But recently it has also struck me that I was born too soon.
I am not by nature a creature of the 21st Century. I'll tell you when this really struck me. When I was staying at the Westin Bonaventure hotel in Los Angeles at the beginning of April. This is a really futuristic building with four round towers rising from a central atrium area. Towers are connected by walkways, fly-ways etc. It looks like something out of the Jetsons (and yes, I know this dates me horribly).
The problem was that I could never get the hang of this building. I'd emerge from the yellow tower and have no clue how to reach the part of the hotel where the convention was taking place. I'd cross walkways and then re-cross them because I couldn't figure out how to find the restaurant where I said I'd meet somebody.
And those little glass elevators whizzing up and down the outside of those towers. Not my favorite thing to do. All I could think of was what it would be like if an earthquake happened while I was in one of them.
Ditto for my room on the 21st floor. Would my bed going sailing out through that floor to ceiling glass window in an earthquake?
So I don't think I'd survive well in a city of the future. It's hard work for me even to keep up with technology. I've learned to handle my computer and the internet because my livelihood depends on it. But it doesn't come naturally. However it is in the genes of the current generation. I remember my three year old granddaughter Mary Clare being allowed to play a computer game in which she had to click on flowers or jewels or something harmless. We went away, came back to find her playing another, quite different game. Not only had she found this game, but she'd logged herself successfully into the site--at age 3.
I've tried these games and I'm hopeless. Even the harmless ones like steering msyelf through mazes raise my blood pressure alarmingly. When you add figures leaping out to shoot at me, then I'm a nervous wreck. So I have to confess that I'm old fashioned enough to prefer real things--scrabble and Jenga and charades and real people to laugh with.
