well, it IS the 21st century...

so today . . . my dad initiated a video chat with me on facebook :)

i have the best parents. i think they can pretty much do anything. but all this new technology can be confusing! just ask me how many times i've been at the "genius bar" in the apple store during the last three months!! but as each new thing comes along, they figure it out. here's how it works...

usually, either rollie or i get a new electronic gadget. ok, usually rollie gets a new electronic gadget, then after listening to him tell me all the amazing things his new electronic gadget will do, i get one. then i convince my mom that she needs one. and my dad sees her playing with her new toy, and after a while, he decides that maybe he would like one too. this process takes a few months, but eventually, we are all playing with the same electronic gadgets.

a side effect of this progression is that since my dad is usually the last one on the train, it takes him longer to figure out how to make his new toy do all the things that we do with ours. luckily, my mom is there to help him out...

this is the way it has always worked. until today. today my dad initiated a video chat on facebook with me. my dad.

last night, while we were farming, he hit the video chat button. i don't know if he did it on purpose or accidentally. since he doesn't touch type, he sometimes inadvertently hits the wrong key, which sometimes causes him big problems. but this time it turned out to be a good thing...

so i was farming along, when i got the message that he was "calling" me. this has never happened to me on facebook before, so i wasn't quite sure what to do. so i hit the video chat button, but then i realized that i was "calling" him. all that this accomplished was to confuse everything! i got another message that i had missed his call, and he had missed mine. now i really didn't know what to do. i didn't know whether to try to call again, or wait for him, or message him, or just turn off the computer and go to bed. and then i got a second message that said he was "calling" me. and then my mom's face appeared, and suddenly we were looking at each other and talking!

isn't technology wonderful :)

so we talked for a while, and she showed my dad the results of his experimentation. but you know how it is when you accidentally do something wonderful and then can't remember how you did it? that's kind of what happened. so we disconnected and my mom showed him how to initiate the video chat if he wanted to. i figured he would never want to. when he is farming, my dad is a man of few words...

and then tonight he did it again. on purpose! and my mom was nowhere in sight!! he just wanted to tell me to move some of my trees so that he could harvest a few hidden crops. he could have typed me a message, but he didn't. he video chatted with me!! all by himself!!!

i'm so impressed. and while my farm didn't function all that well while we were chatting, it was ok, because i could see his face. and it had a big smile on it. i think maybe he was kind of impressed with himself, too! and he should be!!

my electronics confound and frustrate me quite often, but i am so glad for the technologies that we have. remember when video phone calls were so futuristic that we only saw them on the jetson's?? and now they are a reality for anyone with wi-fi and a webcam! and as our families and friends spread out (diandra lives clear across town from me now, you know,) it is nice to be able to see their faces (even if they are kind of pixelated,) and hear their voices (even if the audio is a little bit behind the video,) no matter where we are...

now if someone could just perfect that whole robot maid and instantly cooked meal thing that the jetson's had...

a blog... motivated by threats!

so today . . . i got this message on facebook--"i'm going to quit looking at your blog."

ok, it has been a while since i blogged. in fact, my blogging has been kind of hit and miss for the last several months. we've house hunted. we've married off our daughter. we've moved. we've unpacked... mostly. we've gone on vacation. we've had company. i've thought bloggy thoughts, but just couldn't seem to get them written down. as i've said before, i have to be in a certain frame of mind to blog, and i just haven't been there.

here's where i've been. smack the snooze alarm twice and then get up--go to my new, close, neighborhood 7-11 for a diet lemon cokesi on my way to work--spend the day trying to work with 10 pre-k kids, 5 kindergarteners, 2 curriculums, and 1 brain saying, "quit and go home!"--go home and change clothes--walk the dogs--make dinner, eat dinner, clean up after dinner--take a shower--do miscellaneous household stuff--catch up on facebook and email--go to bed.

do you see blogging anywhere in that list? me either. but i'm not ready to give it up. not yet. here's why...

