Photo A Day: Telephone

My first thought when I saw today’s Photo A Day subject was, “Well, that’s easy enough!” And my second thought was, “Wait a minute, how can I take a picture of my phone when what I use to take pictures with is my phone?” Fortunately, my third thought was, “Phew, it’s a good thing that we still have a landline, so I have a bunch of other telephones that I can take a picture of!”

As you can see, although we do have a landline, the phone itself gets kind of shoved to the back, behind various assorted cooking utensils and accoutrement and a pile of charging electronics. It’s still around, but it’s mostly forgotten and neglected. It’s headed toward obsolescence, but it hasn’t quite gotten there yet.

There is a reason we still have a landline, though. We still have it because it’s a convenient backup in case we ever have a problem with our phones – if the nearest cell tower goes down, or the power goes out when the phones aren’t charged, or if (as often happens to me) I just can’t find my blasted cell phone. How could I call my phone to find my phone if I didn’t have a phone?!?? The technology may be outdated, but it’s still useful.

In some ways, people are like that, too. As they get older and their knowledge and experience begins to seem obsolete to the younger generations, we forget that they still have a purpose, they can still function just fine, and that their history is important. Just because old technology doesn’t work the same way as new, or as quickly, or perhaps it doesn’t have quite as many function, doesn’t mean it’s useless. And neither are people. There’s often a certain nostalgic charm in older technology; there’s definitely a charm in the knowledge, experience, and life stories of older people. Let’s not forget that. Especially since someday (probably sooner than we think), someone from a younger generation will be asking us, “What’s a telephone?”

Telephone.

Are You Smarter than Your Smart Phone?

My answer to this question is, in a word, “No.”

Yesterday, my husband dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century by buying me a new cell phone that also happens to be a smart phone. I was not an early adopter of the cell phone, and I kept my original cell phone for about 7 years in the hopes that I would eventually learn to use more functions than simply the phone. (I succeeded in mastering the Snake Game.) I learned to take pictures with my second cell phone, and I mastered texting with my third. But it was time for me to have access to more. It was time for me to enter the Smart Phone Zone.

He gave me a Droid. I know that it’s a Droid, because it told me so. I charged it up, just like the manual told me to, and then, hesitantly, I turned it on. It hummed for a split second, then politely introduced itself: “Droid.” It wasn’t much for small talk after that, but it did make me feel a bit less intimidated. How scary can a phone be that tells you its name?

And so between last night and this morning, I wrestled with the instruction book. I carefully followed the directions on how to hook up my old phone to the computer so I could download (or is it upload?) all of my saved data to my new phone. Unfortunately, since I am apparently the last dumb phone holdout, the software did not support transferring data from my old phone. But that turned out to be a good thing, since when I originally input my contacts, I didn’t know what I was doing and I ended up with separate entries for people’s home phones and cell phones, not to mention tons of outdated contacts that I’d never figured out how to edit or delete. So after much weeping, gnashing of teeth, and pushing of wrong buttons, I figured out how to manually enter all of my contacts. I hit a small roadblock when I accidentally saved a new contact before entering all the information and realized that I had no idea how to edit it, but eventually my clumsy fingers came in handy as I accidentally bumped a button I didn’t even know was there and up popped the menu I needed.

Once my contacts were all set, I started exploring some other functions. I discovered my menu of ringtones, much to the delight of my children. I chose a ringtone that made them both giggle, figuring that if I ever don’t hear my phone ringing, maybe their giggles will clue me in. I searched around and found both my calendar and my alarm. I found my camera and took several photos of the kids, playing with the focusing and zoom functions. I made one of the photos my wallpaper, and I even managed to attach another to a text that I sent to my husband. And he replied, so I even knew that I’d done it right!

Then I got really wild and crazy and checked out the Kindle button. Boom! There was my entire Kindle library. In. My. Phone. Dude, there’s a library in my phone. Whoa. I don’t have to curse myself the next time I find myself waiting in the doctor’s office having forgotten my Kindle Fire, because my library is IN MY PHONE.

