Maybe She Can Use Them As Doorstops

If I think really really hard, I can remember the days before we had internet.  Heck, I can remember the days before personal computers!  I don't even want to be without either any more.  Sometimes the good old days weren't quite as good as the good "now" days.

Not my stuff but close

I love technology.  I love gadgets.  Sitting here I am surrounded by three computers, all mine.  There are times when I'm using all three.  Within reach I have my cell phone, Kindle, external HD, digital camera,  mixing board (sound equipment) and four mp3 players, again all mine.

I'm not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination.  It is scary that in this house, I'm pretty much the techie one.  Believe me that's not saying much about me but means most of the time we all fly by the seats of our pants.  Still, I can't imagine doing without any of my toys.

Then there is my Mom.  She is a great woman.  Very smart but about as technologically challenged as they come.  She has a laptop but the only thing she uses it for is to charge her iPod.  My niece, who was 7 years old at the time, taught her how to set up and check her email while my Mom was visiting them in California.  Once she got back to Hawaii, she couldn't figure out how to do it any more.  So her lappy has pretty much become a big power adapter.

My Mom has always wanted to write her memoirs.  She has attempted this on and off the last 20 years.  I remember a few years ago, she was trying to do this on her desktop computer.  One day we were talking on the phone and she mentioned how much trouble it was to use a computer to write.  I knew she was a great typist so couldn't figure out why it would be hard for her.  I soon had my answer. 

 "Sometimes after typing a whole page, I find a mistake.  Then I have to backspace all the way back to fix it.  Yesterday, I had to erase almost everything I wrote." . 

I blinked.  Oh heavens!  Really Mom?

She claims that her laptop jumbles all the words up every time she tries to go work on it.  I also found out that she was hitting "return" (enter) at the end of every line.  We decided that she should just stick to writing it on paper and I would type it all up for her in Word.

It's not just computers.  My Mom loves to shop.  I think it's genetic thing.  My mom, her sister, me and my sisters all have the same gene.  We can't help it!  We were born this way!   Mom found a really good sale on one of those flip video cameras.  After getting it home, she couldn't figure out how to get it to work.  She never even managed to turn it on.  A few months later, she showed it to my nephew and when he said it was cool, she gave it to him.

My mom is a prolific reader.  Somehow she got her hands on an E-reader.  She doesn't know how to put the books on it and since you have to do it from a computer, which she can't use, she can't even get online to buy them.  It is still sitting in its box, collecting dust.

She does own one gadget she can use... an iPod shuffle... and ...she knows how to turn it on and off.  My Mom uses it when she walks.  She loves it so much that she bought another for a friend and two other generic mp3 players for some other friends.  Of course , she can't for the life of her, figure out how to put music on them (my nephew loaded hers).  So a couple of weeks ago, she mailed them all to me, along with her favorite CD's.  After ripping the CD's to my computer, it took me all of 15 min to load all 3 players.  I'll drop them in the mail and send them back to her later this week.

I'm not complaining.  Along with the players, she sent a couple of boxes of chocolate macadamia nuts for The Greek, Hawaiian juice mix and snacks for the boys, and a small fortune worth of Bare Escentuals makeup.  She may not be able to shop online but she sure can place those orders at QVC by phone.  So I guess that makes two gadgets she can use.  Go Mom!

Oh...that E-reader?  I'm betting it will show up in my next box.