Cara -- this post is for you and your drop-dead magic freckles!
I’m old enough not to take computers and cell phones and androids and the other electronic spaghetti for granted. I always thought androids were some kind of alien. Apparently they captured them and they’re all in this little box you can hold in your hand and do things with. If you pay big money. Before the age of computers I got incipient arthritis because we had to do complicated math problems on abacuses (abaci?). At St. Mary’s school. In fact my one little finger is so curved from doing multiplication of fractions on an abacus that I can’t play the pinky-on-the-coffeecup thing anymore. But after the new age dawned I bought a computer and dived right into it. I left the cell phones and androids alone since I think they’re noisy and invasive. I think it’s some kind of magic, still, that I can dial up Copenhagen and have a good look at the Mermaid in the harbor, or watch live traffic crashes in the freeway tunnels in Moscow at night, which gets old pretty quickly. I’ve watched the Queen’s Christmas message once or twice and I Instant Message my daughter in South Carolina a couple times a week. I’m still totally amazed at all this clear, static-free worldwide communication. My kids grew up with computers. In school. I remember long distance calls that faded in and out and heavy bakelite phones that you could kill a large dog with, and Movietone newsreels...
I’m old enough not to take computers and cell phones and androids and the other electronic spaghetti for granted. I always thought androids were some kind of alien. Apparently they captured them and they’re all in this little box you can hold in your hand and do things with. If you pay big money. Before the age of computers I got incipient arthritis because we had to do complicated math problems on abacuses (abaci?). At St. Mary’s school. In fact my one little finger is so curved from doing multiplication of fractions on an abacus that I can’t play the pinky-on-the-coffeecup thing anymore. But after the new age dawned I bought a computer and dived right into it. I left the cell phones and androids alone since I think they’re noisy and invasive. I think it’s some kind of magic, still, that I can dial up Copenhagen and have a good look at the Mermaid in the harbor, or watch live traffic crashes in the freeway tunnels in Moscow at night, which gets old pretty quickly. I’ve watched the Queen’s Christmas message once or twice and I Instant Message my daughter in South Carolina a couple times a week. I’m still totally amazed at all this clear, static-free worldwide communication. My kids grew up with computers. In school. I remember long distance calls that faded in and out and heavy bakelite phones that you could kill a large dog with, and Movietone newsreels...
...But last Saturday I treated myself to the topping on the cake. I watched the Royal Wedding of Daniel and Victoria of Sweden, live, on STV television from Stockholm. Clear as a bell, every word immensely audible and it was a nice marriage as those ceremonies go. There were four archbishops including a woman lesbian (of which I heartily approve – if you don’t like it go read something else), and the Archbishop of Stockholm who grinned in between the lines. Daniel had a tear or two and Victoria just stood there and smiled and looked pretty damn good. So God bless ‘em. And thanks for the computer. You all can have the cell phones and all that other noisy expensive junk, but I like my computer-window-on-the-world. Ta!
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