Sun Therapy

Yesterday was a gorgeous sunny and relatively warm day. We took full advantage of it by inviting friends to lunch and eating outside in the backyard. Our first outdoor meal of 2011! Even Piedina, the dog, had a smile on her face.

We have all been facing various troubles recently: minor health complaints, family issues, you know, that other stuff life is also made of, although we try our best to forget. A few hours of chatting, eating good food and drinking some fine local red wine was just what the doctor ordered.

As you can see, there was a lot to eat and drink, but we had no problem making short work of it.

Piedina was happy to be cuddled and snooze in the sun.

I took the opportunity to try to figure out the camera option on my new smartphone. I'm afraid the phone is much smarter than me. I just keep poking at it, though, to see what will happen. Am I the only one who finds today's instruction manuals somewhat less than helpful? I guess I've just got to get my intuitive skills up to speed. My kids have no problems with new technology, put anything in their hands and five minutes later they know how to use it to send guided missiles to bomb the school or write them electronic notes excusing them from not doing their homework...

did you notice that boy is barefoot?!

At last, time for a nap...oops, spoke too soon...dive-bombed by a blood-thirsty 11-year-old wanna-be vampire!

Is it Only Me?

Or are there other social network complete incompetents out there?

I don't know what it is, but I always seem to get into trouble when I get involved in these things. Take Facebook, for example. I don't "get" Facebook, in the sense of I really don't see what all the excitement is about. I'll admit it's got it's good points. You can find people who you thought were long-lost. On the down side, however, you can be found by people you had hoped were long-lost!

I found my half-sister whom I had lost contact with for about 5 years, that was good. I found a little boy I knew in Mexico a lifetime ago, who is now a 27 year old concert pianist in Luxembourg, that is fascinating.

But, do I really want to be kept up to date on the daily comings and goings of all kinds of fringe relatives, old high school pals I don't even remember and complete and total strangers who ask to be my "friend" for God knows what reason?

Okay, so with a stretch of the imagination I can take a guess at the reason...they are always men, interested in women, looking for friendship and/or dating. There doesn't seem to be an age limit for this kind of Facebook approach. Before I figured out that I should make my profile available only to friends, I was getting tons of these requests from guys of all ages. My favorite was from an 18-year-old Egyptian man working at a McDonalds in Milan. What? I mean I'm a lot older than him and living at the other end of the peninsula. I guess I should be flattered...

And then there have been the Facebook disasters of my own making. I thought I had found a person I know. The name was the same. The photo showed a short, dark-haired guy standing on the kind of rock beach we have around here. He immediately accepted my request for friendship and wrote me a lovely, indecipherable note in terrible Italian saying that yes, he loved scuba-diving (my real friend is a diver), but his real interest was in esoterism! Alarm bells started ringing! This could not be the right guy, my friend is a teacher, he couldn't write that poorly...and esoterism? If you ask me, it was secret code for "kinky sex"! I unfriended the guy. He immediately sent me another friendship request. I blocked him. Oh dear...

This kind of thing has happened more than once. I'm like a weirdo magnet!

I haven't had much better luck with Skype, either. I hadn't set up my account 5 minutes when I get a message from a guy with some name like Dirk, saying "hi! watcha doin'?" Today it was "Haylie Sexy" who wanted to show me some pictures...great...

So, what? Is it just me, or have you had experiences like mine, too?