. That way, I could make a quick trip to the grandparents' apartment nearby and visit with them before the evening wore on too late.
A few minutes later, I got a call from SS telling me WallyWorld wouldn't let him have the grill. I told him to check with the stocker, but he insisted the stocker was gone; the only people there were "two little old ladies" (neither of whom, it turned out, was probably within 10 years of my age). I was close enough to dash back over to straighten the problem out, so I asked, "Can you wait 10 minutes?" But by that time, he had cut me off.
I dialed his number and got his voice mail twice before I gave up and jumped in my car. Back at WallyWorld, he was long gone, but the clerk who had sold me the grill recognized me immediately and asked what the problem was. I told her what I knew: the stocker had put the grill on a cart and, last I saw, had stuck the ticket with it, but only the grill in the cart were still on the patio. My son had been by but had apparently disappeared again, and I couldn't "just go ahead and take the grill" because it still wouldn't fit in my Camry. As far as I knew, SS was halfway home by then.
I tried dialing again and this time, I got through. I had enough time to ask if he could get back to the store (while I was still there) and pick up the grill. I got only a word or two in response before he cut off again, but I was pretty sure the response was positive.
A few minutes later, I called again and discovered he was at the high school next door to the store, so I continued to have the sales clerk track down stockers to find the one who had taken my ticket. He showed up several minutes later, just about the time SS managed to creep across the parking lot to get to the patio area. (Does he not know about the alley around the back that gets there much faster?) The stocker had stuffed my ticket in his pocket and gone off to the back of the store to work on a shipment there, never thinking that we'd need the ticket to get the grill home.
I wasn't as happy as I could have been to see SS's smiling face when he finally showed up because I thought he'd been cutting off on the phone again, but I was pretty pleased when I got his side of the story: He hadn't intentionally been cutting me off or ignoring me; he had just forgotten to recharge the cell phone. And he hadn't turned and gone all the way back to the house; in fact, he was sure enough that I had gone to visit the grandparents that he had gone there, intending to trade cars with me and let me go get the grill at my leisure—a plan that would have suited me just fine and even gotten the milk home to the fridge faster.
But what I need now is the lesson on cell phone protocol: When Person A's phone keeps cutting out because of the dead battery but Person B needs to catch whatever she can of the status of a situation, who's supposed to make the effort to reconnect? And aren't car chargers sort of required for cell phones? And why am I letting him talk to me while he's driving, anyway?
Is Emily Post in the house?
I had set D up with hers by signing the paperwork for it when she was 16 and too young to sign it herself. She had already had a couple of pagers by then, but she insisted that she'd be more careful with cell phones if only I would let her have one. I agreed with one condition: Since the phone would be in my name, I'd clobber her if she missed a payment and affected my credit rating. I don't really know what's gone on with it since then, but my credit rating has been good enough to borrow money when I've wanted to, so I suppose she's doing okay.
SS had acquired his phone on his own; he was old enough to sign his own contract by the time I got D hers. He had set up his phone with a number that he could break down into numbers that were important for him and easy to remember, so he was glad to have it.
I was glad for both of them to have cell phones because I could find them regardless how far from home they strayed; one of the first times I got really excited about this was when I called JaNelle on hers on the Fourth of July. She was in New York that summer, and for some reason the celebration was being telecast so I could watch the same fireworks at home—even better when I could call her in New York and see how cool it all looked from her perch on one of the bridges over the river.
But things didn't work the other way around: I could call them and find out what they were up to anytime I wanted to, but for some reason both of them had bumped into reasons to want to contact me but couldn't: if I was away from home or office, I was unreachable.
To resolve that, they conspired to get my own cell phone for me. D had all the information on "my" account (I still haven't done anything to manage it), and Sprint offered a "family plan" that would allow her to add me. Even though she was living in Los Angeles by then, she still had the same area code as me on the phone, so Sprint was fine with adding me to her family or circle or whatever for just a few dollars a month, and if there was a way to get my phone free, she did that, too.
The phone was my Mothers Day gift that year, and i have to give them credit for being clever about the gifting. SS invited me to a movie, and as we left the theater, the cell phone in his pocket rang. After he answered it, he handed it to me, saying, "It's for you, Mom."
I assumed it was Daughter checking on on Mothers Day, but I was a little perplexed at firts when she said, "It really is for you," but then she explained, "This is your phone." By that time, SS had quietly fished his own phone out of his pocket and was dialing a number, probably more to show me that we really did have two phones that day.
