A Great Big You're Welcome!

There is a person in the organization where I work who deals with peope who are victims. She is a recent graduate of the higher halls of learning but totally skilled and capable of handling the requirements of her chosen field. When she was hired, I hadn't realized she was going to have a baby. She's petite and really wasn't showing - plus nobody said anything so who would have guessed. Then, a couple of months ago, she went to the ER and was safely delivered of a lovely-but-tiny girl. She had only been into maternity wear a couple of weeks which was my first clue! The baby came a bit early but was born healthy.

The young lady hadn't had much time to earn sick-leave so she was kind of in dire need of some donations from her co-workers for maternity leave. I gave her some of my hours. So did others. Two weeks ago she came back to work and we held a welcome back to work-baby shower, combined. It was a fun thing and mostly she got some very cute outfits and blankets. I gave a baby book with a matching photo album and a toy that lights up and plays a lilting tune when you squeeze the tummy. It was kind of hard to tell what it was, since it was all pink. It had a bug face, so I'm thinking dragonfly.

Today, I got a thank you for the baby shower gift - a clear plastic box with Hershey Kisses nestled inside on a bed of tissue and tied with a silver ribbon. Under the clear box was a white cardboard box wrapped in a blue ribbon. Inside that box was a Ferro Rocher truffle and three fun-size candies. This was a thank you for the time I donated.

I will say I quite like the way the new mommy said thank you. It was done very low key. She didn't make a big production of things, but we managed a neck-hug. She reminds me of her own mother, with whom I worked several years back when I first came to the agency. She was always a class act and I enjoyed her friendship until she left; giving a general explanation to most but privately citing a more particular reason to those of us she was close to. Now the daughter follows in her mother's footsteps. It's going to be fun to watch for glints of the mother shining through in the actions of the daughter.

The World Has Changed Since....

I was looking in my wallet the other day in response to someone asking if I had a stamp. You know, that little piece of paper that sticks to an envelope and allows it to go through the mail. I realized that I now do most of my bill paying online. I rarely need to mail something and my stash of Forever Stamps was used up.

Wasn't that a short-lived idea; those Liberty Bell Forever Stamps. They lasted just long enough for the postal service people to realize that folks were buying them in droves and that the next rate hike would bring a lot of confusion as they would be delivering mail at the new higher rate but doing it with stamps that were possibly purchased at the lower rate. Since the stamps would look exactly the same, how would the Post Office know when they had made a profit. I can hear them now, "Mumble-mumble-put-the-prices-back-on-mumble...."

I remember when the mailman rode his bike through the neighborhood where we grew up. He came rain or shine and wore a pith helmet and shorts. The bike had a huge basket where his case sat. He called my parents Mr. and Mrs. and the letters were delivered with stamps that cost less than ten or fifteen cents. After the mail cart came into being and was widely used to deliver mail, the postman would zip from house to house - up one side of the block and down the other. One hardly had time to talk to him, much less gripe about the rising cost of stamps. We now knew the mailman by his first name.

Over the years, the cost of gas made driving a postal cart more expensive and so the mailman on our route was instructed to park the cart and walk at the beginning of the route. This was supposed to save money - the cart would be left to idle in neutral while the carrier toted a bag with our mail from box to box up one front walk and then another. The cost of stamps inched higher. I have a brother who became a mailman. He tells a horror story of parking his cart and starting to walk the route. The cart was sitting in neutral. He was down the block and heard a resident calling him, "Sir, sir - your cart. Your cart!" The clutch had slipped and the cart was slowly chugging toward a canal across the road. Brother made it to the cart in time to save the mail from a dunking. Postage rates went up and up and then the computer became all pervasive in society.

I don't know when I paid the first bill using a computer but the freedom was heady. No more 32 cent stamps to mail 10 envelopes. Nowadays about the only thing I pay by mail is a magazine subscription or two. At the price of stamps today, I feel like I'm doing my part to keep the Post Office afloat. I send money by mail and then they deliver the Digest or Country Living for the next 12 months. I may even ease into mailing birthday cards again, instead of posting an eGreeting. We'll see how it goes.

Blackberries

There are two kinds of Blackberries in the world. One kind grows on PLANTS along our fence and is the favorite of many people to sprinkle over their cereal or just plop in the mouth as they pick a handful. My husband's mother loved to gather a cup full of the little gems and eat them with a dollop of milk poured over the whole. She couldn't believe the bounty on all sides of the yard and would go out before the dew had dried to harvest enough for her breakfast. One note of caution, the plants are full of briers and will tangle around an ankle with painful results. I use my old boots when walking in an area heavily overgrown with blackberry plants.

The other variety of BLACKBERRY is an electronic handheld device that is in wide use where I work and makes life easier - or harder, depending on your level of experience and willingness to learn. The supervisory level at work had their Blackberries provided. Lower in the agency - you buys your own. When I upgraded my AT&T phone, I got a Blackberry Curve. A red one. I kept the Unlimited Data Plan and Internet. I can be driving down the highway and there may be a message from one of my children - or a co-worker or a boss. (In the interest of safety I don't read or reply while I'm driving and you shouldn't either!)

I like the ability to keep in touch while on the go. A family member who is travelling can send a text message to signal a safe arrival. Or call for help and driving directions. And you can take a picture of the countryside and send a message to include a shot of where you are now.

Just today, I saw a great suggestion for family safety. You know about Amber Alerts; those messages sent out to tell the public about abducted or missing children. (You can get Amber Alerts sent to your phone, how cool is that!) Someone suggested that a family who is travelling can take a photograph of the children before setting out for the day. That way, if anything untoward happens - say a child gets separated from the group, you have the very latest picture to give law enforcement or mall security and it is up-to-date, including the clothing description. At the end of the day, the old pictures can be deleted and another set taken before setting out again. Now you can carry a current picture of your family whenever you leave home! I wish I'd thought of that!