TOP TEN REASONS I'M NOT READY TO STOP BLOGGING

10. it makes me think. my friend wendy says i think too much. sometimes i probably do. i wake up thinking about stuff. i go to sleep thinking about stuff. my brain never rests. this can be a problem, but blogging makes me think in funny ways. one of my favorite things to do is take an ordinary situation and make it funny. but that takes brain power, because i can't lie--everything i write has to be true... or at least as true as my memory is acurate :-) lately my brain has been sadly underpowered. i think i need an auxiliary brain...

9. i've invested too much to quit. i've written 684 blog posts! that is a lot of hours of thinking and writing and editing. it is too much to just write it off as something i did for a while and walk away. i want to reach 1000! maybe 2000! maybe 10,000!!

8. it helps me remember my life. i am shocked at how much i forget. sometimes i go back and read my old blogs and can't believe how many things would be lost forever if i hadn't blogged.

7. it reminds me of my friends and family who don't see me every day but read my blog. i think about you when i am writing, and i think about what i think you will think about what i am writing, and i think about if i should i write what i am writing because of what you might think about it...

(...maybe wendy is right...)

6. it makes me think (there i go again,) positively--mostly. i have come to realize that i am not really the optimist i like to think that i am. even though i want to be tigger, i am really a lot more eeyore. but who wants to read a whiny blog every day? who wants to write a whiny blog every day?? so while once in a while eeyore shoves tigger out of the way and gets to write a whiny blog, i try to get tigger to do most of them.

5. it makes me feel like a writer. i never knew i might want to be a writer until i started blogging. and then i started seeing ebooks that were really just a compilation of someone's blogs. i'll probably never write a real book, but now that ebooks are an option, who knows... considering some of the stuff that is out there in ebookland, maybe i will! my ebook might not be the best one, but it would certainly not be the worst one either!

4. it worries some people when i don't blog--namely, my mother-in-law :-) when i don't blog, she thinks something is wrong, and she worries about me. and she isn't completely wrong... there usually is a reason when i don't blog, and it isn't always a lack of time. but it also isn't usually as bad as she might think it is. some days are just ordinary and offer me no blogworthy material.

3. it keeps me from quitting my day job. this seems counter-intuitive to me, but it is true. it seems as though if i didn't work, then i would have more time to do all the other stuff i do--like blogging. but, i think to myself, what if i stopped working and then didn't have anything to blog about? what if i stopped working and never left the house? what if i stopped working and my blogs were reduced to "so today . . . i watched shopping tv and ate a tuna fish sandwich. of course, i only ate a tuna fish sandwich, because i burned the toasted cheese. it's nearly impossible to burn a tuna fish sandwich..." hmmm. ok, maybe that would work... maybe i should think about quitting my day job, because that sort of sounded like the beginning of a pretty good blog...

2. it lets people see who i wish i was. actually, my blog is who i am on good days... on those days when everything is right side up and all sunshiny. all of my days are not like that. i wish they were, but they are not. but writing the blog helps me be that person i want to be. it helps me find the humor in sometimes not so funny situations. it forces my brain to live in the land of unicorns and rainbows instead of gloom and doom--(ok, maybe not unicorns and rainbows. that is a little too sweet for me. maybe puppies and daisies...) it is a risk-free way to share myself with whoever wants to spend five minutes on my blog. it's who i wish i was, all the time, every day. even when i'm not...

and the #1 reason i don't want to stop blogging?

1. because my dad is threatening to quit looking at my blog!

yes, that facebook comment came from my dad. my dad! my dad, who can barely type, left me that message. i love my dad. and for him to take 20 minutes to type those few words (ok, i might be exaggerating that just a little bit,) made me realize that i needed to get back to it! i needed to stop putting it off, put pen to paper (so to speak,) and blog something.

so here it is, dad. a blog. not my best one, but at least when you click on that icon we put on your computer desktop that takes you directly to my blog (did you all know you could do that?!?!) there will be something new to read. at least for today.

i'm not making any promises about tomorrow...

