Costa Jill

Nowadays

Olden Days

Just got a message on Facebook from a long lost close friend of the family that I haven’t seen since she was a little girl.  Looking at the photos on her profile page brought back some wonderful old memories, tears to my eyes and a promise to reconnect.. I’ve found many old classmates, friends and family members through Facebook that I otherwise would probably never hear from again. I can see how quickly everyone’s getting old in the photo albums, babies and elders alike. Just like the trees I planted around my house a few years ago, they are already giants needing to be trimmed off the roof.

On the other hand a computer challenged friend called me from afar:

• Hi Jill, are you okay?
• Hi, I’m fine. Why?
• Well my son told me about a Facebook message he got from you that had me worried.
• I didn’t send him a message. What’d it say?
• It said, ‘I’m currently making some changes in my life. If you don’t hear from me you might be one of them.’ Are you getting married or something? Did we hurt your feelings? Are you divorcing us?
• LOL. OMG, I do remember seeing that comment by a smart-ass friend of mine, laughing, and hitting the “like” button.

I’ve been feeling pretty computer savvy, but something like this knocks me back down a few notches. I didn’t know that hitting the “like” button would broadcast that saying as mine. First it pisses me off, especially when I try to delete it and I can’t figure out how. Then it scares me. I thought I’d punched all the buttons to make my site safe from all kinds of predators. I don’t play those games or join causes that, when you sign up, say you must give permission to divulge all your basic personal information including your email address, but I obviously don’t know enough.Of course I rely on my techie son for the difficult stuff, but I’m not going to bother him for this piddly thing.

I bother him anyway. He says my email address is available to everyone on Facebook. He’s on it, so I guess he doesn’t mind. But he also says that any good hacker can get almost anything they want from social websites, hard drives, or anywhere. In fact anything I delete from my computer is really not gone. Shit.

But here I am, still rambling on my blog for anyone to read and wishing more people would. Life is such a contradiction. Next I must get another website to sell my book that’s almost done. The writing’s hard enough, but the PR’s going to be much worse. I’ve never been a sales person and then to have to do it on line is not something I’m looking forward to. I have little discipline and get bored easily. I like to call myself a Sagittarian Renaissance woman. In business world terms, a Generalist. Hooray for Specialists to fill in the gaps.

Peace on the Santa Fe R.

I’m off to Gainesville, FL this weekend for a long planned kayak trip with family and friends on the Santa Fe River. I’m thanking my stars I’ll be on the peaceful river on Saturday the ninth anniversary of the terrorist bombing in NYC, because if I was in town I’d be tempted to put myself in danger to attend the protest rallies against the Quran burning at the 50-member evangelical Dove World Outreach. Its Reverend (?) Terry Jones has created a tornado spinning round the world with his plan to burn the holy books of Islam as examples of terrorism and the devil. Already the news has taken the Muslim world by storm with counter burnings of the American flag and the effigies of Pres. Obama and Pastor Jones that fuel the possibility of inciting more terrorist attacks.

Even the pleadings of Gen. Petraeus and the denunciations of high US government officials, including Sec. of State Hillary Clinton have done nothing to deter Jones’ resolve. Okay, at least I can attend the counter protest, joining all the other religious and secular leaders, media, and the public together for a “Gathering for Peace” on Friday night, which has received little publicity in comparison to the Quran-burning spawned by Jones.

Here comes a news flash. Terry Jones must be getting intimidated. He’s had a meeting with the local Imam and makes an announcement cancelling the Quran bonfire after getting a promise that the planned mosque in NYC will be moved away from the “ground zero” neighborhood. What? This is hard to believe.

I keep the news on as I write. The twisting tornado of the media blitz continues. Another flash –  Jones gets a call from Robert Gates, the Sec. of Defense, asking him to back down in interest of stopping the violence already started in the Muslim world. Flash. Now Jones says the Imam lied to him, and he’s changing the cancellation to a suspension! I can’t keep up and go to bed. Dreams of war and pestilence infect my mind.

Friday morning. With coffee in hand I turn on the news before I leave for Gainesville. Lo and behold, twisted pastor Jones is on network TV announcing his planned meeting with the NYC Muslims. If they agree to move the mosque he will return his suspension of the Quran bonfire to a cancellation. What kind of messages is Jones’ God giving him? What kind of cat and mouse game is the world playing? I can’t wait to float down the quiet Santa Fe R. meditating on the image of world peace and tolerance. I hope that when I return the tornado of hatred and ignorance hasn’t grown into a monster of a new terrorism.