7 Quick Takes: IPhone Envy

It's still Friday, right? Well, let's get going then....

I told Larry that we should get IPhones for ourselves. Because they are fun. And then I wouldn't lose my grocery list. Stick-in-the-mud that he is, Larry pointed out that it doesn't make economic sense for us to spend over 1500 dollars a year for cellphone service. I hate when he gets all rational like that.

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How come the IPhone plan is so much more expensive than the other phones with touch screens and other fun stuff? Anyone out there in Blogland know the answer to that?

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Not that it matters - Larry is perfectly satisfied with our current "plan" - pay-per-minute cellphones which cost us all of 100 dollars a year per phone. Frugal does not equal fun, in case you were wondering.

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My bout of stomach flu 2 weekends ago produced a 3-pound weight loss at my next WW weigh-in. That gave me enough incentive to keep on starving for another 7 days, after which I once again stepped onto the Weight Watchers scale confident in the knowledge that I was even more svelte than the week before.

Only, I wasn't. The receptionist told me that I had gained a pound and a half. At which point I informed her that there was no way I had gained weight, I felt too hungry. Apparently no novice at dealing with irrational fat people, she said, "Well, maybe it's just the humidity."

My thoughts exactly...

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Oil spill? Can we come up with a better phrase? It's not a spill so much as an explosion. An explosion that just won't quit. And for those of you wondering why the federal government hasn't managed to stop it yet, it's because they can't. No one can. We shouldn't have been drilling a mile underwater in the first place. It's hard to believe that no one foresaw this scenario.

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Oh, and Governor Jindal? If you are so convinced that building those barrier islands is the right thing to do (and, heck, that plan sounds better than doing nothing), stop arguing over who is going to pay for it and get started. Over 40 miles of the berms have been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers already. While you're building them, you can argue over the other 60 miles and who is going to foot the bill. But don't stand there and do nothing and blame the federal government. As you yourself have said, "The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and the enterprising spirit of our citizens."

Quibble over the bill later, my friend. This oil spill is going to cost millions one way or another.

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I know! Yet another bit of breathtakingly astute commentary by this armchair activist. What can I say? The world is lucky to have me.

G'night all, and pop on over to Conversion Diary's 7 Quick Takes - she doesn't waste your time with useless maunderings over the state of the nation the way I do.

[IPhone photo credit: phonecasestore]

[Oil rig photo credit: Daily Mail]

Memory Lane

Theo and I ended up watching Tootsie last night. I found it on Netflix's Instant Watch choices. I've always loved Dustin Hoffman; but I was born 20 years too late to be the love of his life. So in this movie, he's just the right age for me. Good lord, he is something, isn't he? I mean, just look at him! If I had secret boyfriends the way mrs. g does, Dustin would be first on my list. What's not to like?

And the movie is still funny, even 26 years later. So go! Rent it! Download it! What are you waiting for?

I think we'll see Diner next. No, wait, Dustin Hoffman isn't in it. How about The Graduate?

Today I had the fun of finishing up my root canal. I'm feeling okay, thanks; but I think I'll help myself to that codeine anyway. I deserve something for those three shots of Novocaine I had to endure. By the time the endodontist was done, my eye felt numb. And then I came home and the kids and I all hung out in the basement. Because our area (which is most definitely not in tornado country) was under a tornado watch and there were wild thunderstorms and trees whipping around in the wind and all sorts of fun things. We couldn't convince Brian to come out of the basement bathroom, even when the worst had passed. He figured it was an interior room with no windows and he wanted to optimize his chances of survival. And when we finally emerged from hiding, we found the tops of trees snapped off all along our road for about half a mile.

So maybe Brian was right.

What was interesting was what everyone chose to bring with them into the basement. As in, if you can only save one thing, what would it be? Anna brought her flute; Benjamin his comic book (to read while sitting in the bathroom); I wanted to bring the computer, but I knew I couldn't disconnect it in time. I would have taken the flash drive (is that the right term?) that holds all my backed-up documents, if I had had any idea where it was. The whole scene reminded me of the Mary Tyler Moore episode when her apartment building is on fire and she grabs the big letter "M" hanging on the wall as she runs out the door.

What? You don't remember that? Mary Tyler Moore was a popular sitcom that people my age used to watch; it was groundbreaking, in fact, as it featured a career woman who wasn't married and didn't even have a regular boyfriend. People would stay home on Saturday nights just to watch this show, along with All In The Family and Bob Newhart. You see, kiddies, we didn't have messing around with our cellphones as a way to waste time, way back in the technological dark ages of the 70's. We had to watch TV, instead.