vacation: day 8

so today . . . is not my dad's birthday. his birthday was yesterday.

i was going to write a birthday blog for him, but diandra beat me to it! and she wrote a great tribute to my dad, her gramps, so i am not even going to try to improve on it. i'm just glad we got to celebrate with him...

when diandra was five years old, my dad had open heart surgery. he had been in the mojave desert playing in his silver mine for a couple of weeks, and had driven all the way back to southern oregon in time for my birthday. my mom and grandma drove down from portland, and we had a nice weekend together celebrating our birthdays. then my dad drove five more hours to get home. he hadn't been feeling good since he left california, so when he got back to portland, he went to the doctor. his doctor did some tests and immediately sent him to the hospital for emergency heart surgery. IN AN AMBULANCE! because the doctor was afraid that he might have a heart attack before he could drive himself to the hospital--the test results were that bad.

yes, after driving 1000 miles by himself, he had to go the last few miles to the hospital in an ambulance.

my mom called to tell me, and diandra and i got in the car and zoomed up the freeway. i admit i was scared. i felt fortunate that my dad had made it safely to the hospital, but the surgery he was going to have was not a slam-dunk! i did not even want to think about what might happen--but i did, and it scared me. i didn't want to lose him. i wanted diandra to have experiences with my dad. i wanted my dad to have time to teach her about all the cool things he taught me. i wanted him to watch her grow up and have a part in affecting who she would be. and i was afraid that might not happen.

we waited, and we worried. he survived the surgery, but the recovery was difficult. thankfully my dad is strong, and he made it.

that was twenty years ago. if you met my dad today, you would never guess that he had undergone open heart surgery. because he has spent the last twenty years looking for rocks, golfing, hunting, painting our houses, fixing things, fishing (in rivers, lakes, and the ocean--if it is wet, and there are fish in it, he is there!) dredging for gold, skiing, and tromping around the mojave desert. sometimes he takes a break from all those high energy activities by reading or farming on facebook.

yes, my dad has a facebook page.

his newest endeavor is helping my brother with his business by attending sports shows.

when i mention that my dad is turning 80 this year, people always ask how he is. it is a reasonable question--many people his age are feeling the effects of being alive for just over three quarters of a century and are slowing down. but not my dad. he still gets up early, works all day, and goes to bed early. some days he is happy to sit in a chair and read, but most days you will find him fixing something for someone (because my dad can fix anything! really!) or fishing. or planning to go fishing. or calling my brother to see if he wants to go fishing.

there are days when i feel my age--days when my body won't do things the way it used to, or days when it takes me a little longer to get up from sitting on the floor, or days when i have an ache or a pain. i'm sure this is probably true for my dad too. he has some health issues, just as most of us over the age of 30 do. but on those days when his body is giving him grief, i hope he will either take some sort of pill, or sit down and rest for a while, and just remember how much we love him.

because we expect him to be around for a lot more years . . .. . . to continue teaching diandra all the cool stuff he taught us, and have a part in affecting who we are!

i love you, dad! and don't worry--i have plenty of material to write birthday blogs for a long, long time. just keep those birthdays coming . . . :)

the card is in the mail . . .

so today . . . is father's day.

i have a dad--a pretty great dad, actually--but he lives far, far away. so taking him to lunch, or even giving him a big father's day hug, are not options for me. i have to find other ways to remind him that i love him. usually my solution is sending a card. this may sound like the easy way out to you, but trust me, anything involving cards and the post office has disaster written all over it for me . . .

first, i have to choose a card. and no matter what store i go to, the greeting card section is like a mine field--especially for father's day. i avoid the funny cards as a matter of principle. they all sound like they were written by immature college-aged boys whose wallets are empty! they are awful!! and anything with a lawn mower or caricature dad on it should just be set on fire . . .

but the more serious cards are not a lot better. they sound like they were written by adult women with self-esteem issues. and they are beautiful--too beautiful for a man! i mean really, what man is going to look at an aqua-colored card with foil scroll work across the front and think, "wow! that really says DAD! i love aqua-colored foil scroll work!!" what ever happened to stripes? the colors brown and blue? (and no, aqua does not count as blue!) or even green? they could at least choose manly colors . . .

