On Thursday — finding ourselves with a free morning —
George and I headed over to Starbucks for the first Pumpkin Spice latte and
Pumpkin Spice scone of the season.  As we
intended to sit and linger for a while (the sun was shining and none of the
kids would know where to look for us), I grabbed my knitting bag and MyPet
(mini laptop) and my cell phone.  George
took the newspaper and his iPhone.

I will do some knitting, I thought to myself.  And check my email.  Send a few text messages.  And (feeling both brilliant and smug) I will
write up a blog post about how portable my work is – and how I embrace
technology (when it serves my purpose) and maybe even wax rhapsodic about the
Wonders of the Age We Live In.  And,
tremulous, I ventured:  Wow, with my
knitting in hand and the world at my fingertips, maybe I really could live at Starbucks!

Sunshine, coffee, my own George beside me, the morning
paper…pretty good so far.  I knit for a
while, then sent some text messages.  And
I asked George to hook me up to the Internet (we get WiFi at Starbucks with our
Gold Card).  I kind of expected it to be
one of those quick fill-in-the-password deals, but it took a bit longer.  So, I pulled out my knitting (fortunately I
had a nice, simple seed stitch in-the-round going).  And I pondered how in order to get hook-up
for the Internet, one had to hook up to the Internet.  Felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. 

Finally, success!  I
had Internet connection.  But then I
couldn’t type the password for the email in the little box.  Try, try, grrrr, try.  Hand MyPet to George and pick up my knitting
(K1,P1,K1,P1…).  He got my password in
and I started checking my email.  The
page kept jumping around and I had to keep clicking back to where I was
reading.  Click, click, grr, click.  When I tried to respond to my email (touching
base with my son, Geoff, in London – that was going to be one of the “Wonders
of the Age We Live In” bits), I couldn’t type anything in the box – i.e. I
would hit the keys, but no letters would appear on the screen.  Type, type, grrr, type.  Hand MyPet to George and pick up my knitting
(K1,P1,K1,P1…)

He tried a number of things, but it was obviously some sort
of program issue and he said he would fix it at home later.  All this clicking and typing and grr-ing to
no purpose had taken time, of course.  And
I was wondering if I really had time to type up a blog post about the savvy way
I handle technology (K1,P1,K1,P1) when my cell phone rang (rats, I forgot that in
this Age of Wirelessness it doesn’t matter if no one knows where you are – they
can always find you).

It was Sarah telling me to meet her at Max’s school so she
could walk me through the “check out” process – it involves typing a secret
code into several different typepads 
(easier to get the Crown Jewels out of The Tower than to get  a kid out of that pre-school).  And that was the end of the morning. 

So, technology, hmm.  
K1,P1,K1,P1…

Note:  Today Sarah and
I formed the Portrait of the Modern Artisans – ensconced in the comfy chairs at
Starbucks with Gwen in her carseat at our feet while I Sarah worked on our Etsy
store profile on MyPet and I knit (K1,P1,K1,P1…).