Figuring out what I wanna be when I grow up.
Oop..I AM grown up...


Thursday, March 10, 2011

POWER OUT! ~ Slaves To Technology???


Image from HERE
 The power was out on Wednesday from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM.  We were given notice the day before that while they upgraded power lines and such, power could be out as long as 7 hours if necessary.

Wednesday, 9:20 AM
When I came in the back door, after taking the kids to school, I stood and listened for a moment.  Very quiet:  no hum of the furnace, no whir of the fan on the computer.  I only hear the clocks ticking, and--come to think of it--the mild scratch of this pen on paper.

Pen on paper...hmph, think of that!  When was the last time you wrote anything lengthy out BY HAND?  Remember in school when you wrote out 10 page essays BY HAND?  When you did nearly all your work with a pen or pencil?  You did so much writing and printing in fact, that you had a permanent bump on the middle finger that supported the pen?  Did that bump even have ink on it???   And did you hate it?  Feel embarrassed by it?  Think it was UGLY???  Yeah, well I'll bet it's gone now.

So I'm sitting here at the messy dining room table doing a post OLD SCHOOL, and sipping my good buddy COFFEE out of a well-insulated travel mug.  Thus, it is nice and hot still, yo, even though I brewed it 40 minutes before I was able to drink it.  By the way, if you're tempted to point out how ANAL I am about my coffee--so anal in fact that I had to brew it before the power went off instead of simply buying a cup, you can SAVE IT!  I already know how ridiculous I am.

Slurrrrp... i love u coffee

Just think of how electricity impacts our lives; how freaking dependent we are on it.

1) hmm, I'd better straighten my hair before 9, otherwise I'll look stupid for Jack's school concert this afternoon

2) better make Jack's toast NOW, so he can have his cinnamon toast for lunch.  No, he is NOT willing to go to Grampa's or anywhere else for lunch.

3) Hrm, no peanut butter toast with my coffee.  Peanut butter on BREAD then???  Don't be an ASS karen--you never ate peanut butter toast until you met The Man.  You always had it on bread as a kid.

4) hm...no computer for BLOGGING, checking that idiot Facebook, or checking where I stand in the Great Mommy Blog Race.

* Luckily I haven't succumbed yet to TWITTER, but it's getting mighty tempting, people.  I see the really popular blogs often have a sidebar with all their little tweets under the enticing invitation; "FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!"  Monkey see, monkey WANT TO DO EVENTUALLY, even if monkey protests at first that Twitter is silly and redundant, and who actually wants to know what the vapid "STARS" think every minute of every day???

And yet...

We do want to know, because we've made ourselves nice and snug and cozy in our heated homes, with our ipod docking stations, our touch phones, and our computers, and we're essentially ALONE but we don't think we are, because whatever Sally and Johnny are doing is only a TWEET or a Facebook status update away.  Why, the only thing separating us from all our FRIENDS is a password on a sign-in page.  However, we can choose to stay signed-in all the time so we're always, always connected.

Always Connected.

We're all connected.

Are we?

?

Slurrrp...

5) No TV.  What will my little TV junkie girl Ella do?  Yes, slap me on the wrist.  BAD MOMMY!  Letting your child become addicted to the Boob Tube!  Bad Mommy letting the TV be her entertainment.  Okay, I can think of at least a few other homes in which that thing is on ALL DAY. 

The scary thing is, is that it's NOT dumbing Ella down.  She follows those plots like we follow STATUS UPDATES.  She knows what's going on in those cartoons and she can tell it back to me no problem.  She gets the nuances and subtleties.  She feels the outrage when they're bad, and she laughs when they're funny.  She gets the joke.  But then, what else do you do when your mom is forever washing dishes, doing laundry, and obsessively checking Facebook when she has a moment's peace???  Play with your toys--when we all know that toys of today are crafted with maximum QUICK appeal, and very little play value??

6) No YOUTUBE for Jack.  Jack likes to watch old British Invasion band vids, and black & white orchestra vids, pause them and draw the frame he finds most intriguing.  He'll actually manage the best out of all of us because he watches next to no TV, and doesn't keep up with his grade 1 peeps through any social networks.  No computer? He'll just pause an image in his head and draw that.  If the power's off too long though, he'll start to lose it, because he NEEDS to have a good session of music listening every day.

Actually, I like it.  TICK TOCK TICK TOCK, goes the quiet clock.  When my daughter finishes her school today, I'll take her to my sister's for lunch.  Then I'll take her to McD's for a Shamrock Shake (even though The Man said it tasted like a TOOTHPASTE SHAKE) and let her play in the human-sized habitrail otherwise known as "Play Land."  I'll be forced to be creative.  NOT LAZY. 

Imagine how much freedom you would have if you were unplugged from your Facebook, your Myspace, your Twitter, your MSN chat, your Skype, your blog (no, scratch that part about the blog), your touch phone, your texting.

Imagine. 



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11 comments:

  1. If I were unplugged, I'd be thin.
    The appropriate word verification is holessit bahahahahahahahaha

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  2. ooo, sometimes the CAPTCHA is SO entertaining. Holessit. I'm just gonna sit my holes downa nd write me a blog...

    oh no. I probably should not have said that.

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  3. If I were unplugged, the laundry would be in dressers, not baskets. No, that's probably not true.

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  4. Ok...here I go. In front of witnesses. I've never done the 'Lent' thing before, but I am about to quit so-called 'social media' for Lent. I will trade it in for real social instead. I'll see you in a few weeks and let you know how it went. Thanks for the timely blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. watch yo mouth, miss lady ma'am! if i unplugged, my house might be cleaner (maybe) but i'd be lonely and not writing or reading all the chapters in all the on-going books that i call blogs. i need the internet at this stage of life. i'd be all alone otherwise.
    btw, my word verif is pobox!

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  6. Yes! I love coffee too - ! Let's have double espressos and grow some green - so glad to find you - you are amazingly inspiring! Look forward to more and more fun!!!

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  7. WAIT!!! DOES THAT MEAN YOU'LL BE CUTTING YOURSELF OFF FROM MY BLOG, MATT??? Nooooooo! Say it ain't so!

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  8. pobox! Hmm, something to ponder in that I'm thinking. Oh Sherilin, I loves me some computer time. I don't think I'd willingly unplug myself. It's fantastic for stay-at-home moms. It's very isolating.

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  9. well thanks IAM (insert more desireable name here, if you want). I'm drinking a coffee right now, and I was just looking at my little gladioli bulbs AGAIN. They were saying; "PLANT ME FOR F$CK'S SAKE, YOU PROCRASTINATING @#&%!!!"

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  10. You’re right we really are hooked on technology and its both good and bad but i don’t regret reading your blog--its funny and thought provoking so its guilt free :))

    K
    Newparent.com

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  11. thanks K, and thanks for stopping by as well. Yeah, I'm going to be the ultimate hypocrite here and EXCLUDE blogging from the technology-slave list.

    ReplyDelete

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