The Silver Fox is an extrovert and, I swear, that boy loves to talk on the phone better than any 13-year-old girl who ever lived. I've been known to play like I can't hear the phone ringing so that I don't have to talk on the stupid thing. I've used smartphones for a few years now, and because I'm somewhat of an Apple fangirl, I currently have an iPhone 4. The Silver Fox, on the other hand, has had this phone since 2006. I promise he's fairly technologically savvy, but this phone -- honestly, I don't know what is the deal here, but it's been with the SF so long that it's become like a member of the family. He shows it off to his students. "I don't need 'bells and whistles', I just need a phone that works." What is he, 80 years old?
Granted, the Silver Fox is the man who had a Facebook account for two hours once. He set it up, posted, added some friends, played around, and looked up to realize it was two hours later. He deleted the account immediately. He says it's because he wasted so much time, but really, that's never stopped him before. It's more like he'd rather just pick up the phone and talk to you. (He also hates to type, mostly because of a spinal cord injury that causes his fingers not to do right.)
The Nokia has been dropped, hit, perhaps even run over. I do know it has been involved in a few moving vehicle violations. Miraculously, the thing still works! Recently he's been using his phone to text more, mainly to reply to people who text him, and people will send him pictures that he can't open, so when the trusty Nokia started to show signs of giving up the ghost, he started dropping hints that he might want "a phone with a keyboard." Okay, with real buttons, I ask, or a touch screen? "I'm not sure." This has been going on for months. He'll go back and forth -- the Nokia is awesome, no, it's dying, he hates texting, but clients text him and he needs to be available, etc. etc.
This week he decided he wanted to take the plunge. My job was to go online to see what was available, and he chose a refurbished iPhone 4. (With very little input from me, I promise.) I ordered it online and we waited for it to arrive.
To be continued.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
What's in a Name?
I love words. I love language; I love to read. I love poetry and prose. I love grammar, etymology, proper usage and semantics. I also love to spell. No, really, I love spellin'!
I also love order. I have a lot of "Deputy Dawg" in me (as my husband, the Silver Fox, likes to remind me -- he does not consider this the compliment that I do) and I like rules and directions and for people to follow them. Order is good. In the beginning the Spirit moved over the water and the Lord created order out of chaos, until Adam and Eve had to go and screw it all up for all of us scheduling types. I'm just biding my time until Jesus comes back and sets it all right. I don't know what all of you spontaneous types are going to do in the Kingdom, but I'm sure we can work something out for you.
My affinity for spellin' and rules (read: total dorkiness) made me a natural choice for judge of our school's Spelling Bee several years ago, and because I was the only one who seemed to be able to interpret the infamous rules ten and eleven (read: because I'm a total loser), I was promoted to pronouncer when the former Matriarch of the Bee retired from teaching. It was a grand day, let me tell you. I bought a new outfit and everything.
Since then, I've only missed the Bee once, and, believe me, it was unavoidable. That's another post for another day. The year before, while I was on stage pronouncing and explaining rules for all of the babies and their mamas and their teachers who still remember the rules from nineteen aught-seven (they were different back then), there was a special visitor from another school in the back of the room. She had just been appointed coordinator of her school's bee and she was visiting us to see how to run the bee.
She leaned over to our bee coordinator and whispered, "Who is that lady? Does she work for the 'Spelling Bee Company'? Can she come and help at our school?" And, that, my friends, is how your Aunt Sat became the Spelling Bee Lady.
I also love order. I have a lot of "Deputy Dawg" in me (as my husband, the Silver Fox, likes to remind me -- he does not consider this the compliment that I do) and I like rules and directions and for people to follow them. Order is good. In the beginning the Spirit moved over the water and the Lord created order out of chaos, until Adam and Eve had to go and screw it all up for all of us scheduling types. I'm just biding my time until Jesus comes back and sets it all right. I don't know what all of you spontaneous types are going to do in the Kingdom, but I'm sure we can work something out for you.
