Celebrating Life

I have collected cookbooks for years. I've even created my own cookbook cutting out interesting and unique recipes from newspaper and magazines.   One evening, I decided to make spinach quiche for dinner and began searching through my collection to find one without too many ingredients and not too difficult to make.   While going through my cookbooks, my head buried behind the pile, my niece walked into the room. "Auntie, what are you doing?"   I looked up at her and down at her hand in which she held her cellphone. an appendage attached to her hand as she seldom puts it down.   When I told her, she said simply, "Why don't you just goggle it." "Google it?" I asked. She peered down at her phone while tapping on the screen. Within seconds, she pulled up several recipes for spinach quiche and showed them to me.   I was impressed.   In response to many questions I have about anything and everything, her response is always "just goggle it....

The other day, I visited my friend Mattie who had recently moved into senior housing. I hadn't seen her in a few months and I wanted to see how she was settling in and to show off my new gadget. I showed her my new iphone. "It does just about everything except cook a meal and run your bath water," I said. She laughed and shook her head. "Things have really changed from when I was a little girl. All these new inventions, I can't keep up," she said. "It seems that just when I become comfortable with one thing, it's obsolete." Although it is a struggle, Mattie tries. she's still learning how to use her new laptop computer. She uses it mostly to send emails to her children and other relatives, to pay her bills online, and to surf the web for anything she happens to be interested in. She told me about her next door neighbor who refuses to even consider all the new technological advances. "Vera is the most stubborn person I've ever met. ...