Being Elderly in the Time of the Corona Virus

I just created an MP3 recording!

And I’m ELDERLY!

I figured it out all by myself, too!  Wow!  ELDERLY folks are amazing!

Not sure about you, but I have a strong aversion to being called ‘elderly.’  I’m not even too keen on the designation of “senior citizen.”  I prefer to be called Oh Great One, or She Who Must Be Obeyed.  So far, no takers.   

Certainly no takers among the media in these times of implied – and real – frailty and vulnerability.  I have to face the fact that, based on my age, I’m part of the cadre of those most susceptible to our invisible enemy, COVID-19.

OK, fine.  They’ve got me on that one.  But I refuse to succumb to the stereotypes assigned to me because I happen to be between 65 and 102!  And being technologically able is one way I can poke my finger in the eye of the stereotyper!  Ha!

Now is a perfect time to shake off that badge, almost a brand:  Old person = Technologically inept.  

We don’t need no stinking badges!

So, if you’ve been in the mode of handing your devices over to your children and chuckling with them that you’re of the wrong generation to ‘get it,’ STOP DOING THAT!

Now, more than ever, we OLD FOLKS must find ways to overcome isolation.  It’s just no good to sit at home and watch CNN and sigh heavy sighs that we can’t see our grandkids when we want to.  There are multiple ways we can see them, and OUR FRIENDS, even now, without putting ourselves, or anyone else, at risk.

It begins with using the technology at our fingertips.  We must step up and face our fears.  If you have been one to say, “It scares me!” or “I’m afraid I’ll crash it!” or “It’s just too much for me!” STOP DOING THAT, TOO!

You underrate yourself.

The best way to boost your self-esteem – and talk face-to-face with the people you love – is to try Zoom, or Skype, or GoogleHangouts.  Watch out now!  No excuses!  No shrinking from the challenge.  You can do this!  

I have been privileged to meet every Tuesday morning for breakfast with some of the smartest, most erudite - and oldest! - women in my town.  (My husband calls it the Power Breakfast!)  When the virus hit and threatened to keep us from seeing each other, we swung into action.  Almost within moments, we had each downloaded Zoom, clicked the appropriate links, started a video conference and ate breakfast together – alone.

That’s right.  We were each at home alone (or with a spouse sequestered elsewhere in the house), yet were able to talk and laugh, commiserate and speculate, share and care, FACE-TO-FACE, just like every other Tuesday morning for the past umpteen years.

‘Way better than email.  ‘Way better than texts.  ‘Way better than a phone call.  

And we’re ELDERLY!

Highly recommended.

“But," you say, "I don’t even know how to get started!”

1. If you’ve never ventured into the App Store, now is the time to try it.  

2. Search for 'video conference' apps.  Many are free to download and free to use (it tells you right there on the screen).  

3. Click the blue button that says, “Get,” and you’ll get it on your phone or tablet.  Just like that!  It’s magic, really.

Then simply find the icon on the opening screen of your device and launch the app – another click.  And follow directions.  Pretty sure you’ve read and followed directions a few times in the past.

Soon you’ll be in the same room – sorta - with someone you care about, chatting away like you’re part of the 21^st Century.

And making that MP3 recording? A person I hope to work with requested that I send her a sample of my proposed project in that format.  I was a little anxious, but I undertook the same three steps:  Go to the App Store and search for a free MP3 recording app.  Click the button to download the app.  Open the app and follow directions.

Try it!  It’s not too much for you.  Nothing really crashes anymore.  Your brain cells will expand.  Your posture will improve.  You can hold your head high. 

It’s SO worth it! 

And you don’t even need a mask and gloves!

Cyber Christmas

So I bought a web cam. Or is it webcam? Spell check accepts both. It’s kind of a “to me, from me” Christmas gift. I went ahead and opened it and everything.

I had a Blackberry once and ultimately had to admit to myself that I had no business with a Blackberry. I was working then and believed the calendar feature would be so great. Never again, so I thought, would I go to the wrong place for a meeting, or show up at the right place on the wrong day.

Turns out those tiny, shiny, infuriating nubs on the Blackberry’s keyboard are all buttons with multiple functions. So an “A” isn’t only an “A” but also a “~” and a “%” depending on if you are using caps or not, which is of course another function on another nub. I found I most wanted to use those nubs to create a line of cursing:!%~@##^&*!! But even that took too much concentration and the pinpoint mechanical fingers of a futuristic droid, which I most certainly am not.

I never used the calendar. Not once. I got email on the thing and it just felt like I was being pestered and pursued. And I paid that exorbitant rate for the mandatory two years! Why, I could have had lots of new shoes for the money I wasted on that glitzy gadget.

Which brings me back to the webcam: I bought it because a friend of mine went to Zurich for Christmas to visit a mutual friend of ours who now lives there. We three agreed how much fun it would be to go to the next level of chat while they were there and I was here. We wouldn’t just IM on FB, we’d SEE each other while we talked! Doesn’t that sound GREAT?!

In honesty, the webcam connected without snafu. Loading the software – no problem-o. It’s what comes next that is so disconcerting. The thing offered to take my picture for the profile it would post in contact books around the world. Okay.

Now, I’m with the crowd that wears “readers” – those half glasses you can get at Target after you guess what your prescription would be if you went to the eye doctor and got real glasses. I use them when I’m on the computer. I’m wearing them now and feel perfectly happy. But this thing took my picture as I leaned in and tilted my head back to get the proper angle so I could see the shutter button on the screen.

You know what I’m talking about. It’s the standard, old, funky-person pose. When your head tilts back, your jaw juts forward, and your mouth must open. If in vanity, you picked the weaker power on your readers, you still have to squint, which, as a final insult, exposes your front teeth. That’s the pose. My new webcam took a picture of me peering at it as though it were something gooey stuck on the mirror. Here, I’ll just get that with a tissue.

So that seems unfair at the very least. Here I am in the 21st Century and my own stuff is making fun of me. I think I deserve better.

To cap it all off, the three of us have yet to overcome the time difference between Zurich and Benicia, so no one has called anyone on the webcam phone. We’ve just been sending emails back and forth. So turn-of-the-century!

As I review this debacle, it seems pretty clear; they should be out enjoying Zurich anyway. Why call me up and prattle on about how cool it is to be there. I know that already!

I guess if we were love-struck and separated by fate, a webcam could provide us the screen to place our fingers on, ever so tenderly, as though actually touching, instead of virtually.

As it is, my new toy mocks me in cruelest techno-cyber sort of way. Like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it never blinks, but waits for me to squint again. I know I can unplug it, dismantle its cyber-mind. But that seems like surrender. Defeated by a Blackberry, I will not concede victory to Skype!

Merry Christmas to Zurich! And to all a good night!