I even explored the accessories package that came with my phone. I clipped on my cool belt holster and immediately felt like the hippest fast-draw techno-cowboy ever. I put together the car charger and found the right port for the USB cord (even though I’m not 100% sure what it’s for).

Now all I have to do is sit around and wait for someone to call me! Wait – I don’t actually know how to answer the phone. Excuse me, I have to go…I have something very important to figure out…

 

Is a Puzzlement

A few weeks ago, my husband gave me a Kindle Fire for my birthday. I made the mistake of showing it to my 3-year-old son and downloading a few games for him, and I’ve hardly gotten to use it since. I know – I’m the mom, I can just take it away from him. And sometimes I do. But I’m so amazed and impressed at how well he can use it that sometimes I’m just as entertained watching him use it as I am using it myself.

At one level, it’s impressive because he figured out how to navigate around so easily. He knows how to close a game, go back to the home screen, and choose another. He knows how to go from level to level and screen to screen within a game. He knows how to turn the volume up and down. He knows how to pause it for a minute. He knows which button is the “Play” button even though he can’t read.

But at still another level, it’s impressive because of the games he plays. Especially puzzles. I downloaded a few puzzles that I figured he’d eventually be able to learn, or that maybe he could manage if we did them together. Nope. He’s mastered them all on his own. He puts together jigsaw puzzles of trucks as easily as a truck mechanic rebuilding an engine. That didn’t surprise me, since he’s such a truck aficionado. But then I saw him putting together puzzles picturing random things like Disney characters or plates of food or forest scenes just as quickly and easily. Every once in a while, he’ll come to me and say with a sigh, “Mama, this is hard. Can you help me?” But even then, I give him just a few hints (“Look for a piece with blue sky at the top”) and he’s off and running on his own again.

It’s so amazing to me to think how much this kid has learned in such a short time. Not much more than two years ago, he couldn’t even walk on his own and he couldn’t say a single word besides “up.” And now he’s running around, using a computer, solving complicated jigsaw puzzles, and narrating himself through it all.

He is a puzzlement. A wonderful, wondrous puzzlement.

Pork Chops and Printers

I sometimes get into lifelong feuds with inanimate objects. I know it sounds ridiculous. It sounds ridiculous because it IS ridiculous. And yet, it’s true. Take pork chops, for example.

As I often remark to my husband, “Pork hates me.” I can cook pork chops that are all exactly the same weight and thickness, yet their cooking times vary by, oh, up to an hour. I’ll throw one in for 15 minutes and it’ll turn into shoe leather, yet another one exactly the same size and shape will still be raw an hour later. This never happens to my husband. I have never seen him cook a pork chop badly. And yet there are no noticeable differences between his cooking techniques and my cooking techniques (both techniques being, “slap on Shake N Bake, place in oven” – it’s not exactly rocket science). The only possible explanation I can come up with is that pork hates me.

Computers and their accessories are often the same way. They hate me. They MOCK me. I follow the directions on the screen to the letter and nothing happens. My husband comes over, does EXACTLY the same thing I just did and the damn machine purrs to life like an overexcited kitten.

This is even more embarrassing in this age of technology when things practically install themselves. I installed a new printer this morning that has a touch screen. It explains what to do, it shows you a cartoon diagram, it even has a little animated movie so you can watch the ink cartridges magically fly into place. And yet, when I “flew” the cartridges into place with my fat little fingers, all I got was a blinking instruction snidely telling me that it would go on to the next step when I’d done it right.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have a sledgehammer handy.

I popped all five cartridges out and back in again, I slid the little tray left and right, I opened and closed every door and tray and flap that I could find, but I still got the obnoxiously cheerful little message smugly telling me it would go on when I’d done it right. I was starting to think it was a lot less cheerful and a lot more obnoxious. I watched the animation three more times and reinstalled the cartridges. Nothing. Finally, I stomped out of the room like a petulant 2-year-old (I have a great example of that hanging around my house). When I came back, my husband calmly announced that I hadn’t seated the cartridges so they made a little “click.” “Click”? There was no “click” in the animated movie. There was no mention of a “click” in the cheery message on the screen. Seriously, how hard is it to animate a little bubble with the word “click” in it?

