Monday 26 August 2013

Many ways of feeling useful and useless - or perhaps being, on average, normal


Part 1

In Canberra I saw the Turner Exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, which I enjoyed, but felt was somewhat underwhelming. and afterwards I had a pleasant lunch with a friend.

Yesterday my son took me to the Apple store, where I bought an iPad, and here I sit trying out this and that. There is a lot to learn and when I get back home I will book in for some more classes. It is amazing how readily the young adapt and learn these new technologies and how slowly and painfully the process is for me. I have yet to set up the means to buy the various apps but this can all be done once I am back home. I like the way it corrects my typing, though I have yet to discover whether you can use more than one finger. My beloved son is wonderfully helpful, and manages not to make me feel totally stupid. (But see below.)

The child care is going well, although my grandson's father dropped him off after the soccer game, and evidently did not realise, or think to double check that we were home - we were out buying the iPad and then enjoying celebratory gelati. When we arrived home, there was my poor grandson trying to get into the house.  We supposed that because my car was in the drive the father had assumed we were home, but I think he should have checked, and let me know overall how the game was.

I did have some problems with keys, and thus getting in and out of the house. The neighbour gave me his key, and was very helpful, and it does seem that the front door lock is rather tricky. Having checked it later when my daughter got home, she said that actually the key I was using was that of my other daughter's house!

Well, perhaps! But none of the other possibilities worked either and I do think it is a bodgie lock.

Apart from lacking elementary home security skills, I do claim not to be totally useless. I pulled up lots of weeds, including the energetic bindi, which grows hideous little prickles which get into the bare feet of the young, and pruned the roses. This does not necessarily confer any benefit to the rose plants, as I have never had any luck with growing roses. But they are now mostly pruned and all that now remains is for one of the inhabitants of the house to gather up the prunings and put them in the requisite rubbish bin. I also did some tidying, but would have liked another few days to organise all the toys. Having cast my discerning eyes around, I am now totally convinced that Lego breeds, and that it also subdivides.

And today is my daughter's birthday. The children and I went out to choose some birthday presents, (which was a far more pleasant activity than the way I spent much of the day X number of years ago. It was a very hard labour).

Part 2

The trip home was easy except for the last 15 minutes when some traffic disaster, the exact nature of which is unclear, slowed everything down to less than a crawl.

I am back home now, busy settling in, and having spent time working out how to use my wireless link to the iPad.

It kept asking me for a password. But password for what? Nobody prepared me for such a question. After uselessly trying the ISP and the Apple password, and then having spent quite some time on the telephone, it transpires that the password is that for the modem!  How was I supposed to know that?  And can you get it without having to ring Technical Support? Some one should write and publish  an Idiot's Guide to New Thingies.

I had to hand the computer over to Remote Control and then get talked through how to get the password entered. It is done now, but, as usual after such a bruising encounter with Modern Technology, I feel daunted, cross, hard done by, stupid, useless and very disgruntled. And, if you are supposed to enter a password when you connect a new device, how about someone tells you this? We are not all wonder kids, geeks, geniuses, or young. More's the pity.

My hairdresser has been and cut my hair, and I am going out to lunch tomorrow. Because of my commitment to look after my grandchildren, I could not sing in this weekend's concert, but never mind. I am sure it went well.



5 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Life is a bit like that somedays. My partner gave me an iphone - which I still have barely mastered. And I admire your courage on the ipad front...

The Image Is Everything said...

Hi Mum.. beautiful job with the weeding, and greatly appreciated. My top lock is indeed problematic, pity we didn't realise that the key on the kitty keyring belonged to a different house before I left, but that's ok. Kids loved having you with them. They love having you around. And it was a relief for me to know that they were in such good, kind and capable hands. Who cares if you can't always master the technology these days! Neither can I, most of the time. That's what ace brothers are for! xxx

Stomper Girl said...

Glad you've got the ipad! I was wondering where my spare key was!

Pam said...

I'm with you on the techy stuff. My weeding is excellent, though.

Jayview said...

I see new devices causing some of my friends more worry than pleasure, but they do seem to think they should master them and they worry about what they don't understand. I don't expect to understand much of what can be done but have great fun playing with the bits I use and am happy with muddling through somehow. After all I have never known what all the settings on the CD player of TV do either. I am only interested in the ones I need. It does help to have folk to consult, though. And it helps if I reeducate my inner critic to my modest aims. Jean