Saturday, July 25, 2009

Where are my neighbors?

Busy, busy, busy! Big project at work -- so I'm going to have to work all weekend. Send any positive thoughts you have, so it goes well! It's all right, I believe all of the i's have been dotted and t's have been crossed; we've done all of the appropriate homework and everything should run smoothly. Having said that, one never knows. :-)

Taking on the management of another division has provided me the opportunity to see this project through, though I didn't get to pick the third-party consultant who is responsible for the real work. They do seem to be good, I've been pleased so far with their progress. It would have been nice to be the one to choose who would do the project. Que sara, sara. Or is it Que cera, cera? If I had the time this morning, I'd go check!

I love the internet, it has so much information. I'm the person who sits next to you at work who, when a question comes up that no one really is certain about the answer, my favorite thing is to be able to enter the appropriate Google search string and give you the answer as quickly as possible. Not that I do it very often, I don't, but I love that it's all available to us. And, though for most people this is a negative, I also love that it's up to each person to find the right answer, that not all of the answers are right, that you have to use your head to make certain you go the right direction and follow the right trail of breadcrumbs.

My husband will pose random thoughts just to see if he can bait me to hit the internet and give him the info he's seeking. He doesn't really need to know, he just likes to see me get excited when I can find it in less than 10 seconds. It's something that I really love about him.

It's only a matter of time before someone coins a phrase for this disease, if they haven't already! See, now I really am feeling the need to go out and see if there is a "moniker" for those of us who are continual researchers of the digital variety. But not this morning! Got to get to work!

Well, if anyone knows, maybe you can look for me? I know you guys are out there on the internet, too, and you're obviously kind of addicted -- isn't that why we're here? Or is it that we're here because we're trying to connect to other people in the new online era that has replaced people talking to each other over the back fence? Where we used to feel comfortable knocking on our neighbor's door and stopping in for a cup of coffee, now we rely on our laptop to connect us to friends, online neighbors, and others with interests like ours. Is there harm in it?

Seriously, while I do believe that it's good to be able to connect to people like me, there was a special talent or learned ability to get along and be friends with your physical neighbors that I believe we've lost as a people. When our neighbors all the way down the street and back up the other side were the people we related to, we made it a goal to get along with them. Now I don't even know their names. I have never borrowed a cup of sugar from any of them. I don't know whether they have children.

When we parked our motorhome in front of our house for a day to get ready for a trip, though it is legal to do that for three days, a neighbor of ours -- and we don't know who -- took the time to type up a letter to each of our neighbors complaining that we were blocking the view at his intersection. The only reason we knew that this was true was because he also posted it on the window of the RV.

What has happened to being nice? Why do we have to antagonize? People are going out of their way to pick fights, to make a point, to create an issue.

After we received the lovely letter, we packed as quickly as we could and moved the vehicle, but seriously, it was very inconvenient for us. Not that anyone cared. The blocking of the view, really, wasn't that bad. I checked. It's like this person just needed something to complain about. Or were they really just reaching out to make contact?

We may never know. I will go to work today, spend all day there, and go back tomorrow. When I come home tonight, and tomorrow night and the day after, I will come into my home and spend the evening with my family -- and my computer. I won't go next door, I won't borrow sugar, I won't learn their names, and they won't do the same for me. Where, after all, has the "neighborhood" really gone?

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