No one carried a cellphone in Tootsie, by the way; and people were using typewriters. That is, when they weren't talking on telephones with big, bulky cords. Jessica Lange's character had an apartment decorated in shades of blue and mauve. Remember that? Even McDonald's in the 80's were those colors.

I'm rambling. You want your money refunded, or what?

Gone Visiting

I would like to announce that I am approximately halfway to figuring out how to use the "speed dial" function on my cellphone. Go, me! Thank you for all the supportive comments on yesterday's dinosaur post. And thanks also to all the people who refrained from commenting that I must be an idiot not to be able to figure these things out. Your mothers obviously did a very good job teaching you to be polite.

The folks at Mid-CenturyModernMoms have invited me to post there on Sundays. I believe "midcentury" refers to our age - it's a group blog for moms with older kids. So, if you're tired of reading about how cute my little Susie is, you can just wander over there and see what's up with mothers who write about things other than the preschool years.

I'll leave the door unlocked around here if anyone wants to come over and look around while I'm out. Just turn off the lights when you leave!

You Saw Me In Jurassic Park

So, if you happened to go into a T-Mobile store today and heard the 2 young salespeople snickering about the middle-aged woman who had just left? That would have been me. Because I just couldn't take it anymore. I had bought one of their cellphones a couple of months ago, and I couldn't figure out how to work it for the life of me. It was one of the most basic models, too. No camera, no anything....

Feeling desperate, I marched in there today and demanded a tutorial on the basics. Like how to turn it on on my first try. How to adjust the volume on the ringer. How to figure out where to get a ringtone. How to find out how many minutes I had left (we use a prepaid plan). The girl took it from me and started punching buttons. "Whoa, missy!" I yelled. (Okay, I didn't say "missy.") "I can't tell what you're doing! How did you get that?"

"Well," she said, "you just sort of mess around with it and you figure it out."

"I've been messing around with it for 2 months and I've figured out nothing," I told her. "Start with the phonebook. How do I find it? And how do I delete stuff?" So, with me badgering her the entire time, she managed to show me a few basic functions. Then, while she rang up my purchase of a second phone (yes, I'm stupid), I bothered the salesguy at the other counter with some more questions.

"Look," he said, "you just have to mess around with it when you're bored, and you'll figure it out."

Bored?

"Listen," I told him, "I have 6 kids. I'm never bored. And I don't use this phone often enough to remember what I did from one time to the next."

"Really?" he asked, staring at me as if I had just emerged from the jungles of New Guinea.

I decided to hit him with all I've got. "Really. These one thousand minutes I'm buying for the year? I won't run out."

Upon hearing this, he looked stunned. Confused. Completely out of his element. I could tell he wanted me to just go away.

So I did.

Hello, 21st Century!

We have made some progress on the technological front around here, I am happy to announce; my husband bought some thing-a-ma-jig that enables us to hook up our VCR and our DVD player to the TV at the same time. Heretofore, to switch to one machine or the other required being able to crawl sort of sideways behind the TV in order to unscrew some cables from one machine and then screw them on to the other, all while endeavoring not to fall (painfully) onto the numerous Duplos which tend to migrate back there. Apparently, Larry realized that the thing-a-ma-jig cost less than the chiropractic bills (or else he was tired of my whining).

Now I'm hoping that we can actually own an IPod before they are out of style. Although by the time I get one (and figure out how to use it), everyone else will be walking around with some sort of digital chip implanted in their ears. But (bright side) at least IPods should be dirt-cheap by then.

And to all those people whining because they bought an IPhone when it cost a gazillion dollars and now Apple is lowering the price - shut up. It's not our fault you're stupid.

Sorry - just had to get that off my chest. I feel better now.

Larry was late to work this morning - the deck is being torn down today and he realized that there was a morning dove sitting on a nest in the deck's ....whaddayacall'em? ..... rafters? But underneath, if you know what I mean. Anyway, there is this mommy bird sitting on eggs and we have small children, which means that Larry decided to move the nest to a safe place (under our next-door neighbor's deck), so no one would be traumatized. But then we weren't sure if the mommy bird could see where the nest's new location was, even though Larry had left the ladder by the new location, just to give her a hint, you know....and he and I had to discuss whether a bird would understand what a ladder was, and maybe one of us should stand in the neighbor's backyard and wave toward the new nest location (do birds understand semaphore?), and then Larry suggested that he move the nest out in the open until she spotted it, and then he'd move it a little more, until she spotted that, and then....well, then we realized we sounded like idiots. So we compromised by moving it to a more visible spot on our neighbor's deck (a neighbor who by now was awake and had come outside to learn why we were standing in her backyard and arguing at 7:30 in the morning), where it will probably be knocked over before the end of the day by her 4-year-old twins. But, hey, we tried. I just wish I could be there when Larry explains to his supervisor why he was late.