so there i stood at target, in front of the father's day cards. my dad is awesome, and i wanted to get the perfect card for him. i read card after card after card after card. i finally even started picking up the ones with girlyish fronts, hoping that at least the words would be good. but they weren't. finally, in frustration, i said, "where are all the cards with FISH on them?!?!?" the young mom standing to my right looked at me, and said, "here's one." and then she quickly rolled her stroller some distance away . . .

perhaps i looked a little desperate. it was the tuesday before father's day.

i said, "thank you" to her retreating back and looked at the card. the front was kind of a 3-d picture of a big fish. i knew my dad would like that. now if only the words inside weren't terrible . . . i opened it, read it, and laughed. yes, this was the one!

i bought the card and put it in my purse with every intention of mailing it right away so it would arrive at his house before father's day. but i had to rush home, change my clothes, and go right back to school for graduation. i soon realized his card was not going to get mailed on tuesday.

but that was ok. if i mailed it wednesday, he would still get it in time. i put it in my school bag so that i could write in it the next day and take it to the post office. (you see, this is part of the reason i never get anything mailed on time. nothing i need to mail only takes one stamp, so i never have the right postage. that means i have to go to the post office, get out of the car, stand in line, and get the proper postage before anything can be sent. which would be no big deal, except i seem to have some sort of mental disconnect between getting something ready to mail and actually mailing it. i had four packages to send to my aunt last fall. i got them all ready to go, put them in my trunk, and promptly forgot about them. i finally mailed them two weeks ago . . . ) at least, that was my plan. but in my "planning" i forgot that wednesday was my class field trip to adventure city. so, i did not sit at my desk on wednesday. i did not take anything out of my school bag. and i did not make it to the post office.

then, wednesday night after slurping down a big soda (because my day at the amusement park had been relatively soda-free,) my brain started working again, and i realized that it was now going to be thursday before i could mail my dad's card.

on thursday i went to the post office immediately after school was out. i knew that barring some sort of postal miracle, my dad's card would be late. he would probably not be completely surprised by this, since my cards are usually late. but still, i always hope it will somehow make it on time.

i went into the post office and witnessed my first postal miracle--there was no line! not one body was in front of me! so i stepped up to the counter with my fish card that required extra postage, and the postal worker said, "you can mail this for 66 cents. OR you could mail it priority mail--that would ensure that it would arrive tomorrow. would you like to do that?"

i'll bet she had been saying that all day to everyone who brought in a card. there she stood, implying that my card was going to be LATE! i just looked at her. ok, i thought, i'll bite. "and how much would it be to send it overnight." it couldn't be that much, could it? it was just a card. "$18.95," she answered.

$18.95?!?!?! are you kidding me?!?!?! i could have gotten a real gift for that--well, sort of . . . but $18.95 just to make sure my card arrives on time?!?! no, i don't think so. i said, "no, i think i will just mail it first class." "ok," she said regretfully, knowing that i must be the black sheep of my family, "it will be 66 cents then. and do you need anything else? stamps? boxes??"

she was so helpful. no wonder it takes so long for the lines to move at the post office.

i took out my wallet to extract the $10 i knew i had left over after paying to get all my kids into adventure city--it was all the cash i had left. and, as my luck would have it, i had left it in the small bag that i had taken to adventure city. it was not in my purse--the purse i was currently holding.

i couldn't believe it! all i needed was 66 cents to get my dad his father's day card only a day late, and now it was looking like it might be TWO days late. i was going to be the black sheep--a position, btw, with which i am not at ALL familiar!

the postal worker watched me digging through my great big handbag. (you know, the one diandra bought me for mother's day? it is beautiful and i love it, but it has so much space in it that sometimes i can't find anything!) she just kept looking at me. to fill the silence i said, "i know i had $10 in here . . . " she just looked at me. the silence grew. finally i said, "maybe i will have to buy some stamps after all, because i may have to use my debit card."

