Fear of Facebook

It all started, interestingly enough, with Morry Roach. Morry Roach was a kid from Pleasant Hill Junior High in California. We were both in seventh and eighth grade together and if memory serves we both took the same Spanish class with a teacher who looked something like a combination of Pee Wee Herman and Tiny Tim. I don’t know if we were friends, and I don’t even remember what he looked like so I dusted off my Jr. High yearbook. According to his picture Morry was an average size kid with that long shaggy hair style so popular with teenage boys in the seventies. I can’t explain why his name has stuck with me all these years, but it has.

So, anyway I was playing around on the internet a few weeks ago, doing random google searches on people’s names. I searched myself, my kids, a few people I remember from high school, and I noticed that the chances of pulling up information on the right person increased dramatically if the name was a bit more unusual. There are hundreds of John Smith’s and Bill Browns, so locating my high school buddy and first kiss Mike McMahon in this manner is next to impossible.

After running through all my families’ names, I searched through my memory for a name that was more unique and low and behold, Morry Roach came to mind. Sure enough, Morry showed up in google as a member of the online community, Facebook. Clicking on the link I was shown a microscopic photo of a man in his mid forties who may or may not have been my long haired classmate of yesteryear. However when I tried to gather more info, I was informed in no uncertain terms that Mr. Roach and his information were part of an elitest community that could only be approached by signing up with Facebook and then requesting the honor of being on his list of legitimate friends.

Yeah, like I was going to do that. I’m sure Morry not only doesn’t remember me but would find it strange if not a little stalker-ish to know that some kid from his awkward adolescent years was trying to look him up. In fact, the whole point of the internet is to gather information from the safe position of an anonymous outsider not actually make contact. So I left the computer for a more wise use of my time, and turned on the TV.

Then, yesterday a really amazing thing happened. Out of the blue, I got an email from a good friend I’d known in college. She said that her son was recently married and that there were pictures of the event on Facebook.

OH NO, NOT FACEBOOK!

But what choice did I have. I was willing to live my life without knowing for sure if the Facebook Morry was my Morry, but I really really wanted to see those pictures. I would have to bite the bullet and get on Facebook.

It was strange and surreal experience. I entered my personal information and then suddenly I was bombarded with toenail sized pictures of people I knew and people I didn’t. Relatives and neighbors popped onto the screen as if somehow the program had crept into my brain and accessed all my memories. The boy who takes care of our dog when we go out of town, was right there next to my sister-in-law in California and my daughter who lives upstate. And intermixed were people I never even heard of from places I’ve never been.

Then Facebook asked me if I wanted to look up any people from my past. I thought again of Morry Roach. Sure I was curious as to where life had taken him in the thirty plus years since Jr. High but I didn’t want to actually make contact. No, all I really wanted to do was see my friend’s son’s wedding pictures.

At last I was an official Facebook member, and happily, I entered my friends email and waited with anticipation. Sure enough, up popped a tinsy tiny photo of four itty bitty people, and a note that if I wanted a better look, I’d have to apply to be my friend’s friend. Ahhhhh

As of this writing, I still haven’t seen the pictures, but the kid down the street just asked me to be on his friend list. So I guess that’s something.

PS I've decided I'm just not a facebook kinda girl and have taken myself off. Oh well

Tebo my Life – Please

We live in a day and age where technological advances verge on the magical. I can flip open my cell phone and talk to anyone anywhere on the earth at the push of a button, (that is of course if they are awake, choose to answer and I am within my calling area). I can send and receive emails at the speed of light to anyone I choose. That means my daughter can tattle on her husband to millions of people all at the same time, and those poor Nigerian Bankers can solicit help from every shmuk who owns a PC. (See blog from last week). And last but not least, I can core and slice an apple into eight perfectly shaped wedges all in one firm push. (That may not be a technological devise, but I think it’s pretty cool).

Other amazing advances make our lives longer and healthier. Tiny cameras assist with heart operations, medicines cure diseases we thought we’d never cure, and of course laser hair removal which is a marvel in and of itself. But perhaps the biggest boon to the average American was the invention of Tebo.

