Thursday, December 07, 2006

Out of Town

I will be out of town for the weekend...

I'm not going to be lolling under palm trees, sipping pina coladas.

Nor am I going to be swept off my feet by romance and a ring... (sigh)

No, I'm off to be a good samaritan and will be teaching my aunt how to use a computer. Now this may seem all fun and games, but she has never been on a computer before - she isn't old, only mid-fifties - but she has never seen the need for one and has relied on the kindness of friends and family for any research she has needed done on the web.

And we aren't talking about a helpless female
mired in the mores of her generation.

This is a woman who, if you needed cabinetry done, would be able to build you a complete kitchen out of solid wood (none of this mdf stuff from Changing Rooms) with handmade ceramic handles and inset windows. She also acts as the local emergency shelter for abandoned animals, with a full time household of 8 dogs, at least 18 cats, varying numbers of unweaned kittens, and she even had 4 donkeys for a few years - they took a bit longer to rehome...

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Her doors are open all day long and the animals (well, except for the donkeys) just wander in and out, living in peaceful co-existence. She isn't a shut-in who's house is overrun with cats. This is very civilized, and the UN could probably learn a thing or two!. As part of her animal care she also periodically holds a day clinic for spaying and neutering, where the vet will come by and spend a few hours operating on her veranda - my aunt acts as nurse/assistant. Talk about competence... She is an amazing woman.

And she seems to spend most of her disposable income on the animals, and not on herself, and computers have been at the very bottom of the list of things that she will spend her money on. So I gave her my antique laptop (which is in perfect condition, just with a very limited amount of harddisk memory (6gig). It is a good starter machine, and will do perfectly well for introducing her to emailing (her sister lives on a different continent) and searching the web.

This means, no Carmel Market, no Flea Market, and
no cleaning house!

I might get to post something pictureless over the weekend,
but then again, maybe not.

But hopefully I will be giving a new perspective on the world to someone...

4 comments:

burekaboy — said...

sounds like quite the "woman".

have fun amongst the wildlife! i KNOW you will. :-P take pictures.

aja said...

Hey BB,
I agree, my aunt is really someone very special.

I had a great time amongst the vilde hai - and pictures - oh boy am I glad I have a digital camera - I couldn't afford to print all the pics I took - we are looking at close to 1000 (I am snap happy!) 8^)

burekaboy — said...

how many cards do you have??!! imagine...a few years ago it was still film. i wonder if that made any difference in terms of precision and choosing carefully. now it's snap, delete, snap, delete. very non solicitous these days.

aja said...

Hey BB,
Even with my regular SLR I used to burn through film like it was water... ok not 1000 photos but pretty darn close. I have 3 cards - 1x32 & 2x512

But my average is still about the same in terms of good to bad shots... lucky I guess