Skyping With a Walker

                                      

After Flynn was born 13 months ago, I wrote a post about how Skype was helping close the gap between a grandson and grandma who live on different continents. It was one of the few times that I found myself fully embracing new technology. I have no use for Twitter, and my texts remain limited to one word answers because I've never upgraded to a phone with a keyboard.

But Skype? Well, count me a convert. For most of that first year, I was able to watch  Flynn scoot, roll over, and sit and play with toys without ever having to change a diaper. I saw bubbles and first teeth and smiles, and I heard babblings in real time. I felt like we were getting to know each other despite an ocean of separation--even though I harboured a few duobts about how our virtual playdates would translate to real life.

But that was all before I got the walker. And, no, I'm not talking about a walker that helps me navigate across the living room and into my desk chair. I'm not there yet. I'm talking about a grandson who went through the stages of rolling and sitting and crawling and, in the natural order of things, arrived at walking. 

I saw some of those first steps on Skype. Tentative movements that took him from leaning against a table or a chair or dad's chest and into mom's outstretched arms in two or three wobbly steps. Really more like lunges, but I cheered for him anyway. I encouraged him as those two or three steps became four and five, then six or seven. I clapped as I watched all tentativeness fall away. 

And now as we skype, I watch him walk with confidence. Even run. Unfortunately, it's almost always right out of the picture.

It seems that with his new independence, he's gotten a little bored with flat grandma.

                                         

There's a toy on the other side of the room that's calling. There are drawers to open in the kitchen. There's a dog to chase. There's a ball pit to dive into. And then there's grandma on Skype, trying hard to turn his disappearance into a virtual game of hide and seek.

"Where's Flynn?'' I repeat, hoping he'll come back into camera range, but simultaneously thinking that my year of Skype is some sort of fast forward microcosm of life, where our kids grow up, gain independence, and walk out of our own pictures.

Occassionally my calls work and Flynn leans around a door frame, grinning, or walks back in from stage left. More often he doesn't. He's off and moving.

I think the day may come when he'll be interested in sitting down and letting me read him a book over Skype. Maybe we can even play some virtual games. Or he can complain to me when mom and dad won't buy him a skateboard or let him stay up late to watch a movie. I'll listen. 

Until then, it's okay. I'll always have his back.  

                                                          

A Qualified Fortune

When I was growing up, we went to Chicago for a long weekend every summer and ate at a Chinese restaurant. It wasn't the only thing we did, but fortune cookies and the improbable video phones at the Museum of Science and Industry are what I remember most.

It was the early 1960's and Chinese restaurants and buffets had yet to show up on the main streets of small towns in Southern Illinois. Our diversity was pretty much limited to the gulf between  catholics and protestants. And our food choices were almost exclusively centered around meat and potatoes. The only Chinese cuisine I knew was the very occasional chop suey that came from a can at home and, later, the chop suey that came from a bigger can at the school cafeteria.

It was an eye opener to walk into an actual Chinese restaurant with red lanterns and tassles, waiters wearing silk pajamas and talking in accents, Chinese families sitting at tables, and a menu with Chinese characters that I couldn't begin to understand. It was a window into a world I didn't yet know. A glimpse into a future bigger than our town. A step towards being worldly.
 
I ordered chop suey. So did Ellen. And so did Mom. It was all we knew. Dad had grown up in Chicago and was a little more sophisticated--although I use that word loosely. He ordered beef with broccoli, fried rice and egg rolls, and made sure that they brought us hot tea with those little handleless cups that I so wanted to take home.

Almost as much as I wanted to order the fried ice cream for dessert. But dessert wasn't usually in our budget. And, after that first visit, I was okay with that because they brought us something even better at the end of our meal. They brought us our fortunes.

I think my first one said something like, "Happiness is yours if you enter each room with a smile and a wink." I took it to heart and started walking into every room with a wink and a smile when we returned home. I'm pretty sure that people thought I had a tic, but I knew I had a fortune. A road map to happiness. Straightforward and assured. Something that made me feel good about myself and positive about my future. Something that a scrawny nine year old from a small town could hold onto.

