Thursday, November 10, 2005
Phone home
We got back Monday and I'm just now finding the time to write. I guess that 14 hours of flying with two young ones temporarily put my brain into spasm. I'll write more about the weekend later, but for now, three interesting, semi-connected gems from Ella...all phone related.
- We buy Lindsay one of those classic Fisher Price phones, with the red plastic receiver and the dial that "brrrr-rings" as you turn it. Same old toy, except the cord is crazy short now, probably for liability reasons. Ella had one when she was litte, but upon seeing it a few weeks ago...she wants to know how to dial it. This kid has never seen a phone without push buttons. Any muscle tone I had in my right arm during high school was from dialing a dial phone...or maybe other things I don't want to discuss in case my mom is reading. But I digress...I couldn't believe Ella was unfamiliar with this type of phone.
- At the airport last Thursday, Ella observes "look at all those phones over there." I say, "yeah, you don't see pay phones much anymore" and she says "what's a pay phone?" Again, something so obviously generational -- nobody uses payphones anymore because they have their own personal cell phones and they don't need to dig up 10 cents (now 25? 50?) to make a call on a phone they hope isn't covered with snot or another mystery fluid on some street corner.
- I call Ella tonight and she explains her distraction by saying with great nonchalance: "I'm checking my messages." I say "you mean on the old [inactivated] cell phone that your mom gave you [that Ella carries in her "purse"? how many messages do you have?" "96" she replies. "But I forgot to check them yesterday." So my 5-year-old daughter has 96 make-believe messages -- "mostly from friends" -- on an old cell phone AND she's just sure it's partly because she forget to check those make-believe messages yesterday. I mean, pretend voice mails do pile up, you know!
Off to bed. I'm staggering through work this week -- too old to handle the jet lag anymore. And then my pal Dave was in town -- shout out to Dave "Lychee" Mello from Jamaica Plains, Mass. Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Vets Day to all.
Ella, Lindsay and cousin Cece, below.
And this is what happens to a pumpkin when you leave it outside for a week and it rains a lot.
// posted by Bill @ 10:42 PM 
