This world that you live in

Whenever my father is annoyed with new technological devices like a computer or a cell phone (let alone an iPod, TiVo, or God forbid a blackberry) he will say to either my brother or me "it's this world that you live in." As if he too doesn't live in this world and use this world's technologies. This morning he was frustrated by our home computer. He asked me how to turn it on. I said the on/off button. He said he tried that and it asked him if he would like to continue shutting down. It was obvious to me that that meant it was already on and when he hit the power button it was turning off. He insisted that it was not already on. I pushed the power button and it started up just fine. Funny how that works.

During his ten day visit he has mentioned several times that he loves email. "It's so convenient. I can communicate with people in Senegal. I can do some of my Senegal work right here in Philadelphia." It's amazing that he is still in awe of email, but I guess that is his generation, though certainly not all of his generation is like him.

The other day Mr. D and I were sitting outside Friendly's enjoying a fabulous ice cream sundae. At the table next to ours were three teenagers, I would guess about 15 years old. The two girls were eating ice cream, the boy didn't want any. At one point I looked over and all three of them were text messaging other people on their cell phones. And I felt like saying "oh it's this world that you live in" to them. I felt like a middle aged woman who finds it sad that the three friends couldn't or wouldn't enjoy spending face-to-face time with each other, but would rather communicate with people who weren't there. Probably giving the absentees a minute-by-minute play of what they were doing. "Now I'm taking a bite of my ice cream. Sean is texting Lisa. Now I'm wondering what Sarah is texting and to whom. I'm taking another bite of ice cream. I wish there was more hot fudge on my sundae."

I will definitely feel old and out of it by the time baby Doodle is old enough to text message people, but by then it will be some new way of communicating that doesn't exist yet.