In my usual mom-too-long way of thinking, I mocked, "Oh, yeah, and it's the gift that keeps on giving! I get a phone now, and next month I start getting the bills!"
"We resemble that remark," D popped back. "We've taken care of that. We'll pay your bills for the first year, and next Mothers Day, we'll talk."
Long story short, I hadn't paid a dime for cell phone service until my recent trip to Los Angeles. In the interim, she had upgraded me from my first, very basic phone to one with a camera (and presumed capabilities to download data to my computer, but I never figured out how to make that function work), but not a QWERTY keyboard. I never needed the keyboard until she got a super deal on text messaging and I discovered that I could get much better responses from SS if I sent texts than if I called. Clearly, I was going to need a keyboard if I was going to stay in the loop. The replacement phone is still a little limited because I haven't decided if I want to pay the difference to get all the bells and whistles activated, but even at that, my cell service is a steal.
But what I'm still having trouble with is protocol. I've been around the block more than once with SS, who has a goofy habit of cutting off a call while I'm in the middle of a sentence. He assures me that he only does it when I'm starting to repeat myself, and I assure him that I only repeat myself because I'm not sure he's got the message or when I want to modify it somehow. Then he shrugs and tells me I'm getting all upset over nothing, and I get upset over being brushed off, and there we go again.
Sunday was a little different, though. I had decided that early November was a fine time to buy the gas grill Number One Son has been bemoaning not having, especially since the local Wally World had them on sale for about 1/3 off. The only problem was that the grill in a box was too big to fit into my little Camry, so I needed SS's Matrix to get it home. I had the good sense to text him on it.
He allowed as how he could make the run to pick it up, so I worked out an arrangement with the stocker to let him have it. I described the car and told the stocker he could match the credit card number on my ticket (which the stocker kept so the ticket and the grill could leave the store together; makes sense at some levels more than at others) to the one in my son's wallet to be sure he had the right guy. That way, I could make a quick trip to the grandparents' apartment nearby and visit with them before the evening wore on too late.
A few minutes later, I got a call from SS telling me WallyWorld wouldn't let him have the grill. I told him to check with the stocker, but he insisted the stocker was gone; the only people there were "two little old ladies" (neither of whom, it turned out, was probably within 10 years of my age). I was close enough to dash back over to straighten the problem out, so I asked, "Can you wait 10 minutes?" But by that time, he had cut me off.
I dialed his number and got his voice mail twice before I gave up and jumped in my car. Back at WallyWorld, he was long gone, but the clerk who had sold me the grill recognized me immediately and asked what the problem was. I told her what I knew: the stocker had put the grill on a cart and, last I saw, had stuck the ticket with it, but only the grill in the cart were still on the patio. My son had been by but had apparently disappeared again, and I couldn't "just go ahead and take the grill" because it still wouldn't fit in my Camry. As far as I knew, SS was halfway home by then.
I tried dialing again and this time, I got through. I had enough time to ask if he could get back to the store (while I was still there) and pick up the grill. I got only a word or two in response before he cut off again, but I was pretty sure the response was positive.
A few minutes later, I called again and discovered he was at the high school next door to the store, so I continued to have the sales clerk track down stockers to find the one who had taken my ticket. He showed up several minutes later, just about the time SS managed to creep across the parking lot to get to the patio area. (Does he not know about the alley around the back that gets there much faster?) The stocker had stuffed my ticket in his pocket and gone off to the back of the store to work on a shipment there, never thinking that we'd need the ticket to get the grill home.
I wasn't as happy as I could have been to see SS's smiling face when he finally showed up because I thought he'd been cutting off on the phone again, but I was pretty pleased when I got his side of the story: He hadn't intentionally been cutting me off or ignoring me; he had just forgotten to recharge the cell phone. And he hadn't turned and gone all the way back to the house; in fact, he was sure enough that I had gone to visit the grandparents that he had gone there, intending to trade cars with me and let me go get the grill at my leisure—a plan that would have suited me just fine and even gotten the milk home to the fridge faster.
But what I need now is the lesson on cell phone protocol: When Person A's phone keeps cutting out because of the dead battery but Person B needs to catch whatever she can of the status of a situation, who's supposed to make the effort to reconnect? And aren't car chargers sort of required for cell phones? And why am I letting him talk to me while he's driving, anyway?
Is Emily Post in the house?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)