Subsequent fortunes just buoyed my growing confidence. "Hard work will bring big rewards." I could do that. "Keep your family close." I've got that covered.

I can think of only one other thing that had an impact comparable to my Chinese fortunes. It happened in seventh grade when our home room teacher was leaving to go to another school and gave everyone an award at the end of the year. Mine was for the "sexiest voice." I carried that certificate with the same confidence that I carried my fortunes. I was 12 and didn't even need a bra, and on some level probably knew that it was a stretch. Yet, somehow I've managed to live for nearly 50 years believing I have a sexy voice. Even though not a single other person has ever noticed it or commented on it.

I stopped at a Chinese take-out last week and brought home some dinner. I ate my beef and broccoli and  dug out the fortune cookie from the bottom of the bag with an innocence a little more jaded than the nine year old me. Still, I looked forward to reading it.

"The stock market may be your ticket to success," it said.

"What the hell?" I thought. "My happy future is now tied in with the stock market?"

 "And, even then, it's qualified? It's just a 'maybe' ticket to success?"

"What happened to rosy futures that made 9 year old girls enter rooms with a smile and a wink?"

"Where's that big reward I've been working hard for?"

"What's the stock market got to do with anything anyway? Can't you see I'm wearing a smile?"

"Confucious would be ashamed!"

I said this all in a very sexy voice.  

The Fastest Girl In the Class

There was a time when my goal was to write a book before I was 60. Well, actually, the original goal was 40, the same year I was going to stop smoking. But, like so many things, it got pushed back. I'm 60 now, cigarette in hand, and haven't written a single word. Although I do have a title.

It comes from a book I read several years ago called, "The Men My Mother Dated." The book wasn't quite as good as the promise of the title, but I loved the concept and decided I should write my own book about the men I had dated. It could be a sort of memoir of my life told through the progression of dates.

There were just a few snags. When I sat down to do a rough outline, I realized I hadn't dated enough men to fill up a decent number of chapters. Particularly if "dated" meant more than one date. Even worse, I had to face the fact that, if I was going to be honest, my memoir would have to end at about the age of 26.

So I regrouped and came up with a more workable title, "The Men I Never Dated." This one was full of possibilities. Almost frighteningly so.

It wasn't long before I moved past the idea of a single book and began planning a whole series. I could do a second book about the men I  dated once, but shouldn't have. And then, going back to the heady 70's, a third book about the men I dated, but can't remember.

It was all pretty overwhelming, and just a little bit depressing, thinking of all those men. Particularly the ones who never asked me out. I couldn't understand why there were so many. Was I boring? Maybe. Too standoffish? Probably. Not flirty enough? Almost certainly. Too likely to attract really strange men? It sure seemed like it.
  
Although maybe it was something else.
  
Sitting in the State's Attorney's office a couple years back, in my serious suit and Naturalizer pumps, ready to negotiate a plea bargain, he mentioned that he had run into a friend of mine recently.

"Oh?" I said, "Who?"

 "A friend of yours from your school days. Vern something."

"Oh sure, we went to school together. Nice guy."

"Yeah," he continued with a slight smirk, "He told me you were the fastest girl in the class."

"Hmm...," I'm thinking. "How do I want to handle this?"

The State's Attorney was 20 years my junior, and clearly getting a chuckle out of thinking of me as "fast." Maybe even seeing me in a new light. No longer the serious defense attorney, but the "fast girl of Marshall High."

I kind of liked it. Even though it was far from the truth.

Vern and I went to high school together, but we also went to the same grade school. And at North Elementary I could beat just about anybody in a foot race. Certainly all of the girls. But, on a good day, even Vern, who was the fastest boy in the class. Those blacktop races had left an impression on him, and now they were leaving an impression about me. One I hadn't earned and didn't deserve--but found that I didn't mind. 
 
So I just laughed and ended up leaving with a pretty good plea bargain.
  
The State's Attorney is a man I never dated. One of many. Enough to fill a book easily. When I get around to writing it, he'll be the first chapter since he helped me understand all those men who never asked me out.

It seems I might have scared them off. My reputation preceded me.