Can you imagine going back in time and running into Benjamin Franklin, the great statesman and inventor? Imagine his shock as you explained things like microwave ovens that allow people to create nacho’s in almost no time. Mp3 players that allow people to record more songs than they even know and watch full length movies on tiny little thumb nail sized screens. And then you could tell him about Tebo.

Granted, Tebo wouldn’t make a lot of sense to him at first, being that the founding fathers hadn’t invented TV yet, not to mention the TV station. And the idea of having the leisure time to sit in front of a screen for hours at a time might also seem strange to people who had to cut their own fire wood for warmth, carry water from a well to drink and if they over did it on the beans and bacon, they’d be trotting back and forth from the outhouse all night. But Franklin was a smart guy and eventually he would get the idea.

Then you’d spring it on him. In the twenty-first century we don’t miss a TV show, not even when we aren’t home. Our TVs can watch multiple shows all at the same time. We can be asleep but old Tebo never rests recording hours and hours of The Simpsons, Law and Order and Cooking with Emile. In one day, Tebo can record more television than we could watch in a month.

Of course technology doesn’t come without a price. We are much wider and lumpier than our counterparts in the seventeen hundreds (thanks in part to the microwave nachos). And TV does become so addictive that people put them in every room in their house, including the bathroom. But those are relatively minor compared to what I like to refer to as the Tebo snapback syndrome.

You’ve all experienced curling up in front of the tube, and scanning through the channels till you find something really good to watch. (like an old movie starring a very young Pierce Brosnan and Twiggy). Then about forty-five minutes into the program a notice comes on the TV telling you that American Idol and Sponge Bob Square-pants are scheduled to record in five minutes and you either need to cancel a recording or turn off the TV. What a moral dilemma that puts one in. Which family members TV viewing tastes are more important, and what are the repercussions of choosing one family member over another. It’s mind boggling, and I suspect that even old Benjamin would be stumped.

I've given this issue a great deal of thought I think I've come up with an answer. It is that...

Whoops. I just looked at the clock and I only have a forty minute window in between I Love Lucy recordings to catch last week’s Wheel of Fortune, so I’d better run. Bye!

My Junk Mail Folder

Imagine the scenario. Two techno nerds watching TV when the host announces the invention of the World Wide Web.

“Oh wow Earl, do you know what this means? People like you and me can send information around the planet at the push of a button. What profound information can we email to the world?”

Earl scratches his head, “Tell ‘em about a cream that you can rub on any part of your body and it will make it grow bigger in two weeks.”

Lo and behold, junk mail was born.

I often wonder who these strange people are that have nothing better to do with their lives but sit at their computer and create spam. Perhaps, like myself, they are frustrated authors looking for an audience. Or maybe they‘re all part of a club competing for the world’s worst con-person.

Like everyone else, my junk mail file fills up twice as fast as my inbox, kind of like how the price dial on the gas pump always goes faster than the gallons pumped dial. And usually I just delete the whole thing without even looking at them. But today, just for the heck of it, I decided to read my unwanted emails and share the results with you.

I was excited to learn that I had won the consolation prize of Microsoft’s Email Draw. Did any of you know that Microsoft was giving away prize money to lucky emailers throughout the country? What’s even more amazing is that the Washington based company is awarding it’s monetary prizes in English pounds. Yes folks, just for opening my email I have won 1,000,000 (one million) pounds. WoW! That’s nearly 2 million in American dollars. Gosh I wonder what the winner got?

In a strange twist of fate, I also won a million pounds from the United Nations Development Program.

My next email tells the sad tale of poor Col. Hosam Hassan and his wife and daughter who were killed in Iraq leaving eighteen million dollars in a Hong Kong bank, and on the verge of being claimed by the Chinese government. But dear Marvin K.T Cheung the branch manager has a plan and I’ve been chosen to be a part of it. But what Cheung doesn’t know is that I already won two million dollars from Microsoft and another from the UNDP.

