Dark To Light

I grew up when telephones weighed ten pounds, had a rotary dial, the cloth-covered cord wasn't curly, utilitarian black was the only color offered, and a real live operator answered when "0" was dialed.  I don't remember the numbers, but all prefixes were the first two letters of an assigned word; ours was BUdlong.  Long-distance calls had to be placed through an operator and were a really big deal.  If a call came in while we were gone, we didn't know about it.  There was no such thing as call waiting, voice mail, or caller ID.  How did we ever survive?

It's no wonder that I am amazed at and enthralled by new technology.  We've come out of the communication dark ages.  Cellphones are not just telephones but miniaturized computers that put the whole world in your hand.  The Kids (Deb and Craig) gave me my first flip phone after Steve died and gave instructions that I was to carry it at all times, just in case.  They've kept me upgraded and now I've got a fancy-dancy Smart Phone or I-phone, whatever.  I'm still known to push the wrong icon and hang up on a caller, but I'm pretty good with it most of the time.

I was panic stricken yesterday when my cellphone screen was black, stayed black, and there was no response whatsoever to a reboot and the home button had no effect at all.  Aarrgh!  What do do?  A multitude of scenarios ran through my head, none of them good.  In addition to being my connection with the outside world, the phone would literally be my lifeline if there was an emergency down in the barn or out on the property.  It is my habit to put the phone on its charger before going to bed, and I knew I'd done that so the problem had to be significant.  I kept picking up the phone, hoping against hope for a glimmer of life, and then TaDa! a brief signal showed.  The charger evidently has an upside and a downside to make connection and I'd chosen the wrong one the night before.  It was the battery, and all it needed to revive was some time plugged in.  Let there be light!

Speaking of the light side, this is one of the cards I received.  It totally cracks me up.  The look on that cat's face is priceless.  If its eyes were green, it would be Celeste, and I'm pretty sure that would be her reaction were I to get to my feet and do the boogaloo.

After the hoopla of the day before, I took yesterday off and started and finished a book I'd been loaned and asked to read, something I've not done in a long time.

It was a good day.