Movin on Up

It’s been electronic upgrade time for me. First I got a new laptop. My old one had gotten so slow, I ‘d turn it on and go do something for a while and hope it had booted up when I came back.

The new one has a bigger screen and a camera so I can watch myself as I write. Yikes, I don’t really look that old, do I? It has the new version of Windows. So far so good with that. The amazing part was that after the rebates, the new computer costs less than half the price of the old one.

Now I just have to move over all the files from my old laptop. I alreadt put in WordPerfect and Word. Though Word caused me to have a minor meltdown. I ended up with the 2007 version which I keep hearing is different, but not better. Those were my sentiments, too. I’m much happier now that I have Word 2003 as well – as happy as I can be with Word after my I hate Word rant a few weeks ago.

And I finally got a BlackBerry. It’s a hand-me-down from my son and still has all of his phone numbers and his calendar. So far I’ve accidentally called at least one of his friends by pushing something at the wrong time. I’m also getting prompts about a Dodger game, his dentist appointment, his trip to Las Vegas. Eventually I’ll get his stuff out and my stuff in.

I have watched my husband and son endlessly twirling the roller ball as they scroll through their emails when we’re out somewhere. I swear I won’t be doing that. I’d rather be where I am when I’m there. But after spending too much time waiting for them to finish just one more email before we leave a restaurant, I did have to laugh when I was typing an email as I followed my son around the nursery department of Lowe’s and he got annoyed because I wasn’t paying attention to some cactus he wanted to show me.

It makes no sense. It’s much easier just to call somebody, but I found myself sending emails instead. There is something about typing on the tiny keyboard that is so appealing. And I kept joking about all the abbreviations like lol and r for are, but it is so much easier and why bother with capital letters or punctuation. I will not keep the BlackBerry next to my bed like some people I know who check emails in the middle of the night. It will only be my BlackBerry, not my CrackBerry.

Before my son gave it to me, he added a new ring. Well, ring isn’t the right word. Instead of ringing, it plays some song and my son’s voice says Betty Hechtman’s phone is ringing. I’ve been know to miss a few phone calls. Hard to miss that. Also hard to pretend it’s not my phone when it rings in the middle of someplace where you’re supposed to have turned off your cell phone. Another thing I need to learn - how to turn the phone function off.

I’m in the midst of writing the fifth crochet mystery. It’s going to be a holiday book coming out next November, so for now I’m calling it Hooky Holidays. I think Molly is going to be getting a BlackBerry. Why not blend real life and fiction?