I got another email from Nigeria today. Boy that poor country is just floating in unwanted money. I always feel bad turning my back on them, but a person can’t be expected to save the whole world now can they?

As if that wasn’t enough, the Republic of Benin has been trying to wire me my consignment for weeks now but with one thing and another they just can’t seem to get it through. Apparently they are using Western Union because Western Union is also struggling to wire me money as well. Perhaps if they fired all the foreign employees who can’t write proper English, they could get that cash through in a timely manner.

And lest you think my junk mail is all about the money, let me tell you. There are a lot of kind people out there concerned with my health and happiness. There are offers to clean my colon, improve my intimacy, get rid of my stretch marks, buy my gold and get me a job – like I need a job with all the free cash on the way.

Ah well, just another day in Spam World.

Cherry Ames is Back

Cherry Ames is back! After originally being published between 1945 and 1968, the series is being reprinted so that another generation of young girls can enjoy the exploits of Ms. Ames, nurse extraordinaire. In the 27 books she stared in Cherry completed three years of nurses training, and then went on to work in every possible nursing related field. This woman was bandaging knees at a kid’s camp in one book and was reattaching limbs in a war zone in the next.

I was a huge fan of the Cherry Ames series as a preteen, and I am still an avid reader. A therapist recently diagnosed me as reading addicted. And I have to say that I totally agree with his observation. I love fiction, and I can actually tract my growing up years by the genre of books I was reading at each phase of my life.

In elementary school I had rather eclectic tastes. The Mrs. Pigglewiggle books were a favorite, anything written by Beverly Cleary, and if it featured a horse I was all over it. A great uncle who raised horses use to give me his back issues of Western Horse Magazine, and I would pour over the articles. I didn’t actually own a horse myself, but I knew everything about training, breeding and that pesky hoof fungus that was going around in Montana.

As a preteen, I moved on to serial fiction. Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon, the Bobbsey Twins and of course Cherry Ames. I missed multiple flirting opportunities with boys in my neighborhood because I preferred to curl up on my bed with a good story.

As adolescence hit, I moved into the world of Harlequin Romance were I fell in love with a different guy every other day. This messed up my head in so many ways and it took years to realize that real men weren’t anything like guys that populated those romances. These fantasy men, created in the overly imaginative minds of female writers, were always breath takingly handsome, rich and/or sophisticated, and could actually read the minds of the women they loved, often understanding thier thoughts before the females understood themselves. Real guys require real communication. And sometimes that doesn't even work.

In high school an English teacher introduced me to my next genre love. Gothic fiction. Okay, Gothic is predictable as all get out, I know, but I was fourteen at the time and it was fun to have a little scarey intrigue and suspense thrown in with my previous diet of all romance all the time. I think what I enjoyed most were the creepy old houses and mystery shrouded mansions with secret doorways and hidden rooms. Plus the most attractive guy was usually the murderous maniac and the more stoic and confused guy was always the hero.

Since then, I’ve developed a taste for mystery. I set a goal when I first got married to read every Agatha Christie book she ever wrote. She wrote a ton of books and I’m still working on that goal. But I love the whole English feel of her stories. Every house no matter the size had a name like The Paddocks or Little Styles. Granted, they were strange names, and often not very pretty, but every house had one.

Which brings us to today. I read quite a few contemporary writers now. Amy Tan and Mary Higgins Clark are two of my favorites. I recently discovered Dean Koontz. He has a series about a guy who sees dead people, has a dead girlfriend and a dead dog, so I guess that kind of fits back into my gothic past doesn’t it.

I find myself wonder what type of books I’ll be reading when I’m old and decrepit. I know I will have to wear huge magnifying glasses (my eyesight is already on the fritz) just to read the words. And the books themselves will have to be light so that my little bony arm's with saggy skin hanging down to my waist, will be able to hold them.

Actually, I can see myself and the other old broads in the rest home, sitting side by side in our rocking chairs, ipods attached to our hearing aids, listening to our MP3 books and occasionally laughing out loud at a joke that no one else can hear.

Hmmm that doesn’t sound half bad.