Did I mention how fortunate it was that I didn’t have a sledgehammer handy?

Anyway, with a bit of extra help from my live-in IT guru, I finally managed to install my printer. The last step of the installation was printing a test photo, which didn’t work because I got a paper jam that the “wizard” wasn’t aware of, so the “wizard” cheered that I’d done it right when, in fact, the printer was mocking me yet again with a flashing red light and a decided lack of actual, you know, printing. But I did make it print a regular document, and when it finished, it played a little “tah dah!” like it expected me to give it a round of applause or a cookie or something. Yeah, I’ll give it something, all right. Like a knuckle sandwich.

Eh, pork chops and printers. They might not agree with me much, but fortunately, neither of them is nearly as important as they think they are. And also, my husband is always willing to beat them into submission for me. And that’ll do rather nicely.

Technology Is a Mom's Best Friend

This may not seem directly related to motherhood, but last night I watched the Academy Awards. If I didn’t have a small child, I might have been watching at a friend’s house, or we might have invited some friends to watch at our house. But rather than pay a babysitter (and also because my husband doesn’t actually care about awards shows), I sat in the basement at my computer with the TV on and discussed the show with friends across the world.

Yes, literally across the world. I posted comments on Facebook, where I exchanged remarks with friends down the street, across the country, over the border to the north, and across the Atlantic Ocean. I posted comments on a message board I frequent that has members not only all over North America, but in England, Australia, Switzerland, and other countries all over the world. Due to the magic of technology, they were all able to watch the show at the same time as I was watching it. It was like being part of an Oscar party made up of some of the funniest people on earth. (I’m thinking of nominating a few of them as hosts for next year’s awards show.)

We began the festivities even before the actual awards show, of course, with a critique of the red carpet: the gowns, the interviews, the interviewers…which actresses were aging gracefully (Annette Bening and Helen Mirren), who should fire her hairdresser (Scarlett Johannsen), which celebrities have the cutest moms (Anne Hathaway and Russell Brand, of all people), whose beard looked like a defunct beaver (Christian Bale), which young celebrities dressed most age-appropriately (Hailee Steinfeld – cute as a button!!), who was most in danger of a wardrobe malfunction (Mila Kunis and Jennifer Hudson), how disappointed we were that Helena Bonham Carter looked vaguely normal (and wore matching shoes), and what on earth Cate Blanchett must have done to piss off her stylist so badly.

And then we got into the comments on the show itself. The first question, of course, was what kind of drugs James Franco was on that made him so unable to look at the correct camera. And the second was, did Anne Hathaway really just make her first costume (and hairstyle) change only ten minutes into the ceremony and also how much does that dress WEIGH??? Over the course of the evening, we found ourselves explaining to each other who Banksy was (the joke still wasn’t funny after we understood), sharing the information that Trevor Reznor was in the rock group Nine Inch Nails, expressing astonishment that Christian Bale totally blanked on HIS OWN WIFE’S NAME, agreeing that not many of us could ever bring ourselves to watch the movie “127 Days”, and cheering on Colin Firth for giving the most humble and charming acceptance speech of the evening.

By the time the show was over, I felt like I had spent the evening with good friends who enjoyed sharing opinions and making each other laugh. And in fact, I had, even though many of those friends I have never even met. Such is the amazing power of technology.

As a stay-at-home mom, that technology keeps me connected to the world in a way I never could have been twenty or thirty years ago. I have a cell phone, Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging, and message boards to put me in contact with other human beings. My mom had…the phone. And if the friend she was calling was out shopping or in the backyard, she was out of luck. There was no voicemail, no answering machines. She just waited and called back later. If I call a friend and she’s out shopping or in the backyard, she has her cell phone with her anyway. And if she doesn’t answer for some bizarre reason, I can leave her a voice mail or send her a quick text. I can always connect to someone, somehow.