It's a Jungle Out There.

Do you ever find yourself counting tiles on the floor or lining things up side by side to make them exactly even? I have discovered the TV show MONK! I think it's clever and funny and sometimes just a big inside joke that the actors and viewers can enjoy together. Tony Shaloub plays a detective who lost his wife to a car bombing several years ago and has been in therapy ever since. He has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - which leads to the counting, lining things up and making them even. It hinders him but doesn't stop his solving crimes on a weekly basis. He has an assistant who helps him in his work - since he has a germ phobia as well as being O. C. D. - he needs a hand wipe after shaking hands or getting doused with questionable materials. Assistant's job. Whenever I hear someone say the words, "Here's what happened" I think of Mr. Monk giving his summation of the events leading up to the crime and then his solve for it. He solves every crime except the most important one; finding out who killed his wife. This is the final season and I haven't seen many of the previous seven but I search the schedule and auto tune to shows when I find them on in the evening. I have both the grandsons joining me on the couch to catch the latest and they say they enjoy watching the show, too. T. will give up part of a NASCAR event to humor me and catch the show. He even lets me have the 42" screen during Monk Marathons. He does love me!

The theme song from Monk starts out "It's a Jungle Out There. Disorder and Confusion Everywhere." Written and performed by Randy Newman, it's kind of catchy but hard to sing. I hope when the show is over, it will show up as a ring tone on some website. Some days at work, I find myself humming....

Rural Life

We're kind of out in the country - down a dusty road around a curve so you can't see the house from the paved county road that's located a mere two tenths of a mile away. I think Internet and wireless telephone signals don't care for the dirt road. They refuse to come to visit our computer and sometimes ignore our wireless phone.

The nearest DSL connection is about 6 miles away and apparently the different services have no plans to advance any further than that. Go to a telephone service website and they invite you to click to see if DSL is now available In Your Area. Whenever I try this option - I can almost hear the snickering at the other end of the dial-up connection. I imagine the voices calling for fellow workers to come and observe the poor victim of 26.4 speed as she tries to upgrade her computer to something faster. The answer is always a definite Not Going To Happen!

I always try, though. The eternal optimist in me believes that some day the DSL fairy will flutter by outside the window and I'll be online at blazing speeds. Screen draws will be instantaneous and I can download huge files and update my antivirus software in only minutes instead of the 6 to 8 hours currently suggested. I can't leave my computer running that long - surely someone will want to call me in that length of time. Or, someone in the house will forget I'm using the phone line and try and call out - thereby breaking the connection so I'll have to start over from the beginning.

There is always the satellite option for high speed Internet and the longer we struggle with dial-up, the more attractive it looks. Someday I may surprise myself and T. and just make that phone call to have the equipment sent to the house and have the technician come out and install it. Then I can talk on the phone while I pay my bills. Fast. Speed. Blur.... meanwhile, I'm still waiting.

On This Day In History

It seems impossible that it has been only 34 short years since T. and I were rushing to Doctor's Hospital to give birth to our first child who had elected to arrive in the wee hours of the 22nd of August. We had left my sister and her husband at the house and the future grandmothers of said unborn child were blissfully asleep at their respective homes, unaware of the drama about to play out in our lives. Sis and bro had kindly come down on the 21st, to keep us company when birth pangs set in. Being our first experience at birthing a baby, we weren't quite sure of the protocol but I knew I wanted family around. My sister lived just down the block from us. She and J. came when we said we thought I was in labor. (No, really!)

We talked and I walked. And we talked some more while the hours rolled by. Finally I told T. I thought it would be better for us to be at the hospital rather than our home. Just in case the pains being so close together meant birth was imminent. That was all he needed to hear. Grabbing the packed suitcase, he drove me like the proverbial bat getting to the hospital. What did we know! Several eons later, our daughter was born. It was getting on toward morning when we welcomed her to the world, cuddled her while counting fingers and toes then called the two new grandmothers and one great-grandmom. We woke them up but none of them seemed to mind a bit.

I remember how little she was that long gone morning when our life together was just beginning. Now she's grown - and I'm the grandmother to her two boys and to the son born to her sister. Now I can understand the way my own mother must have felt to see her grandchildren playing on the rug or running in to give her a hug.

Happy Birthday daughter.

A Special Third

The Alabama Gang is comprised of our daughter and her son - our grandson, Michael - who turned three years old today. His mommy is proud of him and justifiably so. For a three year old, he is a charming, sweet, funny, bright and friendly li'l guy. He has lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, plus his daddy living nearby. Tomorrow he will have a birthday party, but this is his actual birthday and his mommy took him to the zoo today. It's a favorite destination and I'm hoping there will be pictures.

This morning T. and I recorded a voice note that was basically a spoken duet that wished Michael a happy birthday. I sent it via a multi-media message to the cell phone and Michael had listened to it twice by the time his mommy called me to thank us for sending it.

We held a birthday party last month during their visit, knowing we wouldn't be seeing the Alabama Gang on the big day. When he walked into the dining room, he didn't realize what was happening but spotted the cake on our dining table. His comment was, "I sure do like cake!"

He blew out the candle as we sang to him. The party was a total surprise for Michael and he was so excited his hands were shaking as he opened the presents from Grandmom and Grandpa and his Aunt and Uncle and cousins. We had such a good time and Michael will get to party again tomorrow afternoon.

Happy birthday three-year-old. Many happy returns.