Stinky Kids and Other Joys of Motherhood

My youngest son will turn twelve soon, and though I love him dearly, he produces some of the worst body scents ever known to man.

-I need to stop here for a second and warn my mother that I will be writing about gross stuff again this week. (She still hasn’t gotten over my remark about Hannah Montana little girl's underwear back in September.) Poop will be discussed in detail, so if you have a weak constitution… consider yourself warned.-

On the positive side, the boy is tall, athletic and has a metabolism that just won’t stop, so perhaps stinky-ness is just a side effect. Having never been a boy, tall, athletic and having a metabolism that creeps along at a snail like pace, I wouldn’t know.

To explain how bad it is, even as a little kid, if he went “number two” and missed wiping off one smudge on his cheeks, within in ten minutes, the whole house knews about it. It’s that potent.

About two years ago, the preadolescent “B.O.” kicked in. The child can be playing dead - in the snow - in his underwear - for two seconds - and if he didn’t put on his deodorant we can smell him from three feet away.

Unfortunately, he is still a little boy, which means he considers soap and water a waste of energy and would happily live in a world where toothbrushes and anti-persperant had never been invented.

Last year I got a call from the elementary school that my son stunk really badly and would I please come pick him up and take him home. (I’m not kidding, this really happened.) Sure enough, he’d missed a spot on his rear, and he’d somehow lost his container of extra-strength deodorant. The kid reeked.

I tried to use this as a teach opportunity, pointing out the importance of proper hygiene in a real world environment but he was unimpressed. He insisted that all boys smelled like this and plus it kept the girls away. Who can argue with that?

So, in my ever growing repertoire of morning chants, I now say: “Do you have you backpack? Your coat? Did you brush your teeth? Really? If I go look in the bathroom will I find a damp toothbrush?” (One time his toothbrush fell in the toilet and he threw it away. I didn’t find out for two weeks as he continued to insist that he was brushing his teeth everyday.) “And how about your rear? All clean? And your pits?”

You couldn’t pay someone enough to say that!

I have faith that someday he will decide that smelling good has its benefits and that attracting girls is more fun than repelling them. In the mean time I’m investing in a good pair of nose plugs.

Almost

My grandfather was quite the Renaissance man. He was an artist who used small colored tiles to create beautiful mosaics on furniture and walls. A music lover with a rich deep voice who was often conscripted with my grandmother into singing at funerals. A born salesman who could sell you an air conditioner in the dead of winter. And an inventor of sorts.

According to my mother, grandpa came up with a chemical formula for degreaser long before the oven cleaner was invented. Her family would go on vacation, check into a motel and grandpa would mix up his special solution right there in the bathtub.

Then he would bottle it, and head out to town looking for as many greasy spoon type diners as he could find. Once into a restaurant, he would get the owner to allow him to put some of his special formula on a corner of the grease laden grill, with instructions to let it set until he returned.

Thirty minutes later, Grandpa would be back and with a simple swipe of a sponge, the grease seemed to melt away like butter.

Unfortunately, Granddad didn’t have the money or the connections to market his product properly. And because of that, I am not the rich, oven cleaning solution heiress I was meant to be.

Like Grandpa, I too have had my share of million dollar ideas that eventually made someone else a fortune.

Yeast infections are a plague that women have had to suffer with since the beginning of time. (I don’t know this for sure. Do you know how hard it is to find any info on yeast infections and the cave woman?)

And of course, the treatment is simple. For a couple of years I was calling my doctor every six months for a prescription. He didn’t even have to see me. Just called it into the pharmacy. And since I could tell a yeast infection from say pink eye or a broken arm, I was pretty sure that every other woman could too.

So I called into one of the companies that manufactures other women’s unmentionables, and suggested they make a line of over the counter yeast infection treatments. I spoke to a young man who was probably nineteen and didn’t even know what a yeast infection was. And guess what? Three years later, everybody is selling OTC yeast infection medication.

That was me, my brilliant idea, but you think I saw a single penny of the profit? I even have to pay full price when I buy the stuff!

