rocks and cell phones

I was given some, well, clerical work yesterday afternoon that also consumed a lot of today and will probably take a chunk of tomorrow.  (I don't in any way resent it -- most of us have to do some form of paperwork and/or record-keeping.  This job involved a huge stack of papers concerning OAKs (one of a kind pieces), and the job was basically to unstaple it, write the OAK number from the work order on the photo, and restaple it with the photo on top.  (Then I get to put them in numerical order, punch them and file them in looseleafs.)

Of course, the OAKs are made with unbelievably beautiful stones, and looking at them all day was mesmerizing.  More stones than beads, but I love stones, even if I don't use them.  I don't think I mentioned that I stopped into Bergdorf Goodman on Saturday (I had been in Manhattan to see Herb), to see Stephen's jewelry there.  It's actually the first place I ever saw his work.  His space has moved since I was last there, maybe 1996 or 97.  But his new space is beautiful, the OAKs were jaw-dropping, and everything was well-lit and beautifully displayed.

Barry and I are real knuckleheads when it comes to cell phones.  We've always kind of dragged our feet on them.  We've had them a few times, for very short times, but truthfully, neither of us found the need to use them very much.  I can be in a store and call Barry to see if he needs anything.  I can call him from the city -- or vice-versa -- to tell him when I expect to be home.  He can call a car service and go downstairs, and call if the car is late.  But that's about it.  We recently got a pay-as-you-go phone which we share.  It can do all kinds of fancy shit, but I haven't taken the time to read the teeny little booklet, and can't even program in phone numbers.

So Barry e-mailed me at work today, and that said I'd gotten two texts, one that said "Hi" and one that said "Hi Jennifer."  They were not signed.  Not many people have our cell number.  So I took a look at the originating phone number, and sure enough, it was Herb.  So I kinda figured out how to reply, and texted "Hi harold, i'm not very good at texting but it was nice to hear from you jen."  People, this is the very first text message I ever sent in my life.  That phone is a little more intuitive than I'd realized, and I'm fairly good with computers...but that thing is so tiny.  And the instructions are tiny.  It's not that I can't read the small instructions and keypad, it's just that I'm somewhat intimidated or put off.  I'm not yet ready for this:


It took me a couple of viewings to realized that this isn't really a phone for cell phone dummies -- it's a phone for older folk.  Maybe older and cellphone dummies.  But hey, young folk are not going to get excited about the "jitterbug" music, even though jitterbugging was hip for about twenty-five minutes in, I think it was the late 90s.  Anyway, I'll probably need one in about 30 eyars.