If you know me or read my blog, you may or may not be aware of my love-hate relationship with Bethesda. We moved to Bethesda from a friendly neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia. I was a relatively new mom, staying at home for a while with my toddler and infant. I found it impossible to make friends here — the two local parks, where I’d hope to meet like-minded women with their own young children, held either perfect-haired women that always traveled in pairs (plus kids) or their nannies, most of whom didn’t share a common language with me. The few women in the neighborhood with similar-aged children worked long hours, and didn’t have time to make new friends.
It took until the kids were well into their elementary school years and hours of volunteering for school and community organizations before I began to finally lose the feeling of a “fish out of water”. I think that part of my problem (and I fully accept it was my problem) was that I was the first in my family to not be a blue-collar worker. While that would not have been a problem in an area with other folks like me, Bethesda is a white-collar town.
I still like finding people with a similar backgrounds to me. That’s normal, right? I also like finding people who have the same feeling about Bethesda I do. When I mention that I don’t love Bethesda, most people give me a look of disbelief — how can I not like living here? What about the restaurants? What about the schools? What about the neighborhoods?
So, when I discovered the brand new publication, Bethesda World News (via Susan Coll‘s blog) I rushed to the library where I found the last copy.
Bethesda World News is sort of like The Onion, but features stories about Bethesda. Funny stories about Bethesda. Funny and not-quite-real stories about Bethesda. I especially liked the story titled, Bethesda Elementary Discovers First Ungifted Child. The article describes the taunts other children chant to the child: “Johnny reads on grade level. Johnny reads on grade level!” Another headline, Woman Spotted on Woodmont without Pedicure, made me laugh out loud.
While there is little on the website for the publication, I’m hoping they’ll put up their stories. I also hope that they don’t run out of ideas — but that could take a while. There’s a lot to make fun of in this town.
If you’re on Facebook, you can find them here.
So the other day school was canceled because of snow. It was a near perfect kind of snow — not too much (about 4 inches) and heavy, but not so heavy it broke tree branches — at least around here. But it was pretty wet. I didn’t even have to brush off the car because gravity and the curved surfaces on the Camry did it for me.
Andrew made plans to go sledding with some friends before he went to an unofficial wrestling practice at a local private school that didn’t have a snow day. I was out shopping for food for book group so didn’t see him when he got back from sledding, but when I did get home I passed his computer and saw what was on the monitor:
WebMD — symptoms of frostbite
I chuckled to myself thinking his hands probably got a little cold and thought it was frostbite.
Later when Dean got home I told him about the search Andrew had done and he thought the same thing I did.
Then Andrew got home and I asked him which part of his body did he think was frostbitten. He took off his shoe and showed me his foot. It had large black patches on it. He said that when he saw his foot and Googled frostbite the article mentioned blackness.
I think I must have gotten shrill as I made plans to rush him to the emergency room. Dean suggested we call a doctor. I was about to find the telephone number when someone — Andrew maybe? or perhaps Dean — realized that if he really did have frostbite he would be in a lot of pain.
Then I remembered that when I came back from shopping I tripped over his shoes. His wet shoes. His wet BLACK shoes.
Of course Andrew had already figured this out.
Kids!
Not counting using my phone to check Facebook notifications (one time) and email (about 10 times), I spent yesterday Internet free. I mean I never used my computer to connect to the Internet.
Here’s what I did instead:
- Gave a real live, in-person presentation to approximately 40 people about PDF accessibility with a woman I’d met via Twitter and my PDF accessibility blog (my first talk to that many people in 8 years not counting the brief one at a funeral)
- Drove back and forth to Rockville twice
- Watched my son’s wrestling team win their meet
- Visited with son and husband while they packed waited for their ride to Snowshoe for two days of skiing and male bonding (2 adult males & 3 male teens)
- Leafed through [every page] of the used copy of Jeff Smith’s Frugal Gourmet I recently picked up at a library sale.
- Made and ate croque monsieur (and half an avocado with balsamic vinegar) for dinner (oh, yeah, and some red wine too)
- Watched 2 movies (I Love You Man & The Yes Man — [was I missing my men?]) on Cinemax which we get free for 3 months because Verizon hopes we forget to cancel and then they can charge us even more money than they already do
- Went to sleep at 9:30 (possibly result of red wine)
And you know what? Nothing bad happened. I didn’t get any important emails that I had to answer by last night. No one had a pressing question about PDF accessibility on my accessibility blog. No one had an email that had to be sent immediatly on my neighborhood email list. The wrestling coach didn’t have a post that had to be put up ASAP.
Will I do it again soon? Probably not.
Was it refreshing to stay away from the Internet for a whole day? Eh, it was fine. I didn’t really notice until this morning.
Did I accomplish more than I would have done had I been online some of the day? Not really. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.
Do I have a problem and am I addicted to the Interenet? No comment.
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