"oh, that's ok. you can pay for your postage with your debit card," she said. put 66 CENTS on my debit card?!?!?! oh no, i don't think so. and what happened to all that up-selling she was doing! but she wasn't finished. "yes, you could. or you could just get cash back. we don't charge a fee for that. in fact, lots of people come in here at lunch time and buy a stamp just so they can get cash for their lunch."

that stopped me in my tracks. because i have been at this post office at lunch time. i know what the lines are like then. and let me tell you, if a person only has an hour for lunch, they do not have time to come to the post office to get lunch money!! besides that, where are you planning to get lunch that won't take a debit card? every place takes debit cards!

finally i managed to find 66 cents in change. i paid her and sent my dad's card on it's merry way. a day late.

but my dad won't care. in fact, he isn't even home today--he is visiting my brother. so hopefully my card will beat him home, and be waiting for him when he gets there. he will never know that it was a day late.

. . . unless my mom tells him to read my blog . . .happy father's day dad! you are the best! i love you!!

too bad i am a reeboks fan . . .

so today . . . it's time to confess. i am famous, apparently. and nike wants me.

about a month ago, i received this comment from new jordans: "Your high quality articles are so great, and can we buy some ads from you? If you agree, just email me the ad type and fee per month. If you own some other high quality related blogs, selling ads would be welcomed."

now i am thinking, "wait a minute! what is this?" so i clicked on the link (which i have not included here, because they haven't paid me a penny. yet.) and i see ads for the new air jordan shoes. and i realize that if i post their comment, my millions of readers might just click on their link (which is why i haven't included it here, because, again, they haven't paid me anything. yet.) and why would they pay me, if all of my millions of readers have already viewed their page and purchased ridiculously expensive athletic shoes.

yes, i am not an air jordans fan. i'm not saying that i couldn't be bought, but the price would be very, very high. the shoes are, after all, named after my arch enemy, michael jordan. i'm sure michael jordan is a perfectly nice man, and in another place and time, i might think he was wonderful. but he had the terrible misfortune to play basketball for the chicago bulls while my beloved clyde drexler was leading my basketball team, the portland trailblazers. sadly, he was not leading them to an nba championship, because michael jordan had all the referees in his pocket, so they would make crucial calls in his favor in a certain game 7 of a certain playoff series . . .

and no, i can't let it go!!!!! we were robbed!!!!!

so really, nike is wasting their time on me. i will not subject my loyal readers to their air jordan propaganda. you are all much too important to me! in that spirit, this is what i posted on facebook: Nike wants to buy ads on my blog for their new shoes because "my high quality articles are so great!" I'm not sure they can afford me...

i thought it would be obvious that it was too ridiculous to be true, but i got a message from my dad wanting to know when the checks would start arriving in the mailbox. i guess my dad believes my blog is worthy of nike advertising. i like that. it's totally impossible, but i think it is nice that my dad thinks it could happen.

diandra just told me she thinks she might audition for survivor. i all but laughed in her face. i said to her, "diandra, think about the bugs. you hate bugs!!" i just cannot see my daughter in a remote location with bugs, no bathroom, and did i mention bugs?!?!? but she looked at me with that look she gets when i know she is thinking "i'll show her!" and said, "i think i could do it." and at that point i realized i should not be pointing out the obstacles--she will find those herself, soon enough. i should be encouraging her. because even at her advanced age (she will be a quarter of a century old in a month, you know,) i still want her to know that i think she can do anything. the impossible should still be an option for her. she should be dreaming big dreams, and then working to make them happen. and i should be cheering her on, louder than anyone else!

so you go for it, diandra. and if you make it, i will even be your "loved one" who comes to help you win a challenge, because i am sure you would pick me!

and dad, thanks for thinking that nike would be interested in advertising on my blog. because even though i know that my days of dreaming big dreams are pretty much gone, it is nice to know that you think it is totally possible.