Free from technology

I can't think of another time in the last 15 plus years that I have been so disconnected, in terms of all that technology does to suck us in.  I have hardly emailed, not blogged at all, facebook schmacebook and I haven't even kept up with the blogs I read daily.  None of it!  Every morning begins with a shot of screen in my face -- but there were some mornings I just plain didn't even seek out a computer.  Loved it!

But the party is over, as they say, and here I am, back to the ginormous screen (which is a tad overwhelming after a month of a teeny tiny netbook!) and not even feeling all that wordy.

I remember when I went to Greece for three weeks when Hallie was three; and I thought it was too long.  I thought perhaps the perfect vacation length would be two-and-a-half weeks.  One week isn't enough.  PERIOD.  But I could travel pretty much nonstop these days!  I like to be in different places and I actually enjoy driving from state to state to state.  A lot.  Hotels get a little old after a while, just because you have to adjust to so many variables.  In Hershey, PA there was a train that went by every 20 minutes or so, sounding its horn and CLACK CLACK CLACKING .... to the point where I either heard a train, dreamed there was a train coming or a combination of both!  In Times Square NYC night before last it was all good until some marathon began at 8:00 a.m. and there was a band playing outside our hotel.  Which in truth meant they were playing in our room.  Yay!  Not.

The first day we left Hilton Head and drove to Richmond, Va.  That is a loooooong drive; a lot of states!  And put me in a bit of a state myself.  Because the rooms were so "cheap," I wanted two so that we would all have beds.  My mother, Charlie and I are a strange sleep combination -- and in those teeny tiny "queen-slash-borderline twin" beds, I had no desire to sleep with either of them!  So I booked two adjoining rooms.  Turned out that they were actually legitimate queen-size beds and the rooms themselves were huge, go figure, and we could have easily all fit in one.  Charlie wanted to sleep in a room by himself, so that was fine, but I decided that I would use the bathroom in "his" room, because he doesn't put in much bathroom time.  That night before I went to sleep I took off my jewelry and put it on the bathroom counter.  Like I do every night.  That morning Charlie discovered that the shower was broken in that bathroom, so my mother moved from our bathroom after her shower into that one to finish, and I picked up my toiletry items and went back to the bathroom with the working shower.  I never returned to the bathroom in Charlie's room.  Now, consider that I had driven eight plus hours the day before and was getting up pretty early to put in some more miles.  I was a bit off.  In fact, it took me at least three hours to realize I was wearing no jewelry.  SHIT.

Two of my crystal necklaces (both very pricey) a very expensive ring that I purchased for myself because I really liked it (and that is odd for me because I am not a ring person) and my pearl earrings, which Peter has mentioned more than once are expensive.  Great.  I of course went into an instant panic as I realized there was no way we could turn back.  I had Charlie call the hotel, and then I did some major intending.  But I kept flashing to what had happened the day before.  I had stopped for gas in North Carolina and there was a credit card on the ground by the pump.  I picked it up and saw it was a woman's name, a Delaware bank, and a debit card.  Probably someone on the road, stopping for gas.  In other words, not someone local.  As I pumped the gas I tried to decide what course of action to take.  Should I keep the card and try to hunt the woman down via the internet?  Or should I turn the card in?  I didn't know how much I trusted the people behind the counter -- easy come, easy go and all that.   I put some major thought into it, knowing the woman would go into an instant panic once she realized her card was gone, and envisioning all sorts of purchases made from it.  And even worse, it was a debit, not a credit card.  And since she was probably only a little bit ahead of me on the highway, she had no idea it was gone, and probably wouldn't for some time.  WHAT TO DO!  I felt very responsible for this card -- and wanted to make sure that I made the right decision.

So I went into the gas station and cased the workers! LOL  There was a young girl and she seemed to be trustworthy.  I waited in line and watched her and decided yes, she was the right one.  I asked her what I should do with a lost credit card I had found at the pump.  Her eyes opened wide and she said "wow, I don't know."  (Which either indicates that people never turn them in or no one has ever lost one before!)  I said, well, I am assuming this woman is going to remember the last place she used it was here, and she will probably cancel it once she realizes it is missing, but if she does call, you can at least tell her it was found at the pump and turned in immediately, and that no charges were made to it.

She said okay, and I gave her the card.  Then I said she should remember to tell the next shift, in the event the woman didn't call until later.  And she was like, oh, good idea, I'll put it right here by the phone and write a note.  I felt my job was done.

So as I drove and intended that my jewelry would be sent back to me, I kept flashing back to that situation and realized that it was a pure case of karma, and my jewelry would indeed be returned.  I had not picked up the credit card and handed it in without thought.  I had put myself in that situation and tried to come up with the best way to handle it.  At the time I even thought it was interesting that I felt so responsible.  But then later, I got it.  Treat a situation like you would want it to be treated in your case.  And it will come back to you.

