Senior Techie
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I’m not sure which is more challenging:  caring for an aging parent who is slowly wasting away, refusing to get out of their rocking chair … or dealing with Butterfly.  Butterfly, with whom I can hardly keep up.  Can you say, “Time sink”? 

Fifinella got the bright idea, because Butterfly likes to listen to an old beater radio while she’s painting or puttering, to put iTunes on her computer.

“Oh, no,” I moaned.  “This means she’ll have to learn new software, which means I’ll have to nurse her through it …”

“I’ll install it,” Fifinella assured me, “and teach her how to use it.  You won’t have to do a thing!”

Famous last words.

Butterfly resisted at first, like she always does.

“I don’t need another thing!” she said adamantly.

“We know you don’t need another thing, but this is something we’re pretty sure you’re going to enjoy,” Fifinella replied.

“Tell her about the free podcasts,” I suggested.

“What free podcasts?” asked the ever-alert-to-a-bargain Butterfly.

In short order, she had subscribed to several NPR programs that she enjoys but always seems to miss because she is busy doing something else when they come on the radio.

“Now let’s show her how to buy some music,” was my next suggestion.  We had put money in her account so she’d have no choice but to go shopping.

“I’m not spending any money!” she said.

“Oh, but don’t you see that you have a nice, big, juicy credit at the iTunes store?!” I pointed out.

“Well, it can just stay there and you can have it!”

“I can’t use it,” I told her.  “It’s in your account!  And it’s not gathering anything but dust – no interest.  So you’d better spend it!”

“Do they have Lawrence Welk?”

“How would I know?  Search for him.”

Several Lawrence Welk albums (purchased) later, she asked, “How about Myron Floren’s polkas, do they have those?  Or the Lennon sisters?”

“I’m sure they do, if you just search.  But are you sure you want the whole album?  Maybe you just want a song or two.  I’m just saying …”

She spent quite a bit of time listening to songs and deciding whether to purchase albums or individual songs. 

I left her house at one point to pick up my car at the shop.  When I returned I checked on her to see how she was doing.

“I found the Beatles’ songs I wanted – When I’m 64, Yesterday, and Imagine!  And I found the theme to Dances with Wolves.”  She also bought some Norah Jones' songs … clearly she’s off and running. 

I left her happily exploring her new toy so I could go home to settle in for the evening.  It wasn’t long before the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It won’t let me listen to a snippet of a song anymore,” she complained.

“You mean before you buy a song?”

“Yes, so I know if I want to buy it.”

“Did you highlight the song and then double-click it?” I asked, sighing, knowing I was going to be getting some warm clothes on and going back up the hill

“Yes!” she insisted.

“Do I really have to come up there and prove that it’s operator error?” and I headed up the hill after pulling on a jacket and shoes.

She started to get up from the computer as I entered the house, but I said, “Oh no, you get to do it, I’m just going to watch.  Show me what it’s doing.”

“So I’m pointing at this song that I want to hear,” she said, “and then I’m double-clicking.”

She pointed and double-clicked and nothing happened … because often her attempt at double-clicking is a slow-motion double-click. 

“Did I not tell you it would be operator error?  Faster!  Double-click faster!”

She double-clicked faster and voilá, we heard music!  Mission accomplished.  I don’t think she even noticed that I left; she was so busy looking for songs to buy.

Fast forward to this last weekend, when I finally caved in after trying to convert her televisions to the digital age with those silly converter boxes.  As far as I’m concerned, she wasted her money buying those things, because they don’t work worth a hoot out here in the boondocks.  The signal would come and go, depending on I know not what, and the antennae salesman we talked to advised us against spending any money on an antennae.  Where we live, we were told, there would not be any good reception no matter what kind of antennae we put up, nor would she receive any decent reception once the switch to digital happened. 

So, despite Butterfly’s very loud protests, I had satellite TV installed for her.  I’d been dreading this, not so much because of the added expense, but because I knew that learning to use the remote controls would tie her up in knots.  Just another time sink for yours truly.

When the technician finished the installation, he asked me, “Do you want to show her how to use the remote or do you want me to?”

I looked at him like he’d lost his mind.  “HA!  You teach her!  I’m sure you’ll do a better job than I will, and without killing her.”  I left the room to give them peace and quiet, only periodically yelling a few words of advice when I heard him make mistakes.

The unfortunate discovery he made was that her living room TV won’t play with the remote, so she either has to turn it off manually, or go through a complicated-for-her procedure on the remote to power off the TV.  This is exactly what I feared.

The poor guy was headed to his truck to try to make his getaway when I told her, “Now go in the bedroom and try to use the remote to turn on that TV.”  She did, and couldn’t.  “Run!  Stop him before he gets away!”  She did, and back he came, tail between his legs.

I snickered, “Not such a good teacher after all …” all the while thinking to myself, “Holy cow, if she can’t use the remote to turn the TV on and off, I am in so much trouble …”

He, of course, was able to make the thing work just fine.  “It must have been downloading from the satellite,” he said.  “I’m sure it will be fine for her now, but here’s my cell phone number, just in case.”

I left my poor mother that night and I felt a little guilty.  I knew she was on technical overload, between all the new information on her computer and now half-terrified of her televisions.  I also knew she would not want to call and “bother” me with every little glitch, so later in the evening I called her, to see if she had dared to look at anything but the local television channels.

“Hey, what channel are you watching?” I asked her.

“Six (our local PBS station),” she said.  Why was I not surprised?

“Have you looked at anything else that’s on, like the Hallmark Channel, or Nat Geo, or any of the others you like at my house?”

“No, I’m not sure how to get to the guide,” she admitted.

So we spent some time on the phone, with me walking her through using the on-screen guide, finding out what was on each channel, auto-tuning to a program, etc.  I convinced her, I think, that she couldn’t hurt anything by pressing buttons on the remote (at least I hoped she couldn’t!). 

Later that night she called me and it was clear that she was still nervous about all of this new stuff, because she wanted to know “how to set up the bedroom TV” so that it was ready for the news show she wanted to watch first thing in the morning.  I guess that means that all she was prepared to tackle in the morning was turning on the TV, none of that messing with getting to a certain channel!  Plus she knew she would be arising earlier than me so she didn’t want to have to bother me with questions.

The next day she told me was very perplexed that morning by her living room TV.  Using the remote, she got the TV to come on, but when she tried to change channels, it kept telling her “it was in TV mode”.  She kept thinking to herself “well that’s the mode I want” but of course we all know she wanted it in satellite mode.

I’m proud to say that what she did next qualifies her as a true technical nerd (which is, perhaps, how I came by it).  It was too early to call me, so she sat there and tried to figure out what to do, because she couldn’t let that darned remote control get the best of her.  Finally, she decided to take the living remote control into the bedroom, and compare it to that remote control, where she immediately saw that she had the mode selection button in the wrong spot.  She thought she had slid it all the way to the satellite position, but in fact, she had not.  It was close, but not quite there.  Once she slid it all the way, she no longer needed help from anyone.

I don’t know about you, but Butterfly is really spoiling me for all those folks who claim they’re too old, or too tired, or too fill-in-the-blank to learn anything new.

And because you’ve been such a good listener, I’m throwing in this picture I took when it started raining yesterday.  I found this little leaf on the driveway, just sitting there, sparkling.

pretty in the rain

And this photo, a favorite of mine of Butterfly.

she doesn't look like a nerd