ShaMoo is back! ShaMoo is back! My lovely friend has been AWOL for a long time from not only our Sensational Haiku Wednesdays, but our joint project with J-B at Brain Fart as well. If I didn’t have contact with her in other ways, and know and how busy she’s been, I would have been frantic!

What has she been busy with? Well, I know she’s been playing the role of mostly-single-parent to her 3 really active kids a lot lately as her hubby has been traveling for business. I can’t imagine how hard it is to manage everything this gal has on her plate without him, but she does it. And knowing that her kids are thriving means she’s doing it really well, too!

While J-B and I are still active with our other singing group, our main group Main Street has been on hiatus the last few months, and will be for a while more. It’s a transition time, and we have a number of things we need to work out before we can get back into it. ShaMoo has found a very exciting musical partnering with our guitar-playing friend Paul, and together they have been exploring new opportunities that have been delighting them both! Maybe she’ll post some of their performances on Brain Fart if we encourage her, folks!

I’m really happy to have ShaMoo here for a guest post. It’s been over a year and way too long since her last one!

Stepping Back in Time

So who doesn’t love a trip to a well crafted museum to see how things were done “back in the day”? You take a look at all of the set-ups and think to yourself “Wow, how did they ever get by without our modern conveniences?” Living in our current time, we’re surrounded with all sorts of lovely things to help make life easier, make communication faster, and just in general, help us to get by. Of course, much of this stuff we could *really* do without, if push came to shove… but isn’t it funny how much you come to rely on technology, and integrate it into nearly every aspect of your daily life, and don’t quite realize it until you don’t have access to it?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this as Schmenkman and I have been planning our up-coming summer vacation. This year we’re taking the leap and driving out to visit our families out west (about a 36 hour drive, non-stop… but believe me, there will be stops… oh yes, there will). Now, first let me make one point abundantly clear: The province and cities where our families live are every bit as technologically advanced as the big city we live in now. The difference lies within the houses of our parents, where we’ll be staying while there. The more primitive of the two would be my parents’ home. They live in a very large city and have a beautiful home in a wonderful neighborhood, but within five minutes of us arriving for a visit, I usually start to get the shakes. You see, my parents don’t own a computer. That’s right… no computer. This, of course, equals no internet, no WiFi, no (*gasp*) e-mail… If they need information on a particular restaurant, or some such thing, they will actually consult the pre-historic relic they call a “phone book” and then proceed to use something called a “land line” and make an inquiry to whomever it is who answers the device (sounds like a real person, but in this day and age?? It must be an android of some sort.) When we’re at home, my iPod Touch-that-wishes-it-were-actually-an-iPhone is practically glued to my hip and gets consulted for nearly everything… I’d be lost without it (especially now since my laptop is completely out of commission with a brutal virus), so you can imagine how twitchy I get with this type of blackout. Usually within a couple of days I can adjust to this lack of contact with the outside world (and Google Earth tells me that a Starbucks has just been built two blocks away from their place… can I get a woot woot?!?), but I’m starting to brace myself now; regardless, I may need a twelve step program.

Now Schmenkman’s parents, compared to mine anyway, are light years ahead. Not only do they have a computer, they are connected to the internet, and my mother-in-law is even on Facebook! For her recent birthday, my father-in-law bought her a fancy-pants new smart phone, but since she refuses to keep the thing turned on, it is pretty much useless. In fact she called me at home the other day to say “Thank you so much for that text you sent me; I’ve been meaning to call you to talk about it”… No, no, NO! We don’t CALL, we click REPLY!!! Sigh… I digress. Anyway, the technological advances in their house are sold short by the fact that they have dial-up internet… OH. MY. GOD. “Hey Schmenkman, I’m gonna go check my e-mail; I’ll be back in two hours or so”, is pretty much how that conversation typically sounds. However, since they live on a farm, a half hour drive from any sort of civilization, there’s always abundant time to wait for homepages to load.

So, what I’m trying to do, in the time remaining before our trip, is to prepare myself for the complete and utter relaxation that will come with being disconnected from the internet. Not having to reply to e-mail, or feel the need to check our bank accounts or investments online. Actually remembering the feel of a newspaper in my hands, rather than checking out the Globe and Mail’s iTouch app. Picking up a phone and speaking to people on it instead of just sending a message and checking it off of my mental list. Yep, that’s what I’m doing. Well, that and mapping out each and every free-WiFi location in my parents’ neighbourhood.

ShaMoo