Happy Father's Day AND Happy Birthday! Call me!

I hear my husband downstairs in the living room.

"Dial home," he says. And again, "Dial home," a firm command with precise enunciation.

I think of ET, the loveable extraterrestrial asking to call home.

But Bruce is actually speaking to his new iPhone, trying to get it to recognize a voice command.

"Call Ruth: home," he commands.

The phone rings. That's for you, he yells up the stairs.

I'd figured as much.

"Hello there!" I say.

"It's me," he says.

So we talk for a bit about the marvel of this new device that does his bidding--no questions asked, no ifs, ands, or buts.

A couple of days ago, he'd asked, "Want to know what you can get me for Father's Day and my birthday?" The two are days apart.

Of course I wanted to know.

I hate shopping, and I'm a lousy gift picker-outer, to boot. I hate to disappoint, so I belabor choosing a present, looking at it from so many angles until I convince myself that it's a stupid idea, until eventually every gift seems like a stupid idea. So if Bruce knows what he wants, and he usually does, bring it on!

He wanted an iPhone. He was in line early yesterday when the phones went on sale, along with many others. It reminds me of the Cabbage Patch doll thing. Only at the Apple store they don't trample.

I don’t much understand this techno-love, and as a result, I'm probably not much fun. He tells me excitedly about all the available applications.

"But what's the point of that?" I say. "You can just . . ."

Each one seems to do something one could get better results with another way. Like seriously, would you download an app on your iPhone to tell you how to read the results of your EKG?

I thought not. That's not one he's interested in either.

But he's happy, and I already have his birthday present taken care of. Nothing to worry about from now till Christmas.
~~~~~
Read about my phone: Call me.

Scientist announced a device that can be placed in a pacemaker and will call your doctor whenever you are having heart trouble. When told about it, Dick Cheney said, "I can't afford those kind of phone bills.~Conan O'Brien

Comments

Michelle said…

I am jealous! We can't have the iPhone. Apparently it isn't compatible with Sprint or some such rubbish. After he has had it for a while you should write a review so I know if I should switch carriers. I hope he enjoys it!

June 22, 2009 at 3:32 PM

Barry said…

Cool. We're trying to downsize to Jitterbug, see if minimum minutes is all we need, too.

If that works, Netflix will be next to go. After that...well, I'll think of something. I've had enough of newfangledness....

June 24, 2009 at 1:58 PM

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

Cancer is the asshole~

Today was the first time in a long, long time that I’ve called Bruce an asshole—and the first time since his cancer diagnosis. How can you call some one with cancer an asshole? After all, cancer patients don’t feel good--they’re dealing with a deadly disease, there are all sorts of worries, frustrations, and side effects and changes to their bodies, quality of life issues... and all the other little quirky symptoms that I only find out about about when Bruce tells his nurse. I’m pretty patient and understanding by nature, and all the more so now when he vents the inevitable “ cancer anger ” a little (or a lot). Today he got impatient and snippy, frustrated that we couldn’t merge our iCalendars—he hates when technology goes awry. Who doesn't? For him, it's one more thing out of his control. He started to tell me what I’d done incorrectly in the attempt to merge, and kept cutting me off when I tried to show him what I did...which, by the way, was corre...

Killing time~

I'd woken feeling stuffy headed, slightly allergy-ish, puffy-eyed, and a tad grumpy. Lots to do, little time in which to do it, school issues keeping me in a state of angst, I considered not going to David's game. But it was Saturday, the game fairly close to home-- Salem State College-- an hour or so north through Boston to the town of Salem, famous for the 1692 witch trials that saw 19 suspected witches, many of them social outcasts, hang on Gallows Hill. A change of pace was what I needed whether I wanted it or not, so I went. I squeezed in a walk around the block that enclosed Salem State's O'Keefe Center while waiting for the game to begin. Just to kill time. I get so few chances to do that. Others walking, too, passed with no eye contact, no greetings, just sharing the same planet. Two were coming toward me. Still unfocused in the distance . . . one was tall, the other short . . . two men . . . loose clothing . . . like army clothes, camouflage . . . beard and lon...

~Upstream and Down~

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