The Powers of Technology

A few odds and ends first. Mom is still dizzy, her ear is healing very slowly. Hopefully she'll be doing much better by the end of the week. Also, this week has been a bountiful week for gifts of fruit. Monday Gak was given a jar of homemade peach preserves. It's more like chunky pureed peaches in juice. I had some this morning on a bagel with cream cheese and boy was it yummy! Then, yesterday Gak was gifted with a pint of fresh, organic, locally grown blueberries. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but they look really yummy too.

Work is going well. I'm finally beginning to transition into my new role a bit, but haven't been able to give up my old role quite yet. I've been doing several demos of our new product offering over the past week or so. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing them from time to time... but... it really isn't in either of my roles. But, it's small potatoes to complain about and I figure having myself, who is knowledgeable in reporting requirements and our system, doing it is better than some options. I mean, we are trying to sell a product here after all.

Anyhow, the real reason for this post. Ain't technology grand? And Doesn't life work in funny ways?

A little back story here. Waaaay back in the summers of 1994/1995 I worked at a Girl Scout camp. I loved it. I made many friends amongst the other staff members, including several who were from overseas. But... I'm a lousy letter writer and was in college as well so within short order, I lost track of all of my friends.

Fast forward to this past year. Boo starts going to daycare. The daycare is run by someone that is very involved in the local GS Council and her daughter was in Scouts with Kat.

Here's where technology enters the scene. I have a Facebook account. (Unless you already know me, no, you're not getting an invite...) So dose Kat, thanks to me and some others. Kat found Cathy, daughter of the daycare leader and mom to Mikey and Joey. Joey is only about 6 weeks older than Boo. Cathy has some of the people I worked with at camp as friends on Facebook. Of course, I don't realize this until one of them makes a comment on a post from Cathy. Since "real names" not "camp names" are used in Facebook it's a little hard to find people you only remember as Lynx, or Blessa or Diver or Droopy or Wolf or any other one word moniker that may or may not have any relation to a given name.

So, in a long, weird way... I found 3 of the people I used to work with at camp over the last few days.

Yes, I'm now back in touch with Lynx who's originally from the Netherlands and now resides in Ohio. She's one of the few internationals who came back for more than one year. Actually, she came back for several. She and I bunked together during pre-camp our first summer. We also got the joy and pleasure of working together several weeks the two summers I was there. My favorite memory was when we were sitting through some lecture or something and I glance at her paper to see if I wrote something down right and had no clue what was on her paper. She was writing in Dutch. She caught me glancing and we both had a good laugh about it.

I've also found Blessa. For someone who never took horseback ridding in her life, I sure got a lot of horse units the one summer. Blessa was one of the equestrian staff. I ended up sharing a tent with her for about half the summer. She was always good to me and we were able to laugh at how little I knew about horses, yet here I was leading horse units. She definitely acted as a mother hen to us wayward cubs. Of course, when I first saw her name come up all I could think of was "Heals down! Elbows in!". I think she was saying that in her sleep for weeks after she returned to England after camp. I know I probably was.

And, in a further strange twist of fate, I get a call just before starting this post from Gak. He found his former roommate, and the man who performed our wedding ceremony, Bruce. We hadn't heard from him since about a year or so after the wedding. Apparently he's doing just fine, has divorced and remarried. I'll know more when I get home and get a chance to look him up myself.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg really. I've reconnected with several people from OK that I never thought I'd hear from again. And a couple from high school too. (I just got my 15-year reunion invite. The evening thing is a $35 a head appetizer buffet and cash bar affair, but they're doing a free family picnic, bring your own, the next day. I doubt I'll go to the evening bash, may stop by the picnic just because it's about 5 minutes from my parent's house...)

So, yeah, ain't technology grand? Life really does work in mysterious ways. I'm so happy to have reconnected with my long-lost friends. (That and the fact it hasn't rained since Sunday doesn't hurt... although, looking out the window it might start up again any moment...)

Peace to all and may you find the ones you love and have pleasant surprises thrown your way.