It took several phone calls, but eventually the jewelry was located and later they called with a UPS tracking number.  It is not here yet, but it will be.

Then later that evening Hallie told me that her apartment in Chicago had been robbed.  The robbers removed the lock on the door and basically kicked it in and went in and took all electronics and jewelry they could find.  One of the benefits of not owning much stuff is that you don't have that much to lose.  Her laptop was underneath her bed and not found, but they did take her camera.  Her roommates lost their laptops, TV's, Wii and jewelry, and of course the worst of it was the violation one feels when their personal space has been violated.  But at the point in time when she told me I had already arrived at a place where I believed that these small things are just not tragedies.   I had concluded that if my jewelry never made it back to New Hampshire, then so be it.  It was just completely replaceable stuff.  As is Hallie's camera.

Then yesterday afternoon we stopped off at a cousin's house in Connecticut on our final leg home.  She lives in a small cape and has recently suffered the loss of her mate.  I am struggling here with the proper word to use, as boyfriend is just pathetic and companion sounds gay and ... well, the man she was with for the last however many years.  A long time.  He died of lung cancer, and he died quite quickly.  She is in the throes of grief and decided to have her house painted to brighten things up.  When we arrived, there were piles of books everywhere from shelves that had been painted and she wanted to move some furniture to create even more change.  You don't get better people for that job than my mother and I!!!  Oh, do we love to arrange furniture.  Change for the sake of change is my motto!

But I was struck with how much STUFF she had.  In terms of furniture.  As many pieces as possible were crammed into every room.  There was such a lack of freedom in that -- big, bulky antique pieces that were just crowding the room.  Crowding, period.  It's all just stuff.  We don't need it -- it doesn't define us, it doesn't even matter.  You find that when you are gone for a long period of time with just a few bags, that you don't really need much.  Stuff.

(And there you go, speaking of stuff, and I said I wasn't wordy!!!)

Back and Forth

It has been a bit of a crazy week -- I left Hilton Head last Wednesday and flew home.  Charlie was in a play, Little Shop of Horrors, for school, and I wanted to see him in it.  Maddie also had a revisit day at Endicott college on Friday, and I wanted to be there for that as well.

The flight out of Savannah was quick and easy, but once in Washington Dulles airport, things started to fall apart!  I was flying United, which has recently merged with Continental, and really all I could see was that things were not going smoothly.  First another flight was boarded, then they all returned to the gate.  It seemed that the plane hadn't been cleaned and they would load them as soon as they could.  Then, they said they would load the flight to Manchester.  Which they did.  And I was all buckled in and ready, when the pilot, who was approximately 12, said that there was a problem.  Apparentlya computer had crshed in Atlanta and they couldn't track planes in the sky?  I put a question mark there because it didn't make a whole lot of sense that there were other planes departing from the same terminal.  Only certain planes are affected by a computer shutdown in Atlanta?  There was another flight headed to JFK in NY that was told their plane hadn't been maintenanced.  They were almost loaded but had to return.  Their excuse never changed and the flight to Manchester left before them.

I felt a bit concerned because it seemed they didn't know what they were doing.  Once in Manchester they couldn't get the bags off the plane -- something wasn't working --and it just seemed a whole lot of things weren't working, and that is scary when you are talking about large things going into the air!!!

After living through multiple snowstorms throughout the six days I was home, the final insult was that my plane was cancelled on Monday.  Due to the weather?  Well, the plane never left Dulles to arrive in Manchester to take us to Washington.  I mean, ever.  It never left.  Another computer crash in Atlanta, perhaps?  A maintenance issue?  Guess we will never know, another day in the life of United slash Continental slash merged airlines.

On Tuesday I flew out with no hassles whatsoever.  Both planes were on time and they were clearly proud of it.  Enough so to impress upon me that it probably doesn't happen all that often!  I am glad that I am driving home.  Sure, it takes longer, but you are in control and not left to the whims of random computer crashes and other such excuses that make no logical sense.  I hate to be lied to. 

But I can't abandon the airline altogether, although I would like to.  Maddie and Charlie are flying the quirky airline in a few weeks and I have to have faith that their trip will run smoothly.  I should point out that no one frisked me fondly or otherwise and all trips through security were brief and painless.

The strangest thing was being caught between snowstorm city and the beach!  I had one day where it was possible to hike in the woods and enjoy the snowscape.  But after that it was one blizzard after another.  A few days of that and I was jonesing for the ability to be outdoors in blue skies with birds singing.  I am lucky to have the luxury of changing worlds.

Know that I appreciate it immensely.