Or how about the GPS system’s for tracking down your teenagers in the car, your lost pet or your kid wandering around Disneyland. Yup, that was all me too!

I guess it’s just the curse both my grandpa and I carry.

Exceptional minds and empty pocket books.

Reflections on a Passing Year

One of my sons got in a lot of trouble about a month ago, and part of his punishment was to spend an hour a day doing extra chores for me. It must have been about the fourth day into this punishment when it finally hit him. “Mom, I’ve emptied the dishwasher every day, and I’ve vacuumed the carpets every day too. Why can’t I just do the job once and be done with it?”

The eternal question.

As I sit here on New Years Eve, contemplating 2008 I realize how much of this year I spent doing job’s that never get done. Washing dishes and clothes, dusting, vacuuming, mopping. I just have to face it. Life is repetitive.

My baby grandson has a set of books that his mom reads over and over too him. They say it’s because little children love repetition but I think its nature’s way of preparing them for the constant reiterations in adult life.

And it’s not just work that we have to repeat. What about phrases.

I notice that my cell phone came with a set of prewritten text messages that can be sent without taking the time to type them yourself. Phrases like:

“Where are you?”
“Call me when you get this message” or
“What’s your number” – although that last one seems kinda silly if you're sending a text message… oh well, talk to T-Mobile about it.

I’m thinking of inventing a little cell phone style box just for mom’s. And in it, I’ll have prerecorded all the things I find myself saying over and over and over.

“Where are you going and what time will you be back?”
“Did you brush your teeth AND use deodorant?”
“If you’d do it the right way the first time, you wouldn’t have to do it again.”
“But I’m not her/his mother, I’m yours, and that’s what I said.”- and of course-
“No!”

So, to deal with a world of mindless repetition, one must use their non-repetition time doing new and exciting things. I would recommend traveling to Branson, Missouri or visiting Hawaii or China once a year. But if you aren’t my parent’s, then these options may not be financially viable.

For the rest of us let me share some of my favorite free internet adventure hot spots for 2008

1. Karaoke Party - http://www.karaokeparty.com/

This is fun site. You can pick up a microphone at Wal-Mart for less than fifteen dollars and plug it into the back of your computer. Choose a song category (in karaoke party lingo ‘Classical’ would be the Beatles, not an aria from Madam Butterfly) and then sing. You get points for how well you match the artist (think Guitar Band Hero with out the weird looking characters) and then can compare your score with other players around the world. (Or not)

One word of warning. If you’re kids walk in on you belting out “We are the Champions” from Queen, they will make fun of you!

2. Smile Box eCards – http://www.smilbox.com/

I have set a 2009 goal to remember all the birthdays and anniversaries in my family this year by sending ecards. However I always go to Hallmark and they only have so many new and free ecards. So, in an effort to widen my ecard horizons, I did a google search and found this site.

Smile Box is free and allows you to upload photos or videos and incorporate them into an ecard to send out to people. How cute is that? I’m thinking I have a couple of photos of myself that would make truly frightening Halloween cards.

3. Jib Jab - http://sendables.jibjab.com/

This is similar to the above site except you get to attach head shots of your favorite people onto animated bodies and then watch them play out their own little mini movies. But be forewarned. If you create the movie or show it to people whose heads are in the movie, they will think these are unbelievably hilarious. Anyone else watching will get boarded really fast.

4. The American Museum of Photography - http://www.photographymuseum.com/noir/pulppix2.html

When I really need to get out of my own world, I like to search out exotic locations or interesting museums and then pretend I’m really there. The idea of web cams sounds good, but I don’t care how exotic the beach, watching several minutes of a still shot, replaced by another still shot from some high and not very artistic vantage point, just doesn’t do the job.

However, if you search a little, you can find some really funky places on the internet to visit like the site above. This exhibit from the American Museum of Photography is titled Pulp Pix: The Bizarre Case of Photography Noir. It was so unique that I spent over an hour exploring it.

Well I gotta get back to my dishes so I can bring in 2009 with a bang! Till next year.