There are certainly times when technology can be annoying, when people constantly yapping on their cell phones or teenagers clicking away texting in the middle of a restaurant drives me absolutely bonkers. But for the most part, I appreciate how it keeps me in the loop. After all, without technology, how would I be writing this for you right now?

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

Ryan’s latest fascination is anything that has buttons. He’s always been intrigued by Daddy’s phone, but now he reaches for the TV remote, the cordless telephone, my computer mouse…anything with buttons that can be pushed, he loves.

Considering the generation he was born into, this fascination is a good thing. By the time he’s an adult, probably 95% of the objects he interacts with day to day will be controlled by buttons. Already televisions, radios, phones, computers, DVRs, microwave ovens, dishwashers, cash registers, and bank machines are controlled by buttons. I suspect that before long that list will grow to include showers, sinks, washing machines, airplanes, and cars. Gone from memory will be things like rotary phones, television knobs, and radio dials.

But Ryan will be prepared, because he’s already practicing! He particularly loves buttons that make noise or light up. I have to keep the TV remote out of his reach or he’ll change the channel or mute the sound. Before long I’m sure I’ll have to keep my phone out of his reach as well or he’ll accidentally call Japan. The next time I go toy shopping I’ll have to look for some toy remotes or phones to keep him occupied so he doesn’t get into too much trouble with the real thing. Fortunately, I know they make such things. Already the play kitchens have microwaves and cordless phones instead of conventional ovens and corded phones. The grocery store playset comes with a scanner instead of an “old-fashioned” cash register. And the dashboard of the miniature car features a GPS and digital readouts instead of a map pocket and meters with needles.

My child is only 6 months old and already I’m obsolete! I guess the upside is that twenty years from now I can call him at college (if I can figure out how to use my holographic videophone) and ask him to program my VCR – er, DVR – er, whatever crazy gadget it’ll be by then. But I’m sure that whatever it is, it’ll have buttons. And Ryan will know just how to use it – after all, he’ll have been practicing with buttons for twenty years by then.

No Man Is an Island - Except When It Floods

The whole New England area got quite a bit of rain and wind this past weekend, and by Monday morning floods were clogging storm drains, washing out bridges and sidewalks, and just generally making a mess of everything. Herb called me on his way to work and informed me that we currently "live on an island", since our road was flooded out both to the east and to the west. He warned me not to try to run any errands (not that it took much convincing, given that I take to cold and wet the same way as most cats). He even had to talk his way past a police roadblock on his way home because our road was closed to through traffic. Despite his warnings, I wasn't aware of just how severe the trouble was until I found this YouTube video of a street a few miles from our house:

And once I saw it, it made me a little nervous. Sure, it had been a bit of an inconvenience to put off grocery shopping for one day, but nothing more serious than that. But after I thought about it, I couldn't help wondering, "What if I had to take Ryan to the emergency room?" "What if Herb had been in an accident and I couldn't get to him?" "What if, what if, what if???" It made me realize just how fortunate I am to be able to get anywhere I need to be without much difficulty.

When I was a baby, my parents only had one car. It was a big deal when my dad got a motorbike (he referred to it as a "motorcycle", but I've seen photos - it was barely a moped) so he could take that to work and leave the car for my mom. But before then, and all winter long after then, Mom had two little kids at home and no means of transportation. I suppose there were other people in the neighborhood who did have cars and were home during the day that she could have called on in an emergency. But in this day and age, the thought of not being able to jump in a car and go anywhere until Daddy comes home is...well, unthinkable.

And then there is the magic of the cell phone. Even if Mom did have a car to use during the day, if she broke down, or locked herself out of it (not that that EVER happened), she had to find a pay phone (and a dime) somewhere to call for help. And she had to have any emergency phone number she might need either memorized or written down in her purse (which was probably locked in the car with her keys - and her dime). I am so grateful that I can jump in my car and without having to think of or look up a phone number, call Herb at work OR home OR his cell while I'm heading for the hospital, or wherever else I desperately need to be.

