Wednesday, August 6, 2008

How Do I Love Thee, Interweb? Let Me Count The Ways...

Sigh. I've been absent from the blog for a very long time. If you've been reading, you might wonder what in the heck I've been up to. Well, here's your answer.


Sorry for the less-than-stellar picture. Hubby is off at a training class, and he took the good camera with him. Son the Younger's camera is cool, but it doesn't have a macro setting, and I can't figure out how to turn the flash off. So this is the best I could do.

Anyway, if you consider that no bead in the above picture took less than 10 minutes, and some of them took more like 45 minutes, you can see where I've been.

What are they for? Hmmmm. It's a mystery. I'll tell you later.

In other news, if I haven't mentioned lately how much I LOVELOVELOVE the interweb, then I was wrong. Oh so very wrong, and I would like to hereby apologize to the interweb for not professing my love more recently or more strongly. Did you hear me, interweb? I LUUUUUUV YOU!

It's been an interesting couple of days.

Yesterday, I was thinking of one of my college roommates, with whom I completely lost touch after I left school. As in, I haven't talked to her at all in, well, let's just say a really long time. So then I figured, her name isn't all THAT common.

After looking her up on whitepages.com, I had to take that assessment back.

Googling her proved to be much more straightforward. Turns out she's the most famous person with her name. When we were in school, she wanted to be the head vet at the San Diego zoo. She isn't, but she is the head vet at another highly respected zoo. Not a big surprise to anyone who's ever known her.

With the location info, it was easy to figure out which of the dozens of people with her name was really her. I wasn't sure it was ok to just call someone up out of the blue after years and years (and years) of silence, but a few friends encouraged me, so I did.

It's funny: when you talk to someone you've known since you were a teenager, someone who you were really close to, the years just melt away. It was just as if we'd stayed connected all along. Her twisted sense of humor was exactly the same. We laughed and laughed. This is the roommate who used to awaken me at 3am if she dreamed of a good pun; she has not changed a bit. Her professional picture looks like she hasn't changed a bit since college, which makes me a little bitter. But anyway.

One of the things we talked about is how she'd lost touch with another friend of ours. They became roommates when I left the dorm. I stayed in touch a little better with this other friend, who occasionally sends Christmas cards, but I hadn't heard from her and her hubby (both pediatric sub-specialists) in a few years, and I told Ms. Vet that.

Imagine my shock when I found an email from Mr. Doctor in my inbox today. I quickly sent my phone numbers, and he and I just got off the phone after an hour-long conversation (Mrs. Doctor, unfortunately, was working a long day and was unavailable, so I'll have to catch her another day). They have moved from the midwest to a southern state, which makes Mr. Doc very happy, as he is a heat lover. I got to hear the voices of several children during our conversation (they have four), and I really got the urge to take a trip to visit them. The last time I saw this lovely couple, Mrs. Doc was pregnant with their first. It's really sad to me that I haven't met the children of these friends that I love so dearly... but it was so great to catch up a bit on the phone this evening.

So, two evenings, two hour-long phone conversations with dear friends, all made possible by our friend the internet. Say what you will about its evils, but right now I'm singing its praises!

1 comment:

Cindy said...

That's very good use for the interweb!! Love it!

Now you'll have to email me who you're talking about. A sister's gotta know!