My affinity for spellin' and rules (read: total dorkiness) made me a natural choice for judge of our school's Spelling Bee several years ago, and because I was the only one who seemed to be able to interpret the infamous rules ten and eleven (read: because I'm a total loser), I was promoted to pronouncer when the former Matriarch of the Bee retired from teaching. It was a grand day, let me tell you. I bought a new outfit and everything.
Since then, I've only missed the Bee once, and, believe me, it was unavoidable. That's another post for another day. The year before, while I was on stage pronouncing and explaining rules for all of the babies and their mamas and their teachers who still remember the rules from nineteen aught-seven (they were different back then), there was a special visitor from another school in the back of the room. She had just been appointed coordinator of her school's bee and she was visiting us to see how to run the bee.
She leaned over to our bee coordinator and whispered, "Who is that lady? Does she work for the 'Spelling Bee Company'? Can she come and help at our school?" And, that, my friends, is how your Aunt Sat became the Spelling Bee Lady.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Random Things Strangers Say to Me
As an introvert, I spend a lot of time down in the mineshaft of my own head, even when I'm out in public. Oftentimes I will have no idea what is going on around me until I realize a random stranger is talking to me. (Obviously it's a stranger -- no one who actually knows me would mistake me for approachable. But I digress.) The best example of this phenomenon is the time I prayed in SuperLo in front of the spaghetti sauce with a lady who was going to have to decide whether to euthanize her dog.
So, anyway, I've been frequenting the YMCA here lately, following the workouts as prescribed in The New Rules of Lifting for Women. This involves the free weight section of the fitness center, where men doing eleventy-bazillion bicep curls look at me all askance. Not really, everybody's looking at themselves, but I'm paranoid and that's why I take the Zoloft. Here are three random things said to me at the gym over the past week:
1. Sixty-something man tells his personal trainer he needs to take me home so he'll have someone to "work out with." He's been there every time I've been back.
2. Forty-something man tells me I look "fit." "I just wanted to tell you that." He gestures to his face as if it's my countenance that makes me look fit, and not the jelly roll around my middle. I hate to tell him, but that's the Bella Bamba. (I'm grateful that he waited until after my warm-up set but before I started dragging 95# up my legs to tell me this.)
3. And the bestest of the week: Street man/potential panhandler (now, I'm not one to judge based on appearance, but I've lived in downtown Memphis for 12 years) approaches at the trolley stop and I get all ready to tell him that I don't give out money but I'll buy him a sandwich from across the street, but instead of telling me that he just got out of jail AND the hospital and just needs enough money to get to West Memphis, he says, "You need to go back and work out some more because you don't have a thong. You need a thong." He didn't even stop, just kept walking by.
I know people say crazy stuff to people all the time, but it's always a surprise for me to be jolted out of my own thoughts by strangers with something to say. Can I get a witness?
So, anyway, I've been frequenting the YMCA here lately, following the workouts as prescribed in The New Rules of Lifting for Women. This involves the free weight section of the fitness center, where men doing eleventy-bazillion bicep curls look at me all askance. Not really, everybody's looking at themselves, but I'm paranoid and that's why I take the Zoloft. Here are three random things said to me at the gym over the past week:
1. Sixty-something man tells his personal trainer he needs to take me home so he'll have someone to "work out with." He's been there every time I've been back.
2. Forty-something man tells me I look "fit." "I just wanted to tell you that." He gestures to his face as if it's my countenance that makes me look fit, and not the jelly roll around my middle. I hate to tell him, but that's the Bella Bamba. (I'm grateful that he waited until after my warm-up set but before I started dragging 95# up my legs to tell me this.)
3. And the bestest of the week: Street man/potential panhandler (now, I'm not one to judge based on appearance, but I've lived in downtown Memphis for 12 years) approaches at the trolley stop and I get all ready to tell him that I don't give out money but I'll buy him a sandwich from across the street, but instead of telling me that he just got out of jail AND the hospital and just needs enough money to get to West Memphis, he says, "You need to go back and work out some more because you don't have a thong. You need a thong." He didn't even stop, just kept walking by.
I know people say crazy stuff to people all the time, but it's always a surprise for me to be jolted out of my own thoughts by strangers with something to say. Can I get a witness?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)