So once again, I'm grateful that I live in an age of technology. It may be something we need to strive to control, to avoid letting it take over our relationships and social connections, but it's also definitely something that comes in handy when used correctly. On my little island, that's even more important than a radio made from coconuts.

The Wonders of Technology

When I was pregnant with Ryan, one of the most daunting tasks I had to do was figuring out what equipment and supplies we needed to get ready for his arrival. Back when I was a baby, it was a much less complicated task: diapers and rubber pants (cloth was the only option), glass bottles with nipples (the only kind available), clunky molded plastic infant seat, and maybe a molded plastic bathtub. Now we have our choice of cloth or disposable diapers (6 kinds of each, with padding in different places and various kinds of miracle absorbency promises), BHA-free plastic bottles with the air vent nipple OR disposable drop-ins OR Dr. Brown's with the realistic angled nipple, a car seat that pops into place AND transforms into a carrier AND goes in the stroller three different ways AND fits into a grocery cart AND sits in an upside-down restaurant booster seat (how did I not know that trick?) AND rocks the baby to sleep (AND, I suspect, turns into a rocket ship or a nuclear submarine or a stealth fighter or something else that would make James Bond jealous, if only I knew which buttons to push), and a veritable zoo of cute bathtubs (whales and goldfish and zebras, oh my). So even when you know what stuff you need, you have to choose which "flavor" of stuff.

But the most amazing thing to me was how everything has batteries. They all vibrate, or light up, or play music. We had a hard time finding a Pack N Play that didn't sing a lullaby and rock the baby to sleep for you. Or a bouncy chair that expected the baby to do the bouncing. At least with most of those things, you don't have to use the electronic gadgets. You can turn off the music on the Pack N Play and ignore the vibrate option on the bouncy seat. Most of the battery-operated stuff will still function without batteries. But so much of it seems to take away anything for the parent or child to do! To me, the whole point of a bouncy seat is to encourage baby to bounce; the point of mommy lingering by the crib while baby drifts off is for HER to sing a lullaby; the point of toys was to teach baby to manipulate them and make them work, not for them to wiggle and bounce and sing on their own.

Then there are the real hard-core technological wonders, many of which really do make life easier. My favorite of these is the video baby monitor. In my mom's day, the only "baby monitor" they had was an open door and attentive ears. When I was baby-sitting as a teenager, we had audio baby monitors so you could listen to the baby from the other side of the house. But for Ryan, we have a video monitor so I can not only hear but see him from the other side of the house, from out in the yard, or even from the neighbor's kitchen drinking coffee (not that I would do that, but I COULD). And because my husband is a brilliant geek, the video feed is tied in to the computer so Daddy can peek at Ryan from his work computer or even from his phone any time he wants! Whenever Ryan does something cute, I send Daddy a text message (yet more convenient technology) so he can take a look. So when Ryan takes his first step or says his first word, even if it happens while Daddy is at work, he won't have to miss that miraculous moment.

Another advantage of technology is that it really can save time, when used well. No more trying to calm a hungry baby for the 20 minutes it took to sterilize and prepare a bottle. No more hour at the end of every day rinsing all the dirty diapers that had been soaking in bleach all day long. No more running in to check the baby because the audio monitor has been TOO quiet. Even simpler technologies like antibacterial wipes and washing machines and dryers save us hours of time.

I guess when it comes right down to it, technology is a mixed blessing. For every mom who thinks she can't sing and lets a machine sing lullabies to her baby, there's a mom who can check in on her baby from her desk at work. For every baby who's rocked to sleep by an electronic massager instead of bouncing on someone's hip, there's a colicky baby whose mommy gets a break from walking and bouncing him 24/7. For every dad who moves the baby from car seat to bouncy seat to programmable playmat with hardly a cuddle, there's a dad who snuggles her in the Bjorn carrier all day long while doing other chores. Like most things in life, technology is what you make of it.